Oxford Township residents will have one less thing to decide on the November ballot.
Last week, the township board voted 5-2 to not request a police millage renewal from voters in the upcoming general election. Clerk Curtis Wright and Treasurer Joe Ferrari cast the dissenting votes.
The current police millage, approved by voters in 2014, is set to expire with the December 2019 tax collection.
It was originally approved at a rate of 3.9152 mills, but has since been reduced by rollbacks mandated by the Headlee Amendment. Last year, it was levied at 3.8172 mills and this year, it’s expected to roll back to 3.7939 mills.
One mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.
Wright proposed making a police millage renewal request part of this year’s general election so as “to avoid the cost of (holding) a special election in 2019.”
Conducting a special election could cost the township approximately $15,000.
“That’s based upon (the cost of) the school bond election (for the Oxford district) in 2017,” he told this reporter.
When it comes to primary and general elections, townships and cities don’t have to pay anything to hold them.
“There is no cost because it’s a mandated state election,” Wright explained.
Given this, Wright presented ballot language to the board that would have asked voters to renew the police tax at a rate of 3.7939 mills with the levy to begin in December 2020 and end with the December 2023 collection.
His proposal didn’t garner much support from his fellow officials.
Trustee Jack Curtis didn’t want to “take a stab” this far ahead at “guessing” what the township may need in terms of future police services.
Supervisor Bill Dunn indicated he might have considered asking for the renewal this year if the idea had been “brought up six months ago,” but with only about 90 days before the November election, he didn’t feel there was enough time for millage supporters to mount an effective campaign.
It was noted the township will have two opportunities in 2020 to seek a millage renewal – the August primary election and the November general election.
But Ferrari expressed his concern that if the renewal was to fail in 2020, there would be no funds for police services going forward.
The current millage expires with the December 2019 tax collection, so there would be funding for the 2020 fiscal year, but nothing beyond that.
Ferrari recalled how after the police millage proposals to fund the now-defunct, joint township-village agency failed in 1999, the township was forced to spend more than $1 million from its budget to fund law enforcement services provided by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office during the 2000 fiscal year.
Township voters living outside of the village approved a dedicated police services millage to pay for the sheriff’s contract in the August 2000 primary election and it’s been funded that way ever since.
Ferrari noted the police budget has grown quite a bit since 2000 and the township can’t afford to do that again.
“We don’t have $2.997 million floating around,” he said.
He doesn’t want to get to the point where “we don’t have a police department.”
Ferrari also fears a bill currently being considered by the state Legislature could eliminate the ability of municipalities to conduct special elections for millage proposals or even place them on primary ballots.
“There’s a chance we may not be able to hold this when we want to hold it,” he said.
Introduced in July 2017, House Bill 4814 would allow local taxing units to “only submit a proposal on a question of imposing a new millage or increasing or renewing an existing millage at a general November election.”
No action has been taken by the House regarding this legislation since it was referred to the Committee on Elections and Ethics the same day it was introduced, according to the state Legislature’s website, www.legislature.mi.gov.
Nevertheless, Ferrari is concerned that if the bill passes, the township would have no other choice but to wait for the November 2020 election and if the police millage renewal failed at that time, he fears “that could put us in a pickle.”
It was noted the township currently receives approximately $9,000 annually from the state and these funds could be used, instead of township general fund monies, to pay for a special election for the police millage.
“The people who hold liquor licenses in the township, they pay a fee to the State of Michigan,” Wright told this reporter. “We get a percentage of that kicked back to us, which we automatically put right into the police fund.”