SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. – With a goal of increasing the Spokane Valley Police Department by 31 positions over the next three years, the City Council was presented a list of potential funding options at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Previously this year, they already approved phase one, which includes moving existing funds to support 12 new officers. For the additional 19, they need to either dip into reserves, or raise funds.
“We have a couple different options,” Deputy City Manager Erik Lamb said. “Property tax levy lift, that would obviously be on homeowners, there’s (a) public safety sales tax that would be felt when you’re at the register.”
According to an estimate from the city, the property tax levy lift would increase the median homeowners taxes by $99 a year. Conversely, a public safety sales tax would hurt slightly less to the citizens of Spokane Valley, as city officials estimate 48% of those taxes come from those who don’t live there.
Those were the two options presented to City Council on Tuesday, with a slight sense of urgency because both proposals require voter approval, and May 3 is the deadline for a proposal to appear on the August 6 ballot. However, with the council deciding August is too zealous, they now have slightly more time to decide.
“We have one year funded, we don’t know how many officers we can actually hire and train and get on the streets in that year. We don’t know the impact they will have on public safety, we can kind of guess but we still don’t know,” Councilmember Laura Padden said. “Bottom line is I’m not ready to join a push to get anything on the ballot in August.”
The delay allows time for the city to gather more community feedback. Before Tuesday’s meeting, they held an hour-long open house with city staff, council members and police to discuss the proposals. They’re having four more open houses over the next two weeks and are seeking feedback at SpokaneValleyWA.gov/911.
