The Suquamish Finance & Administration Committee on Sept. 8 directed staff to forward a resolution (agenda bill 25-081) that would authorize a 0.1% local sales and use tax for criminal-justice purposes to the full City Council, and asked staff to prepare both a grant application and a separate option to enact the tax if certification requirements are met. The committee did not enact the tax; it voted to send the matter to council for final consideration.

The resolution stems from changes enacted by the Washington State Legislature in gross substitute House Bill 2015, which created a three-year, $100 million grant program for hiring and training police officers and co-responder teams and authorized a local 0.1% option sales tax for criminal-justice purposes. Finance Director Gary, who presented the proposal to the committee, said the city must qualify with the state Criminal Justice Training Center (CJTC) before the Department of Revenue would collect the tax on the city’s behalf. "We would generate an estimated $243,000 for 2026, which would increase to $302,000 for 2027," Gary said in the committee presentation. He estimated the average annual burden on a Suquamish household in 2025 would be about $28.50.

Why it matters: qualifying for the CJTC grant and adopting the tax would give the city two revenue paths — state grant money for short-term hires and training and an ongoing local sales-tax revenue stream to support criminal-justice activities. Committee members pressed staff for specifics on how the revenue would be used, citing likely near-term cost increases for public defense, dispatching and training.

Committee and staff discussion focused on eligibility, required policies and remaining unknown costs. Finance Director Gary summarized eligible uses and timing: the grant prioritizes new co-responder programs, covers up to 75% of salaries and benefits for up to three years for eligible hires, and the tax effective dates follow Department of Revenue deadlines (January 1, April 1, or July 1) depending on the city’s notification date. The police department must supply CJTC with a detailed staffing plan and response metrics if the city applies.

The Police Chief told the committee the department already meets many CJTC prerequisites and is working to address a few outstanding policy updates. The chief said the department is "over 25% on our 40-hour CIT requirement" and has a plan to reach full compliance by year-end; he also said one co-responder position remains frozen and would need to be unfrozen to count as an existing co-responder program. "We have a co-responder program in place because that position is frozen," the chief said. He added that the state’s new use-of-force reporting portal had just gone live and that his team will submit required reports every 30 days.

Committee members identified several unknowns staff must clarify before the full council decides whether to enact the tax: how much of the expected revenue the city would allocate to police staffing versus public defense or dispatching; whether grant funds may be used for capital expenses (staff said eligible uses focus primarily on personnel, training and response programs and that grant rules disallow funding laterals and favor entry-level hires); and how long any grant-supported positions would be sustainable once the three-year grant ends. Staff noted that the grant is separate from the tax: a city must qualify with CJTC to obtain grant funds, and the tax can be enacted independently but requires CJTC certification to be implemented under the program.

Next steps: the committee directed staff to prepare the CJTC application materials, assemble a list of prioritized uses for the funding (for example, co-responder staffing, training and public defense support) and forward both options — "submit to qualify" and "submit to qualify and enact the tax" — to the full City Council for deliberation. No formal vote on adopting the tax took place at the committee meeting; the committee’s action was to refer the resolution and related materials to council.