Approval would fund safety needs

Flathead County is asking voters to approve a three-mill levy Tuesday for the Juvenile Detention Center, but what it really wants is more money for public safety and the court system.

The Juvenile Detention Center currently is funded by the county's general property-tax mill levy. It received $486,000 in property-tax revenue this year, or the equivalent of 2.9 mills.

Whether Tuesday's levy request is approved or not, the center won't get more money. Its budget will stay about the same.

However, the levy would provide an alternative revenue source specifically for the detention center, thereby freeing up the 2.9 mills from the general levy and allowing that money to be spent on other needs.

Nothing in the wording of the levy request commits the county to spending the 2.9 mills in any particular area.

However, Flathead County Administrator Mike Pence said he would feel obliged to use the money for public safety and court-system needs - specifically, to hire additional staff for the Sheriff's Office and possibly for the Clerk of District Court, County Attorney and Justice of the Peace offices.

"We would basically earmark the money for those purposes," Pence said. "The way the levy request is written doesn't guarantee that, but I would feel committed to spending it in those areas."

Rather than take this roundabout approach, the county presumably could have asked voters directly for three more mills to spend on public safety/court system needs.

It apparently didn't do so was because of some last-minute confusion in March.

At the time, Pence said the intent was to submit a levy request specifically for the Sheriff's Office. However, uncertainty existed about jail space needs. A proposed consolidation of the valley's 911 dispatch centers also was being discussed, and the county was evaluating other court system needs as well.

With the deadline looming for putting levy requests on the June primary ballot, the county decided to ask for three mills for the detention center.

Regardless of how the request is coming forward, officials in the four offices that might benefit from the mill levy say they definitely need more people.

Justice of the Peace David Ortley said the workload in his office is increasing by about 15 percent a year.

"We have five-and-a-half staff members, including the office administrator," he said. "Based on our analysis of five other courts of similar size, we should have about eight-and-a-half."

Ortley asked for another 1.5 staff members in last year's budget and was turned down. He plans to make the same request this year.

"We handle 14,000 cases per year," he said. "Without additional staff, we can't function according to law. We have and will continue to experience turnover. These are great jobs - almost $13 an hour, with great health benefits and vacation - but that isn't enough to keep people under these stressful conditions."

District Court Clerk Peg Allison said her office filed 56,592 court documents in 2005, with 10 staff members.

By comparison, she said the Gallatin County office filed 48,275 documents with 15 staff members, and Missoula County filed the equivalent of 55,253 documents with 11.25 staff people.

Allison asked for one additional staff position last year and was turned down. She said she'll ask for two full-time positions this year.

"In my opinion, I won't be adequately staffed without that," Allison said.

County Attorney Ed Corrigan asked for an additional prosecutor last year and was turned down. He said he won't be asking for any more people this year, but he is requesting a salary increase for his deputy county attorneys, to keep them from being wooed away by the private sector.

Sheriff Jim Dupont said it's been several years since he added deputies.

The office currently has six patrol officers each shift, but he said it could use eight. The problem is that deputies have to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week - which means he has to hire five people just to add one deputy a shift.

Realistically, Dupont knows that isn't possible.

"What we'd like to do is add two deputies per year for the next five years," he said. "That would give us some breathing room to do innovating policing, rather than just reacting."

Approving the three-mill juvenile detention levy would raise property taxes by about $9.42 per $100,000 in home market value.

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com.