Salt Lake City might scale back plans to hire 50 police officers and instead put more money into improving public transit in underserved areas with the projected new revenue from a sales tax increase the City Council is likely to approve in the coming weeks.
The potential shift, now being discussed among council members, acknowledges an apparent drop in public safety concerns among residents, as measured in recent city surveys. It is also an acknowledgment that the Police Department can meet its goals for expanded neighborhood patrols with a smaller personnel boost.
At the same time, advocates of the shift note that more transit funding would help advance city goals for reducing traffic, improving air quality and boosting economic opportunity, particularly for less well-off neighborhoods on the west side.
The public safety and transit outlays are two of four priorities — along with repairing roads and promoting affordable housing — the city would fund with $33 million in projected new revenue from the proposed tax hike. The half-percent increase to 7.35 percent, equivalent to a nickel for every $10 spent, is pending before the council for a possible May 1 vote.
Council members are reviewing possible allocations for each of the four initiatives. From the added revenue, the city has proposed $12 million for public safety, $8 million for roads, and $5 million each for housing incentives and road maintenance, with the remaining $3 million going into reserve per a standing allocation formula.
The $33 million is an annualized figure. Actual receipts for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1, would be smaller. The tax increase would not apply to groceries or five types of big-ticket purchases: automobiles, boats, RVs, modular homes or trailers.
City surveys have measured more than 2 to 1 support among residents for the sales tax increase and the initiatives it would fund. A related initiative, which has found similar support, would ask voters to approve an $87 million bond for more expansive, longer-term road repair.
Among the four priorities, support for the public safety investment lags slightly behind the others. Besides the 50 new officers, the proposed outlay also would pay for additional support, prosecution and court staff, and new vehicles. The $8 million transit allocation would cover the initial phase of implementing the city’s transit master plan, boosting east-west bus service with extended hours of operation and more frequent stops at improved stations.
Council members are considering scaling back the public safety investment to just the 27 officers the department and city administration initially sought last fall. Even with that reduced number, the department could meet its goal of establishing 23 new neighborhood policing beats. Funds diverted from public safety to transit would go toward bus-service expansion, with improved routing to and from the city’s northwestern corner.
The exact dollar-for-dollar trade-off has not been set. Nor is it clear that the city has advanced far enough in its planning to actually spend more transit dollars in the coming year.
But shifting more of the money into transit, supporters say, would better fulfill a tacit 3-year-old understanding on how the new tax dollars were meant to be spent.
The Legislature authorized the city to enact the increase at its discretion in 2015 as a sweetener for deciding to build a new state prison in the city’s northwest quadrant. Allocating more of the new revenue to benefit the city’s west side — by, for example, improving transit connections there — is thus seen as a fitting use for what some refer to as the city’s “prison tax.”
“The reason we have this tax increase [ability] is because of the prison,” Councilman James Rogers said Wednesday. “This could have a bigger effect citywide for residents — to have this access to transit.” Rogers advocates for more transit spending, and his northwestern district includes the prison site.
East-side Councilman Charlie Luke said he was “completely opposed” to the change. He wants the city to spend more on roads, keep the proposed outlays for police and transit, and draw funds for its housing initiatives from sources other than increased sales tax.
“We don’t have any other tools available for funding those three items,” he said Wednesday,“ whereas we do with housing.”
Council Chairwoman Erin Mendenhall said discussions could lead the council to change the funding allocations at its May 1 meeting. Mayor Jackie Biskupski is set to release the city’s proposed budget at the same time.
The mayor’s spokesman, Matt Rojas, said Wednesday that the administration was not opposed to the council tweaking year-to-year funding levels. All the city’s priorities, he said, are long-term initiatives with needs that will fluctuate.
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