The Dexter Leader
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Scio public safety committee renders verdict
Township officials hope to keep Dexter Village out of vote
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writers
PUBLISHED: April 10, 2008
Scio Township's Public Safety Study Committee finally rendered a recommendation Tuesday night during a special meeting, calling for increased "dedication" in the form of funds.
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The committee was formed in November 2006, just a couple of months after a proposed 1.945 public safety millage was rejected by residents.
According to the committee's report, the township currently pays $620,000 for five Washtenaw County Sheriff's Deputies with no backup, such as sick leave, vacation time, etc., to cover service gaps and patrol car coverage that ranges from zero to two patrols per shift.
The proposal, which was the meat of the committee's recommendation, called for "dedicated funds for public safety," which would entail a number of options.
These would be paid for by raising $1.2 million in new revenues with some permutation of millage or multiple smaller millages. The committee and board discussed using a Special Assessment District to levy a project tax for public safety or separately for fire and police. Establishing a district would exclude Dexter Village residents from paying for Scio's services, since it is already a member of the Dexter Area Fire Authority.
A district covering the entire township would be exempt from Downtown Development Authority capture of funds.
The township could contract eight sheriffs with backup for $640,000 on top of what is already paid for in the existing contract, 10 sheriffs without backup for another $880,000 or 10 sheriffs with backup for another $980,000.
"Looking at what Scio needs and the future size of Scio Township, we felt that on the police side of the equation, five is really not adequate for the population that we have," said committee volunteer Maureen Sloan. "We would like to see it go up to eight. We felt that the ($640,000 option) is doable."
On the fire side of the report, the township's department would be comprised of the current full-time fire chief and part time fire marshall, but would have six full-time staff members which would break down to having two firefighters in the house at all times.
With some unspecified equipment replacement, the estimated cost would be an additional $500,000 to 600,000 on top of the existing budget to bring the fire fighting operation up to where the committee thinks it should be.
The committee, comprised of 15 volunteers, has spent the past 18 months in more than 35 meetings with officials in Green Oak Township, Dexter Village, Pittsfield Township, the Ann Arbor Fire Department, Michigan State Police, Washtenaw County Sheriff's, Huron Valley Ambulance Authority and other groups.
The report also called for future consideration of expanding to 12 sheriff's deputies for police service and fire department staffing that allowed for three firefighters in house at all times, in addition to a separate Emergency Medical Services truck, a second fire house in the southeast portion of the township and a call for a capital improvement plan.
The big question is how to fund the first phase of what the committee deemed necessary for "adequate" police and fire safety service.
As an aside, the committee discussed the potential for a regional partnership, but according to their findings, they reported to the board that no one was interested in a regional partnership with Scio Township until it addressed its own public safety issues, according to the committee representatives giving the report Tuesday night.
Members of the township's fire department have been vocal about numerous alleged management concerns within the department. On the other side of the coin, the township reduced police service contracting with the Washtenaw County Sheriffs from seven to five deputies. Also, Pittsfield Township recently severed it's contracting partnership with Scio, further reducing its coverage, since according to sheriff officials, that partnering was benefiting Scio more than Pittsfield - whose deputies were sometimes responding to calls
The board discussed how to shore up the roughly $1.2 million to bring public safety up to snuff.
"I'm afraid we don't have the funds to even implement a minimal plan, aside from a special assessment district, but I am not going to be any part of that," said Township Trustee Chuck Ream. "I want to let the people of Scio Township choose their level of police and fire protection."
A special assessment district of 1.5 mills was thrown on the table, although nothing was set in stone Tuesday night. The board ultimately voted to table any action until the board could come to a unanimous vote in favor of whatever is decided to be the best course of action after further discussion.
Whether or not the district and millage would be renewed on a yearly basis or every five years are some of the options that the township board will have to hammer out during future discussions.
Committee officials said at the meeting that they recommend a referendum vote by residents, rather than having the board pass an action, which could subsequently be overturned by the public. A number of residents owning a minimum of 10 percent of township acreage could also petition the township and force its hand either way on a Special Assessment District at the second of two hearings that would be stipulated by a board action district.
According to Sloan, how many mills to levy should be decided with the fact that State Equalized Value of property in the township is decreasing in a shaky housing market and that should be considered when setting the mill rate to get to the committee's proposed funding increase.
"Scio could be going down in a few years," she said. "The 1.5 (mills) gets you a little bit more for public safety, since you're not going to have as much in the general fund for public safety."
A .95 millage is also an option with some coming from the general fund to offset police costs, although Sloan warned that falling SEV's would hit that as well.
Alternately, a general millage could be passed and the money collected from Dexter Village residents could be reimbursed. The downside would be that village residents might have a knee-jerk reaction of voting the public safety millage down, thus putting the township's public safety services in the hands of village residents that already have their own public safety arrangements.
There is room for making the millage for fire service ony and falling back on the Michigan State Police for coverage, according to the committee.
The board and committee discussed the single greatest challenge being simply getting some kind of millage approved and tweaking it up or down at need. The board asked the committee to consider helping with public education on the necessity of expanding public safety services with the additional revenue.
Another option discussed by the committee was a separate .75 mill for fire and another matching mill for police and "hope something passes," an unidentified member of the committee in attendance said.
"I believe we have to get something passed, even if it is not as much as we need," Ream said. "So I would be willing to vote for lower numbers."
Township Trustee David Nacht was hoping for a little more substance from the committee to steer his decision one way or the other.
"My geometry teacher only gave me partial credit for not showing the work," he said. "I think we need you to show us the work. As a board we understand the fiscal requirements of funding police and fire. We were hoping that you could provide the details - the analysis.
"(I want us) to show that we really didn't want to raise our taxes, here are all the things we tried to avoid to raise taxes and here are the things we looked at, and at the end of the day we couldn't do it."
The committee also recommended continuing to have a public safety committee to continue to review public safety and potential regionalization in the future.
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