City Council finds new ways to fund public safety
June 11, 2015
By Temple Ligon
COLUMBIA, SC – At last week’s Columbia City Council meeting, votes came in along lines of race. Voting for first-reading approval of water and sewer rate hikes, an increase in the utility franchise fee, and the proposed budget for fiscal year 2015-16 were Mayor Benjamin and council members Devine, Davis, and Newman. Voting against were council members Plaugh, Runyan, and Baddourah.
The water and sewer rate increase was 9.5 percent. The increase in the franchise fee passed to the customer was 2 percent.
Last year’s transfer from the water and sewer fund to the city’s general fund was $4 million. This year it’s a strictly public safety – no general fund – transfer of $2,675,605.
Public safety is heating up. Not that it’s been cool in Columbia’s recent past. In a comparison with the rest of the country – which had roughly 200 aggravated assaults per 100,000 citizens for the four years 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 – Columbia had an average of more than 600 aggravated assaults for each of the same four years.
The violent crime index for Columbia in those same four years averaged more than 900 per year, while the nation averaged a bit more than 300 per 100,000 citizens.
In other words, Columbia is violent.
And according to the Wall Street Journal, May 30, we’re flowing into “The New Nationwide Crime Wave,” as the Journal headlined its report. To quote the opening paragraphs:
“The nation’s two-decades-long crime decline may be over. Gun violence in particular is spiraling upward in cities across America. In Baltimore, the most pressing question every morning is how many people were shot the previous night. Gun violence is up more than 60% compared with this time last year, according to Baltimore police, with 32 shootings over Memorial Day weekend. May has been the most violent month the city has seen in 15 years.
“In Milwaukee, homicides were up 180% by May 17 over the same period the previous year. Through April, shootings in St. Louis were up 39%, robberies 43%, and homicides 25%. “Crime is the worst I have ever seen it,” said St. Louis Alderman Joe Vacarro at a May 7 City Hall hearing.
“Murders in Atlanta were up 32% as of mid-May. Shootings in Chicago had increased 24% and homicides 17%. Shootings and other violent felonies in Los Angeles had spiked by 25%; in New York, murder was up nearly 13%, and gun violence 7%.”
The Journal didn’t cover Columbia, but with the huge differences in violent crime statistics between Columbia and the rest of the nation for the past four years, funding to beef up public safety appears more than timely.
One last statistic: For the same four years – 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 – Columbia averaged about 10 homicides each year while the country averaged fewer than 5 per 100,000 citizens.
