Crawford County – Crawford County Commissioners have decided to table the discussion on adopting a county use tax on Dec. 16 until the Dec. 23 meeting.

During the discussion, Presiding Commissioner Steve Black explained how the county’s split of the tax would be divided out.

“If the use tax would pass, that would be split out, which would be 20 percent to county general revenue for wages and benefits for county employees, 20 percent of it would go to the courthouse and jail capital improvements fund and 60 percent would be split between Road District No. 1 and Road District No. 2,” Black said.

During his research, Black found the living wage for a single adult in Missouri is a salary of $43,409 a year.

I don’t know that we have very many employees working for the county that make $43,409 a year,” Black said.

Black questioned what should be cut to be able to pay employees a decent salary.

“You know, at some point, the employees have to be taken care of. So do we quit taking care of roads? What do we start cutting to be able to keep employees and pay employees a decent salary?” Black asked.

Crawford County 911 Emergency Services Director Brad England was in favor of paying county employees higher wages.

“So we passed the tax in August of 2022, which meant we didn’t actually start seeing that income until late 2023....Starting dispatchers went from $11.50 an hour to $18. We’ve stopped the turnover cold,” England said.

Associate Commissioner for District 1 Mark Pfeiffer explained why the county was having such a big turnover problem.

“We were becoming a training center for other people’s dispatchers. People would come in, sit down for three months, six months watever it was, and then they would go somewhere else to work for more money and better benefits,” Pfeiffer said.

England explained how raises have positively affected the turnover rate.

“Now we don’t have any turnover. Morale, of course, when you get paid more, morale goes up, but in the end, these were the county 911 dispatchers. We went to the people with that, we said this is what they make,” England said. “There are two people there who have been there longer than 10 years. Everybody else is, you know, brand new, but the ones that are there now are going to stick around because they feel like they’re being compensated not for the work that they do.”

Commissioners realize that the county is not on par with inflation, but also recognize that it wouldn’t be able to sustain the funds it would take to match it.

Pfeiffer used an example of a young man who came into his office looking for a job. He said that the man had plenty of experience, but that the starting pay wasn’t worth it.

“Well, maybe my brother might be interested, but he doesn’t have any experience besides running a tractor, a farm tractor,” Pfeiffer said. 

Black doesn’t mind paying a little extra if the money goes toward improving the county.

“I can’t see how myself, as someone with a clear conscience, cannot have sympathy for these employees,” Black said. “If I can benefit the county by paying another $2.75 for every $100 I spend, I’m not going to complain if my road is better, if my police protection is better, if I can keep employees....”

They discussed how people will buy online from stores like Amazon because it is convenient, and consumers don’t have to leave home to receive purchases — it’s shipped straight to the door.

When it comes to taxes, Black asked why citizens were only going to the commissioners instead of bringing complaints directly to the state government.

“Why aren’t people going to the state legislature and complaining about their taxes?” Black asked. “They come here. The state, that would be where I’d go if I really wanted to complain.”

Black explained that to get the county up to par with the standard cost of living, it wouldn’t be long until they were broke. He called for a better answer to the problem.

“I don’t want to be part of breaking the county in order to take care of the employees,” Black said. “So what? If you’ve got a better answer, then we’re all ears.”

Jax Jenson, a local resident who is strongly opposed to adding an extra tax, wants the commissioners to work with its voters instead of using their higher position of power.

“How about you help lead us in the charge to go at the state to change the tax code rather than come at the voters and say, ‘I know you don’t want this, but I’m going to do it anyway,’” Jenson said. “Help lead us as a focus against the state, instead of using the position to come against us.

Jenson focused on the fact that the tax wouldn’t necessarily affect him significantly; it would affect others to some extent.

Black said that a use tax would affect people very little compared to the advantages of having it in place.

“Some, but it would affect our employees a lot, our road quite a bit. So that’s my point. I’m willing to give up some to make a difference,” Black said.

Commissioners discussed how they didn’t want the use tax at first, but they are in a position that allows them to see a new point of view. One that means a use tax may not be favorable, but may be necessary.

Pfeiffer said that many were bringing up the possibility of adopting a tourism tax to help increase the county’s revenue. He did some research and found RSMO 67.665, which explains the requirements necessary to implement a tourism tax.

He explained that the tourism tax would not be feasible for the county because funds collected can only be used for advertising and promotion of tourism businesses exclusively.

“So it’s not like we could receive that money in the county and use it for the road district or anything else,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s definitely not a revenue source for the county, and it’s definitely not a revenue source for the road district.”

In other business, Black said that he wanted to clear up a misunderstanding. He explained that a Facebook copycat page has surfaced with a lot of inaccuracies, including a false interview over use tax.

“One is that I was on an interview. I was interviewed by KTUI radio about the use tax,” Black said. “Didn’t happen.”

The 100 Acre Wood Rally is planning to come back March 13-14 using KP, Camel Hump and Ollie Coleman Roads.

Curt Faigle, 100 Acre Wood Rally representative, said that the organization likes to bring in some traffic wherever they go so that the county benefits from the race.

“This is a national rally. The one this summer was just a small regional. I think there was 11, 12 cars. This one usually brings 50 or 60, and teams from all over the county show up, all the national teams,” Faigle said.

Black said the biggest concern would be road damage, but Pfeiffer said it wasn’t actually that big of a concern.

“So they had this event, you know, this calendar year,” Pfeiffer said. “I personally drove the roads before the event happened, and I drove the event (route) early the next morning, before anyone got on the roads.”

He only saw a small amount of damage.

No final decisions were made on whether the 100 Acre Wood Rally has permission to use the county roads for their race.