With the final decision needing to be made about whether or not to add the use tax to the April ballot, Bill Cooper, on Jan. 20, asked how exactly the use tax would work in the county.

“It’s a tax on online sales. They come from out of the state of Missouri. If you purchase online currently, and it’s within the state of Missouri, you do pay it. You do pay a sales tax,” said Presiding Commissioner Steve Black.

Cooper asked if other tax possibilities were discussed.

“I’d much rather somebody else pay those taxes than for Crawford County residents to have to pay those taxes,” Cooper said.

Black explained that the only other tax they have looked at is a tourism tax, which, as explained by Stephen Pilkington of the Missouri Department of Revenue, is only for municipalities, not counties. Black had found a statute that allowed counties to adopt a tourism tax, only if they had 110 miles of lake shoreline.

“Basically, Crawford County is not eligible to pass the tourism tax according to the Missouri Department of Revenue,” Black said.

Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast added that revenue collected from a tourism tax can only go to certain things.

“I don’t know the book chapter and the verse on what all can be funded out of tourism, but I know I can’t buy gravel for the county roads, and I know I can’t buy asphalt. I know I can’t pay wages out of it, and those are the things that I need the money for,” Boast said.

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer said they don’t want people to shop online for everything that they do.

“But just last week, we had one of our local shops here in town close their doors, and they’re strictly selling online now,” Pfeiffer said. “So we’re losing our brick and mortar stores, one right after another.”

Boast said that he understands that local citizens are struggling, but that it is part of his job to keep the county running.

“I know the budget struggles that we have, the road districts, and I know the budget struggle that goes on at the sheriff’s office in the jail. And I know the struggle that goes on at my house, and I get it, we are all struggling,” Boast said. “But at the end of the day, we have a job to do here at this commission, and that’s to keep this county solvent.”

He further explained that when he became a commissioner, the county wasn’t solvent. It took a team of “hardworking office holders and others” to make that happen. He is trying to do what’s best for the county, not just follow what the others have done.

Pfeiffer also made a comment that Boast has discussed, on multiple occasions, the increase in traffic on the gravel roads due to the presence of all the FedEx and UPS deliveries. He added that with all the bridges that are currently getting replaced, as well as the ones that will need to be replaced in the future, the county is running low on money to fix them.

“If we don’t get any kind of additional tax revenue, you know, I don’t know when that bridge would ever think about getting replaced,” Pfeiffer said. “We’d have to just dump some rock across there, put a couple of culverts in, maybe pour some really bad concrete over top of it and hope it just stayed for a little while.”

To show how beneficial the use tax could be, Pfeiffer gave the example of his wife and daughter, who “didn’t hesitate to order multiple items for the homecoming.” They didn’t look at the tax at all during the transaction.

Sheriff Darin Layman gave an example of his own. He talked about how he needed to “buy an antiquated battery for a DSLR camera that’s over 10 years old, that you cannot get” in the county. While he was in St. Louis, he stopped to check prices and refused to pay $50 for the item that was $25 online. When he threw in another item that he couldn’t get within the county lines, the total came to $39.02, with $1.65 in tax.

“And I didn’t even blink an eye at it because I knew I had to have it,” Layman said.

Black threw in that, “you can’t be charged sales tax and use tax on the same part....One or the other.”

When it came time to make a vote on whether to put the use tax on the ballot or not, Boast explained that he thinks of it as a way of fighting back.

“Well, my thought process has been all along, we’ve got to do something, and just sitting back and letting it fall down around us is not going to work,” Boast said.

With a 3-0 vote, the commissioners approved putting the use tax. on the April ballot.

In other business, during the county official reports, Layman announced that Stronghold Data, out of Joplin, was chosen for their IT support.

County Clerk Kim Gibbs said that the new ATV stickers are in.

Black mentioned that some county officials had come together to look at the county’s old employee handbook and took the time to make some changes. The motion was passed with a 3-0 vote to accept the new handbook.