AWC’s legislative priority to increase fiscal tools and resources to address local public safety challenges has an emerging bill.

As part of our efforts to gain more state support for local law enforcement, we have a goal to ask the state for increased funding. One of the avenues for achieving that is by including additional direct state funding via the Municipal Criminal Justice Assistance Account (MCJAA).

The account is a state-shared revenue that was first established in 1990 when the Legislature found that local government criminal justice systems needed help due to congested courts, crowded jails, and increased police staffing and education. Moneys distributed must be spent exclusively for criminal justice purposes.

AWC-proposed amendments

AWC is proposing to increase the distribution from the recent biennium’s $51.7 million distribution total to $75 million in the overall fund.

We have a legislative champion, Rep. Alicia Rule (D-Blaine), who will be proposing a bill to make the change, which aims to increase the overall distribution bucket via a formula to increase the distribution by 50% and then share that revenue with cities via the existing formula as detailed below.

When a bill number gets assigned, we will share more information and closely track this priority bill here in Bulletin throughout the session.

Background information

Here’s how the Municipal Criminal Justice Assistance Account distribution formula works:

• The state treasurer transfers money from the general fund into MCJAA in four equal parts each year on July 1, October 1, January 1, and April 1
• Each year, the fund grows from the year 2000’s starting sum of $4,600,000
  • (For the 2023-25 biennium, that final sum was $51,700,000)
• The sum increases yearly in July after the prior year’s November OFM forecast using a calculation called the fiscal growth factor, which is the average growth in state personal income for the prior ten fiscal years
• Money from that final calculated sum is distributed using two formulas to direct the funding amount to each city/town:
  Per 82.14.320, half goes to cities based on population and also:

• High crime: Each city must have a crime rate over 125% of the statewide average—as calculated in the most recent annual report on crime published by the Washington association of sheriffs and police chiefs

Per 82.14.330, the other half goes to cities based strictly on population and also:

• Violent crime: 20% for cities with a three-year average violent crime rate that is over 150% of the statewide three-year violent crime rate
• Population: 16% for cities based on per capita (but no less than $1,000)
• Contracted services: 10% for cities that contract with another governmental agency for the majority of the city’s law enforcement services
• Innovative programs: 54% for cities, and must use funds for any one (or a combination) of the following:
  • Innovative law enforcement strategies;
  • Programs to help at-risk children or child abuse victim response; and
  • Domestic violence victim and reduction programs.