Proposed tax would be paid by employees and businesses to generate $22.8 million a year to add and retain 126 FTEs

The Eugene City Council will consider a proposed payroll tax paid by employers and employees that would generate an estimated $22.8 million a year to pay for a massive expansion of the municipal public safety system.



The proposed payroll tax is the recommendation of an advisory committee tasked last year by the council to identity long-term funding to bolster staffing and beds at the police department, municipal court, jail and through homeless outreach.

City officials have said the system is under strain because staffing is not keeping up with Eugene’s growing population. Long wait times or no response by police officers to low-priority service calls has been among the most visible signs of this strain to the public.

City staff unveiled the proposal to the City Council during a meeting Wednesday. City councilors agreed to more discussion at a meeting later this month; no councilor raised objections to the proposed tax. The city has the authority under Eugene’s municipal charter to impose the tax through an ordinance, according to the city attorney’s office. No public vote was proposed or discussed.



Three city councilors who served on the committee voiced their support for the proposal, meaning it needs only two more votes to be enacted by ordinance. City councilors are required to schedule a public hearing before approving any ordinance.

"This is a critical need as we've talked about for years and years," said Councilor Emily Semple, who served on the committee. "We're so understaffed and our homeless situation is out of control, and at the same time the rest of the population isn't served."

Late last year, the City Council approved $8.6 million in one-time money to hire 26 full-time-equivalent employees to help bolster the system’s staffing for an 18-month period that ends in June 2020.

The payroll tax proposal would add another 100 full-time-equivalent employees, for a proposed total of 126 FTEs, about an 8 percent increase of the city’s current workforce.



The proposal would retain or add 40 patrol officers, four sergeants, 10 unarmed community service officers and five detectives. In addition, there would be funding to improve emergency medical response, lease 10 or more jail beds, open a third municipal courtroom and expand two alternative courts and services for the homeless.



The council would need to set the specific rate. Under preliminary estimates, a 0.2 or 0.3 percent payroll tax on a business that has a gross payroll of $500,000 a year would be $85 or $125 a month, respectively. Employees who earn $20 an hour would pay $7 or $10 a month under a 0.2 percent or 0.3 percent payroll tax, respectively.



In 2017, Eugene had about 6,600 non‐government employers operating within the city limits and about 91,000 workers on payroll.

Brittany Quick-Warner, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said it would bring the proposed payroll tax forward to its membership to discuss and ultimately decide whether or not to support.

"While taxes on the community and regulations on businesses are mounting, public safety is critical to our community’s prosperity, so this is one we will take our time and care to weigh in on," she said.

Increasingly, city officials are moving to supplement the general fund, traditionally the chief pot of money that pays for day-to-day basic city services such as police and emergency medical response, with extra revenue to pay for those services' rising expenses, primarily for labor. Ever-increasing costs for wages and other benefits have outpaced the growth in property tax revenue, the main source of revenue in the general fund.

Recently, voters have approved separate levies and bonds to restore library services, pay for park maintenance and expand recreation centers.

The committee looked at more than two dozen revenue options but settled on the payroll tax because it was simple and because the other options, such as a property tax levy or other fees, either were too complicated, couldn't generate enough money or were politically unpalatable, city officials said.

"There is no tax everybody is going to like," Councilor Chris Pryor said, "and I'm fully prepared for people to be very upset about us even asking for more money. And I wouldn't consider asking for more money, particularly in this way, if it weren't for something as compelling and as urgent as community safety."

The police department has been on a hiring blitz, and Police Chief Chris Skinner said it's preparing next month to deploy its new rapid response, or street, team. The team's emphasis will be looking at areas with a high number of service calls, such as the Whiteaker neighborhood and along the riverfront bike paths, and finding ways to reduce the problems.

Adding even more officers will allow the department to get to calls faster and respond to low-priority calls it has to disregard now because no one is available, Skinner said. The aim also is to free officers from constantly running from call to call and give them time to spend in neighborhoods to identity and stop suspicious individuals and vehicles, potentially halting crime before it happens, he said.

"Whether they (residents) like the answer or not (from a responding officer), or whether it gets resolved in that moment in time or not, just the sheer fact of being responsive to people is the right thing to do and it feels good for people, and they should expect that," Skinner said.