The Philomath City Council gave final approval Monday night to an ordinance establishing a police services fee and then set the fee at $5 per month for utility customers.
The ordinance passed 5-2 on a roll-call vote during the second reading with Mayor Christopher McMorran and Councilor Jessica Andrade voting against it. Councilors then unanimously approved a separate resolution setting the fee amount at $5.
Seven residents spoke during public comments at the meeting with most opposed to how the city was moving forward with the fee. While many said they understood the city’s budget constraints and supported the police department, they argued the decision should go before voters as a levy request.
One resident suggested the police department could generate more revenue by increasing patrols and writing more speeding tickets, drawing pushback from more than one councilor, including Diane Crocker, who serves on the Police Committee and cited data on traffic stops.
Other residents said they worried that once the fee was established, future councils could raise it year after year to help balance the budget. Councilor Rich Saalsaa addressed that concern directly, saying any change to the fee amount would require another vote and public process.
“Whatever the fee is that we set tonight … that would have to be voted on again,” Saalsaa said. “So, I want to make sure it’s crystal clear that if we say that it’s $5 tonight, we would have to come back to say it’s $10 the next time. That would have to go through the whole thing again. This is not a willy-nilly thing that we could just arbitrarily just start raising these fees here.”
Former City Councilor Catherine Biscoe was among those who asked the council to consider putting the issue on the ballot or to at least delay a final decision to allow more time for consideration.
“I would ask you to consider either a public vote or go back and reconsider this ordinance that you are proposing and look at comparables of other cities and how we can better fund the services for our community, for our police department, and how we do that within the confines of what our taxpayers can afford,” she said.
The council spent several hours in various meetings discussing the fee, which is meant to help close a gap between city revenues and expenses caused by property tax limitations under state law, inflation and the need to keep police compensation competitive. The fee was initially proposed at $14 before it was reduced to $5 during a Budget Review Committee meeting in June, a change that came alongside several budget cuts. Revenue from the fee is designated specifically for the police department.
Councilor Brent Kaseman acknowledged the public comments but wanted to dispel any thoughts that the issue wasn’t taken seriously.
“If we vote in the opposite way that you would like us to, it’s not that I didn’t take what you said very seriously, but we did spend dozens of hours kind of laboring over this and suffering through it to some extent,” Kaseman said.
A minor change to the ordinance’s language was approved during the discussion.
Andrade raised questions about enforcement, asking whether water service could be shut off for customers who don’t pay the fee, since it will appear as a line item on water and sewer bills. McMorran pointed to city code, which allows the city to withhold water delivery to enforce collection of certain established charges, such as those for streets or stormwater. Assistant City Manager Chelsea Starner said she was not aware of anyone having water service shut off for similar fees.
McMorran, who also voted against the ordinance during its first reading, said his opposition is rooted in a broader philosophy about utility billing rather than the police department or officer compensation specifically.
“Before I even became mayor, I just have always felt like I wanted the utility bill to be for utilities and other revenue should come from other sources,” he said. “My thoughts on this are a philosophical belief in utility bills than it is in anything directly related to policing or to offering competitive compensation to our officers.”
McMorran said he would like to further explore some of the concerns raised during public comment. Andrade encouraged residents to consider participating in future Citizens Academy sessions and reiterated a previous suggestion that the city consider a local tax on recreational marijuana sales, an option available to cities under state law.
Despite voting against the ordinance itself, both McMorran and Andrade joined the rest of the council in supporting the $5 fee resolution, calling it a compromise.
“Myself, I would rather not have to do it,” Saalsaa said of the fee. “On the other hand, I think from a fiscal responsibility and a budget shortfall (that is a) temporary fix, that this is a compromised way of basically making sure that we can manage that and to keep the level of service the way it is.”
McMorran said before the resolution vote that he would also rather not have the fee.
“I’d rather it be a levy or another source of revenue,” he said. “That being said, given that the council did just vote to establish the fee, I am in support of the $5 amount and I appreciate the work that we did to get to that $5 amount instead of $14 amount. So I’m planning to support this resolution.”
Andrade said that while she believes in principle that the fee should have gone to voters, she saw no alternative to the $5 amount and accepted the compromise.
The resolution setting the fee at $5 per month passed on a 7-0 vote.
According to previous comments from City Manager Chris Workman, the timing of the ordinance’s approval means the fee will not appear on bills until September, and utility customers will not see the charge reflected until October.
