Ballot pits county’s needs against calls for wiser budget

A few weeks ago Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich got a cell phone call at home from a woman in her 80s.

She told the sheriff that her friend was in a domestic violence dispute, but two calls to 911 came up with messages that all lines were busy.

The episode, he said, illustrated the community’s need for a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to pay for better communication equipment and 911 staffing. A ballot item for the money is under consideration by voters this month.

“When I went to bed, the only thing raging in my mind was her voice,” Knezovich said.

Former county Commissioner John Roskelley, the most vocal critic of the proposed tax, agrees there’s a need to reinstate Crime Check – the 24-hour non-emergency reporting system staffed by operators who take 911 calls during busy times. The question is how to pay for it, and Roskelley argues city and county leaders have plenty of options without raising taxes.

“This is just one more burden on the taxpayer,” Roskelley said.

The proposed tax has the support of every city council in the county and numerous other public safety leaders who say the system is essential for responding to emergencies, fighting crime and meeting a federal deadline to have better technology installed.

“Our radio is the most critical thing to us,” said Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick. “Dead spaces are everywhere.”

But some say officials are crying wolf, using the deadline as an excuse to force a tax when expenses could be handled with existing revenue.

Roskelley argues that law enforcement has exaggerated problems with the communications equipment.

“It’s typical of law enforcement,” said Roskelley, a volunteer firefighter for Spokane County Fire District 9. “They use scare tactics.”

The county’s first attempt at passing the tax, which would equal 1 cent on a $10 purchase, failed in November by about 300 votes.

The newest proposal is essentially the same, but it would expire after a decade.

About $66 million of the $88 million expected to be raised by the tax over 10 years would be spent on emergency communications equipment.

Other money would be spent on:

•$16 million to reinstate Crime Check, which was scaled back after budget cuts in 2004.

•$5 million to pay for an expected shortfall in the county’s 911 system.

•$1 million for reverse 911, a system that would allow the county to send a message to any phone line in the county in the event of an emergency.

The need for a technology upgrade was forced by a 2004 Federal Communications Commission decision to require agencies to use equipment with narrower bandwidth to free up space for more channels by 2013. Agencies that miss the deadline could lose their license for their channels.

Little state money is available to pay for equipment, said Alan Komenski, senior project manager for the Washington State Interoperability Executive Committee. For most communities in the state, the switch will require higher taxes.

The resulting infrastructure will help police, firefighters and state and federal agencies, he said.

“You don’t want your police or your fire departments not to have reliable communications when they need it the most,” Komenski said.

Spokane Fire Chief Bobby Williams said the equipment would provide much more reliable service.

“We’ve tried to look every place we can look for alternatives,” Williams said. “Unfortunately, there are not a lot of solutions to deal with this issue.”

Roskelley says officials are overlooking the obvious alternative: wiser spending of taxes that cities, the county and fire districts already collect.

“They just throw out a sales tax because it’s simple,” Roskelley said. “They don’t try to think how they’re going to cut their budget.”

He points to a 2004 sales tax approved for public safety purposes. Soon after the tax passed, former Sheriff Mark Sterk went public with his attempt to steer the funding to upgrade communications equipment. His attempt to persuade city and county officials to earmark the money mostly was ignored, largely because Spokane and the county were facing budget shortfalls and they wanted the money to prevent layoffs and service cuts.

Knezovich blamed previous county commissioners for not writing the ballot to ensure the money would be used for communication. Roskelley, who voted against putting the tax on that ballot, said nothing is stopping officials from using the money for communications even if the ballot wasn’t specific.

He also wonders, if money is so tight, how the county can afford $4.4 million for Spokane Raceway Park. Roskelley also points to other tax proposals likely in the coming months, such as a property tax possible on the November ballot for a new jail, proposed car tab taxes for street repair and other fees floated to improve roads.

“A sales tax is a regressive tax that hurts the most vulnerable of our society,” Roskelley said.

County Commissioner Todd Mielke said the county’s raceway purchase is irrelevant to the discussion, partly because it’s miniscule compared with the $88 million that will be raised by the tax. He said the county shouldn’t have to fund regional projects alone that are used by other local agencies.

Criminal justice makes up a majority of the county’s budget. If the communications equipment were bought with existing taxes such as the one passed in 2004, there likely would be staff reductions in the jail or on patrol, Mielke said.

“I’m not excited about cutting the number of cops on the street,” he said. “To think that we’re not going to touch criminal justice is naïve.”

The other significant item that would be funded by the proposed tax is Crime Check.

The reporting system was maintained for years by cities and county without extra taxes. But in 2004, facing a shortfall, the city of Spokane said it could no longer fund a 24-hour system.

The lack of a 24-hour non-emergency line has increased the calls to 911 and reduced the number of police reports, Knezovich said. In 2004, about 42,000 reports were filed through Crime Check. Last year, half that many were filed through the part-time line that replaced it.

“That’s a significant drop in the amount of intelligence to law enforcement,” Knezovich said.

In the year after 24-hour service stopped, the city’s finances changed drastically, and unplanned sales tax windfalls helped the city collect millions in surpluses. Even so, county commissioners couldn’t persuade the city to again fund Crime Check, and last summer, former Mayor Dennis Hession suggested that Crime Check be part of a sales tax.

Budget Director Tim Dunivant said the city might have been able to afford the expense for a couple of years, but the downturn in the economy indicates it was wise not to jump back into funding Crime Check with existing resources.

“We knew at some point that it would level off,” Dunivant said.

The city’s projections for 2009 show a $2.2 million deficit; that number includes extra police and fire positions proposed by Hession. If Crime Check had been funded again, the deficit would be closer to $3 million, Dunivant said.

Roskelley argues that elected officials’ inability to find money for the equipment will mean another permanent tax.

“At the end of 10 years there’s no plan other than to go back to the well and ask for another sales tax,” he said.