Anyone in Lucas County who has seen the jail in recent years should not need much convincing that it must be replaced. So how could the Lucas County Commissioners bungle a levy request to pay for a new jail? By overplaying their hand and trying to grab a little extra tax revenue, that’s how.
The commissioners want to take advantage of a new state law that allows the county to collect operating and capital money with one property tax levy. This means that after the bonds are paid off on the proposed new $145 million jail, only 1.08 mills will drop off taxpayers’ bills. They will continue paying 0.82 mills indefinitely to fund the operation of the jail.
And that is the problem with the commissioners’ plan. There has been community consensus for several years that Lucas County needs a new jail. The current 1970s-era jail is too small and antiquated. Even if it had been designed to accommodate modern approaches to corrections, which it is not, the jail has deteriorated. Sewage sludge routinely floods the basement; loose floor tiles that can be broken and used as deadly weapons are a constant threat.
Asking voters to approve a construction levy to replace it would be reasonable and possibly even an easy sell.
But lumping on an operating levy that is continuous — meaning the county will not need to ask voters to renew it every few years — is asking for too much.
Proponents of the levy will no doubt pitch it by saying a yes vote on the levy is a yes vote for the new, modern jail Lucas County needs. But it is also a yes vote for a new revenue stream that the county could spend on almost anything.
The commissioners say that using the new property tax to pay for jail operations will free up sales tax revenue that they can then use to fund EMS operations. They want to increase that funding from about $9 million a year to about $10.5 million a year.
EMS operations around the county definitely need more funding. The same issues that are stressing jail operations are stressing EMS operations in Toledo and the suburbs alike. In Springfield Township alone, fire department authorities say the number of opiate-related calls they’ve taken has doubled each year for three straight years.
But asking voters for a separate, additional tax dedicated to EMS would be a more honest way to get the revenue those agencies need and to be sure that money always funded those operations. The current plan to use new jail-operating levy revenue to free up other revenue for EMS is not guaranteed.
The commissioners are asking voters to trust them that EMS will get more funding if they approve the jail levy. And considering how often public officials find new, urgent needs for funding, that is too much to ask.
There is no question Lucas County needs a new jail. A jail that is modern. A jail that is large enough to accommodate all of the county’s pretrial detention and sentenced prisoners. A jail designed with contemporary models for assessing and redirecting prisoners who may need substance-abuse or mental-health treatment rather than time behind bars.
A traditional bond issuance or a capital levy would be the best way to pay for the jail.
Taxpayers do indeed deserve a modern, efficient jail facility. What they do not need is an indefinite tax that piggybacks other expenses on top of the burden of paying for that new jail.