Democrats Push To Hike Cop Tax
A handful of Democrat county commissioners are pushing to hike a special law enforcement district tax paid by residents living in the county’s unincorporated areas, despite the county manager’s recommendation to avoid the tax increase and pull money from other parts of the budget to pay for the service.
Since 1996 residents in the county’s unincorporated areas have paid an additional tax, on top of the regular property tax rate, to have the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department patrol the no-man’s land that falls outside the jurisdiction of the city or the county’s suburban towns.
Commissioners avoided hiking the special last year, and instead shuffled money from other parts of the budget. Doing so again this year, some commissioners opined Wednesday night, would be inequitable. Residents should pay the full freight of the policing services, even if it means a tax hike in a year when commissioners have vowed to not raise taxes.
“I think about how the libraries could use that money, or how the school system could use that money,” said Commissioner George Dunlap, who last year supported the decision to not increase the special tax. Doing so again this year, Dunlap said, would send the wrong message.
“It says we’re being unfair to the majority of our citizens in an effort to make a smaller number of our citizens happy with the fact that they’re not going to absorb this rate that by practice they’ve been accustomed to have to pay for,” Dunlap said.
Mecklenburg is slated to spend $12.5 million this year for CMPD to patrol the unincorporated areas of the county, home to about 55,000 residents. The current special tax rate those residents for the police service, however, would only generate about $11 million. Without taking money from other parts of the county’s budget to fill the gap, would require a 2.58-cent tax increase on the unincorporated areas, Budget Director Hyong Yi told commissioners Wednesday night.
That’s a raw deal for residents paying the special tax, said Commissioner Bill James, who for years has lobbied his colleagues to sever the county’s contract with CMPD and have the suburban towns take over patrol responsibility of the unincorporated areas.
In many cases, the CMPD has to travel through the towns’ jurisdictions to respond to calls for service in the outlying unincorporated areas, said James, whose district includes large portions of suburban south Mecklenburg.
The same predicament exists in north Mecklenburg, said Commissioner Karen Bentley, a Republican who represents the largely suburban district.
“It’s a service issue to me,” Bentley said. “We have Huntersville police going through the unincorporated area to get to the other side of Huntersville. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Bentley said there is “tremendous support” from the towns to absorb the service of covering the unincorporated areas with their own police forces.
That would make for a more equitable taxing situation, James said, based on the responsibilities and sizes of the towns’ police departments.
“It’s a question of tax fairness,” James sad. “These people live in the corner of far suburbia and they’re paying for an urban police force. They’re paying for Charlotte’s crime problem, which is not their problem. They didn’t sign up for that and the only reason they’re paying for it is because the county set up this agreement.”
Commissioner Dan Murrey, a Democrat, agreed the current system was inequitable, but differed as to who was bearing an unfair burden.
“It strikes me that this is an equity imbalance,” Murrey said.” But in spite of Commissioner James comments, there are members of the county paying to subsidize this law enforcement service district.”
That happened last year, when the county was faced with the same situation and commissioners voted to raid other parts of the overall budget to pay cover the increased cost of CMPD patrolling the unincorporated areas, instead of imposing a proposed 2.4-cent tax hike on those residents.
“We’ve done it at least two years in a row and I agree it needs to be fixed,” Murrey said. “But I’m inclined to charge people for the service. It’s hard to argue that this is not inequitable to the people in the cities and towns to subsidize coverage for people in the unincorporated areas.”
It may have been hard for Murrey to make that argument; it wasn’t for James.
“It’s a double insult,” he said of the special tax. “They get little service and a huge bill on top of it, because they’re paying for stuff that’s going on in Charlotte’s core that has nothing to do with them.”
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