Dunklin County to vote on sales tax for jail

Daily Dunklin Democrat

KENNETT, Mo. -- Dunklin County voters are being asked to approve a law enforcement sales-tax levy in a special election Aug. 5.

The county commission has authorized placing the half-cent county sales tax proposition before voters in order to pay for a new county jail.

Sheriff Bob Holder has worked with the commission on a proposal to buy and renovate the approximately 114,000-square-foot UARCO building into a new county jail -- and more.

"We plan to use half of it for a judicial complex that will house offices, a jail, two courtrooms and the prosecuting attorney's office," Holder said. "The other half we plan to rent out to generate revenue."

He estimated that revenue could be as much as $112,000 a year.

Holder said the proposed jail would hold 170 inmates and would provide better inmate supervision and a safer environment.

The current county jail building lacks sufficient space needed for efficient operations of the sheriff's office. The jail itself is overcrowded, outmoded and costly to maintain. Built in 1975 to house a maximum of 52 inmates, the jail population now averages around 77 inmates and has been as high as 108.

"All it would take is for one inmate to file a lawsuit over crowded conditions and a federal judge could shut us down," Holder said.

If a court was to make such a ruling, the county would then have to send all inmates over the 52 the jail was built to house, to other jails. That would be costly, county officials said.

At present rates, it would cost Dunklin County $35 a day for each inmate it would have to house in some other county jail. Over the period of a year this could cost the county $343,000.

"That's money we don't have," said Don Collins, presiding commissioner of the Dunklin County Commission.

Collins said the half-cent sales tax would generate approximately $1,123,000 a year, which would be more than the amount needed for the proposed project.

He said the county commission has agreed that if voters approve the sales tax, the commission will reduce the county's 10 cents per $100 assessed valuation personal property tax to zero. This would be a $242,873.93 savings to taxpayers.

"We're not eliminating the personal property tax, just our part of it," said 1st District Commissioner Jeanie Moore Herbst.

Making up the revenue lost from eliminating the county's part of the property tax would leave the county with an estimated $880,126 from the sales tax revenue.