Midvale City Newsletter | September 2022

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In The Middle of Everything MIDVALE CITY DIRECTORY City Hall Finance/Utilities Court City Attorney’s Office City Recorder/Human Resources Community Development Public Works Ace Disposal/Recycling Midvale Historical Museum Midvale Senior Center SL County Animal Services Police Dispatch Unified Fire Authority Fire Dispatch Communications

801-567-7200 801-567-7200 801-567-7265 801-567-7250 801-567-7228 801-567-7211 801-567-7235 801-363-9995 801-567-7285 385-468-3350 385-468-7387 801-743-7000 801-743-7200 801-840-4000 801-567-7230

MIDVALE CITY ELECTED OFFICIALS MAYOR Marcus Stevenson 801-567-7204 Email: mstevenson@midvale.com CITY COUNCIL District 1 - Quinn Sperry Email: qsperry@midvale.com District 2 - Paul Glover Email: pglover@midvale.com District 3 - Heidi Robinson Email: Hrobinson@midvale.com District 4 - Bryant Brown Email: bbrown@midvale.com District 5 - Dustin Gettel Email: dgettel@midvale.com

WHO TO CALL FOR… Water Bills Ordering A New Trash Can Reserving the Bowery Permits GRAMA requests Court Paying For Traffic School Business Licensing Property Questions Cemetery Water Line Breaks Planning and Zoning Code Enforcement Building inspections Graffiti

801-567-7200 801-567-7202 801-567-7202 801-567-7212 801-567-7207 801-567-7265 801-567-7202 801-567-7213 801-567-7246 801-567-7235 801-256-2575 801-567-7231 801-567-7208 801-567-7228 385-468-9769

EMERGENCY OR DISASTER CONTACT Public Works Fire Dispatch – Unified Fire Authority Midvale Police Precinct or Police Dispatch Unified Police Department EMERGENCY

801-567-7235 801-840-4000 385-468-9350 801-743-7000

911

SEPTEMBER 2022

City Hall – 7505 South Holden Street • Midvale, UT 84047

CITY NEWSLETTER

Marcus’s Message

By Mayor Marcus Stevenson

Let’s talk about policing - specifically Midvale’s history and future with the Unified Police Department (UPD). Before I dive deeper into our history with UPD, the financial challenges we face as a city, and our proposed reforms to improve UPD, I want to point out that Midvale City is extremely appreciative of our officers that do incredibly hard work to keep our community safe. Midvale City believes in the UPD model, but we also feel financial and governance reforms are necessary to ensure the organization remains stable and affordable.

HISTORY WITH UPD

When the Midvale City Council voted in 2011 to join forces with the newly formed Unified Police Department, it was because we were going to save money and receive high-quality service. The UPD model allows municipalities, townships, and Salt Lake County to share services, and therefore share costs, which in turn would allow Midvale to provide law enforcement at a lower cost to our residents than we could on our own. When Midvale first joined UPD, there were several other cities that were part of the organization such as Holladay, Herriman, Riverton, Taylorsville, in addition to unincorporated Salt Lake County and the townships such as Magna, Kearns, and Millcreek (before it was a city). Since we joined UPD, Millcreek transitioned from a township to a city and continued its participation with UPD. During that same time Herriman, Riverton, and, most recently, Taylorsville, all left to form their own police departments. As cities have left and the organization has gotten smaller, we’ve seen the cost of shared services go up significantly. Because of these cost increases, and the perception that greater cost controls were needed, in 2020 Midvale conducted a study that looked at our ability to start its own police department. With this data the City Council decided to vote on whether to stay with Unified Police or start our own department – we ultimately voted to stay. While there were different opinions among the City Council members at that time, the study conducted by the city indicated that there would not be cost savings from forming our own police department and there could also be a decline in service. Since the 2020 vote, significant changes have occurred in law enforcement nationally that have affected us locally, and thereby inflating the cost of law enforcement and putting pressure on communities to find the necessary funding. As an example, there have been law enforcement “wage wars” that have driven up the cost to provide police services. In fact, about 85% of UPD’s entire budget is comprised of wages and benefits, which means most of the cost increases we’ve seen are directly related to increased wages for officers. With these changes, from this time last year to now, our member fee to Unified Police has increased by about $2 million – an increase of more than 20%. This increased cost for law enforcement is in large part the reason why we passed a 7.3% property tax increase this year, which allowed us to maintain police services and other critical services our city provides. Ultimately, the increase we experienced over the last year, and the increases we’ve experienced the last several years, led us to have more discussions on

how to improve cost controls, transparency, and governance to ensure that UPD remains financially sustainable for our city and residents. On August 9th, our City Council decided to pursue UPD reforms that they felt will support the long-term stability of the organization, as well as continue high-quality law enforcement services for our community.

Why we Believe in the Shared Services Model

With UPD’s shared services model, all the UPD member communities share costs for specialized teams such as the Special Victims Unit and the Violent Crimes Unit. In smaller police departments, you may find that your patrol officer is also your homicide detective, but they likely have less specialized training to do the job well. With the shared services model, we have officers who specialize in certain areas, which means they become experts in their field. A police force is kind of like an insurance policy, but if it’s your family member that’s a victim of a heinous crime, I believe we would all want the best insurance policy possible to have the smartest, most capable, and the most highly trained officers we can get to work on the case. Fortunately, UPD allows us just that.

OUR ISSUES & REFORMS

During the City Council meeting on August 9th, there was an understanding that the shared services model is the right approach, but the City Council also wanted to have more control over the organization. The council decided on four basic reform areas that focus on cost control, political control, and local control.

COST CONTROL

Reform #1: Budget Process Changes & Cost Controls One of the biggest appeals of having our own police department is that we would have more control of the amount we spend on policing each year. Currently, as Mayor, I sit on the UPD board with 10 other board members. If those members vote in favor of a budget increase that Midvale cannot afford, we are still stuck paying our portion of the bill. This year, the bill that Midvale City will pay is about $11.7 million. With our own department, we could set the amount we are willing to pay and accept the consequences that may come with those amounts. To help give more cost control, such as what we would see with our own department, we are proposing that the UPD board sets a target budget increase early on each year. Currently, UPD staff requests what they want/need in the upcoming budget instead of cities first stating what they can afford. We hope to have a mechanism in place so all the UPD members can come together and set a target increase that each community can afford. Reform #2: A Fund Balance Policy A fund balance is essentially just a fancy government word for “savings account.” Currently, every municipality has its own police precinct that has its own budget and fund balance. There is also a pooled fund balance that is used for the overall organization. Traditionally, the pooled fund balance has been used to offset member costs, such as Midvale’s, when budget increases are high. Further, because of police officer shortages, our own precincts

MAYOR’S MESSAGE CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE


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Midvale City Newsletter | September 2022 by The City Journals - Issuu