DELTA TWP. — Officials are discussing a special assessment to help the township fund a tentative deal with Eaton County to preserve police services amid a budget crisis that threatens to end sheriff’s patrol across the county.
Under the plan now under discussion, property owners across the township would be assessed 1.5 mills − or about $150 per $100,000 of taxable value a year − beginning later this year.
State law allows for certain types of local government to fund police and fire service with a special assessment on real property in the same way they would with a typical millage, township Manager Brian Reed said in a memo to the township board. The process is similar to a drain assessment but differs in that there is no interest component, he said.
Unlike a traditional millage, residents won’t have an opportunity to vote on it.
Under a timeline laid out in the memo, the board would hold public hearings in August and September, presuming it passes a resolution to go forward with the plan by July 7. The final resolution would be adopted by Oct. 20, and the assessment would be placed on winter tax bills.
The first public hearing would be for setting the special assessment district, while the second would be for confirming the special assessment roll, Reed said in an interview on June 17.
The board reached a consensus to move forward with the process in its June 16 meeting, Reed said. The need to act quickly makes a special assessment a more appealing option than a ballot proposal, he said.
“We need police services here, so it’s a matter of, ‘we have to act,'” he said. “With residents showing they do value the Delta patrol and want it continued, this sends a message to our deputies … because the county was losing deputies to other police agencies, and it’s very difficult to find law enforcement officials nowadays.”
A 1.5-mill special assessment would generate about $2.7 million a year and help the township pay for police services for its 33,000 residents following the failure in May of a countywide 2-mill tax increase aimed at funding sheriff’s office road patrol in rural areas, as well as in Delta, Windsor and Oneida townships, where cost-sharing contracts were in place. County voters defeated a larger, 3-mill tax increase last year.
Delta Township voters supported both of those millage proposals, and Reed noted the state law allowing special assessments for police protection has been in place for more than seven decades. Lansing Township and the city of Charlotte are among the localities that have used P.A. 33 of 1951, he said.
On June 5, Delta Township and county officials reached a tentative agreement to maintain police services for the township’s more than 33,000 residents. But that contract would cost the township nearly twice as much as the $4.4 million it currently pays under a contract that ends in September. Eaton County is paying the remaining roughly $1.46 million cost.
The tentative deal would preserve local police services in the township at a cost of $8 million annually. The 10-year agreement has a three-year option for either the county or township to opt out.
The township also is facing a yearly bill of $700,000 for the Bank Intercounty Drainage Board. More than 1,900 property owners are facing $55 million in assessments, with the township’s share totaling $13 million.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Delta Township officials considering special assessment to pay for new police deal
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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