Milwaukie council adopts new public‑safety fee; $7 residential, low‑income exemptions included

The Milwaukie City Council approved a resolution adopting a new public‑safety fee to generate recurring local funding for the city’s public safety continuum of care. City Manager Emma Segor presented the proposal, which the council voted to adopt unanimously.

Segor said the fee is intended to stabilize funding for a mix of services the city considers core public safety functions — police response, behavioral health coordination, municipal court processing and safety at public facilities such as the library — and to allow more responsive, recurring local funding than a property‑tax measure, which the city said would take longer to implement. "I commit that we will transparently report on how every dollar that is generated through this gets spent," Segor said during the presentation.

Council approved a design the city proposed and discussed at prior budget meetings: a flat $7 per residential utility account, $5 per multifamily unit, and a tiered commercial structure with a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $50 per account. The city will exempt customers who are registered in the city’s low‑income utility assistance program. Segor said the city used trip‑generation data as a proxy to design tiers and based the multifamily discount on trip‑rate assumptions that multifamily units generate fewer trips than single‑family residences. City staff said the revenue estimate for the package would be roughly $900,000–$1 million annually if the council chose to fund four full‑time equivalents as staff priorities; the specific staffing and budget allocations will be part of the city’s upcoming budget process.

Several councilors asked for strong, recurring data reporting tied to expenditures and outcomes. Councilor Massey and others asked that the city establish baseline metrics for patrol workload, behavioral health calls, library incident counts, and municipal court caseloads so the council can track whether the fee produces measurable outcomes. Segor and department leaders agreed and committed to annual reporting and to return earlier if the council requests additional data.

On implementation, Segor said the fee would be included on city utility bills and could appear on November or December statements if adopted; the council set the fee by resolution and directed staff to add it to the consolidated fee schedule. Councilors discussed alternative paths such as a property‑tax measure and noted the utility‑bill vehicle allows quicker implementation and an easier low‑income exemption. The council voted unanimously to adopt the resolution.

Ending: The council asked staff to produce a public information package and a periodic reporting schedule that ties fee revenues to staffing, program outputs and outcome metrics; staff said they will return with those reports and incorporate the fee into the city’s consolidated fee schedule and billing timeline.