Commissioners made the decision on Jan. 6 to self-insure the Crawford County assets.

During a discussion on Dec. 9, the commissioners shared that approximately $36,000 would be added to the yearly premium that they already pay because the county buildings are underinsured.

“It takes a long time to build savings. It took a long time,” said Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast.

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black said that to build savings for the county, some things, like repairs, needed to be put off.

Boast mentioned that no one with Higginbotham, the county insurance broker that bought Connell Insurance, ever sat down and spoke with him about District 2’s insurance amount and what it covers in certain situations, such as flooding.

“I do want to go on record and say that, you know, I didn’t have any idea that we didn’t have flood insurance. I was definitely here whenever the flood maps were redrawn, whenever those areas were redone, I was definitely here,” Boast said. “And I don’t ever recall the county clerk, or Connell Insurance, or anybody else for that matter, coming in here going ‘Hey, by the way, you guys need to have flood insurance.’”

Sheriff Darin Layman was slightly skeptical about whether the county could handle self-insuring.

“Unfortunately, at one point, we were self-insured for health insurance, let alone being able to afford correct flood insurance. It was just not feasible in the past. Whether it isn’t now, is not for me to say,” Layman said.

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer thinks that self-insuring the county is a good idea.

“I personally don’t feel that we need to add the flood insurance right now,” Pfeiffer said. “I think we’ve probably made some preparation for this....We’ve opened up the drains out here in the front....If the creek gets past the drains, it’s not going to drain into the creek because the water levels are higher than that.”

With two substantial floods occurring within the last 13 to 14 months, Pfeiffer said a lot of debris has been forced away from places like bridges, so they don’t barricade the area and cause excess flooding.

Black announced the decision to self-insure instead and plan for the future.

“Then we’ll just make the plan to self-insure against another disaster like we had on Nov. 24, (2025), and we’ll budget toward raising our insurance on our buildings,” Black said. 

In other business, commissioners discussed replacing Ordinance 22-01-04 with Ordinance 2026-01-06, which calls for a redistricting change. Black read the ordinance language.

 “Section one, this entirety of Benton South and Liberty-Leasburg voting precincts of Crawford County, Missouri, are hereby declared to be placed within the boundaries and jurisdictions of Road District 2, and removed for all purposes, including voting, taxing and road maintenance from the boundaries and jurisdiction of Road District 1,” Black read. “The voting precinct of Liberty, Liberty of Crawford County, Missouri, including voting, taxing and road maintenance, shall remain in the boundary and jurisdiction of Road District 1.”

A motion was passed with a 3-0 vote to accept Resolution No. 2026-01-01, which was brought to the commissioners’ attention by the Presiding Commissioner of Iron County, Jim Scaggs.

Black gave a summary of the proposal.

“Basically...the objective of this resolution is to formally request that the United States Congress amend the 1908 Act, Public Law title 16 USC 500 to increase the payment to countries from 25 percent to 50 percent of revenue derived from the Mark Twain National Forest,” Black said.

Since Road District 1 has some land in the Mark Twain National Forest, it would be able to benefit from the extra revenue generated if this resolution were to eventually pass.

It was added that the federal government only pays a modest sum of revenue to offset the lost revenue caused by the overlapping boundaries of Federal Land that is untaxed.

“...reducing property tax for schools and local governments, and whereas the economic impact in these counties with high proportions of public land often struggle with limited tax bases...,” Black read.

Under the 1908 Act, Missouri receives 25 percent of the revenue collected from the Mark Twain National Forest and distributes it between the 29 affected counties.

Just to give an example of the benefits, Pfeiffer said that $36,912.54 was received by Road District 1 from the national forest.

This motion does not approve the resolution to go into effect and start getting an increased amount of revenue; it is just to put the county’s name on it in support when it is brought to the U.S. Congress.

In other business, Crawford County Coroner Darren Dake presented the morgue financial report. Currently, they have service agreements with three counties: Phelps, Maries and Gasconade.

“We will also have the service agreement, by the end of the month, with the Department of Corrections (DOC). We have nine facilities that we’re going to do autopsies for,” Dake said.

For income, the morgue made $76,611.50, with additional revenue from office fees and state refunds. After expenses, $18,859.40 was the total net revenue from the morgue. 

Crawford County morgue also saved approximately $35,045 by doing autopsies in the county instead of sending them to another facility.

Dake said that having a service agreement with the DOC will probably add about 40 more cases because, unless someone dies in hospice, everyone who dies in DOC has to be autopsied.

Dake added that the Crawford County facilities are better than many others.

“And of course, (the doctors) said many times, I told you that our facility is hands down a thousand times better than St. Louis,” Dake said. “They would rather come here than St. Louis. If we had more cases, they’d come here full-time because they hate working there at the bad facility.” 

DOC gave Crawford County a trial run and are now canceling contracts with two other facilities and giving them to the county.

Dake believes that in 10 years, it will still be a sought-after facility as long as the cosmetics are kept up, and a separate table may need to be added in the future so that two people can work at the same time.