By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
ARBELA TWP. —For the first time, Arbela Township leaders plan to dip into the township’s general fund to maintain the same level of police protection from two Tuscola County Sheriff’s Department deputies.
Photo by Tom Gilchrist
The Arbela Township Center, 8935 Birch Run Rd., houses an office for Tuscola County Sheriff’s Department deputies who patrol the township. Township leaders voted to take money from the township’s general fund to sustain the same level of police coverage. Declining property tax revenues from a police tax are “insufficient” to maintain the same level of coverage, according to a township resolution.
The Arbela Township Board of Trustees voted 5 to 0 on Aug. 10 to continue providing 12 hours of extra police coverage seven days each week.
Though the township has levied a property tax on residents since about 1990 to pay for additional police coverage, this marks the first time the township plans to dip into its general fund to help finance the services.
“Our police fund used to have about $350,000 in it … so we had quite a cushion there,” said Kenneth Panek, supervisor in Arbela Township, population 3,070.
“The balance has declined, though, in recent years, to a smaller figure,” Panek said.
The police fund showed a balance of $203,419 at the end of the township fiscal year March 31.
“For the last two years, we’ve been about $40,000 short each year, so we’ve eaten into that fund balance,” Panek said.
Property owners in Arbela Township pay a 2-mill tax to raise money for the extra police coverage from the Sheriff’s Department, which maintains a satellite office in the Arbela Township Center at 8935 Birch Run Rd.
A 2-mill tax on the owner of a $100,000 home raises about $100 per year.
Due to declining property values, though, taxes raised by the police tax are “insufficient” to sustain the desired 12 hours of extra police coverage per day in the township, according to Panek.
Panek predicted the township will have to ask for a tax increase at some point to keep paying for the same level of coverage.
Township Clerk Mary C. Warren said she told Panek she’d agree to dip into the township general fund to help boost the police fund, but only for one year.
“I told him that in 2016 he needs to ask for another millage, and if the people want it, we’ll vote it in,” Warren said. “If they don’t, we can go from two officers back to 1.5 officers or one officer — or whatever that two mills covers — at that time.”
Warren said the township general fund can’t afford to help finance the police fund each year.
The township’s fiscal year starts April 1. Panek puts together a proposed township budget in the fall, and said he’ll propose taking some money from the township’s general fund to supplement the police fund.
“It may not be a lot, but it’ll have to be some,” Panek said.
The resolution approved by the township board states that while “other municipalities have chosen to raise taxes to compensate for declines in property values, the township board is committed to make do with the resources it has, because increasing taxes will cause unnecessary economic hardship on the township residents.”
Panek praised the versatility of Sheriff’s Department Deputies Jason Oliver and Cory Jacobs, and said they’ve kept order in Arbela Township in various ways.
“They respond to a lot of domestic complaints,” Panek said. “They’re always settling some argument or something.”
The median age of township residents increased from 37.3 in the 2000 U.S. Census to 42.5 in 2010.
“We’re kind of an older township now,” said Panek, adding that the percentage of 911 calls of a medical nature increases each year. Oliver and Jacobs also respond to medical emergencies.
“Those guys end up doing a lot more than just writing tickets,” Panek said.
Township Treasurer Jody A. Hunt, and Trustees William Jacobi and Wayne Schultz, joined with Panek and Warren in approving the resolution to continue the 12-hour police coverage seven days each week.