Harold Mast's Comments About County And City Jail Per Diem Issue

During the past several months arguments have heated up about the agreement between the county and five cities for paying the costs of city ordinance violators in the county jail. In an attempt to figure out my stance on this issue, I've had conversations with former mayors Hardiman and DeRuiter of Kentwood, current Kentwood Mayor Root and one commissioner, current Gaines township supervisor Don Hilton, several councilpersons and mayor of Wyoming, county prosecutor Bill Forsyth, and County Board chair Morgan. I've checked out the validity of the mayor's arguments that the present agreement represents double dipping and is unfair to the cities. I found:

1. The Agreement is specifically written so that it is not double taxation:

a. It is voluntary (paragraph #1)

b. It is only for city ordinance violators-not state law violations. (para #2)

i. That is only 7% of the total jail beds available on any given day.

ii. For Kentwood that represents only 2,185 days of the total 29,000 days of Kentwood citizens in the jail, or about 7.5% at any one time. The other 92.5% is not assessed

iii. For Wyoming that represents 8,412 days of the 52,000 days or about 16%. The other 84% is not asseessed to Wyoming.

c. The final charge is calculated after giving a credit for the portion of the jail millage collected

2. The Agreement is fair since it levels the playing field between the taxes paid by township citizens and city citizens. Cities receive revenue from the city ordinance violators and townships do not receive revenue for their citizens charged with state law. To not charge the per diem would give an unfair advantage to cities versus the townships. We would be using a portion of the tax paid by township residents to subsidize the city ordinance violators.

But, regardless of the fact the per diem is "fair", perhaps it is time to re-look at the whole method of our community collectively using limited tax dollars--both county and city--to provide for the public safety and security of our citizens. We need to come up with something better and need to work together to get there. After all we all are dealing with public tax dollars and we need to stop fighting over our use of those limited funds entrusted to us by the public.

With that background, I am prepared to go on record that the present per diem agreement needs to be modified-and perhaps removed-at the end of the present jail millage in 2009. But that decision is based on several provisos:

1.That we establish and agree on some objective analysis of the relative financial strength and sustainability of city and county finances. Let's have an objective 3rd party tell us what is a realistic level of fund balance that is needed and what represents a fair allocation of costs and use of tax dollars. We need to be more transparent-and less selfish-about our individual use of public tax dollars.
Townships need to be at the table during this analysis.
We work together to spend the recently renewed jail millage on a new detention facility, plus operate the facility efficiently and effectively.
We work together for reestablishment of full revenue sharing by the state to all townships, cities, and counties of the state. We need to do a better job of educating our voting public of what our representatives and senators are doing with our rightful portion of sales tax dollars, and to be aware of that when voting for state legislators. We shouldn';t let our state legislators use our rightfull portion of the sales tax revenue to balance the state budget by shortchanging the local governments.
While this may be more noble than our fractured relationships would allow, former Kentwood Mayor DeRuiter reminded me of the successes we collectively have accomplished in the past 20 years-putting together a first class county library system, a first class public transportation system, a metro planning council, a successful cpunty-wide senior millage, a more unified emergency dispatch system, and others. Let's not let the current fight about the jail per diem agreement prevent us from doing something similar with our community justice and jail system.