Levy would help stabilize police force

The Valleyview police chief says villagers get a bang for their tax bucks when paying for police services.

His entire department operates on only $60,000 in annualrevenue — what a larger department might pay for a single officer’s salary and benefits, said Chief Gregory Wilson, a 12-year department employee.

But that frugality has come with sacrifices.

For years, the department has relied on help from the western Franklin County

village’s $400,000 general fund to get by, as well as using a handful of unpaid reserve officers. Cruisers are bought used and officers buy their own gear, even though the department’s three paid patrol officers make just $9 an hour.

All officers, including Wilson, have part-time jobs to make ends meet.

The department isn’t a 24-hour operation, so other law-enforcement agencies respond to calls when a Valleyview officer isn’t on duty.

If a permanent 12-mill police tax levy on the Nov. 7 ballot is approved by voters, it would bolster the police department’s budget by $92,000 a year to ensure its long-term stability. That would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $420 in taxes each year — about double the $212 that homeowners pay annually for police operations now, according to the Franklin County auditor’s office.

The Valleyview Village Council has approved a resolution to immediately eliminate an unpopular 1 percent income tax — money that goes into the general fund.

“This isn’t for a fleet of cruisers or fat new paychecks,” Wilson said. “It’s to ensure the general fund can be used for what it’s intended to do.

“There will come a time when the village can’t support us anymore,” he added, “at least not at the level it does right now.”

Though voters rejected two similar police levies in 2015, Valleyview’s 620 or so residents historically have indicated that they want their own police department instead of purchasing the services from the Franklin County sheriff’s office or nearby Franklin Township’s police department, Wilson said.

Intimate, small-town policing makes people feel secure, he said.

“You know the name of every resident, plus the dog they’re walking,” Wilson said.

A former village council disbanded the police department in 2003, but public outcry led to a new administration that reinstated it the next year.

The department pays the sheriff’s office $9.25 a call for dispatching services. Valleyview police officers respond to about 20 dispatched calls a month, though they also log about 70 self-initiated stops a month while on patrol, Wilson said.

Wilson makes about $15 an hour; his sergeant makes about $10 an hour.

Though it’s unlikely the police department will ever bring in enough revenue to hire full-time officers, a bigger budget would allow for more patrols, training and major equipment and technology purchases, Wilson said.

It also would offset more than $33,000 in state funding cuts since 2011, he said.

From the porch of their Murray Avenue home, Michael and Linda Blevins had plenty to say on Wednesday evening — with and without words — about the proposed tax increase. Michael, 70, put his hands around his neck.

“We’re feeling choked,” he said. “Everyone is taxed to death.”

The retired couple, on a fixed income, can’t afford to pay more taxes, they said. Linda, 72, said she’d support exploring other alternatives, such as hiring an outside law-enforcement agency or annexing the village of Valleyview, where they’ve lived for 48 years, into the city of Columbus.

Valleyview Mayor Marzia Helton did not return phone messages or emails seeking comment.