Voters will decide on whether or not to approve a 3.5 mill levy for the Shawnee Township Police Department.
2-mill of the 3.5 is replacing the police levy which expired in 2020. Additional is 1.5-mils.
"The trustees and the fiscal clerk failed to file in time for the board of elections, which in turn, dropped that 2-mil off-putting us in this unfortunate yet emergency situation," said Rob Kohli, Shawnee Township Police Sergeant.
According to a release from the Shawnee Township Police Department, the 2-mill replacement costs the homeowner of a $100,000 property approximately $70.00/year. The additional 1.5-mill is an additional $52.50/year for a total of $122.50/year. The totals come to $10.21/month.
The 2 mill levy that expired in 2020 was first passed in 2005. The department states that they have operated on that with no additional funding for 16 years all of which operating costs have risen.
That 2-mill levy was approximately 60% of our department's tax revenue, where 75% of expenses are personnel.
The department states that operating costs have been outpacing revenue over the last four years. The levy would have an impact on not only technological aspects of the department but personnel as well.
"If the levy doesn't pass, we are going to have to cut down our department in half," said Kohli. "Instead of having two to three officers per shift our patrolling, we would be down to the minimum of one. That's obviously going to affect response time especially with critical calls."
A Shawnee Township resident says he knows how dire a short critical response time can be. Chris Washam was working on night shift one day when he got a worrying call: four armed individuals have broken into his house, while his wife and children were inside.
Police officers were able to respond to the call within four minutes. Without funding for personnel, Washam says that he could be sharing a different story today.
"I don't want to think of what could have happened, I think I know how it would have went," said Washam. "I think the response time would have been much much longer... and we didn't have a minute to spare."
The primary election is scheduled for May 4th, 2021.
