Benton County voters can’t afford not to renew the public safety sales tax | Opinion
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Tri-Cities Nov. 7, 2023 General Election
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If voters really want to pull 55 law enforcement officers from the streets in Kennewick, Richland, West Richland and rural Benton County next year, they are welcome to vote against renewing the local public safety sales tax.
Doing so, however, would be disastrous for local communities.
For no more than they are paying now, voters can ensure that those officers and a portfolio of anti-crime programs continue to fight gangs, drugs and other dangers. We therefore recommend voters support Proposition 1 on the November ballot.
Nearly a decade ago, Benton County voters approved the local sales tax to fund public safety initiatives. It is scheduled to expire at the end of 2024, and the county is asking voters to renew it permanently. Revenue from the public safety sales tax has bolstered law enforcement and helped people living on the fringes of local communities.
The public safety sales tax charges shoppers 0.3%, which works out to 30 cents per $100 of purchases, raising about $21 million per year. The county splits that money 60-40 with cities, and cities divvy up their portion based on population. So, for example, Kennewick gets more than Prosser.
Local departments have hired dozens of city police and sheriff’s officers with the money. Some funds also go to the prosecutor’s office, to the courts and even to a code enforcement officer.
But public safety isn’t just arresting, trying and jailing people. The tax also provides more than $1 million for local therapeutic courts. Those are special diversion courts that help groups with specific needs.
They include drug courts and veterans court that direct nonviolent offenders to treatment, support services and mentorship. Innovative programs like these have low recidivism rates and achieve justice through restoration and atonement rather than incarceration.
Funds also go to community programs that seek to prevent people from falling toward crime in the first place, like the Boys and Girls Clubs and Safe Harbor.
After 10 years, all of that is built into local budgets. If voters do not renew the public safety sales tax, they would blow a huge hole in those budgets.
“If this funding went away, it would be essentially defunding the police like Seattle and Portland have done,” retired Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg told our editorial board. “The need has not diminished.”
Sales taxes are regressive, but they also hit up visitors to Benton County. Tourists should help pay for the public safety that they enjoy.
It’s not as if local governments have gone overboard hiring officers. Local cities still have some of the fewest officers per capita in the state and the nation. Kennewick and Richland each have about 1.1 officers per thousand residents. Compare that to Seattle, which has 1.9 and a national rate above 2.0.
There’s a fair argument to make that the renewal would have been better with another sunset clause, and one can quibble about one or two line items spent over a decade. But those concerns do not undermine the need for this revenue stream. It is embedded in how local governments work to keep communities safe.
During the original campaign for the tax a decade ago, supporters did not promise that crime would disappear nor that the money would not be needed after 2024.
Rather, they wanted a means to ensure a steady flow of funding dedicated to protecting the public and to kickstart law enforcement that wasn’t keeping up with the community’s growth and needs.
Gangs remain a challenge today. So do drugs, theft and other crimes. The sales tax funds tools to fight back. Imagine how much worse things could be if those resources suddenly disappeared.
The question voters should ask themselves is not whether Benton County can afford to continue paying the same 10-year-old sales tax but whether it can afford not to. We believe it must.
This story was originally published October 20, 2023 at 12:43 PM.
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MOREBehind Our Election Recommendations
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The Tri-City Herald editorial board is comprised of experienced opinion journalists and community members, and is separate from The Herald’s newsroom. Conversations are on the record.
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Whenever possible, The Herald editorial board meets with opposing candidates at the same time. The questions are largely focused on a candidate’s qualifications and goals. The editorial board then discusses the candidates in each race and decides who to recommend. Board members seek to reach a consensus on our recommendations, but not every decision is unanimous.
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Why are the editorials unsigned?
Our election recommendations reflect the collective views of The Herald’s editorial board — not just the opinion of one writer. For the 2024 election, the board includes: Laurie Williams, Herald executive editor; Jack Briggs, retired Herald publisher; Ken Robertson, retired Herald editor; Rosa Torres, community representative. Chris Trejbal is our editorial writer.
