Policing 'fee' is wrong tack

Is it just us, or does assessing a user fee for law enforcement services in the unincorporated county seem a bit odd?

If you never call the soon-to-launch Unified Police Department, can you pay the fee on a prorated basis? If you call a lot, do you pay more? What happens if you don't pay your monthly bill? Officers won't show up to your house when you summon help?

The latter question is preposterous, of course. Officers will come when called. But assessing a fee to address $11 million of a $21 million deficit in the new department would seem to be nothing but trouble for law enforcers who already have a difficult job when they approach people who are unhappy to see them in the course of enforcement duties. Now the county is going to saddle such folks with a monthly bill for law enforcement services?

Why not adjust the mill levies of people in unincorporated Salt Lake County to make up this shortfall? Wouldn't that be easier than to go to the administrative cost of mailing and processing monthly assessments?

Yes, that would be a tax increase on top of the $20 hike on the average $260,000 home proposed by Mayor Peter Corroon for the 2010 fiscal year, but it would be more seamless than assessing a fee.

While we're sure this was not what was intended, charging a fee to cover the deficit — albeit temporarily — puts law enforcement in the same category as purchasing a dog license or paying admission to a county recreation center. Law enforcement is an essential function of government and should be funded in the traditional manner. Besides, property taxes can be deducted from income taxes. Fees cannot.

To a large degree, fees are merely taxes in sheep's clothing. It is not completely appropriate to describe this as a user fee, either, because if officers from the Unified Police Department apprehend in the unincorporated county a person who has robbed a bank in Murray, the crime was committed against the good people of Murray. Should the good people in unincorporated Salt Lake County be assessed a user fee for that service just because the robber high-tailed it up 4500 South after the crime was committed?

Seemingly, this deficit should be handled no differently than when the State Tax Commission requires the county to refund tax revenues it should not have collected or a judgment levy against the county as part of a lawsuit. In those instances, the Salt Lake County Council raises property taxes to cover the costs.

More importantly, the council needs to be sensitive to the public perception problem this could pose for officers on the street. It makes more sense to raise property taxes in the unincorporated county to cover this one-time cost.