Michigan House Democrats want to create state fund for local public safety
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LANSING — House Democrats this week introduced legislation to create a state-backed trust fund for local communities designed to support spending on public safety and violence prevention initiatives.
The plan would use state sales tax revenue to create the fund. Funding would be distributed proportionately, based on three years' worth of annual violent crime statistics, although a single community could not receive more than 25% of the total funding distributed in a given month.
State Reps. Nate Shannon, D-Sterling Heights, and Alabas Farhat, D-Dearborn, introduced House Bills 4605 and 4606. The lawmakers were joined by House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Detroit Police Chief James White and Grand Rapids Police Deputy Chief Joe Trigg during a news conference at the Capitol Wednesday announcing the plan.
Lawmakers say creating a targeted fund would address violent crime in areas where a response is needed most.
"We know our local partners are stretching available dollars to help keep neighborhoods safe and prevent escalation of violence, but they need more support from our state," Tate said.
Duggan and White said the added funding would help Detroit police hire more "neighborhood" officers who would work to establish relationships with community members, particularly in areas where more crime tends to take place, to have a more proactive response to crime rather than reacting after it's already taken place. Additionally, White said the fund would allow police in Detroit to expand a mental health response unit, which currently consists of 90 officers and medical professionals.
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In Grand Rapids, where residents have called for more visible and community-centric policing, Trigg said the fund would allow the city's police department to more aggressively recruit officers, particularly as it aims to fill around 30 vacant positions for which it's budgeted.
As for the funding, HB 4605 would direct the state Department of Treasury to deposit a portion of sales tax revenue into the Public Safety and Violence Prevention Fund each month. HB 4606 spells out how the funds would be distributed and contains language prohibiting communities from using dollars disbursed from the fund to replace existing expenses.
Tate said the proposal builds off public safety initiatives already passed and signed into law, namely a trio of gun safety proposals that create new laws for weapon storage, background checks on firearm purchases and extreme risk protection orders which allow a court to temporarily confiscate a gun if the owner is deemed a danger to themselves or others.
The bills have been referred to the House Committee on Local Government and Municipal Finance.
Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @arpanlobo.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan lawmakers want to create a state public safety fund
