Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council denied a request by the city of Lebanon for a partial waiver of a bill for the training of Sweet Home police officers hired by Lebanon, but the council approved a request to split the payment between the current fiscal year and the next.
The city of Sweet Home billed the city of Lebanon $60,522.84. That includes $46,132.33 in training costs for Officer Chad Christenson and $14,390.51 for Taylor Jackson, which Lebanon has requested be waived.
A state law, passed in 2009, allows for this repayment. Specifically, the law allows the city to recoup 100 percent of the costs of training an officer whose training ended within the last 12 months before his or her departure, 66 percent for an officer whose training ended between 12 and 24 months prior to departure, and 33 percent for officers whose training ended between 24 and 36 months before leaving.
Jackson was three weeks shy of the 36-week threshold, Martin said.
The council’s Administration and Finance Committee reviewed the request for a waiver and to split the payment on March 27, concluding that the reimbursement being requested is both reasonable and prudent, especially in the light of Sweet Home’s financial picture, said City Manager Craig Martin.
“The reimbursement amount is significantly less than the cost the city is incurring to hire replacement officers for these positions,” Martin said. “The cost of training for the replacement officers is estimated to be approximately $150,000.”
The council’s decision requires Lebanon to pay half of the total amount within 30 days and the second half within 30 days of the beginning of the next fiscal year, which is July 1.
Present at the meeting were councilors Marybeth Angulo, Jim Gourley, Mike Hall, Greg Mahler, Scott McKee Jr. and Mayor Craig Fentiman.
In other business, the council:
n Authorized the transfer of $42,000 from the city’s General Fund contingency to the Parks Maintenance Fund.
The city agreed on March 27 to settle part of a lawsuit with former Sankey Park caretakers Timothy and Esther Piety for $20,000 for hours worked but were unpaid based on a previous practice of exchanging labor for rent at the parks. The city also compensated the current Sankey and Northside park caretakers with an additional $17,000, and another $5,000 was needed in the transfer to cover the cost of payroll taxes and continue paying the current caretakers for the remaining months of the 2011-12 budget year.
n Held the first reading of an ordinance revising the city’s variance ordinance and a new ordinance banning the burial of human remains on private property.