VIENNA — The Maries County Commission could consider a new path for funding local 911 dispatching services after a meeting with a member of the Missouri 911 Service Board at the April 10 commission meeting.

Future funding for the county’s 911 center became a priority of the county commission near the end of March when it appeared the fund may not sustain itself for the year. The only cost coming out of the 911 fund was payroll for five full-time employees. After reworking the payments based on employees’ roles as dispatchers and jailers and receiving revenue from municipalities dispatched by the county center, the fund appears likely to stay positive through this year.

The county’s current primary revenue stream for the 911 fund is a surcharge on landline phones. As landline use has dwindled over the last couple of decades, the revenue to the fund has also declined. Two alternative options are available to bring more money to the dispatching center, but both require approval from voters.

One option is to replace the fee on landline phones with a fee on cellphones. The other is to establish a 911 sales tax and a local board to oversee the administration of the tax and dispatching center.

Questions about how the dispatching center could continue operating led Sheriff Mark Morgan to seek guidance from the state board overseeing 911 dispatching. He met with the Missouri 911 Service Board Executive Director Scott Cason and arranged for Cason to meet with the county commission.

Cason joined the commission last week to discuss options and answer any questions. He began by providing an overview of the state board and its purpose. The board consists of governor-appointed members who provide oversight to local 911 agencies along with funding and grant opportunities. It gets its funding through a tax on prepaid wireless phones sold in the state. Over the last few years, the board has focused on helping rural counties update their equipment and capabilities. One specific goal has been to improve technology so counties that could not pinpoint 911 calls had the power to locate callers.

Maries County has recently received state funding for a couple of different projects to aid the dispatch center. One was to increase redundancy with Rolla’s dispatching center as the two locations have entered into a partnership so one center can answer calls for another. Those hubs are part of a new Central Region created by the state board. It promotes compatibility among dispatchers in Maries, Phelps, Crawford and Pulaski counties.

The other project was to update the county geographic information system (GIS) mapping.

Cason said the funding problem Maries County faces is shared by other sheriff’s office-run dispatching centers throughout the state. Missouri is one of the only states that lets local governments choose how to run their 911 centers. All the surrounding counties have pursued and established 911 boards under Missouri Revised State Statute 190.335. If voters were to pass a proposed sales tax to support 911 services, then the county commission would appoint board members. Once the board was operational, the county would no longer have any say in the 911 center’s administration. The board seats would also become elected positions in the years following its establishment.

Maries County already has up-to-date equipment in the sheriff’s office. If it were to transition to a board-run 911 center, it would not need to relocate or hire new staff. The day-to-day operation would be the same with new funding and oversight being the primary differences for the local board model.

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said Maries County’s 911 center was running out of money, and the only way he would want it to become consolidated with another county would be if local funding could no longer sustain it.

Cason said the state board has made a good investment in Maries County, and he believed it would be good if dispatching stayed local. He offered to put together data on what a one-cent sales tax could look like for the county.

Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman asked about the feasibility of replacing the landline fees with a cellphone tax rather than a sales tax-funded board. The commissioners shared concerns about the county’s dearth of retail businesses to support a sales tax.

Cason said he expected a sales tax would provide more funding than a sales tax because of the county’s low population. The counties that pursue cellphone taxes are usually those with alternative revenue streams and higher populations. Estimates of how much a cellphone tax would bring were about $100,000 annually.

County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers found last year’s tax revenue from the county’s one-cent sales tax, which brought about $380,000 in revenue.

Drewel said the process of pursuing a sales tax and establishing a board made more sense now than before, and he was starting to see it as the county’s best option for the future.

The other commissioners agreed. Stratman said he saw a sales tax as the county’s only option. He asked Cason if he would be available in the future to answer questions about forming a local 911 board if the county wanted to hold informational meetings for the public.

Cason said he and others on the state board had attended such meetings in the past, and he would answer the commission’s questions moving forward.

Western District Commissioner Patrick Kleffner asked what would happen if a sales tax failed to pass.

Cason said the equipment the county has now should remain up to date for a handful of years. As time passes, it will require updates for new features. If the county is unable to pay for those, the systems may lose functionality.

Drewel asked if consolidation with another county would be a possibility if funding failed to materialize.

Cason said physical consolidation would be an option if another county agreed to it. The four-county region will be virtually consolidated once the state board’s regions are finalized within the next year or so.

Drewel asked if the state’s funding had changed at all because of the recent cuts to federal programs under the new presidential administration.

Cason said the state board had a pool of federal funding to enhance cybersecurity in dispatching centers. The state planned to provide education to local hubs about enhancing protections against cyberattacks. It had put out requests for proposals and awarded about $250,000 when the federal government put a freeze on the funds.

Once Cason left, the commissioners discussed the possibility of running the sales tax and agreed that it seemed like the best of the three options to continue running the 911 center. The earliest the tax could run in a regular election would be April 2026.