Voters should approve tax for jail operations

You remember the fighting words: Hard time for armed crime. Three strikes, you’re out. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.

It worked. We’ve gotten tougher on crime. For proof, just look at the Snohomish County Jail in downtown Everett, which is overflowing with inmates to the point that a federal court could soon have stepped in and had a slew of them released.

The county wisely headed that off, approving a new $86.5 million addition that will more than double the jail’s capacity. Construction should start in the next few weeks, with inmates filling beds by early 2005. And thanks to a mix of careful budgeting and the booming economy of the late ’90s, the county pulled this off without raising your taxes.

To good to be true? Well, almost. Improving public safety by getting tough on criminals doesn’t come free of charge. The new jail addition, which will bring capacity to 1,040 inmates, will cost up to $15 million a year to operate. Voters are being asked to cover $9 million of that with an increase of 0.1 percent in the sales tax. The measure, Snohomish County Proposition No. 1, will appear on the Sept. 17 election ballot.

Just what voters are being asked to fund is worth clarifying: The jail addition will be built, no matter what. The question being put to voters is whether the money to operate it should come from cuts in existing services (probably other public-safety services like deputies, prosecutors and courts) or from new tax revenue.

We think the county has made a compelling case for the tax hike, and that voters should say yes.

The tax hike translates into an extra 10 cents on a $100 purchase, or $20 on a $20,000 car. County officials estimate that it will cost the average Snohomish County resident $13 a year.

The Legislature, foreseeing the challenges counties would face as tougher sentences were mandated, has allowed counties since the mid-’90s to ask voters for such a tax hike to fund jail operations. Island, Kitsap and Pierce counties already have done so.

Voters rightly expect their tax dollars to be spent prudently and efficiently. There’s plenty of evidence that in the case of the new jail, they will be. The tax increase will still leave about $6 million in annual operations to be funded by other sources, such as the fees paid by cities to house inmates. With room for more inmates, the county will collect more in fees.

Planners have built impressive efficiencies into the jail expansion. A second video courtroom will be added, with an adjacent holding cell that will allow guards to bring inmates to arraignments in groups rather than one at a time. Jailhouse visits also will take place via video, improving security and saving space and construction costs. A tunnel connecting the jail and courthouse will improve security, too, eliminating the need to load inmates in and out of a van.

Economies of scale also will come into play, with infrastructure costs spread more efficiently in a larger jail.

Important plans are in place to deal with the problem of repeat offenders, who make up too-big a portion of the county’s inmate population. Operations money will bolster drug treatment and mental health programs that have gone lacking in recent years, as well as work and life-skills programs geared to helping offenders get their lives on the right track.

This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s supported by leaders of both major parties. It was proposed by the Democratic county executive, and unanimously approved by the Republican-controlled county council. There is broad agreement that the county budget already is so tight that further cuts would have to come from essential services. Cuts in public safety, which makes up nearly 70 percent of the budget, could mean fewer deputies on the street and fewer prosecutors in the courtroom, undermining the very benefits of the expanded jail.

We’ve all asked for greater protection from crime. It’s worth paying for.

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