A potential sales tax measure intended to fund the Clark County Sheriff’s Office’s upcoming body camera program is headed for county voters in November, though some county councilors have issues with the method the majority is going about in potentially collecting the revenue.
During an Aug. 2 meeting, Clark County Council voted 3-2 to put a .1 percent sales tax to fund Clark County detention facilities and jails on the general election ballot. Supporters from council say the funds will help free up revenues going to those facilities in order to support an upcoming body-worn and dashboard-mounted camera program for the sheriff’s office, which council approved earlier this year.
If approved by voters, the sales tax is estimated to raise about $6 million per year, and would run from April 1, 2022 to March 31 2032, according to council documents. The resolution was one of two under consideration by council at the meeting, though the other option — a public safety sales tax — was not brought up for discussion.
Councilor Gary Medvigy said going with a sales tax for juvenile detention facilities and jails makes more sense than public safety as a whole because the county would not share the revenue with municipalities in its jurisdiction.
“We don’t know what their needs are, we have no estimates. … It would be just a simple windfall of millions of dollars to the cities without any stated need,” Medvigy said. “And there’s no question they will spend it.”
Medvigy pushed back on the notion the tax would be a “slush fund” for the county, naming some projects outside of the body camera program it could fund, such as remodeling the county jail and finding a new location for the county Children’s Justice Center which is up on its lease.
“There are a myriad of costs that if we did have some additional money leftover beyond supporting dash cams and body cams, we will have good places to spend it in law and justice that are spelled out by this resolution,” Medvigy said. “I fully support getting body cams and dash cams funded as soon as we can. This is one mechanism that I think the public will support to enable that to occur.”
Councilor Julie Olson felt the ballot measure may not be approved by voters given its direct intent of funding juvenile detention and jails, saying it would be hard for voters to understand how the measure supports the dash cam program.
“When we’re asking (voters) to impose a tax on themselves, it’s not too much for them to ask that it’s very clear about where the taxes go, and we spend it on where we say we’re going to spend it on,” Olson said.
With a lack of an explicit statement, she worried voters would overlook the intent of the ballot measure come November.
“I would think for me, if our priority is funding body cameras, and not miscellaneous other general fund needs as they come up, that we do that as straightforward as we can, and give ourselves the best chance we can at getting this passed,” Olson said, referencing the public safety sales tax route.
Olson said she would be fine with municipalities in the county getting a share of the revenues from a .1 percent public safety sales tax, though Medvigy and county council chair Eileen Quiring O’Brien felt otherwise.
“We need the funds. We need it for our sheriff’s office and for all of our deputies to be able to use it,” Quiring O’Brien said.
Councilor Temple Lentz expressed similar misgivings over the chosen route to propose the tax as Olson did, saying the apparently roundabout way the county would fund the body camera program was “terribly poor form.”
“You’re going to the voters and asking them to have faith that this council will spend (the revenues) well, and I don’t have that faith,” Lentz said, adding that many voters may not understand the ballot measure since it looks like it will solely fund the juvenile jail.
“It makes me think that this council does not want to fund body cameras and intends for this ballot measure to lose,” Lentz said.
Lentz said the tax would raise two to three times more than what the body camera program would cost.
“Quite the opposite is the intent,” Councilor Karen Bowerman said, explaining the apparent excess funds would pay for the program in the longer term.
She said after the tax ends in 2032 the fund balance would carry through the year 2050 to pay for the program, based on estimates.
“It’s having a plan so that body cams can be funded over the longer term without a constant tax placed on the people to make it happen,” Bowerman said.
Olson noted the future composition of the council might look at the revenues a bit differently.
“The intent might be to carry this out through an extended period of time, but there’s no guarantee,” Olson replied.
