VIENNA — At the Feb. 27 Maries County Commission meeting, County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers suggested commissioners lower the minimum dollar value that determines what county equipment must be inventoried. Currently, the county follows state statute 49.093, which requires inventory for equipment worth $1,000 or more.

Rodgers and the commissioners mentioned items such as guns, computers, uniforms and tools that are worth less than $1,000 but would still benefit the county to be inventoried.

“If we hire somebody and we buy a gun for them, we need that gun back if they quit,” Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said. “I think we should.”

Stratman asked what value the county should choose for the inventory minimum. Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said he wanted to wait for the opinion of Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre, who was not present, to get into the details.

All three commissioners voted to lower the minimum purchase price of inventoried items from $1,000 to $100 at the following March 6 meeting.

Electronics collection

Also at the Feb. 27 meeting, Stratman mentioned an upcoming electronics, appliance and tire collection at Dixon High School. The Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC), Ozark Rivers Solid Waste Management District and Dixon R-1 Schools will co-sponsor the event with partial funding from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The collection will be held from 9 a.m. to noon on March 25 at Dixon High School. It will be in a drive-through establishment where the event organizers will take items from vehicles. They will accept anything operated by a battery or a cord for free. Some larger items will require a disposal fee. Any tires must have the rims removed. Passenger tire disposal costs $2, truck tire disposal costs $7.50 and tractor tire disposal costs $35.

Items the program will not accept include CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, floppy disks, capacitors, transformers, or ballasts that are not clearly marked as “no PCBs,” smoke detectors, thermostats, medical waste cartridges, alkaline batteries, light bulbs and fluorescent tubes and broken CRT TVs or monitors.

The collection service is available to anyone in MRPC’s eight county region. Anyone with questions can contact MRPC.

Opioid program

Later, Rodgers told the commissioners that MRPC had contacted her to ask if the county would want assistance in setting up programs related to the opioid crisis. As part of a settlement between Missouri and opioid distributors McKesson, Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health and Johnson & Johnson, Missouri counties will receive a series of payments over the next several years.

Counties must use 85 percent of those payments to fund programs that educate the public or help reduce the damages of opioid abuse. Counties may spend the other 15 percent of the money as they see fit. In January, the commissioners decided that Maries County’s 15 percent would go into the General Revenue fund.

Stratman said he had talked to MRPC about working with the county to develop programs related to opioid education.

Tax legislation

Former Presiding Commissioner Ray Schwartze visited the Feb. 27 meeting to let the commissioners know about his concerns about a bill in the Missouri Senate. Senate Bill 8, which Senator Bill Eigel (R-St. Charles) proposed, would lower personal property taxes from 33.3 percent to 31 percent. It would also allow county assessors to obtain manufacturer-suggested retail values for vehicles and equipment older than 10 years from “a source that he or she deems reliable and shall apply the depreciation schedule provided by the act.”

Schwartze said the bill could drop property taxes on those items more than 10 years old. He determined that his own property which was more than 10 years old resulted in more than $800 in revenue last year.

“How do they expect us to run the schools and counties?” he asked.

“That’s going to put a hell of a lot on the assessor, too, if they have to figure out appreciation on every individual piece of equipment,” Stratman said.

Other business

The commissioners reviewed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Maries County and the American Red Cross. The MOU defines a working relationship between the county, the American Red Cross, emergency management agencies and other departments, agencies and offices to prepare for response to and recovery from emergencies and disasters.

At the Feb. 23 meeting, the commissioners approved and signed a contract for services with the Missouri Department of Social Services. The contract is a county reimbursement cooperative agreement that will last from the beginning of this year through the end of 2025.

Randy Mosley, a representative from GFI Digital, an office technology provider, visited the meeting to renew the county’s copier agreement. The commissioners changed some of the features in the agreement. The county will save about $300 per month for use of its nine copiers.

Stratman asked Rodgers to put a notice for lawn care bids in the newspaper. The commissioners will open the bids on March 16.

The commissioners also approved invoices and reviewed the payroll report.