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Counties recall success of public safety tax: Jackson considers adding cash source used by others to keep sheriffs' departments flush

BY: KRISTEN CATES
THE SOUTHERN

Sunday, December 11, 2005 12:48 AM CST

When it came time to vote for the public safety tax in Saline County voters knew what the county board's intentions were, according to county officials.

"If that didn't pass we were looking at (the fact) we were going to be down to a sheriff and a deputy; we were going to lose staff at the courthouse," said Ryan Lambert, chairman of the county's finance committee. "I think people came to the realization it's not just a county board crying wolf."

In 2004, voters in Saline County approved a three-quarter percent addition to sales tax in order to support public safety.

Lambert, along with county Treasurer Danny Ragan, has said voters knew all along that the public safety tax was meant to keep the sheriff's department status quo - at a $1.5 million budget - while allowing some of the county's other revenue sources to be used for other offices within the county.

There was no deception on the part of the county board. This deception is something residents of Jackson County fear as they begin to raise support for putting a public safety tax referendum for the March primary ballot.

Members of Jackson County's ad hoc public safety tax committee have pushed for language on the referendum that sets a benchmark of funding for the sheriff's department. It would also require a two-thirds of the board to approve dipping below that benchmark.

Ragan said in Saline County it wasn't the "bait and switch" method that people in Jackson County fear.

"That's the way we sold it to the public," he said. "We told (them) it was to keep the sheriff's department status quo."

The Saline County Sheriff's Department received roughly $1 million in public safety tax money this past year, according to Ragan. He said the department needed that money to remain status quo with a budget of $1,586,674 for daily operations, while the jail received $221,422.

In the 2006 budget approved recently, Ragan said, the sheriff's department was allocated $1,534,552 to be spent from the general fund with additional line items of $245,985 for the jail; $450,000 for dispatch services and $47,360 for an officer for the county's housing authority.

"We were able to give them more because of the public safety tax," Ragan said.

Prior to the public safety tax, Lambert said, Saline County's general fund was $600,000 in the red. The public safety tax had been pitched once before but didn't get approved. He's not sure why it didn't pass; but he said this last time around, Saline County voters seemed to support what the board was trying to do.

"I feel bad for a community - if you don't trust the people in those positions you should vote them out," he said.

Union County Sheriff Jim Nash said he has had nothing to fear from his county board. His budget of $540,000 has stayed the same over the years. When the fiscal year 2005 bills are tallied Nash said he will likely have received close to $200,000 from the public safety tax.

Union County board Chairman Bill Jackson said as it came time to vote on the tax, the board made verbal promises to the sheriff's department that it would keep its funding the same.

A separate line-item was added to the county's budget outside of the general fund with its own account number, Jackson said.

But at the same time the board doesn't want the county to just collect public safety tax money like a cash-cow fund.

"I told them I don't anticipate cutting that budget," Jackson said. "But I don't intend to let the public safety tax build up. I think that satisfied them."

Nash has hired one new deputy, one new dispatcher and a handful of part-time dispatchers. If the public safety tax hadn't been approved, Nash said, he would have been up a creek without a paddle.

"We would have been in big, big trouble," he said. "So far we're getting what we wanted."

kristen.cates@thesouthern.com

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