OLYMPIA, WA – Democrats in the Washington state House on Tuesday approved a revamped plan to provide $100 million in grants to local police departments to hire more officers.

The vote on House Bill 2015 gets lawmakers one step closer to accomplishing a core wish of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who has said he would veto a budget that doesn’t include the money for new cops. Washington ranks last in the country in police staffing per capita, a statistic Ferguson and others have pointed to in making the case for the funding.

In addition to creating the state grant program, the bill offers a new path for local governments to adopt a 0.1% sales tax without voter approval to pay for criminal justice expenses.

The measure aims to strike a balance by allowing for spending on more than just police hiring. Some Democrats are skeptical that adding cops is the best path to improve public safety.

Crisis intervention training and other areas, like emergency management planning and community assistance programs, are among the additional spending options.

The local sales tax revenue could go toward costs such as public defenders, domestic violence services, and programs to help connect formerly incarcerated people with jobs.

“I think that this is a compromise for me, because when I came to this Legislature, I was concerned about the number of police officers that we had in the community and the increased call for more law enforcement officers in their community,” said Rep. Debra Entenman, D-Kent.

“For me, there wasn’t enough community support, community resources and a different way of thinking about policing,” added Entenman, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Passage of the House legislation could signal an approaching conflict with the Senate.

A bill awaiting a floor vote on the other side of the rotunda proposed the $100 million for state grants, but not the 0.1% sales tax. However, amendments made to the House bill do align it closer to the competing proposal, Senate Bill 5060.

Most bills face a Wednesday deadline to pass out of their chamber of origin.

In floor action Tuesday, House lawmakers nixed a requirement in their bill that local governments implement the new sales tax to qualify for a piece of the $100 million in grants from the state Criminal Justice Training Commission. Instead, cities and counties can access the money if they’ve already imposed either of two existing public safety sales taxes.

Lawmakers also decided governments can’t impose the new tax if voters have rejected a similar tax proposal in the past two years.

The bill sets other criteria for qualifying for grant dollars.

For example, 25% of officers would have to complete a 40-hour crisis intervention training. The bill originally set this benchmark at 80%.

Other hurdles departments must clear to access the money include implementing model policies on use-of-force and other issues, completing trauma-informed training for all officers and complying with a law that restricts police from helping with federal immigration enforcement.

The latest bill also strips out language that would have allowed for grant funding to be used for bonuses to newly recruited officers.

Democrats turned down Republican amendments to require voter approval of the new local tax and to focus the revenue from the tax specifically on hiring police officers.

Republicans uniformly opposed Entenman’s bill, arguing the sales tax would fall disproportionately on lower earners and provide little money to fund new officers in smaller communities.

The bill passed on a 54-42 vote. Five Democrats joined Republicans against it.

“I don’t doubt that we have other aspects of the criminal justice system that could benefit from some additional funding, but to do that is to not put new officers on the street,” said Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama.

Orcutt also argued that the bill leaves open the possibility for local governments to tap the new funds and then shift existing dollars out of police budgets.

If lawmakers don’t include $100 million for the state grants in the next two-year budget, the entire bill will be null and void.

Also on Tuesday, legislators in the state Senate gave the go-ahead on a measure dealing with existing sales taxes for public safety and criminal justice. Senate Bill 5775 expands how the tax dollars can be spent, including for diversion programs to keep people out of jail and prison and mental health and addiction services.

This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.