Council considers sales taxes
It was hard to tell the Republicans from the Democrat when Spokane County Commissioners Mark Richard and Todd Mielke squared off against former Commissioner John Roskelley Tuesday.
In testimony before the Spokane Valley City Council, Republicans Richard and Mielke urged the council to endorse a 0.1 percent sales tax increase for emergency communications.
Democrat Roskelley, on the other hand, quoted former Republican County Commissioner Phil Harris: “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
Roskelley, Richard and Mielke were the featured speakers in a public hearing at which council members gathered information for a decision April 22 on whether to endorse the May 20 ballot measure.
The council also took testimony on another tax proposal on the May ballot: renewal of a 0.3 percent sales tax for the Spokane Transit Authority. That tax was added to the STA’s 0.3 percent base sales tax in 2004 with a four-year sunset clause.
County commissioners added a 10-year sunset clause to the proposed emergency communications tax after voters rejected it in November.
Roskelley complained Tuesday that taxpayers “are being asked to fund too many projects that can and should be paid for with the present sales tax and continually increasing property tax revenues.”
County and city governments already are collecting three 0.1 percent sales taxes earmarked for criminal justice, juvenile detention and public safety, Roskelley noted.
That money “is not being wasted, but it is not solving this (communications) problem,” Richard countered. “It is, quite frankly, irresponsible to suggest that we have that kind of money in our budget.”
Mielke said the proposed tax would be limited to construction of a new, federally required digital radio network as well as restoring the county’s nonemergency crime-reporting system to full-time operation, subsidizing the 911 emergency reporting system and implementing a “reverse 911” public notification system.
The radio network is estimated to cost $41 million to $44 million, Mielke said.
That’s only about half the $88.3 million county officials plan to spend over the 10-year life of the tax, Roskelley said. He noted 911 system traditionally has been paid with a statewide telephone tax and nonemergency reporting has been paid from county and city general funds.
“Sales tax increases are a financial challenge for our most vulnerable citizens,” Roskelley argued. “Remember, it’s a regressive tax.”
“We don’t like taxes any better than anyone else,” Richard said, “but what is government if it’s not public safety?”
Opinions were mixed when others in the audience were invited to comment.
Dick Behm read a letter of support in which the Spokane Valley Business Association found “immense” need for “this very worthy effort.”
John Pring Jr. echoed that sentiment, but John Tyson and Troy Dilley panned the idea of another crime-fighting sales tax increase.
“Most of the time, if (criminals) do get caught, they’re out the very next day anyway,” Dilley said.