City Hall is exploring options to revisit safety forces levy

Based on the talking heads sharing their thoughts at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, it looks as if Circleville’s safety forces levy may not be dead.

The 0.4 percent income tax levy for safety forces was defeated with 1,346 voting against the levy and 1,265 favoring the measure in the Primary Election on March 19 — not the first time the voters defeated a similar measure.

The proposed levy was a .4 percent income tax, less than the current .5 percent income tax expiring in December. Currently, the income tax for a person living and working in the city is 2.5 percent. If the levy had passed, that number would be 2.4 percent starting next year. Since the levy did not pass starting next year, the city income tax would be 2 percent.

City Hall faces the clear and present danger of having to cut safety forces staffing by a third with $2 million less in funding.

During Tuesday’s Finance Committee meeting, Mayor Michelle Blanton said that without the levy, the city’s safety forces will decrease by a third because of a funding shortfall, so City Hall is exploring all options and seeks to place the safety forces levy on the ballot for the November election.

“So at this point the decision that needs to be made is to put that levy on the ballot,” she said. “Again, this money pays for our safety forces salaries. It pays for equipment.”

“And so with, with the full support of myself as a council member and finance chair before I sat in this seat, that support continues as the mayor.”

Blanton continued, “And so I ask that council, the finance committee and council consider how we move forward to put this on the ballot. Again, I will say that local questions need to be to the Board of Elections by August 7 in order to be considered for the November ballot.”

Council President Barry Keller added, “I challenged the mayor that she needs work with her police and fire departments, the chiefs to talk about a plan that they will support. She will support and bring that back to council with the proposal to the finance committee on what that levy should look like. We got a little bit of time, not a lot of time.”

Keller said Blanton will listen to folks’ “input if they have thoughts or comments. It really needs to be driven by the mayor’s office on down through the safety forces, and we’ll await her proposal to come back to the committee on what that levy will look like for this coming November. And so we challenged her to do that.”

A former City Council member, Tom Spring penned a Reader’s Forum column in mid-March that deserves a bit more ink because it provides a contrasting point of view to City Hall’s position regarding the safety levy.

The online version of this story contains a link to Spring’s column.

And given recent events regarding Circleville’s Police Department , Spring’s thoughts deserve a sequel. Online version of this story contains a link to a previous story that details the recent comings and goings at CPD which includes how the Police Chief and Acting Police Chief have been suspended, how after the Safety Director was fired after a week on the job and that he dropped metaphorical word bomb at City Council about everything tha has been happening.

Published below is an abridged version of that column.

Voters generally support fire and EMS because it is akin to life, health, and property insurance so that in an emergency, responders will come to their aid. Last November, voters in Pickaway and adjacent counties approved 14 of 16 property tax levies for fire, EMS, or both and a municipal property tax for police. Voters rejected all three municipal income tax levies for police.

Fire Chief Brian Thompson has done a superlative job of righting an operation that was embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal and a million-dollar judgment under the previous chief. Thompson improved operations, staffing and morale, and secured $3.2 million in grants, leveraging a local match of $107,000. It’s what good public servants do.

The police department is a different story — one of scandal after costly scandal since Shawn Baer became chief in 2015.

A wave of officers resigned at the time the levy passed in 2019, with a former officer citing discontent with the administration. Some chose to work elsewhere for less pay. Officers were investigated for shoving the safety director into a urinal, for racial profiling, and for domestic violence.

An officer released his dog on a trucker who was obeying Highway Patrol orders to surrender for having a missing mudflap. The officer wasn’t fired for failing to heed an order not to release the dog. The city said he was fired for failing to obey orders not to talk about it. The settlement payouts to the truck driver and K-9 officer cost $265,000. And now, media reports the chief has been placed on administrative leave.

Throughout the scandals, national embarrassment, and huge payouts, the mayor and police chief failed to face constituents and media. The mayor chose not to go to arbitration or to file charges on officers who didn’t follow city policies, but to throw money to make them go away. He also dismissed safety directors who tried to hold employees accountable.

In 2020, Council rejected a five-year contract for state-of-the-art professional county dispatch at an average annual price of $265,000. Instead, officials propped up the city’s severely depleted staff and antiquated equipment a mile away, running up a $400,000 a year price tag to an average $674,000 a year, according to data from the auditor’s office. A former council member said he was concerned the county might gouge the city at renewal. Who gouged whom?

Thus, my recommendation to council to learn from the November levy defeat and ask voters for half the money to fund only fire and EMS. Then let the incoming mayor spend the next six months instituting reforms to deliver a reliable method of law enforcement that will make residents proud at election time in November.

Residents don’t have much say in how their city operates, but they can and do vote their pocketbook. And, the combined levy threatens to drag down a class act in the Fire Department.

Our elected officials are “public servants,” not “employee servants.” Paying money to make misbehaving employees go away instead of making discipline stick for violating policy sets a bad example. Discipline would deter the next person who thinks he can get away with acting up on the taxpayer’s dime.

The city has long placed the burden of taxes disproportionately on one segment of taxpayers who live and work in the city and has ignored the recommendations of their bond rating agency to change the city’s overreliance of income taxes to fund city services. The mayor could arrange for a study to address these inequities.

Communities deliver safety services in various ways — in-house, contract, joint districts, et. al. For example, 20 miles from Circleville, Canal Winchester has professional and reliable police, fire, and EMS protection, but has neither police nor fire departments — and no police scandals or six-figure police liability insurance premiums! Circleville has options.