Jay Moore, a village of Bethel resident, speaks to council on April 9 against the proposed income tax.
Jay Moore, a village of Bethel resident, speaks to council on April 9 against the proposed income tax.

By Kelly Doran
Sun staff

The village of Bethel will be starting to look for other sources of funding after four of the six council members voted no on passing a proposed one percent income tax on April 9.

“Council voted. Now council has to figure out how they’re going to pay for police. It’s easy to vote no on this but yet it’s going to be harder trying to figure out a way to fund our police department,” Mayor Alan Ausman said.

If council cannot find funding, in January there could be layoffs in an already depleted police department, Ausman said. At the very least, the department would not hire officers to currently vacant positions.

This will likely mean there will be gaps in coverage, Ausman said.

The police department currently has four full time, one part time and one auxiliary officer, Chief Mark Planck said. Ideally, the department would have six full time and some part time officers.

Planck did not hire a new officer after a full time officer left recently because he did not know how the funding was going to go for his department.

“Right now we just don’t have the money to be a 24 hour department and I don’t know what nighttime is going to bring,” Planck said.

Council member Priscilla Johnson believes Bethel needs a police department and that the village should provide for it in every way possible, but she also believes residents should vote on the income tax ordinance.

“However, I truly believe that this issue needs to be taken to the people because once you start taking the rights away from people to do their voting for them, that’s a whole other issue,” Johnson said.

Resident Jay Moore agreed with Johnson.

“I think you’re underestimating perhaps our village. Anybody will vote for anything if it benefits them and doesn’t cost them anything,” Moore said. He believes the income tax would have a chance of passing on the ballot with voters who would not be taxed.

Greg Schuler, a resident of Tate Township, urged council to look at alternatives. He believes imposing the income tax would be insulting to people who love freedom.

Prior to the vote on the income tax, the finance committee recommended that council amend the income tax ordinance to give a half percent tax credit to village residents who pay an income tax to another municipality, Council member Amy Sparks said.

The finance committee decided on this as an effort to reach some common ground with residents opposed to the income tax, Sparks said.

Council voted unanimously to make the amendment to the income tax ordinance.

The income tax would have primarily covered the police levy that expires in January, Administrator Travis Dotson said. In addition, it would have made up for the street levy when it expires and would have helped the village pay for things like the streetscape project, paving, bridge repairs, the walk path and more.

The income tax would have been 1 percent, Dotson said in January.

Sparks and James Rees voted yes, while Johnson, Janice Ireton, Lucy Shepherd and Jeremiah Hembree voted no.

Council will have a special meeting on April 16 at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers to discuss the financial state of the village.

There is a sense of urgency in finding a solution because of how soon the police levy expires, Fiscal Officer Bill Gilpin said.

“If we do nothing, the little bit of police levy we have is going to go away,” Gilpin said.

The village was in fiscal emergency in 2008 and has worked hard since to rebuild the cash balance. Gilpin is determined not to let the village start deficit spending.

Council made a lot of cuts in 2008, and the police department has paid the price since, Gilpin said. The department had seven full time officers then.

The village was released from fiscal emergency in October 2013, Gilpin said. The state treasurer’s office told Gilpin that when villages go into fiscal emergency, most impose an income tax then, but Bethel didn’t.

“We recovered without (an income tax) but the police department has paid the price every step of the way. The attempt was to stop them from continuing to pay the price,” Gilpin said.

The village’s only two options are a levy or an income tax, Gilpin said. Council has the option of putting an income tax on the ballot for village residents to decide the issue.