The Vancouver Police West Precinct, in Vancouver, Wash., June 29, 2024.
Anna Lueck / OPB
The Vancouver Police Department has said it’s among the lowest staffed police agencies per capita in Washington state. At the same time, the department says the city has seen an 87% increase in reported crimes in the last six years.
The city’s numbers, being circulated now in mailers ahead of the November election, also note more demand in the growing city: the department has seen a 30% increase in calls for police since 2018 and twice as many calls since 2017 require six or more officers to respond. Crime data collected by the FBI shows Vancouver, like many cities, experienced a general rise in crime during the pandemic, even as both violent and property crimes have started to come down from peaks in the past year.
Still, it’s not easy to ask residents to raise their property taxes during a period of inflation, City Councilor Sarah Fox said.
“But it’s also worse to turn around and tell residents that we know that you’re a victim of a crime, but we can’t actually investigate it. Or we’ll get back to you in a month or two,” she said.
The resulting levy proposal is Proposition 4. It asks whether voters want to increase property taxes to pay for 80 new police officers, 36 non-sworn police positions, expand a homeless-assistance team, and boost an array of public safety resources, including camera-assisted traffic enforcement and AI report writing tools. This week the chief of the Portland Police Bureau also announced the need for a dramatic increase in officers to keep up with staffing numbers in other cities.
Funding these services would come at an annual cost of 0.41 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value in 2025. Proposition 4 would also institute a 5% increase on property taxes each year through 2030. That will raise an estimated $15.5 million in 2025 and $36 million in 2030. According to the city, on a $500,000 home, that translates to a tax increase of $205 in the first year and $585 at the end of the six-year period.
Proposition 4 is the product of a year-long citizen task force, according to Fox. It got unanimous support from the Vancouver City Council in September. However, the proposal gets complex when it comes to also paying for public safety services outside the city that are provided by Clark County.
County Councilor Glen Yung said he is supportive of law enforcement but that without additional funding at the county level, Proposition 4 could create a “logjam” for how the work of 26% more police officers will spill over into county-provided services like jail space, paperwork processing at the county courthouse, and indigent defense to represent people charged with crimes.
“For sure there will be a gap. We just don’t know to what extent that gap will be,” he said.
Yung said the county is working to understand the actual impact of Proposition 4 passing, and he said soon they will also be asking residents for more resources to support the sheriff’s office.
“For me it really is simply that in order to maintain the system, we will have to locate more resources. If they have the police officers available to be able to make the arrests, I want a bed to be available. I want the system to function the way it should,” he said.
According to Fox, Clark County has known about jail capacity issues and staffing constraints for years but has not raised the funds necessary to make upgrades. Instead, she said, the jail is forced to release inmates because there isn’t space to hold them.
“I can’t imagine how frustrating that is from our safety officers to be dealing with the same offenders multiple times because of the jail situation,” she said.
Fox, who is a member of Vancouver’s police community advisory committee, said Proposition 4 is an effort to increase officer ratios to the national average.
“I think it’s worthwhile asking the residents and the taxpayers of Vancouver the question of would they like better police service? Would they like to feel safe in their community? And if so, this is what the cost is,” Fox said. “If they just think it’s too high and they can’t afford it, then they’re also going to have to live with the consequences of what we can afford.”