Voters in three Oakland County townships will head to the polls again in November to vote on police millage requests after they rejected separate measures last week.
The boards in Independence and Brandon townships voted Monday night to place police service millages before voters in the Nov. 3 general election. In Highland Township, the township board voted to put a fire millage renewal with an increase back on the November ballot.
The counties join Sumpter, Orion and Waterford townships in placing failed public safety millages back before voters in November.
Independence Township voters will vote only on a 3.2-mill police protection tax to fund police services, while Brandon Township voters will vote on a 3.92-mill measure for police services. Brandon Township’s November proposal is less than the 4.25-mill measure that voters turned down last week.
“I really don’t think the voters were anti-police. I think they were anti-taxes, which I totally understand,” said Brandon Township Supervisor Jayson Rumball.
In Highland Township, voters rejected a 2.32-mill fire service renewal, which included a .47-mill increase. Supervisor Rick Hamill attributed the failure to social media, which he said can “do things that nobody in media does.”
Instead of reducing the millage for the November ballot, the township’s board of trustees voted Monday to place the 2.32 mills back in front of the voters. Hamill estimated it will net the township more than $2.7 million for the fire department in its first year.
“What you have to think about in the future is, these costs are never going to go down, and we’ve seen everything climb like crazy,” Hamill said.
Riding a wave of anti-tax sentiment amid high inflation, voters in six Metro Detroit communities, most of them in rural, less developed areas, turned down eight public safety measures in the August primary.
Most of the measures were renewals — meaning they weren’t new taxes — but were slightly higher than previous millage rates for public safety in each community. Nearly every township has since tweaked their proposals in some way to reduce, or adjust, the tax burden for the measures that will appear on the November ballot.
Local officials in every impacted community say they rely on these millages, some of which date back to the 1960s, to pay for public safety. Without them, they say they’d have to drastically limit or cut services.
In a post Tuesday on Facebook, Independence Township Supervisor Chuck Phyle said the township’s previous police services millage expired at the end of November 2025 but is funded through 2026. It generates $6.9 million for police services, which are provided by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
Phyle said the November proposal will not include a separate .32-mill tax for school resource officers that went before voters last week.
Instead, “the approved language allows those funds (from the police protection millage that go before voters in the Nov. 3 general election) to also be used for SRO services,” Phyle said in his post.
In Brandon Township, trustees voted to renew their police millage to 3.92 mills, in line with Headlee rollbacks. The township’s original proposal was for 4.25 mills.
The renewal will fund the township’s contract with the sheriff’s office, which costs $2.7 million annually, according to records.
Independence and Brandon were among at least six in Metro Detroit where voters rejected police protection and fire millages last week. Because the townships contract with the sheriff’s office, they risk losing police service if the millages are not renewed.
Trustees in Orion and Waterford Township on Friday voted to put their own measures before voters in November, though smaller than the proposals that were voted on last week. Sumpter trustees made the same decision on Monday night.
In his post, Phyle acknowledged that residents have questions about the costs, school resource officer funding, and funding for special districts that’s pulled from the millages.
“We have until November, and we are going to use that time,” Phyle said. “My commitment is to provide residents with the facts and answers through multiple forums and formats so people have a meaningful opportunity to understand the proposal before voting. That will include financial information, public discussions, online information, and opportunities to ask questions.”
“The decision in November belongs to the voters. Our responsibility between now and then is to make sure you have the information necessary to make that decision.”
mbryan@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Independence Twp., Brandon Twp. to go back to voters in November for police renewals
Reporting by Max Bryan, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Max Bryan, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
