Property crimefighters approved in 2016 Pierce County budget

The Pierce County Council unanimously approved the final version of the 2016 budget Tuesday, building on last month’s spending plan from County Executive Pat McCarthy.

The budget includes five new law enforcement positions dedicated solely to fighting property crimes. It also creates a mechanism for future collection of state marijuana taxes.

The budget includes a 2.5 percent salary increase for the executive, as proposed by an independent salary commission, and a cost-of-living increase for rank-and-file employees.

Both were included in McCarthy’s original proposal.

The pay hike for county workers will be their third consecutive annual increase, following three years without one due to the recession.

Raises for non-union employees will come in two phases — 1.1 percent in January and 1 percent in June, for a net total of 1.6 percent.

Gary Robinson, the county’s director of budget and finance, said staff budgeted for the same pay increase for union employees, but labor negotiations will determine their raises. Those are set to take place over the next several months, Robinson said.

The total county budget is $905.8 million, about $3.5 million more than what McCarthy proposed. The general fund is about $290.6 million, up from $287.9 million proposed by the executive.

McCarthy’s budget originally included a net increase of 12 full-time employees, for a total payroll of about 2,994 full-time equivalent employees.

The council increased that number by nine — the five law enforcement positions as part of the new property-crimes unit and four short-term positions in the public works and information and technology departments.

The temporary positions are meant to fill gaps resulting from retirements at the sewage treatment plant and training for recent technology upgrades.

The County Council voted Friday on the new law enforcement unit, adding four deputies and one sergeant to the Sheriff’s Department that will focus solely on property crime arrests and incarceration.

The amendment also added resources to the other public safety departments, including the prosecutor’s office.

Councilman Rick Talbert said in a statement Friday that the move “is a huge win” for Pierce County.

“Property crimes are the number-one concern for the people of my district and across Pierce County,” Talbert said. “Clearly something needed to be done to help keep the public safe.”

The county will use sales tax revenue and money from the reserve fund to cover the cost of the new unit.

McCarthy’s proposed budget included significant staffing changes in the Corrections Bureau that remained in the final budget.

The jail will fill positions for 12 more deputies and two additional sergeants, 14 positions that are tied to a jail services contract with Tacoma that was reinstated earlier this year after a nearly three-year hiatus.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor requested six more corrections deputy positions in 2016. They weren’t included in McCarthy’s budget or the one approved Tuesday.

The final budget also includes a newly created fund to pay for marijuana enforcement, which was approved in a split vote last week.

It relies on future collection of state marijuana excise taxes, which Pierce County could collect only if it changes its code and allows marijuana businesses to operate in unincorporated areas.

The proposal was introduced by Republican Councilman Doug Richardson, who crossed party lines and sided with Democrats on the issue. It will be funded by a $359,435 loan from a county equipment-rental fund. That money would be repaid through a newly created Marijuana Enforcement Special Revenue Fund, designed to accept state marijuana excise taxes. The deadline for repayment is December 2018.

Pierce County will only receive those revenues if it ends its de-facto ban on marijuana businesses.

On Dec. 8, the council will review a proposal to do that.

If the proposal seeking to reverse the county’s ban fails, Robinson said budget staff will work with council members on an alternative plan.

He said staff would likely recommend against transferring money from the equipment-rental fund, since there wouldn’t be a guaranteed source for repayment.

Council members Joyce McDonald and Jim McCune, both staunch opponents of allowing marijuana businesses in Pierce County, took another stab at Richardson’s amendment Tuesday night.

McDonald made her remarks while expressing support for allocating $100,000 in the county budget to a family drug court program. She said it’s absurd to fund a program that helps people recover from drug addiction just before voting on a proposal to allow businesses that sell drugs.

“We need to wake up and recognize what we’re doing by opening up these doors to young people in Pierce County,” she said.

Other notable changes in Tuesday’s final budget included funds for finishing the next $4.7 million phase of the Foothills Trail by using proceeds from the sale of surplus property in Graham. There’s also additional money for the Superior Court to pay for jurors’ bridge tolls.

Tuesday’s mostly uneventful budget meeting heated up when land conservation advocates spoke out against a proposal by McCune that was eventually defeated.

The Republican attempted to lower the tax rate on the portion of property taxes levied for the Conservation Futures Fund, a program that helps preserve agricultural land and open space.

Robinson said the rate change could have resulted in lower collections for the program down the road, though there wouldn’t be any financial impact in 2016.

Many opponents of the proposal, which initially passed in a split vote Friday, spoke in favor of an amendment offered by Richardson that essentially reversed McCune’s amendment.

This story was originally published November 17, 2015 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Property crimefighters approved in 2016 Pierce County budget."