By Charles E. Ramierz and Steve Pardo
The Detroit News
Detroit — A $38.8 million millage renewal to fund Wayne County jails and a proposal for a new tax to pay for police and fire services in Warren won voter approval Tuesday.
The renewal of a tax to help pay for the SMART suburban bus system in Oakland County also looked to be heading to approval in the August primary elections.
In addition, residents in several other Metro Detroit communities supported public safety-related tax proposals.
Wayne County
With 72 percent of precincts counted late Tuesday, voters appeared to have backed the renewal of a 10-year, one-mill levy to pay for county jail operations and juvenile detention facilities, 61 percent to 39 percent, according to unofficial election results.
“The failure of this millage to pass would have been devastating to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s general fund of the whole,” said Sheriff Benny Napoleon. “The jail millage is critical for public safety.”
Napoleon said the Sheriff’s Office did all it could to educate the public through the media and emails and through county communications. If it failed, he said, it could have meant putting 700 to 1,000 inmates back on the street.
Macomb County
Voters in the county’s largest city - Warren - also said yes to a new police and fire services millage on Tuesday.
With 56 of 57 precincts reporting, residents approved the measure easily, with 65.4 percent in favor of the the new tax and 34.6 percent against.
If the millage proposal failed, city officials said they would have been forced to lay off 45 police officers and 25 firefighters.
The proposal calls for a five-year, 4.9-mills hike. Officials estimate the tax would raise more than $16 million its first year and cost the owner of a $100,000 home an extra $245.
Resident Lisa Bowen, 48, said she voted for the millage.
“We always need to be protected,” she said after voting at the Warren Community Center on Tuesday afternoon. “And as a homeowner, I don’t mind paying a little extra to know that the city has enough police officers and firefighters when they’re needed.”
But Paul Rickey, 42, said he was against the measure.
“Our taxes keep going up, but my salary isn’t,” he said. “I don’t think we need the tax hike right now. I prefer the city find some other way - maybe make cuts in other departments - before it raises taxes to pay for our police and fire services.”
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