Opinion

Penalty shots: County board faces uphill battle with safety tax

Posted March 02, 2017 10:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Editor@heraldtrib.com

At this point, the Randolph County commissioners have had, thus far, three special meetings regarding the public safety tax.

Based upon the results from the November election, I would be tempted to call it "unpopular." The challenge for the commissioners, of course, is to make it popular.

The tax failed in November by 67 percent of the vote. More than 5,200 people voted "no."

Fast-forward a couple of months and you've got the consolidated election - which traditionally does not draw the response of a general election in a presidential year - for another try.

This fact could be both good news and bad news for the commissioners. Less voters means each vote carries more impact.

But it also means a razor-thin margin of error.

Based upon the feedback from the Feb. 16 meeting with municipal, police, fire and government representatives, adding the quarter-percent sweetener for the local folks came as a surprise.

And it appeared to be a clunky rollout too, with Steeleville Mayor Bob Sutton stating he didn't hear about it until he read it in the newspaper.

It's good to hear people are still reading the printed word - an important plus for your friendly, neighborhood reporters - but bad that it allegedly was the only medium of communication.

And then there's the accusation that the commissioners are hoping public sympathy for police and firefighters get the tax passed, as was loosely alleged by Steeleville Assistant Fire Chief Mike Armstrong.

Throwing a bone to the municipal agencies is a nice idea that I support, as budgets are budgets and the state doesn't seem to be getting any closer to getting its act together on an overall budget anytime soon.

But now the commissioners are stuck in a briar patch of challenges in how to fairly distribute it - especially considering different agencies respond to a different volume of calls for service.

It might be fair to designate disbursement based upon the number of calls for service in a calendar year. The more work an agency gets, the more it would conceivably receive in safety tax supplements.

If I'm putting it together, I'm thinking of making disbursements based upon a range chart (I.E. 1-25 calls) and setting the amount of disbursement based upon which range an agency's total number of calls falls into.

Theoretically, that could allow for some flexibility under the tax as the number of calls per year will always fluctuate.

But even then that gets tricky because the Steeleville Fire Department also responds to medical calls to the tune of around 300 per year. Added in with normal fire calls, it may tip the scale more in the SFD's favor.

Then the question becomes if you're penalizing other departments that don't respond to medical calls.

Oy vey.

Let's also not forget that all of this is a moot point if the safety tax doesn't pass.

As tough as it is to swallow the idea of "more taxes," the alternative is worse in this situation. With fewer deputies on the roads, response times are already being affected.

Lives and property will be impacted if the headcount continues to diminish. Are you willing to roll the dice on your life? Your property?

We'll find out on April 4.

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