We are excited to see so many conversations and ideas taking place this session about investment in public safety and adding more police officers in our state.

One of those ideas includes SB 5285, which seeks to incentivize cities and counties to increase the employment of additional commissioned law enforcement officers via a one tenth of a percent local option sales tax that is a credit against the state sales tax.

The Senate bill had a hearing last week and the House version of the bill, HB 1436 sponsored by Rep. Hunter Abell (R–Kettle Falls) will be heard in committee this week.

Watch AWC’s testimony from last week on SB 5285.

This investment represents significant revenue for some of our cities, such as those with a decent sales tax base. However, it’s not an ideal fit for every community. We are asking for some improvements to the bills as follows.

Three talking points to improve the bills for cities:

• Remove national average provision: We ask that legislators untangle the funding from the national average per capita threshold. This would allow a little flexibility for a community to determine how many officers it needs, because 2.3 officers/1,000 might not be the magic number in all communities.
• Provide more funding flexibility: We ask for funding flexibility, which would help to hire more critical officers, but also give flexibility for cities to fund the other half of the criminal justice system, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, courts, etc.
• Allow funding to also retain officers: Flexibility would also help fund current officers in addition to hiring new “additional officers,” as worded in the bills.

We thank the sponsors of these bills and look forward to continuing conversations that address these significant investments in public safety in our communities.

Dates to remember

HB 1436 will be heard on February 7 at 1:30 pm in the House Finance Committee.

Sales tax for new police officers

January 27, 2025

A Senate bill has a hearing to discuss a new local sales tax proposal for public safety.

SB 5285, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Holy (R–Spokane), looks to incentivize cities and counties to increase employment of commissioned law enforcement officers via a one tenth of a percent local option sales tax.

The 0.1% tax on the selling price of goods or services must be used solely for employing additional commissioned law enforcement officers, until it exceeds the national average of officers.

AWC is concerned that this bill specifies that revenue could only be used for new officer positions until a city/town reaches the national average of 2.3 officers per thousand residents. The state average stands at 1.3/thousand but varies widely from city to town. The amount of officers necessary in some jurisdictions could differ from others.

Furthermore, we know from the data and city testimony that the retention of currently employed commissioned officers is equally as important as recruiting new ones.

While this new local tax revenue has the potential to help communities with a strong sales tax base, it won’t be uniformly helpful for all our cities and we still seek additional public safety funding solutions that are more direct, flexible, and equitable across the state.

Dates to remember

SB 5285 is scheduled for public hearing in the House Civil Rights & Judiciary Committee on January 27 at 10:30 am.