MARIES COUNTY— The Maries County Commission has decided to put a question before voters on the April Election ballot that would increase local funding for the county’s 911 Dispatch Center. Some questions remain, however, and at last Thursday’s meeting, newly sworn-in prosecuting attorney, Tony Skouby, helped the commissioners by clarifying some of the language in HB 1456, the recently passed and signed by the governor bill that gives Missouri counties and cities more options for funding 911 Dispatch Centers.

HB 1456 gives Missouri counties the option to impose a tax on any device that can contact 911. This includes cell phones from which most of the calls to 911 come from, and it also includes landlines. Maries County is one of the counties that currently relies on a landline fee to support its 911 activities. County Treasurer Rhonda Slone said that source is not as much as it used to be due to people dropping their landlines and using cell phones as their primary communication device. Slone said in 2011 the end of the year balance in the 911 fund was $96,000. In 2018, the year end fund balance was $3,000. Slone told the commissioners this budget only “gets so much a month and it needs to be built back up.” She said the 911 fund receives about $10,000 to $15,000 in revenue each month. It has expenses that take most of the money as the phone companies are paid $5,000 to $10,000 each month and the full time dispatcher’s salary is taken from the 911 fund. Slone said this budget can’t handle any additional expenses. 

Sheriff Chris Heitman and Lt. Scott John both have discussed this issue at length with the commissioners. They say the needs in the county’s 911 Dispatch Center are twofold as the center needs equipment upgrades and more staffing. Both of these are expensive.

This is why the county commission will ask voters in April to improve the county’s 911 operations by approving a monthly county sales tax of $1 on a subscriber of any communications service that has been enabled to contact 911.

Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre had read an article on Missourinet about having the choose between three options—a sales tax, continue with the landline fees, or receive up to $1 sales tax fee through wireless carriers. He was concerned because currently the county receives an up to $1.50 fee from each landline in Maries County and he thought it meant this would have to be replaced by a $1 surcharge fee on cell phones only. He was concerned they would be giving away landline revenue in order to get the cell phone revenue. They can only speculate on how many cell phones are owned by county residents and any revenue numbers are only estimates. 

They asked Prosecutor Skouby to give an opinion. He came right away and began reading through the commission’s copy of HB 1456. Fagre said he wants to be able to keep the revenue stream they receive now from landlines and to add to it with the money generated by a monthly $1 cell phone sales tax for 911. 

Skouby found the ballot language within the bill and it states “Shall the county of Maries impose a county sales tax of… (interest rate of percent) percent for the purpose of providing central dispatching of fire protection, emergency ambulance service, including emergency telephone services, and other emergency services?” Skouby said thinks as long as the phone can contact 911, it can have this $1 sales tax applied to it but they no longer can collect the $1.50 (up to 15 percent) surcharge on land lines; instead this will be the same $1 tax as on cell phones. However, Skouby suggested they “politely inquire” about this with the Missouri Association of Counties (MAC) attorney to get a definite answer. Fagre also left a message with Rep. Tom Hurst’s office asking for clarification on the meaning of the house bill. 

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said he wants this to be very clear for the voters as if it is confusing, they won’t vote for it. Also, he thinks the ballot language should include that the money is for the purpose of providing dispatch of fire, ambulance and other emergency services. 

Up Six Percent

Treasurer Rhonda Slone was pleased to report Maries County’s total sales tax revenue for 2018 surpassed the total 2017 collections by about six percent. The county has three half-cent sales taxes and a law enforcement sales tax that is one-third of one percent of a cent. The county also collects use tax.

Total 2018 sales tax revenue for the county’s three half cent sales taxes totaled nearly $1 million at $910,444.81. This compares to total 2017 sales tax revenue of $857,202.17. Slone said many other counties are seeing a decline in sales tax revenue. This is an increase of six percent and the commissioners were not sure why and could only speculate as to the reasons. Slone said it might be the new Dollar General stores in Belle, Vienna and Vichy. Fagre said six percent is a pretty big number (about $50,000 in additional revenue) and that it probably is increased consumer activity in the county also, which is good. 

The county’s three sales taxes include the old sales tax of a half-cent that all of the revenue it generates goes to general revenue; the one-third sales tax passed in 1990, which actually is a half-cent that is slit three ways with one-third going to general revenue, one-third to roads, and one-third to citizen’s safety; and the new sales tax approved by voters in 2002, is a half-cent tax with two-thirds going to citizen’s safety, one-sixth goes to roads, and one-sixth to general revenue.

The county’s law enforcement sales tax revenue was up in 2018 also at $100,596.13 compared to 2017’s total of $94,779.14.

The use tax revenue for 2018 was reported at $109,676.42 compared to $94,282.77 collected in 2017.