Recently, I have been alarmed and disappointed by a number of comments made by the City of Albuquerque’s chief of public safety, Darren White, regarding the use of the Public Safety Quarter Cent Tax that voters approved in 2003. White’s comments may lead the public to believe that the city has misused those funds in some way, and I for one would like to set the record straight.
For example, in an interview on KOB-TV, White said that voters were assured that Public Safety Tax money would not go to salaries and benefits. That is absolutely not true. From its inception, a significant portion of the Public Safety Quarter Cent Tax was intended to be used for salaries and benefits. The resolution that the council passed when it enacted the Public Safety Tax included a five-year expenditure plan titled “Intended Use of Public Safety Gross Receipts Tax,” and that document clearly shows that the tax was intended to support at least 105 police officers, 42 firefighters and 15 Fire Department heavy technical rescue personnel, along with future raises.
And while it is true that in the tough economic times the city has experienced these last few years that, out of necessity the cost of raises for police and fire personnel for 2009 and 2010 were paid from Public Safety Tax revenues, these raises do not constitute a majority of the Public Safety Tax revenues.
In a recent article in the Journal, White also said that it would be “virtually impossible” to shift the Public Safety Tax back to equipment purchases now, given the tight budgets and projected deficits. The truth of the matter is that White and this administration had the opportunity to recommend to the City Council a budget that began to move the cost of raises out of the Public Safety Tax, but instead they chose to fund other priorities.
For example, the recently approved budget proposal drafted by the administration shifts $3 million in recurring general fund dollars to capital projects, outside of the city’s normal CIP process. If White and the administration had been serious about restoring equipment purchases, they would have recommended that these funds be used to buy public safety equipment. Three million dollars per year could purchase 60 police vehicles each year or three to four significant pieces of fire equipment, such as engine or ladder trucks.
Instead, they chose to divert those dollars for up to 30 years in order to borrow money to pay for boutique capital projects that the city may not be able to afford to operate.
In the same Journal article, White asserted that the city has not followed the five-year expenditure plan that I referred to earlier. Once again, that is simply not true. In fact, through fiscal 2009, the last year of the five-year plan, the Public Safety Quarter Cent Tax had purchased more than $34 million in public safety equipment, including nine fire engines, six rescue vehicles, one command vehicle, 32 sedans, one brush truck, one SUV and dozens of police vehicles. In addition, the city used Fire Public Safety Tax money to renovate the Fire Academy, to renovate fire stations 2, 15 and 18, and for miscellaneous maintenance and capital equipment.
Finally, it’s important to point out that since the inception of the Public Safety Quarter Cent Tax, the city’s Office of Internal Audit has conducted a management audit and a follow-up audit on the use of the proceeds of the tax. One of the purposes was to determine whether Public Safety Tax dollars were being used in accordance with the law. Both the management audit and the follow-up audit found only minor technical issues, but absolutely no misuse of the funds.
I understand that the city has a genuine and immediate need for sources of funding to replace critical public safety equipment, and I look forward to working with the administration to identify those sources of funding; however, those discussions need to occur through informed decisions using accurate information, and not in an environment of misinformation.
