City Administrator Cynthia McNabb opened a discussion Aug. 19 on HB 2015 — the state law authorizing a 0.1% local option sales tax for criminal-justice and public-safety uses and a linked Criminal Justice Training Commission grant program.

The draft presentation said the state has set aside a $100 million grant pool to be administered by CJTC and that grant awards will run for three years. "You cannot get the grant if the city does not put in and implement the [criminal-justice] sales tax," McNabb said, describing the two funding streams as “correlated with each other.”

Why it matters: the sales-tax option would give Duval a dedicated, ongoing revenue source for policing and related public-safety programs; the linked grant could pay up to 75% of salary and benefits for certain new hires for up to three years and give priority to applications with co‑response mental‑health elements. Staff estimated a Duval criminal-justice sales tax at 0.1% would generate roughly $200,000–$250,000 a year based on five years of local sales-tax receipts.

What staff told council
- Revenue and timeline: McNabb said the 0.1% sales tax can be enacted by local ordinance (not by voter initiative) through June 30, 2028, and that cities must give the Washington State Department of Revenue 75 days’ notice of an ordinance before collections begin. She said that if Duval wanted revenue by January, the DOR would need an adopted ordinance by about Oct. 15. "This is not a voter initiative," McNabb said.
- Grant scope and limits: the CJTC grant pool is targeted at hiring, retraining and training new officers and co‑responders; it does not permit funding for lateral hires or ongoing pay for existing positions. Grants can cover up to 75% of salary/benefits for new hires for up to three years. Co‑response/mental‑health proposals receive priority processing.
- Reserve-officer restriction: McNabb noted an important statutory limitation: jurisdictions that rely on armed reserve officers will not qualify for the program as written. "You can't have reserve officers... you cannot have a reserve officer that carries webbing," she said, summarizing the statute's restriction on armed reserve officers and on volunteers performing criminal‑justice activities.

Council reaction and direction
- Mayor Amy Okerlander urged the council to move forward and favored drafting ordinance language. "I just am gonna strongly encourage Council to move forward on this," Okerlander said, adding she believed the community supports funding public safety.
- Council members asked about the interaction with county sales taxes and whether Duval already receives funds from King County collections; staff clarified the CJTC program requires a new local ordinance under HB 2015 regardless of prior county measures and that the county distribution rules are separate.
- Staff direction: council indicated consensus for staff to draft proposed ordinance language and return with an updated packet and analysis at the next meeting (no formal vote was taken at this session).

Constraints and unknowns noted by staff
- The CJTC was still finalizing application details and training requirements. McNabb and staff said more detailed guidance from CJTC is expected and that the CJTC recently hired an administrator for the program.
- Legal and lobbying work: staff and council flagged the reserve‑officer restriction as a potential legislative/advocacy issue to raise with the city’s lobbyists because some small jurisdictions use long‑time qualified reserves and seek grandfathering or amendment.

Next steps
Staff said they will prepare draft ordinance language and a packet for the next council meeting that includes timelines for Department of Revenue notification, a draft funding plan, and suggested outreach for public and stakeholder input. Any formal adoption would require an ordinance by council to trigger Department of Revenue processes.