There are circumstances in which consolidation of government services makes complete sense. Emergency dispatch is one of them, and we should all support it. How we fund it is another matter.
The allocation of dispatch service costs, based on call volume, is straightforward. A person has to take that call. If someone calls 911 to report a fire in Sun Valley, it costs the same to process it through the dispatch center as a 911 call for a fire in Hailey.
Now along comes another alternative, at the request of the city of Hailey, which has two significant problems that have received little attention.
First, this ballot measure is an additional new tax on the taxpayers of each city and the county. It will be an incremental increase in the county budget of approximately 4 percent each year, above what is already being spent by the county on dispatch. The $835,000 proposed to be raised each year from this levy alone is more than 10 percent of Blaine County's annual property tax collections. The city of Sun Valley has supported the emergency dispatch center out of its existing city budget for years.
Second, this override levy will allocate the dispatch costs based solely on the assessed value of your property. If it passes, that 911 call to report a fire in Sun Valley will cost Sun Valley taxpayers $48.65, while that 911 call for a fire in Hailey will cost Hailey taxpayers $8.64 (that is not a typo). If you live in Ketchum, the call will cost $28.12, and if you live in the county, outside a city, the same call will cost County taxpayers $28.26.
Now is not the time to be raising new taxes and increasing the county budget at the expense of taxpayers.
Nils Ribi
Sun Valley
