By Dan Linehan
MANKATO — Would a merger of Mankato and North Mankato save money?
The city of Mankato is studying whether a larger city could take advantage of economies of scale that each individual city couldn’t.
The Mankato City Council will get its first look at the preliminary study today during a work session.
Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges has said in the past that a merger could reduce the cities’ total budgets by 10 percent.
North Mankato has had a less favorable reaction in the past, to put it lightly.
When asked for his perspective, North Mankato City Administrator Wendell Sande said, “We have not seen the study and we would have no comment.”
The study will be posted on the city’s Web site and forwarded to North Mankato at noon today.
In an interview several months ago, Sande questioned whether North Mankato taxpayers would see any savings by joining Mankato.
Indeed, past discussions on this topic have led to harsh words being bandied across the river about which city does a better job.
Mankato says its study is a “baseline” economic comparison that does not analyze issues such as service levels, names, employee impact, process and form of government.
The study was conducted by looking at raw numbers from official financial documents from the two cities.
“Importantly and ultimately, this is a decision of city council leaders from the two cities and citizens would have to be in agreement,” according to a document that explains Mankato’s reasoning for the study.
The League of Minnesota Cities has a section in its guidebook for consolidation. It says a merger can begin in one of three ways: at the state level, by a petition of at least 5 percent of voters or by the governing body of each included city.
The new city takes the name of the city with the larger population unless both cities agree on a new name or the state consolidation commission selects another name.
The Mankato City Council’s work session today begins after the regular meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. in the Intergovernmental Center.
