Federal Funds Are A Mixed Blessing

Suppose a rich uncle dies and wills you several thousand dollars - on condition that you buy a house more expensive than you can afford and use all his money to make the first year’s mortgage payments. What will you do in the second year of the mortgage?

That’s the dilemma federal government has foisted on city and county governments, including those in Spokane. Posing as crime-fighters, President Clinton and Congress have approved legislation offering federal grants to help local governments hire more police officers. You’ll hear Clinton brag about this in his coming presidential campaign. But his campaign pitch probably won’t mention that the federal aid is temporary, while the cost of an enlarged police department is permanent.

This is a familiar headache for the city of Spokane and other communities as well. In 1972, Congress created revenue-sharing to help local governments fight crime, etc. By 1976, revenue-sharing money was supporting 13 percent of the city of Spokane’s operating budget. But then, federal politicians started talking about killing the program. Spokane went through years of fiscal torment, cutting services and debating higher taxes, until 1986 when revenue-sharing dollars disappeared.

Here we go again. Under the federal crime bill, Spokane has been notified the city police and county sheriff can receive $2.5 million - enough to hire 20 more police officers and 13 more deputy sheriffs. That’s on top of 30 officers the city and county added with a similar grant two years ago.

Pointing to expected population growth and statistics indicating that local law enforcement is understaffed, Police Chief Terry Mangan argues we’ll need more police officers in any case and the grant means we’ll get a little help in paying for them. Good point.

He also says the new officers can be hired gradually over as many as six years. So, local government can adjust gradually to the full cost that it will have to bear.

But every time local government commits to hiring more police officers, it forecloses the possibility of devoting future revenue growth to improvements in other local priorities. For example, city streets are in terrible condition. Inability to patch them is creating a tremendously expensive need to rebuild them. And the city has built terrific libraries - but chronically fails to pay for enough library personnel.

So, should Spokane reject the federal aid? Probably not. But the city and county do need to plan how they will absorb the cost of additional officers. In addition, they need to plan how they will improve other important local services - services jeopardized if police payroll commitments lock in every new dollar local government gets.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board