MARIES COUNTY — There is a lot more work involved with an election than what voters see on election day. At last Thursday’s Maries County Commission meeting, County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers said the day before she had ordered the ballots for the Aug. 2, 2022 Primary Election.

The ballots will be printed by Elkins-Swyers Company of Springfield, the company the Maries County Clerk’s office has used for years. Rodgers said a primary election is quite different from a general or municipal election in that she has to have ballots that fit the political stances of all of the individual voters. These ballot types include Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Constitutional, Green and nonpartisan. She also has to figure out how many of each of these ballots to order so she considers which ballots she thinks voters will ask for at the primary election. Having years of experience at this certainly helps.

Rodgers uses data from the previous primary election to help make these decisions. She also has to look at the political atmosphere of the time. She said right now there are more Republican voters than Democratic voters in Maries County so she ordered more Republican ballots. Another factor is the number of ballot contests with opposition. This year, there are no contested races for Maries County elected positions. But, there is a county question asking if voters want a full time prosecuting attorney rather than a part time one, which is what Maries County has now. Rodgers said because of there being no contests and only the one local issue, this is likely to decrease the number of voters who make the trip to their polling site on August 2.

There are some contests at the state level. On the August Primary Election ballot there will be contests for the political parties in Missouri via voters to select candidates to compete in the November General Election. These include US Senator, Congressman 3rd District, State Senator 16th District, State Representative 143rd District, and State Auditor. The Division 2 Circuit Judge 25th Judicial Circuit is up for election as well.

Rodgers said for the November election, two state initiative petitions have been certified and she assumes they will get enough signatures to be on the ballot. These may bring out some voters as one deals with elections, and one that could potentially bring out voters is the question about legalizing recreational marijuana. 

In Maries County, because there are no county contested races, Primary Election voters will reelect/elect the people who will serve another or new four-year term of office. This includes the Presiding Commissioner, County Clerk, Treasurer, Collector, Circuit Clerk and Recorder, Prosecuting Attorney, and Associate Circuit Court Judge. 

Certified

At a county commission meeting the previous week, the commissioners approved putting a question on the November Election ballot asking voters to approve a full time prosecuting attorney for the county, versus the part time position it currently is. At the May 23 commission meeting, Rodgers informed the commissioners she spoke with Prosecutor Skouby who said the question needs to be put to voters on the August Primary Election to become effective Jan. 2023, if voters approve it by a simple majority. Skouby, who is unopposed on the ballot, will begin his second term on Jan. 1, 2023. He told Rodgers if the full time prosecutor questioned was on the November ballot and was approved by the voters, it would not become effective until four years later, at the beginning of the prosecutor’s next term of office. There was no time to waste as it had to be certified for the August election by May 24. The commissioners agreed to run the question on the August ballot.

If approved by voters, it will increase the prosecutor’s salary from the current $52,101 to $146,812, which is a raise of $94,711. The commissioners are not sure how to pay for it. They are concerned over the long-term, the big raise is not sustainable. 

Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre said, “Let the voters decide.” Rodgers commented that everything else is going up.

Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said they’d already approved giving the sheriff a $30,000 a year raise following legislation approved on the state level. Plus fuel costs have doubled as other prices have increased as well. 

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel pointed to a letter they received from the quarry where he gets road rock, that said prices had increased in January and another increase is coming in July. He’s worried how far they can stretch the money.

Fagre said some of this he feels like they “are raising it to raise it,” as they see an opportunity, an excuse, to make more profit. 

Stratman said Prosecutor Skouby is working more than a part time job, “But the way it (the statute) is set up there is no in between.” 

Drewel has been concerned about the rising price of goods and services. He said, “It’s only a matter of time. Eventually we will run out of money.”

Middle of the night

Connie Schmiedeskamp of Vienna, was at the commission meeting briefly. She was one of only a few citizens who were at the courthouse when Senator Roy Blunt visited. She said she is suspicious the phone and internet problems many area residents are experiencing are because of the phone company and the attorney general should get in on it. If a person can have adequate phone and internet in the middle of the night, the same ought to be available during the day. “There is no reason why we can’t get a signal here like they do in the middle of a canyon in Colorado.” 

Stratman said he doesn’t know. 

Messed up roads

Following heavy rain events, the commissioners were dealing with keeping county roads open and passable. Fagre said the rain the area received on Saturday “messed the roads up again. It doesn’t rain anymore, it comes a flood.”

Proactive 

Treasurer Rhonda Slone gave the commissioners sales tax revenue numbers for May 2022. One of the county’s three half-cent sales taxes brought in $29,564.65 in May. This compares to $31,787.77 it brought in during May 2021. 

For the first five months of 2022, one sales tax generated $134,417.52 in revenue. This compares to the same period of time in 2021 when the revenue it brought in was $136,539.73. This is a decrease of two percent in 2022 revenues compared to the year before. 

Maries County did receive more sales tax during the worst part of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as more people stayed home and shopped locally. Things have opened up now, and it appears shoppers have gone back to their pre-pandemic shopping habits. 

One bright spot is that use tax continues to increase. For May 2022 use tax collections were $9,931.22 compared to 2021 when it was $8,207.42. Thus far in 2022, the county has received $68,226 in use tax revenue. 

Slone said Maries County has had a use tax since the state approved counties passing a use tax. Slone said at that time, then-Presiding Commissioner Jim Kleffner “was proactive and said, ‘Let’s do it’ and the people approved it.” She added maybe people weren’t sure what a use tax was because at that time online shopping was not a big deal, but they trusted Kleffner about it. There are some counties in Missouri which still have not been able to get a voter approved use tax for their counties.