Crawford County Presiding Commissioner Steve Black provided inspection reports on April 14 in an attempt to alleviate public concern regarding a rumor that there was a fire at the assessor’s building or courthouse.

While there wasn’t a fire at the courthouse, there was a claim of one at the Hale building next to the assessor’s office.

Black received three reports from the Steelville Public Works Director Jason Evans. After multiple inspections of the building, there were no signs that a fire had occurred.

Chase Marable, of Higginboth Insurance, the county’s insurance provider, said that every county building has fire insurance.

“The most recent changes we made (were) at 702 Franklin. That building value was…decreased from $582,000 to $400,000; 101 Euclid…increased from $330,000 to $800,000 and the courthouse, we added $29,000 in order to protect our new servers that just came into the courthouse,” Marable said. “We are intending to go ahead and do a total replacement cost increase on a lot of our larger buildings, the courthouse (and) the jail, but what we decided is to wait until renewal to do that.”

Some changes are happening at Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) that will affect the county.

Black said there was an addendum from MRPC to the county’s floodplain management agreement that the commissioners signed, which said their rates are slightly increasing. This is due to the need to raise membership fees because the state is cutting some of its funding.

He also said that on March 31, the commissioner approved a request from the Crawford County Opioid Fund Disbursement Board in the amount of $46,613.02 for Compass Health.

Since then, they have agreed to accept $41,000 instead, which was approved by the commission with a 3-0 vote.

Treasurer Karen Sikes began her county officials’ report with a letter from Rachel’s Angels, asking for approval for a change to their Crawford County Opioid Fund Disbursement Board recommendation.

Commissioners originally approved the artwork, vinyl installation and billboard rental on March 31 to be advertised along westbound Interstate 44 in Bourbon.

Treasurer Karen Sikes said that they had requested $4,000, but have recently realized that it wasn’t enough.

“After further investigation with the billboard people, it was going to be like $6,000 and something,” Sikes said.

Rachel’s Angels has reached out to the opioid board to see if they will approve the change, but in the meantime, the commissioners have signed their approval.

Sikes also reported that the March sales tax revenue was down by 2.5 percent for the general fund, and more than 3 percent down for the capital improvement and law enforcement funds.

“It’s not always going to be high, and that always fluctuates because some people don’t turn in their taxes on time,” Sikes said. 

Collector Pat Schwent presented the county’s write-offs, which totaled to $3,246.09, for the commissioners to sign off on.

She then asked what her office is supposed to do when people start calling about the Senate Bill 3 that was passed in the April 7 elections.

District 2 Associate Commissioner Jared Boast said that the county can’t comment at the moment.

“While Missouri Senate Bill 3 has been passed and signed into law, it’s presently the subject of ongoing litigation challenging certain provisions. Final application of the law will depend on the outcome of those court proceedings,” Boast said.

In other business, Dustin Bly, of Legacy Advisors, discussed various health insurance options for county employees.