Pittsfield Voters To Decide On Public Safety Proposal

Faced with falling property tax revenues and an overburdened general fund, Pittsfield Township officials say passage of Tuesday’s 10-year, 1.95-mill tax will prevent layoffs of firefighters and police officers and maintain public safety service.

Pittsfield Township residents currently pay 1 mill for public safety. The owner of a $200,000 home would see their annual public safety tax payment jump from $100 to $195.

Township leaders say that the debt burden caused by land purchases, declining state revenue sharing payments, a fall in interest revenues and plummeting property tax revenues have put a strain on the general fund, which pays for 60 percent of the public safety department wages and benefits.

When the 1-mill public safety millage was passed by voters in 2002 to supplement police and fire expenses being paid for out of the general fund, it paid the salary of six employees.

Today, the public safety millage pays for the salaries and benefits of 15 firefighters, 15 police officers, three dispatchers and a community coordinator. In all, there are 72 employees in the public safety department in the township of 35,824 people.

“What we’re trying to do here is maintain our level of personnel and the level of public safety service that township residents are accustomed to and deserve,” said Supervisor Mandy Grewal. “That is our starting point. Passage of this millage will allow us to guarantee that level of services and that the people employed in our department of public safety will continue to have a job.”

Pittsfield Township voters have supported a public safety millage since 1987. The current levy was passed in 2002 and expires at the end of this year. According to officials, nearly 60 percent of the cost for public safety services is drawn from the general fund with the remainder funded by the public safety millage.
Grewal said the township has not determined what types of cuts would need to be made if voters reject the increased millage.

“The existing millage doesn’t expire until December of this year so we have a sufficient amount of time to figure out plan B. That is one of the reasons why we are putting this in front of voters at this time. If the measure fails we want to have enough time to cut back on the scenario we’ve presented and engage the community on what kinds of cuts would be required,” Grewal said. “We don’t want to go there if we don’t have to. We hope not to go there. But that is a decision the residents will have to make.”

To keep costs down, the township and most of its public safety union workers settled on contracts calling for zero percent wage increases over the next five years, although there are provisions that would allow the union to reopen the contract.

Public Safety Director Matthew Harshberger said the contracts showed the public safety employees’ willingness to partner with the township to keep costs down, save jobs and maintain service. Harshberger noted that Pittsfield taxpayers receive good value for their tax dollars. At several public forums, he noted that the average cost  for salary and benefits for a public safety employee was lower in Pittsfield Township ($110,291) than it was in Northfield ($126,341), Superior ($147,106) or Ypsilanti ($155,370) townships.

Harshberger said Pittsfield’s costs are lower because they have fewer public safety retirees collecting benefits.

At the same time, the crime rate and public safety millage are substantially lower in Pittsfield than they are in those same townships.

“We’ve seen an 18 percent drop in crime over two years,” Harshberger said. “We also have one of the best response times in the county, averaging less than 6 minutes to respond to a priority call.”

Although, closer inspection of Pittsfield Township’s own numbers show that some violent crimes, like assault (up 22 percent in two years) and forcible sexual offenses (up 81 percent in two years) are up substantially, property crimes, like larceny (down 2.7 percent) and home invasion (down 21 percent), are down, and that the overall 18 percent drop in the crime rate can largely be attributed to a significant decline in the number of non-criminal complaints being handled.

Pittsfield residents can vote at the following locations:

• Pittsfield Township Administration Building, 6201 W. Michigan Ave.

• Carpenter School, 4250 Central Blvd.

• Chinmaya Mission, 4760 Packard Rd.

• Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County, 4925 Packard Rd.

• Episcopal Church of the Incarnation,  3257 Lohr Rd. 

• Roberto Clemente Center, 4377 Textile Rd.

• Pittsfield Township Community Center, 701 W. Ellsworth Rd.

• Washtenaw Christian Academy, 7200 Moon Rd.

• Unity Church, 4599 Carpenter Rd.