By Dan Linehan
MANKATO — Three or four times a year, each of the 112 predatory offenders who live in Mankato can expect a checkup from a Mankato police officer to verify that they’re living where they’re registered.
But despite vigorous protests from three Mankato City Councilors, there may be no such checks next year.
The city is down one licensed police officer from last year and has reached the “breaking point,” City Manager Pat Hentges said.
“We have less personnel. Things need to fall by the wayside just to do core services,” he said.
The checkups used to be reimbursed by the state but no longer are. The city now does the service voluntarily to help the state maintain its predatory offender registry.
General agreement reigned for most of Monday’s three-hour budget meeting as Hentges outlined 2010 spending and service reductions.
Other changes to police included fewer school crossing guards and downtown foot patrols, plus a 75 percent cut to public outreach programs like Neighborhood Night Out. The council agreed to those service reductions.
But the discussion grew heated as it turned to the predatory offender monitoring, locally called the “adopt an offender” program. Not all predatory offenders have been convicted of sex crimes.
Three council members agreed with Hentges, arguing the city shouldn’t pay to do the state’s job especially when the checkups are sporadic and, they argued, ineffective.
Councilman Jack Considine, who has long worked with jail inmates, said checking up on predatory offenders every three or four months isn’t effective.
“You really think that has any significance on these guys whatsoever?” he said.
Councilwoman Tamra Rovney and President Mike Laven also supported stopping the checks.
“It’s not our mandate,” Rovney said.
The three council members who supported keeping it said it was worth doing whether the state paid or not.
“You can keep talking (about staffing issues) but these are known people .... they’re repeat offenders and they do serious crimes,” Councilman Charlie Hurd said.
Councilman Vance Stuehrenberg, who spent 27 years as a police officer, said officers can do checkups in their slow times.
If each checkup takes 30 minutes and there are four per offender, they would take 224 hours per year. That is about one-eighth the hours of a full-time police officer.
Unless Mayor John Brady, who was absent, supports keeping the offender checks it appears they will be discontinued in 2010.
There will be more budget meetings this month ahead of a Nov. 30 public hearing.
