Proponents of Lewis County’s recently passed 911 tax were in attendance at the Board of County Commissioners meeting Monday to specify the intent of the tax.
Their appearance came after two commissioners and Sheriff Rob Snaza discussed how to spend user fees the sheriff’s office will no longer pay toward the 911 call center and suggested the tax was a mandate from voters to support additional law enforcement personnel.
“The investment funds collected by the sales and use tax by (the) Prop 1 ballot measure is not to be disbursed at the discretion of any commissioner or sheriff,” Elizabeth Cameron, the president of the Citizens for Lewis County 911 political action committee (PAC), said Monday. “The voters have elected to pass the ballot measure Prop 1 based on the information provided by Citizens for Lewis County 911 PAC.”
The tax, which will collect an additional .2% sales tax to fund the Lewis County 911 call center, was pitched in several informational meetings as a way to improve the county’s emergency response infrastructure.
Less than a month after voters approved the measure with 57.1% support, several county commissioners said during the budgeting process that the tax was perceived by many voters as a referendum for increased law personnel while saying the funds the sheriff’s office will save should help fund additional law enforcement personnel.
“There is nobody against this,” Snaza said. “But every time we talked about this 911 tax, it was ‘how is it going to benefit first responders, and what we were able to do with that money to help provide community services?’”
At the Nov. 25 budget meeting, commissioners, along with Snaza, discussed how to utilize the roughly $680,000 the sheriff’s office will no longer pay to the 911 center via usage fees. The Chronicle has published a full copy of the audio (see the bottom of this article), and a partial transcription of several relevant portions is below.
During a Sept. 17 informational meeting at the Mossyrock Community Center, Frank Corbin, vice president and treasurer of the PAC, said the proposal would provide adequate funding for the 911 center and move the county from a property tax-based funding model to a sales tax-based model. At the meeting, which was attended by a reporter from The Chronicle, Corbin said the funds are expressly earmarked for the 911 center, meaning they cannot be transferred to another county fund.
On Monday, Commissioner Scott Brummer reiterated that the intent of the tax is to fund the 911 center.
“Let me be clear, in response to the 911 budget discussions, what specifically the funds that the sheriff’s department would save from not having to pay that portion of the 911 fees,” Brummer said. “So, in other words, all of the monies that are derived from the 911 sales and use tax, absolutely, positively, go 100% to 911 for all of those supportive services. That is clear. That is the law. There was never any intent or discussion to spend a penny of that any place else.”
As the commissioners prepared to send the measure to the November ballot this summer, Commissioner Sean Swope wrote a commentary that was published in The Chronicle on June 17. In it, he said he was “committed to doing everything” he could “to protect our families and businesses by giving our first responders the tools and resources they need to ensure our public safety.”
“Looking ahead, there will be opportunities to invest in our public safety system. I urge the community to seriously consider these opportunities,” Swope wrote. “There should never be a time when a 911 call in a moment of crisis goes unanswered.”
Several times during the Nov. 25 meeting, commissioners said the savings from the tax should remain with the sheriff’s department.
• Snaza: “On November 5, voters acknowledged from a two-tenths of a percent for 911 tax. For over 10 years, we’ve been talking about this. It’s finally passed, and we are very grateful for that. But when the conversations came, when specifically citizens would come and say, ‘What impact would this have for you sheriff?’ Well, it would give us the ability to get additional law enforcement personnel. It would give us the opportunity to get additional equipment."
• Snaza: “When I talked to individuals out there, when they voted for 911 tax, we pushed this tax. We supported this tax, that this would help our community. And now you three are going to make the decision about whether you’re going to fulfill that commitment or you’re going to cut back.”
• Snaza: “What we need to look at is ‘What did we tell the voters for 10 years?’ And here you go, we pass something that we worked very hard … The conversation with law enforcement was ‘This is going to help us.’”
• Brummer: “I get your point, Commissioner Pollock, but that was supposed to be for boots on the ground. That’s what we sold it as.”
“That is not what we sold it as,” Commissioner Lindsey Pollock quickly responded.
“Well, we’ll agree to disagree there,” Brummer responded. “I think that is what we ensured the public that we’re going to be able to save that money from the budget for the sheriff’s department and therefore keep patrol deputies.”
The last exchange, which was partially published by The Chronicle on Friday, elicited several calls and emails from organizers who sought to clarify what the taxes intended purpose was. As the commissioners prepared to adopt the budget on Monday, members of the 911 PAC attended to speak during the public comment period.
“In response to Commissioner Brummer’s quote, who said, ‘It was supposed to be for boots on the ground?’ Did Commissioner Brummer mean dispatchers when referring to ‘boots on the ground?’ If so, that would be an appropriate use of the new 911 funds, but not to staff other departments,” Corbin said.
In his comments, Corbin added “no one from the 911 committee presented that this new sales tax proposal was for hiring additional law enforcement officers.”
In his response, Brummer said he supported the tax, and that the context shows that “it was our intention to leave that money with the sheriff’s department so that we are not cutting multiple patrol officers and multiple officers in corrections.”
On Monday, Snaza said he has spent a decade supporting the tax, including during its successful campaign this year.
“So for someone to say I didn’t support this is absolutely absurd,” Snaza said, adding that the dispatch fees saved from the tax should remain with the sheriff’s office. “So to say that we’re benefitting from this, that isn’t the case. This is a team effort of first responders: firefighters, law enforcement and dispatchers.”
