Three Ada County suburbs could start seeing higher bills for policing in the coming years.
Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford said he hopes to start phasing out a decades-old program that gives cities a contract with the county to run their police departments at a 7% discount. Clifford said he won’t hike the bill on Kuna, Star and Eagle for policing overnight and instead hopes to implement a slow phase-down of the contract discount of 1% per year over the next several years, as long as there aren’t too many other heavy demands on law enforcement costs due to raises, new deputies or other needs.
“I will play it by ear and make the decision when it’s right,” he said. “But I’ve made it known to all of the mayors it’s smoke and mirrors. Whether (the discount is zero or 7%) you get the same service, which tells you well there’s no point to it. They will just have to pay their fair share in the future, but how we get to that is delicate.”…