Benton County is sitting on a $12.4 million pile; Kennewick would like to spend some of it

Benton County isn’t living up to its deal with taxpayers, say Kennewick officials.

City leaders, including the city manager, police chief and at least one councilman, want to know why Benton County is sitting on $12.4 million in sales taxes earmarked for public safety.

In particular, they would like to use some of the money to make up a $125,000 funding shortfall for the Metro Area Drug Task Force.

Benton County Commission Chairman Jerome Delvin called the shortfall an example of bad planning by the city, not bad faith by the county.

“If they knew this was happening, why did they spend it up to the point of not having any?” he asked.

Voters approved the three-tenths of 1 percent tax in 2014 to beef up law enforcement, courts and crime prevention efforts.

The county takes 60 percent of the tax and the cities — Richland, Kennewick, West Richland and Prosser — split the balance based on population.

Countywide, the sales tax pays for 35 additional law enforcement officers, anti-gang programs, a mental health court and an expanded drug court. The prosecutors office has added staff, as has the public defenders office.

County officials say the outsized reserve reflects that it takes time to implement new programs and ramp them up to full speed. Too, the county is holding on to a cushion to dial down the programs if voters don’t renew the public safety sales tax when it expires in 2024.

With more than $12 million currently in reserves, Benton County is clearly banking more money than sale tax promoters anticipated when they promoted the three-tenths of a percent sales tax to voters in 2014.

“How the Revenue will be Spent,” a two-page spreadsheet that anticipated how money would be used, circulated widely during the campaign and spelled out various programs the money would support. It called for a reserve fund of about $370,000.

Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg, who played a lead role in the campaign, said he personally read it into the record at a Benton County Commission meeting and notes the county prosecutor drafted the county-related sections.

Nothing in the document or the 20-plus public presentations spoke to a $12.4 million reserve fund, he said.

Kennewick City Councilman Paul Parish accused the county of acting in bad faith and said the outsized reserve could hurt the tax’s chances of being renewed in six years. A recent budget presentation showed the balance swelling to about $27 million in 2024 if there are no new commitments to programs, services, jobs or capital projects.

“We’re telling the people we don’t trust them to vote it back in (in 2024),” he said when the subject was raised this week at the monthly Law and Justice Council meeting. “I’m unhappy about it. There’s a lot of taxpayers who are unhappy about it.”

West Richland Mayor Brent Gerry advised county leaders to do a better job of updating its online financial information and explaining the reserve, including above-expected revenue, to keep the public apprised of the real situation.

The flare-up over the public safety sales tax was sparked by the shortfall over the drug task force. Kennewick coordinates the regional team, which includes both Benton and Franklin counties, municipal police departments and federal agencies.

Kennewick City Manager Marie Mosley said it has not received the $125,000 federal grant that has supported the task force in the past. It is not a large amount, but the city turned to its partners to fill the gap. The county’s millions were an obvious target.

The 2014 campaign materials said the county would invest $200,000 annually to support the anti-drug work, or $400,000 per biennium. It spent $6,800 in the first six months of 2017, just 2 percent of what it budgeted for the biennium, according to its own mid-2017 report, the most recent available.

Last week, city officials asked the county to contribute, presenting four scenarios under which the two counties and four cities would collectively commit $the money to the task force. members to raise their collective commitment by $105,000.

The county offered its own recommendation: The four cities could fund the shortfall, and the two counties would contribute nothing.

Delvin said it isn’t the first time cities have looked to the reserve fund. They’ve asked the county to tap the fund to handle rising costs at the Benton County jail rather than pass the fees along to them.

Delvin threatened to spend down the reserve fund on other issues to take the ongoing issue off the table. Benton County Emergency Services needs about $2 million to construct an emergency communications tower at Red Mountain to address zones where communications coverage is thin. Too, Benton and Franklin counties face a $12 million bill to reconstruct parts of the aging bi-county juvenile justice center in Kennewick.

The counties have asked the state to contribute $7 million, with the balance split between the two counties.

“I just don’t want to spend money to spend money,” Delvin said. “If they want me to spend money, I’ll spend it. That will take it off the table.”

The anti-drug task force, first formed in 1988, combats drug-related crime, including gang activity and gun violence.

It’s value is undisputed, and Mosley said the partners will find a way to fill the shortfall.

Its 2017 accomplishments include 48 arrests, 24 convictions and the seizure of more than $2.1 million of narcotics. The haul included nearly 20,000 grams of methamphetamine ($1.6 million), 2,000 grams of heroin ($265,000), 113 grams of cocaine ($9,000), 327 fentanyl pills ($11,000), 2322 doses of LSD ($10,000) and 156 marijuana plants ($234,000)

In one particularly noteworthy case, the task worked with the Spokane Police Department on a case involving a convicted sex trafficker from Arizona. The investigation led to executing search warrants in both Benton and Franklin counties, leading to the seizure of more than $900,000 in heroin and methamphetamine.

“We need to stay relentless,” Hohenberg said.

This story was originally published February 17, 2018 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Benton County is sitting on a $12.4 million pile; Kennewick would like to spend some of it."