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A city founder brought attention to an old – and controversial – subject at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
Stan McNutt, interim deputy city manager during the months directly after Spokane Valley voted to incorporate, facilitated a discussion what council members would and would not want to see covered in a possible law-enforcement service study.
While the council -- in a 4-3 vote and after contentious public outcry -- shot down an initial proposal for a $126,500 study to be conducted by ICMA Consulting. The majority of the council, however, favored looking at the matter again Tuesday, but only after going through a checklist of items to be covered in the study. The city’s police chief and Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich were also on hand to give their advice.
The city has contracted with the sheriff’s office since it incorporated in 2003 at the cost of about $15 million per year – nearly half of the city’s entire spending budget. Supporters of the assessment, including Mayor Richard Munson, say it only makes sense for an independent auditor to make sure the city’s getting the most for what it’s paying.
McNutt said that even when the interim administration team – made up of mostly retired former city managers and high-level employees – drew up the contract, it never intended for the services to never be reviewed in any way.
“There was never any assumption that you would go like that forever,” McNutt said. “Cities always have their own policies regarding their law enforcement.”
McNutt said it might be possible for a study to be conducted under provisions set up by Initiative 900, which calls for state performance audits of local governments. A more detailed study, however, could be provided by an outside agency.
The topic attracted a bigger-than-usual turnout at the council meeting, but the study-session format did not allow for public comment. Still, there was some mild affirmation and rumblings from the crowd when Council Member Rose Dempsey– the biggest critics of the study since it was first proposed last June – wondered aloud, “How much do we plan to spend?”
Council Member Steve Taylor, who supports an audit of the police contract, said $130,000 is a “drop in the bucket” compared to what the city has already spent on law enforcement. He went one step further and said the study should include a detailed report on the costs, benefits and pitfalls of the city starting its own police force.
“If you have some alternatives, you go into negotiations (for a future law-enforcement contract) with a stronger position,” he said. “We’re still operating under a contract that was hastily put together.”
Munson said he doubted that any information gleaned from the study would push the city down the road of forming its own police department.
“I would be surprised if we took that option,” he said. “I would be shocked, in fact.”
Munson added that any results from the audit would have to be looked at on their own terms and that the answer wouldn’t automatically be starting a police force from scratch.
“It doesn’t say, ‘Yay, we get to start our own police department,’” the mayor said.
The council agreed that any future study should identify baseline service levels as potential benchmarks for establishing performance measures in the future. It should also help identify potential area “hot spots” for criminal activity in order to deploy officers.
Knezovich said a lot of what the city is asking for is already being evaluated within the department. He added that it any talks on future contracts would be better framed within the context of what’s best for the city residents.
“If this study is designed not so you can come into negotiations from a position of strength but because this is what you want for the community, we will find common ground,” he said.
In the end, the council agreed for the city manager to draw up a proposal for a study and its possible costs to be reviewed at a future meeting. The council, however, stopped short of including a benefit analysis of starting its own police force. Instead, the study would look only at the positive and negative ramifications of renewing the contract with the sheriff.
“By doing that analysis, we are de facto looking at alternatives,” said Deputy Mayor Dick Denenny.
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By
Mike Huffman
