Law enforcement sales tax to go on August ballot

Having as few as one deputy on duty at a time to cover the 699 square miles in Butler County and protect its 42,000 citizens is something Sheriff Mark Dobbs describes as unrealistic and unsafe.

But, that is the situation he finds himself in after having had to lay off five — one deputy/process server, three deputies and one custodian — in recent months due to budget shortfalls.

To make up for the waning revenue, the Butler County Commission recently issued an order authorizing a quarter-cent sales tax be placed on the August ballot.

Proceeds from the countywide sales tax will be used to provide law enforcement services for the county and funding to support the current and future operations of the sheriff’s department and jail.

If approved, the tax would be on top of another one-quarter cent sales tax dedicated to law enforcement purposes that has been on the books since 1993.

The original tax’s revenue was used to build the Butler County Justice Center and later fund sheriff’s department and jail operations after the justice center was paid off in 2013.

But, officials say flat sales tax revenue in recent years and rising costs now warrant an additional revenue source.

“I’ll be the first to say that I don’t like taxes, and I wouldn’t ask for this quarter cent sales tax if it wasn’t completely necessary for the sake of protecting Butler County families,” Dobbs explained.

The sheriff also wanted to “be clear” this is a “sales tax based on things you purchase. It has nothing to do with real estate that you own or personal property.

“In essence, when you spend $100, its 25 cents. If you went and bought $1,000 worth of items while Christmas shopping, your tax amount would be $2.50.”

Also important to remember, Dobbs said, is anyone coming to Butler County to shop, work or recreate will be “helping pay the tax and will be helping fund law enforcement.”

Dobbs used Brick’s Off-Road Park as an example.

Events held there “put an unbelievable strain on law enforcement, yet most of the people that attend are from out of town,” Dobbs said. “It only seems fair that the out-of-towners contribute to the law enforcement needs they create.”

Dobbs said his department is at the point where “we don’t have adequate manpower for a county whose rural population has exploded over the last 10 years.”

When Dobbs joined the sheriff’s department in 1993, it had 10 road deputies.

“Now, there are 11,” he said. “The number of patrolman that we have on the road is totally disproportionate to the call volume that we receive.

“Oftentimes, people are left waiting long periods of time for deputies to respond. There are just not enough (deputies) to properly protect the county.”

Most days, “at best, we have three road officers on each shift,” Dobbs said. “Oftentimes, at least two of those are tied up providing security in the courtrooms as bailiffs, leaving one deputy to patrol 699 square miles.”

Dobbs said deputies, many times, respond to dangerous calls by themselves, with the “nearest back up 30 miles away on the other end of the county.

“That’s just not a safe situation. It’s only a matter of time before (a deputy) is seriously hurt or killed.”

As the county’s population has grown in the past 27 years, Dobbs said, it also has shifted.

“When I started with the sheriff’s department, most of the population was within the city limits of Poplar Bluff,” Dobbs said. “Now days, the vast majority of people live in the county.”

According to Dobbs, the jail is “seriously understaffed as well. At night, there are only two corrections officers to oversee an average population of 140 offenders.”

Likewise, Dobbs said, the department’s investigation division is understaffed.

“We only have so much time to dedicate to the investigation of crimes with the limited amount of investigators that we have, which means a lot of people’s burglaries, thefts and other such cases fall through the cracks,” Dobbs said.

The county, the sheriff said, also has seen a “large explosion” of child sex crimes and child abuse cases, and “we don’t have the adequate numbers to properly investigate those cases.”

Another “big concern” for Dobbs, he said, is the “imminent plans” for Interstate 57 to come through Poplar Bluff.

Once completed, the highway “will escalate the number of people in Butler County,” Dobbs said. “Thus, escalating the amount of crime and calls for service.

“ … We live in an area that has state and federal half-way houses, which causes another influx of criminal activity, not to mention we have one of the few locked mental health facilities in Missouri.”

At a time when “we need to be hiring more deputies, we had to lay deputies off,” Dobbs said. “We’re just going the wrong direction.

“ … We struggle on a daily basis to find enough staff to get the job done. That can only happen for so long.”

Dobbs said his department also struggles at times to cover all of its expenses.

“There is a lot of times that we can barely make payroll and have to get advances from general revenue funding just to make payroll,” Dobbs said.

The department won’t receive another “general revenue boost” from the county until September after having received its June quarterly payment in March to “make ends meet,” Dobbs said.

“This year, we had to finance our liability insurance because we didn’t have the money to pay it up front,” Dobbs said.

Instead of paying the estimated $198,500 at once at the beginning of the year, Dobbs said, the department paid half and is paying the remaining balance quarterly.

“And, in doing so, we had to pay extra,” he said.

The department, Dobbs said, is operating on a tax, which was passed in 1993 when gasoline was 99 cents a gallon and tires cost $40 apiece.

“Prices for operations have nearly tripled since then,” he said.

Dobbs said Butler County is not alone in its financial woes.

“Cape (Girardeau) County, Stoddard County and Carter County have all approved this same amount of sales tax increase for law enforcement,” he said. “They recognized their need for additional officers, and that is where we are at as well.

“Three deputy sheriffs trying to protect 42,000 people is not realistic, and it is very unsafe for everyone involved.”

If the tax passes, Dobbs said, the goal is to put more deputies on the road, patrolling neighborhoods; more investigators to work on burglaries, robberies, sexual assault and child abuse cases; and more corrections officers on duty to ensure their safety.