By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Brandon Twp.- The police millage will be back on the ballot for the November 2018 election.
At the township meeting on July 2, the board voted in favor of the language for the ballot, which is to call this a police millage replacement. Because the previous millage request was for five years, as voted on during the August 2014 elections, it will not be called a renewal as this request is for eight years.
“Our objective as a board was to include the police millage in the gubernatorial election when we would have a higher voter turnout for this important question,” said township supervisor Kathy Thurman. “By changing the term of the millage from five years to eight years, we know that it can be presented for renewal in another gubernatorial election.”
Thurman also stated that since all township board seats are up for election during the presidential election years, they didn’t want a changing board to interfere with the police millage.
“We’re asking for up to 4.25 mills as we did in 2014,” said Thurman. “Last December we levied 3.8 mills for police and are considering lowering it a little more for this December. 4.25 mills will give us enough to compensate for the Hedlee rollback factor over the course of 8 years so we won’t have to ask for a second police millage during that time period.”