.jpg)
The Babbitt city council held a regular meeting on Dec. 17, the final meeting for council members Paul Hoheisel and Glenn Anderson.
“I just want to thank all the residents of the city of Babbitt. I’ve been on the council for 13 years. Thank you,” said Hoheisel. “We went through a lot. Change in this town is looking good. We went through Covid and all kinds of changes, and I just want to say thank you for letting me serve you. Been a pleasure.”
Mayor Duane Lossing thanked both council members who didn’t win re-election in November.
“Not only do these guys spend all the time doing this for the city of Babbitt on the council and being mayor, they both are also involved in other things, Honor Guard and volunteering,” said Lossing. “It’s community members like these guys that push things along in our community and hold it up in the air. So I hope our community recognize and honor all the time that they’ve spent and given to our community. So I thank you for that.”
Council member Jim Lassi said, “I had the greatest respect and admiration for them for their dedication and their service to the town. They put in a lot of time and not just at the council meetings, but both of these men have really added to the character of the town, and they exercise good judgment and sound character and going to miss you guys. You’ve done a great job. Thank you guys.”
Hoheisel didn’t hold back in this final meeting, again questioning city clerk-treasurer Robecca Jaeger over the city’s monthly summary of city funds. He said he and his wife, a former city clerk, met with Jaeger earlier in the day.
“As of this point in time, I cannot accept the summary of city fund as presented. I asked for a report for this evening and I never received it, so with that I am against it,” said Hoheisel.
New figures were handed out at the council meeting that were different than what was originally in the council packet.
He said the balance of city funds at Jan. 1 of this year has changed.
“The number we received two weeks ago was $300,000 off. Now it’s correct,” said Hoheisel. He then made a motion to accept the funds with the corrected numbers.
The motion passed with Lossing voting no.
Jaeger said there was an account that had been closed but that, “There were a couple other numbers that I mistyped, basically. So we just sat down with I sat down with Cathy and Paul and we just went over it and made sure all the numbers were correct,” said Jaeger.
CouncilmemberJoeWhitespoke abouttheambulanceissuebutmis- stated the amount of money the Ely Area Ambulance Service receives in local funding from Lake County. He said EAAS receives $500,000 from Lake County. Lake County has given some monies to Fall Lake Township to help with ambulance funding, usually around $40,000 to $50,000. White did say he had been up late the night before on ambulance calls.
White said the Babbitt ambu- lance is an on-call service staffed largely by volunteers.
"Eventually, we're gonna have to make some changes. The services up here are just not gonna survive. I mean, it’s getting harder and harder with the way Medicare works,” said White.
He said a $3,000 call for a Medi care patient will see the city only get paid $1,000.
Doing transports is something White said he looked at but he now believes it won’t generate enough revenues to pay for full-time staff.
“I looked at the budget with Ro- becca and Sara over the first the first couple of years that Matt was running it when they were doing a lot of ALS transports. We only saw maybe a $20,000 year difference increase in revenue. It wasn’t it wasn’t a high increase in revenue, so we’re not gonna be able to make up being able to hire people full time by doing transports. It’s just not gonna happen that way,” said White.
Babbitt ambulance has had problems with staffing during the day Monday through Friday.
White suggested having city em- ployees trained as EMTs to respond to ambulance calls.
"I don't feel that it would be fair to impose a tax as a council mem- ber on the city of Babbitt to cover an ambulance cost for us to serve when 60% of our calls aren't even in the city of Babbitt," said White.
The city does receive yearly fund - ing from St. Louis County for "first responder services” in unorganized areas around Babbitt.
White said he would like to see a property tax on all properties within the areas that Babbitt cov- ers, which extends to Embarrass and over into Lake County.
"I think if they did something like that, there would be enough money to go to the services where we can afford to have. For Babbitt, we'd only need a part-time full time, which would be just a full-time day shift. We'd easily get enough finances to do that," said White.
In 2024, the city had a budget of $208,713 for the ambulance department including $120,000 in payroll. Through November the city has taken in $197,467 in ambu lance call revenues plus subsidies for a total of $286,808.
Comparing revenues to expenses, the ambulance budget has received $76,000 more than what has been spent.
The city has two ambulance funds listed, both started the year with healthy balances, $366,000 and $67,000. The funds have in -
creased by a total of $90,000.
White said the city would need to spend $400,000 to cover a half- time department.
"We can't afford that right now," said White.
He said the department is getting people to cover calls now.
“We’re up to right now, about 85 to 90 percent on call coverage right now each week, doing the volunteer service. So we’re making it,” said White.
He said Ely ambulance has been covering when Babbitt doesn’t have people to respond.
“We call them up if we don’t have coverage and Ely covers for us, it’s been working out pretty good for us,” said White.
He also addressed the Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital’s proposal to combine Tower, Ely and Babbitt ambulance services in order to receive a much higher rate from Medicare and realize cost savings not available with three different services.
“Both Ely and Babbitt do not feel that merging with the Ely hospital would not benefit any of the cities on any level,” said White. “The talk of the 100 percent funding that they might get from Medicare doesn’t do us a hill of beans. It doesn’t matter what they get. It’s not gonna benefit the city of Babbitt any.”
“They’re not prepared at Ely on any level. If they are, they’re lying about the financing of it. Any professional business that would start something up like that would have a business model for you and be able to present it to you and say, this is what it’s in a cost to operate. They can’t even come up with that. So I would like to see what that’s to be because it’s an end up costing the city of Babbitt money, because once they get done, they’re gonna say if you want an ambulance in Babbitt you’re gonna to have to start forking over this kind of money,” said White.
The council approved writing off a total of $175,035.25 in uncollectible ambulance bills for 160 runs. This is the largest amount the city has written off, up from $161,277 in 2023.
“That’s a mighty big amount,” said Hoheisel.
“We’re at 324 runs for the year and we’re not slowing down, I did two last night,” said White. “Our run volume is increasing by like probably 40 to 50 runs each year in the last three years consecutively.”
Hoheisel questioned if there is a better solution than writing off larger losses each year.
White said, “The next course of action is we start taking all Social Security numbers of all transport patients that we get and those that don’t pay any money, we go after their taxes and we get reimbursed.”
Jaeger said the write offs are due to the amount Medicare will pay.
Recreation director Caitlin Stern brought some fee changes to the council for the arena. Lossing said the issue can be discussed at the January meeting.
The council approved an amendment to the contract with SEH for an additional $41,900 for the West Babbitt housing development including additional soil borings.
The city is applying for $250,000 in CDBG funds and $1.5 million from IRRRB.
Jason Chopp of SEH said getting this work will keep the project from getting delayed another construction season if the funding is received.
The council approved the request with Lossing voting no.
In other business the council:
• Approved a contract with the Ely Blue Line with Hoheisel voting no.
• Discussed the city receiving a $30,000 Culture and Tourism grant from IRRRB that requires a match. The monies will be used for garbage cans, the skate park and other park expenditures. The council approved the matching funds out of the permanent improvement fund. Jaeger said the city also received $200,000 in state funding for park improvements.
• Approved Terry Switajewski’s resignation from the public safety committee as of Dec. 31.
• Heard from city attorney Mitch Brunfelt who phoned into the meeting and said this would be his last meeting as he is retiring from private practice.
• Received 2024 department reports from each department.
• Approved a $10,000 increase, to $39,000, for the contract with Walker, Giroux and Hahne for the 2024 city audit which now includes the campground.
• Heard from Jason Chopp of SEH who recommended applying for a stormwater grant. The council approved applying for the grant through MPCA.
• Approved a resolution supporting the Ely Dark Skies Festival.
• Set the next council meeting on Jan. 7 at 5 p.m.
• Will discuss the proposed school forest location in the near future.
• Will allow Jaeger to carry over up to 13 hours of vacation time.
• Approved hiring Ely police officer Courtney Olson as a part-time officer. Olson is moving to Babbitt.
• Held a meeting of the Economic Development Authority that lasted under three minutes.
