I just finished reading Bob Burns’ article breaking down the costs for public safety through the years, and it was an eye-opener for me.

Bob pointed out that the two contracted services of Rural Metro and MCSO now account for over 50 percent of the general fund, or about $7.7 million per year. Rural Metro has a built-in annual increase of 3 percent, but MCSO has a staggering 10 percent annual increase to cover unfunded pensions. Now, would you approve of a new property tax to cover a 10 percent annual increase in expenses?

In addition, Bob itemized the personnel that we are getting for the almost $8 million we are contracting for yearly. Rural Metro with 10 total; two chiefs and eight firefighters. Last fiscal year they responded to “3425 incidents, mostly medical and the occasional duty such as snake removal.” That breaks down to less than 10 per day, or one per firefighter!

For MCSO it is more staggering. We are contracting 36 officers in our small town in District 7. They responded to 21,739 calls for service from 2014-2017, or about 7000 per year. That is 19 per day including 76 arrests, 894 citations and 137 crash reports. We may need Rural Metro and MCSO, but given the low frequency of calls, do we need this many contracted people? Or, do we go back to creating our own fire and public safety district?

I have been a resident for almost 20 years and love this small town. We are large enough to have our own fire and local police and save at least $2-3 million, or more! So, I vote no on the new tax proposal, for now.