Money for more cops in dispute in Seat 3 race

Neither City Commissioner Nancy Miller nor her Seat 3 opponent, Steve Stewart, has been entirely correct when debating police funding.

Miller has said on at least two occasions during this year's campaign that Community Redevelopment Agency funds can't be spent on police officers, something Stewart has proposed.

Florida statutes, however, allow CRA money to be used for community-policing efforts, including foot and motor patrols and field interrogation. A number of cities in Florida have CRA officers, and others are exploring it.

Stewart, meanwhile, has said the city should have used CRA funds and left-over money from the Blueprint 2000 sales tax and the 1989 sales tax that preceded it to pay for six new police officers last year, something Miller and fellow city commissioners opted not to do.

However, statutes on local infrastructure sales taxes don't specifically authorize such use of sales-tax dollars, which were approved by voters in referendums.

CRAs, used to improve blighted areas, take revenue from rising property values within a designated district and funnel them into CRA projects, which can include parks, buildings and incentives. Tallahassee has two redevelopment areas, in Frenchtown and downtown.

Tim Chapin, associate dean for development at Florida State University's College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, said CRA financing can be used to pay for police officers, though they would have to be deployed in the redevelopment area and not used for general policing elsewhere.

But, he said, it would "at the very best difficult" to use local-option sales taxes, like Blueprint, to pay for police officers. He said statutes make it clear such tax proceeds are for typical infrastructure projects like roads, parks and land purchases.

"Police personnel do not appear to be an appropriate use of these funds, and I know of no place that uses them in this way," he said in an email.

Public safety arose as one of the big issues this campaign season after a series of officer-involved shootings by the Tallahassee Police Department touched off a broader discussion about gun violence. The city was named one of the country's most dangerous in a 2011 Forbes article, ranked second in the state in 2012 for crime involving firearms and averaged five shootings per week last year.

Miller, running for a second term, and Stewart, in his third bid for the City Commission, have sparred over police funding in community forums, an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat's editorial board and on public radio.

Stewart has repeatedly said that city commissioners last year opted to spend $2.1 million on a brewpub at the old Electric Building in Cascades Park rather than on the new police officers, which had been requested by TPD. City budget documents said at the time that adding the new officers would help reduce response times that were already longer than department goals.

During a July 30 broadcast of "Perspectives" on WFSU, Stewart said, "You had a public hearing to free up the $1.3 million and you decided to fund a brewpub. And then two hours later, you voted against six police officers. Now that's the facts."

"No, those are not the facts," Miller replied. "I'm sorry to say it — it's just not the facts. The money that was freed up to do the renovation of the building was construction money that was left over from previous construction projects. It cannot be moved to operations. You just have to accept that."

"No I don't," Stewart said, "because I read the resolution, and the resolution said you have to have a public hearing to free that money up and ... the resolution says as long as it's for a public benefit."

On July 10, 2013, city commissioners voted unanimously to put $1.3 million toward renovation of the Electric Building. Later during the meeting, commissioners signed off on the city's proposed property-tax rates; the agenda item stated that "all increased service level requests are eliminated."

Commissioners gave final approval Sept. 25 to the 2014 budget, which didn't include new officers. They later held a public hearing, on Oct. 23, to approve a resolution transferring the $1.3 million to the Electric Building. The resolution states that the commission "finds that the requested transfer of funds will provide a benefit to the public and approves the transfer of the funds."

Miller has said city commissioners would have had to raise taxes last year to hire the new officers. Stewart pointed out during the radio program that commissioners are hiring new officers this year without raising taxes.

STATUTES SPELL OUT DETAILS

State statutes say infrastructure sales taxes such as Blueprint 2000 can be spent "to finance, plan and construct infrastructure," including public facilities with a life expectancy of five or more years.

The statutes specifically allow sales-tax proceeds to be used under some circumstances for operating costs of parks built with sales-tax money, but they don't authorize other operating costs like police-officer salaries. The statutes do allow sales-tax proceeds to be spent on police, fire and other emergency vehicles.

Miller, during the "Perspectives" show, said it would be "illegal" for the city to tap certain funding sources to pay for officers.

"Let's talk about how you pay for officers, because you can't use that money — that is illegal — you can't use that money that was spent to renovate that building," Miller said. "That's construction, capital costs or CRA money. That cannot be used for operations, which are police."

During a meeting Aug. 6 with the Democrat's editorial board, Stewart complained that downtown CRA money was going to "wealthy developers" and that Miller had incorrectly said that using the CRA to pay for officers was illegal.

"The CRA dollars could have been spent on police officers," Stewart said.

Miller responded by saying, "Groan. CRA dollars cannot be spent on a police officer."

Stewart read from statutes, which state that funds can be appropriated to CRAs "for the administrative expenses and overhead of the agency, including the development and implementation of community policing innovations."

Statutes say community policing innovations include "community mobilization, neighborhood block watch, citizen patrol, citizen contact patrol, foot patrol, neighborhood storefront police stations, field interrogation or intensified motorized patrol."

Miller later said during the same interview that she'd had a recent conversation with the city's legal team and acknowledged, "Yes, you could hire, with CRA money, you could hire police officers." She added they would have to operate within the CRA area, that they would be "separate and apart" from the rest of the force and that there were questions about how their salaries and benefits would be managed.

Deputy City Attorney Linda Hudson said it's clear that the sales-tax money was intended for capital improvements and can't be used for police officer salaries. She also said statutes allow for CRA funding of officers if it has been included in the redevelopment plan.

"But the city's redevelopment plan did not do that, and it would have to be amended to address community policing," Hudson said. "So at this point in time, CRA funds could not be used for community policing in the CRA district."

In Palmetto, south of Tampa, the CRA has been funding police officers for the past decade, said Scott Tyler, deputy chief of the Palmetto Police Department. The CRA allocation, which next year will total $556,000, pays the salary and benefits of seven full-time and two part-time officers, all of whom patrol the CRA district but answer no calls.

Tyler said the vast majority of the city's most serious crime occurs in the north-central portion of the CRA area and that from 2010 to 2013, such crimes have dropped 23 percent.

"We are on track to see another crime reduction this year," he said in an email. "We have also seen an increase in community satisfaction with our department during the tenure of our current plan."