UPDATED: Washtenaw County Board Of Commissioners To Vote On Millage Renewal Wed June 5, 2024 7pm

[An earlier version of this op-ed was published on the day of the May 15 regular meeting of the BOC]

The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners [BOC] met for their regular meeting on Wednesday May 15 during which they had a first reading of the resolution to put a rubber stamp renewal of the Mental Health / Public Safety Millage on the November ballot. The current millage will be funded through to December 2026. The current resolution would add 8 more years to the millage which would not be up for renewal again until 2033.

There were several public commenters who came to speak that night, making comments about the fact that the millages can be split and that voters could have the opportunity to vote on a separate millage for mental health resources and services. So far a majority of the BOC appear unmoved and continue to support a rubber stamp renewal of the millage being place on the November ballot.

The commissioners still supporting this millage as it is currently written, combining mental health dollars with dollars for the WCSO [sheriff] are ignoring calls from the community to stop funding these services/ resources, including housing, diversion, re-entry and mental health, through the WCSO. Again the WCSO is a law enforcement agency with a majority of its staff armed with pistols, rifles and other instruments used to apprehend, detain and incarcerate people. Funding these resources in this way only serves to put some of our most vulnerable community members in danger of slipping into the crosshairs of WCSO police weapons or to get caught up in the court and carceral systems of our county government.

There was also a public hearing on the updated ordinance which has been used thus far to guide the Community Mental Health [WCCMH] portion of the millage. This ordinance created a WCCMH millage advisory committee. The meetings of this committee are currently being run by the Executive Director of the WCCMH, Trish Cortes [who doesn’t have a vote on the committee]. This is completely inappropriate.

The addition to the above mentioned ordinance creates a similar advisory committee for the WCSO portion of the millage. The sheriff has a seat on this committee. This is completely inappropriate. Commissioners LaBarre [East Ann Arbor] and Somerville [City of Ypsilanti] also added a provision in the ordinance to have 50% of the WCSO dollars go to mental health and related social services. housing/ homelessness services would get 15%, mental health services 20% and community violence interruption 15% of those earmarked WCSO dollars. BOC members led by Commissioner Sanders [Pittsfield Twp] voted down using these dollars in this manner  with specific percentages assigned to each social service because she claimed it “hogties” [a curious word to describe this designation of police dollars] people doing the work. The vote was 6-3 against the 20-15-15% breakdown 50% earmark measure with only Commissioners Rabhi, Scott [Ann Arbor reps] and Somerville voting in favor of the social service percentage breakdown. WCSO 50% earmark. Curiously, Andy LaBarre voted against the 50% which was part of the ordinance revision language he and Somerville proposed. LaBarre states that he voted against the specified percentage breakdown because he “…thought that was a more practical way to meet the needs.” [This paragraph has been corrected from an earlier version, note the language with strike-though lines]

Yours truly gave public comment during the beginning of the meeting, focusing in large part on the fact that we do not have the entirety of the WCSO budget: line items, contracts, MOUs and that commissioners are voting blindly to put this millage back on the ballot in November as it is currently written. Quickly after my comments the Chief Financial Officer for the county sent out the recommended budget with line items. I am still waiting on the entirety of the WCSO budget. I don’t expect to receive the entirety of these budget documents until Friday June 7, two days after the proposed vote to put the millage renewal on the ballot. You can watch the video of those comments by clicking here. If you scroll back about 10-15 minutes, you can see others comments. There were a few after also, mostly from folks who were online.

I include other relevant details below, which were originally published the day of the meeting. Commissioners will meet again on Wednesday June 5 at 7pm and one of the items on the agenda is likely to be a resolution to put the millage back on the ballot in November 2024. Thanks for reading. As always, I am interested to hear what others think about these county proceedings.

Original op-ed published on Wednesday May 15 below here:

The Washtenaw County Community Mental Health [WCCMH] and Sheriff [WCSO] millage renewal will have a first reading tonight Wednesday May 15, 2024 at the regular meeting of the Washtenaw County Board Of Commissioners [BOC] Meeting taking place at 7pm at 220 N. Main in Downtown Ann Arbor. This 8-year millage was originally passed in 2017, took effect in 2018 and at this time will be funded through December of 2026.

Commissioners led in large part by Andy LaBarre [East Ann Arbor district representative] have been fast-tracking this measure to put a renewal of the millage on the November 2024 ballot. LaBarre has claimed this is because it is more desirable to have the millage voted on with the larger voter turnout during a presidential election year.

The millage and its potential renewal are not without controversy. Since this millage renewal was first announced back at the beginning of this year, many residents have spoken at BOC meetings raising concerns about how the current millage dollars are being spent.

The WCSO use of its portion of the millage has been the focus of a large number of those speaking out against this millage renewal as currently written. Many folks would like to see a separate mental health millage put on the ballot.

Here is a link to an article from Mlive reporter Lucas Smolcic Larson from April 2024 which documents some of these resident comments.

From the article linked-to above:

In addition, some residents also advocate that the criminal justice diversion and violence interruption programs [e.g. WeLive and LEADD] currently administered in the WCSO should be managed by county agencies and community nonprofits that do not report, are not supervised in any way by the WCSO and its leadership.

One of the slides from a recent presentation by Sheriff Clayton shows that some of the millage dollars are being used for patrol rifles and boats. While the millage language states that funds will be used in part for “law enforcement services,” the lead language focuses on the improvement of the “treatment of people with mental health needs; providing increased financial support for mental health crisis, stabilization and prevention.”

How does the purchase and use of the equipment listed below make us more safe, especially for people living with mental illness?

One need not look further than the killing of Aura Rosser by Ann Arbor Police Officer David Ried in 2014 to know that gun-wielding police officers [and by extension, sheriff’s deputies] do not improve the safety of people living with mental illness.

You can view the entire slide show here.

Should we continue to tie funding for mental health with funding for police?

The title of the millage, which includes the word “preservation,” implies that the WCSO will not be able to continue to provide “law enforcement services” without these funds.

This framing is questionable as ~49% of the county general fund [GF] budget [FY2024 $68,216,076] goes to the WCSO. If we include the amount going to county courts, the share of GF rises to 63.5%.  [UPDATE: others have cited this percentage as 53%. Confirmed I was correct, it is ~49%]

From page 10 of the adopted and projected budgets

We cannot separate the mental health millage dollars from WCSO dollars and still call the measure a millage renewal. If separated and the BOC moved to continue funding both WCCMH and the WCSO through millages, these would have to be new millages.

Without presenting any evidence, members of the BOC have claimed that the WCCMH funding cannot be separated from the WCSO funding because then voters would be voting on a new millage, and new millages have a greater likelihood of failing.

We only have limited information about the use of these millage dollars because the WCSO does not publish its budget to the county website. We have the total expenditures, highlights from a slide presentation, glossy marketing materials and billboards along I-94. However, there are no line item revenues/ expenditures published anywhere on the county website. I’ve written about this in the past few months and have a FOIA request being processed now to obtain the entirety of the WCSO budget.

As it stands right now, the county will not likely provide me with the WCSO budget documents until June 7, 2024… Two days after a possible second reading of the millage renewal.

The BOC will be voting to put this millage renewal on the ballot in November without having access to the entirety of the WCSO budget.

How can anyone make an informed decision to put this millage renewal forward without access to the line item expenditures and revenues of the WCSO?

The WCSO is the county agency with by far the largest amount of funding from taxpayer dollars, via the general fund and the millage.

Tonight, in addition to a first reading of the proposal to put the above ballot measure up for a vote in November 2024, the BOC will also consider a revised millage ordinance. This ordinance originally provided for an advisory committee to WCCMH that makes recommendations on the use of the WCCMH portion of millage dollars.

Commissioners LaBarre and Somerville have added language that would create an advisory committee for the WCSO portion of the millage. The reason they have done this is due to the significant amount of residents showing up at their meetings for public comment, sending emails and submitting statements on the county website where you can enter your comments to be included in the public record.

Click the link here for the May 15, 2024 agenda packet [takes some time to load up]. You can scroll to pages 23-29 to find the ordinance language. The new section re: the WCSO advisory committee, its role and membership make-up begins on page 27. The ordinance language calls for the sheriff to have a seat on the advisory committee.

Let me repeat that… The ordinance language calls for the sheriff to have a seat on the sheriff department millage advisory committee.

Huh?

In addition to that curious arrangement, this committee as designated in the millage ordinance, will do little to allow for community to influence on the use of these millage dollars.

The BOC has the fiduciary duty of providing oversight and approval of millage and general fund dollars. However, rarely if ever have they compelled the WCSO to provide justification for or documentation of its use of taxpayer dollars. Why is the WCSO, by default, exempt from BOC oversight of its budget?

We still have alternatives to renewing this millage as it is currently written:

1. Propose a separate millage exclusively for mental health resources and services, none of which will be overseen by the sheriff.
2. Postpone the millage renewal to 2025 or even 2026 so that we can have a more robust discussion of how to proceed in terms of funding mental health resources/ services
3. Propose a renewal of the millage for 2 years instead of 8 years, so that we can have that time to engage with each other about what mental health services funding can look like, how we can re-envision what we mean by “public safety.”

What Do You Think?

Addendum

Current millage language:

“Washtenaw County Community Mental Health and Public Safety Preservation Millage

“Shall the limitation on the amount of taxes which may be imposed on taxable property in the County of Washtenaw, Michigan, be increased by 1.000 mill ($1.00 per thousand dollars of taxable value) of the taxable value for a period of eight (8) years, 2026 to 2033, inclusive, as a renewal of that portion of the 1.000 mill authorization previously authorized by the electors in 2017 as reduced by the operation of the Headlee amendment, which was 0.9693 mill in 2023, plus new additional millage representing a restoration of the amount equal to the amount reduced by operation of the Headlee amendment, which was 0.0307 mill in 2023, to provide funds to the Washtenaw County Community Mental Health Department, Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office, local governments which have their own police force for the purposes of improving the treatment of people with mental health needs; providing increased financial support for mental health crisis, stabilization and prevention; and for continued law enforcement services to be distributed as follows: 38% shall be allocated to Washtenaw County's Community Mental Health Department; 38% shall be allocated to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office; and 24% shall be allocated to jurisdictions in the County which maintain their own police force (currently Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Milan, Saline, Ypsilanti, Pittsfield Township and Northfield Township) in proportion to their respective 2023 population values. If approved and levied in full, this millage will raise an estimated $22,409,411 when first levied in 2026.”