Steelville Board of Aldermen voted May 18 to shift real estate tax collection to Crawford County because the city is transitioning to a new software system which does not support Missouri municipal tax collection.

The move will save the city money, reduce staff workload and improve delinquent tax collection efforts.

The decision comes after the city found out that its current software platform, gWorks, was bought out and is switching to a cloud-based system in January. Finance Officer Regina Slovensky said that many cities are struggling with the new system.

“They were in a hurry to jump into the cloud and didn’t have all the bugs worked out,” she said. “gWorks is not functional. Cities all across, at least Missouri and Oklahoma, that we know of, are leaving gWorks and finding another software provider for their accounting and utility systems.”

The city solicited bids for new platforms and aldermen voted unanimously to move to BS&A Software. 

“Even if we stayed with gWorks, we’d still have to go to their cloud-based platform, which is still going to be an additional cost to make that change,” Ward 2 Alderman Jason Ward said. “So, either way, we’re having to pay for new software.”

While BS&A can handle the city’s utilities, accounting and payroll, it does not offer tax collection for Missouri.

“The reason that they have not got a tax module for the state of Missouri is because every city that now has it, the county already collects for them, so there was never a need for it,” Slovensky said.

If the city did want to continue handling tax collections itself, it would need to implement a custom-built tax module into BS&A, an estimated $5,170 in implementation costs and annual fees. Comparatively, if the county would have collected the city’s real estate taxes last year, the cost to the city would have only been around $1,800.

Aside from the cost savings, shifting collection to the county also reduces the workload for the city’s staff. Implementing the custom module into BS&A would mean city staff would need to spend time learning how to use it, whereas the county already has their own system.

“If we are able to have someone else doing it for much cheaper anyway, and we don’t have to allocate city time and resources to it, it’s a win-win, in my opinion,” Ward said.

Stronger delinquent tax enforcement was another benefit, because the county is more effective at pursuing unpaid taxes than the city acting alone. The county will start moving delinquent properties toward auction by August and overdue taxpayers will receive notice about the merge.

“Sullivan, Bourbon, all of the towns around that are in Crawford County are already collected by the county,” Slovensky said.

“This is nothing new for them,” Mayor Duane DeRennaux said.

In other news, Ward 1 Alderman Curtis Crouch reported that Rob Pulliam, a Nature-Based Solutions Coordinator with The Nature Conservancy, which is an environmental nonprofit, contacted him to discuss the town’s low water bridges.

After observing the bridges in Steelville, Pulliam told Crouch that the walking trail and the industrial low water crossings are an impediment to wildlife migrating up the stream. Grant funding is available to help the city address the issues, so city officials will be meeting with him further to put an application together.

The city’s yard sale ordinances are under review and updates will be made at a future meeting. DeRennaux said current ordinances are outdated and unclear.

“We’re having a lot of people exceeding the time of days for their yard sales, it was more than three days, so we’re just trying to bring that up to par,” he said.

City Supervisor Jason Evans reported that a sewer main above the treatment plant collapsed and city workers had to move logs and 15 feet of dirt to access the manhole. The sewer jet, which is from 1992, failed. Crews dug up and replaced 30 feet of clay main.

“We probably use it about 10 hours a month, but when we need it in a situation like this, it can’t fall apart on us like it does,” Evans said.

The purchase of a new sewer jet will be down the road for the city. Aldermen also voted unanimously to purchase two city trucks to replace two that are broken. Both purchases will be made out of the city’s capital improvements fund.

Evans also gave recognition to Hayden Martin, a general maintenance employee, who was reading meters in the morning on April 28 when he smelled smoke and heard alarms going off at 222 Oak Street. He promptly disconnected the electric meters and called 911. 

“His quick thinking and quick reactions saved a home on that morning,” Evans said. “Very, very minimal damage.”