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Finance committee calls for payments and ordinance changes including larger blanket purchase orders and $70,810.84 body‑camera appropriation
Summary
Barberton’s finance committee on July 7 called for payment of past‑due invoices, moved to appropriate a $70,810.84 body‑camera grant to the police department, and voted to amend a 2006 ordinance raising the blanket purchase‑order threshold from $5,000 to $1,005,000 to reduce monthly PO work.
The Barberton Finance and Personnel Committee on July 7 called for several pieces of legislation including payment of four past‑due invoices, an appropriation to pay for police body cameras and an amendment to increase the allowable blanket purchase order threshold.
Stacy Carr, planning director (not present at the meeting), had requested legislation to pay four past‑due invoices to Rental Consulting Solutions; the committee called that legislation for one reading with emergency wording. Council discussion indicated the planning department has a new invoice‑payment process to prevent future late payments.
Chief Vincent Morber of the Barberton Police Department referred a grant appropriation request that committee members called for: $70,810.84 from the city grant fund to the police department’s budget for body‑camera payments. The motion was called and approved for one reading with emergency wording.
Finance director Jeremy Plaker explained a separate request to amend ordinance 1‑20‑2006 that currently limits blanket purchase orders to $5,000. "That ordinance from 2006 basically stated, we could only enter blanket purchase order for $5,000 ... So any blanket purchase order over that, we technically shouldn't have done," Plaker said, arguing auditors raised the issue in a recent audit. He proposed raising the maximum to $1,005,000 to reduce the administrative burden of entering monthly purchase orders for recurring contracted services such as health insurance and EMS billing; the committee called the amendment for one reading and emergency wording.
The committee also discussed an ordinance amending pay grades for part‑time positions (dispatchers, jailers, juvenile diversion officers, reserve officers, crossing guards, part‑time construction inspectors and interns) to adjust pay that had not been updated since 2023. That item was called for one reading with emergency wording.
Why it matters: the actions would clear outstanding payments, authorize a grant-funded purchase for police equipment and alter procurement rules to reduce monthly administrative work; each item was advanced as emergency/one‑reading legislation.
Sources: Finance director Jeremy Plaker, Chief Vincent Morber, committee chair Councilor Thompson, and committee discussion at the July 7 Finance and Personnel meeting.
