Johnson County officials do not want to raise residents’ taxes to pay for a new emergency dispatch center.
The Johnson County Council has the option of increasing the local income tax to provide funding for a combined center, which would take 911 and non-emergency calls for police and fire departments across the county.
The local income tax is at 1 percent. The added .25 percent would bring in nearly $8 million a year for public safety costs. Of the $8 million, $3.3 million would go to the dispatch center and $4.5 million would go to the communities for other public safety costs, such as buying new vehicles or equipment or paying off loans.
But county council members said they don’t want to increase the tax because they don’t want to take $8 million more from taxpayers every year, council member Ron West said.
