As budget crunches from the top begin to trickle down into county and local governments, everyone is beginning to feel the pinch – even Addison Township officials who just approved a five-year contract for law enforcement with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department at their Oct. 3 meeting.
The township board of trustees approved the agreement, which would increase the cost of police protection over 26 percent for the life of the contract, with the condition that written documentation be presented showing that township officials attempted to change a debated clause.
“The increase is significant enough that the township will be watching the balance closely,” said Twp. Supervisor Bob Koski. “We won’t be hiring any new officers anytime soon.”
The township currently has one detective sergeant and six patrol deputies. The six patrol deputies are “Fill-in” positions, meaning that if the officer is unable to be on duty, whether for illness or personal reasons, another deputy will be provided by the sheriff’s department at no additional cost to the township.
With the previous contract for 2003, Addison was paying a total of $715,908 for salaries, benefits, overtime and operational costs – $101,244 for the sergeant and $614,664 for the deputies. For 2004, the township will be paying $110,050 for the sergeant (an 8.7 percent increase) and $114,488 per deputy (an 11.76 percent increase) – a total of $796,978. In 2008, Addison Township will be paying out around $922,630 total, $127,084 for the sergeant and $132,591 per deputy.
“We don’t want to go to a ‘No Fill-in’ deputy, but we will if the cost forces us to,” Koski stated. “We do have some maneuverability in that area.”
Dale Cunningham, Chief Financial Officer with the Oakland County Sheriff Department, said that the high increase was caused by the rise in the individual cost of healthcare, as well as a new federal mandate requiring that the funding for all retired officer’s healthcare be prefunded.
“We provide full health benefits to our retired officers for life,” explained Cunningham, “and because of the federal mandate we are required to estimate how much this will be and have those funds set aside. This amount alone went from seven to 14 percent.”
The county will be creating these “prefunded” accounts for each officer, and planning for the future, with these increases.
Cunningham emphasized that the Sheriff’s Department’s duties as “ordinance officer” for the township did not cause the cost increase. He explained that those duties are covered in the contract by the general explanation of what deputies are allowed to do, and that those duties would be performed within the regularly contracted 40 hours and not as overtime pay or as a special service.
“There are some ordinances that the officers can not enforce,” said Cunningham. “I don’t deal with that directly, but I do know that a deputy can not go out and enforce a building ordinance or code. The ordinances must be law enforcement or criminal related.”
As a part of their motion, the township board members put a condition on the contract’s approval because of paragraph 9 which states:
“Should the municipality fail, for any reason, to timely pay the county the amounts required under this agreement, the municipality agrees that upon notice from the Oakland County Treasurer to the Treasurer of the State of Michigan (or any other State of Michigan official authorized to disburse funds to the municipality), the State of Michigan is authorized to withhold any funds due the municipality from the state and assign those funds to partially or completely offset any deficiency by the municipality to the county.”
This means that the county can take monies not yet received by a township, such as revenue sharing, to cover the amount owed if payment is not received within the 30 days given after invoice date. Township officials said they understood the clause, but were concerned because of the vagueness of the phrase “timely pay.”
“I’m not comfortable with number nine. What is ‘timely payment?’” asked Twp. Clerk Pauline Bennett. “What if there are disputes that take longer than the 30-day allotment?”
Bennett continued to express concern because no provisions are provided in the clause for delayed mail, overtime pay disputes or other possible situations that could cause valid delays.
“When are they going to trigger this, on the 31st day or the on the 60th day?” she questioned.
Township attorney Bob Davis was also highly critical of this section. He compared the paragraph to someone “threatening to tell Mommy” when the township is bad.
“I find it to be very offensive,” he told board members. “I find it penalizing, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do with it at this point.”
Cunningham said that the Sheriff’s Department “left that paragraph vague on purpose,” so that if a municipality is not going to pay, whether due to an unforeseen problem or emergency, officials can contact the department and work through a plan.
“The real reason for that is so we can get the money,” added Cunningham. “We have had contractors in the past not pay, and we did have a municipality actually take up to a year just to begin payment.”
Davis recommended Addison officials contact County Commissioner Bill Patterson on this issue, as well as any other available county representatives, and request them to speak with the service provider about clarifying this section or specializing it per township.