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DAYTON–The City of Dayton and Columbia County have worked out their differences regarding law enforcement coverage, dispatch services and municipal court services, and the City Council approved a resolution accepting the new interlocal agreement at its November 12 meeting.
A mediation meeting held between representatives of the City and County was held on November 5, 2020, with the assistance of Attorney Mike Mitchell of Walla Walla, Mayor Zac Weatherford reported .
Both parties agreed to the drafting of a new five-year CR 2(A), a Washington Superior Court Civil Rule concerning these services. The City agreed to pay $612,500 for 2021.
The amount will be adjusted annually beginning on January 1, 2022 based on 100% of urban consumer CPI, a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.
According to Weatherford, the City presently pays $444,000 for all three services and the 100% would be roughly a $200,000 increase. "The City has not paid an increase in seven years – no fault to the city," Weatherford said.
Councilwoman Delphine Bailey was concerned about how the City would cover these costs.
"There will be certain cuts," Weatherford replied. "The money that we pay for these services comes out of the City's Current Expense budget, which is about a $1.2 million budget. There are certain items that we cannot cut. Some of the items that we can cut would be parks, cemetery, animal control, and code enforcement."
Per the agreement, Weatherford reported the County or the Sheriff's Department will not be handling animal control or code enforcement.
"The County and City department heads or their representatives will meet quarterly and the County will provide quarterly expense reports," Weatherford said. "The Sheriff will provide monthly reports to the City Council, and ensures there is a dedicated deputy sheriff in City Limits at all times. And finally, the Sheriff's Department will assist with tagging abandoned vehicles within City Limits of Dayton."
Councilman Dain Nysoe expressed concern that the County failed to ask the City directly for an increase over the last seven years since previous County Commissioner Merle Jackson approached the City Council about negotiating a new agreement for an increase of funds from the City for the services. At that time, the City asked for documentation about the services which they never received and the talk of an increase was dropped.
"In my opinion, the County was using the City as their piggy bank," Nysoe said. "If they needed money to help balance their budget, they would go to the City. Unfortunately, we either had to agree through mediation or go to arbitration. Had we gone to arbitration, we don't know what the eventual outcome would have been. It may have cost the City a lot more money or maybe it would have been reduced. We don't know at this point.
"But as the Committee meeting with the County, we decided amongst ourselves that we would accept the figure the Council was going to be voting on this evening," Nysoe said. "I don't like it when you have an expense budget of $1.2 million and half of the budget is going to go to the County for services."
Bailey pointed out that the amount is about half of what the Council originally thought at the start of negotiations. Weatherford agreed, though he did express that Nysoe had some valid points.
Weatherford pointed out that the agreement "does put in black and white a lot of pieces to the puzzle that in five years, there will actually be some data" for future agreements. He did concede that all the Council's questions weren't answered, but with the data provided by the County, those answers should come in the future.
"I appreciate you guys going through a long meeting with us," said County Commissioner Ryan Rundell. "I don't think anyone is really happy with the outcome, but that's the way mediations go."
The City Council's Finance Committee plans to meet and then both parties have to formally approve the agreement.
