Missouri: 9-1-1 Services Will See Upgrade under New Tax
Brennan David, Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri)
Boone County officials are placing a priority on emergency response and preparedness after voters approved a new tax to fund upgrades to 9-1-1 and emergency management services.
Voters on April 2 endorsed a permanent, countywide three-eighths- cent sales tax to construct a new joint communications facility, hire more personnel and improve equipment for the two agencies. With 57 percent voter approval, the new sales tax means the Columbia/ Boone County Joint Communications, or 9-1-1, and Emergency Management will go from being under city control to county government control.
The tax was placed on the ballot by the Boone County Commission because the two agencies needed significant upgrades in equipment and personnel, said Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill, who deemed county residents to be at risk because of the deficiencies.
Between June and January, an average of 128 callers per month seeking emergency services waited more than a minute for an answer.
“Voters of the county have identified this as our weakest link, and we are going to fix it,” Atwill said in a speech to supporters on election night.
Collection of the tax will begin in October and will fund a new $11.3 million facility to be built on the Boone County Sheriff’s Department campus in north Columbia. It also will fund $8.65 million in equipment and additions in staffing for 9-1-1 and Emergency Management. The annual budget will be an estimated $8.6 million, including debt retirement for the facility.
Until the new facility is built, Joint Communications will remain at its current location within the Columbia Police Department in downtown Columbia. The construction project has not yet been bid.
“Callers will notice a difference the first day we are in the new facility,” said Joe Piper, interim director. “No one should wait on hold as long as they do now with the upgrades.”
Emergency Management also will move into the 20,000-square-foot facility, where six staffers will share planning, preparedness, administrative and training duties. The building will include accommodations experts say are needed for a multiday disaster, including an emergency operations center, or EOC.
Until collection of the tax begins in October, Boone County does not have any full-time personnel in Emergency Management. Instead, grant funding is divided among interim Emergency Management Director Scott Olsen and five Boone County Fire Protection District staffers who perform part-time duties for Emergency Management. Grant funding has always been the lone source of funding for Emergency Management personnel.
“A functional EOC will give officials the ability to conduct a proper response to an emergency or disaster,” Olsen said. “The real work takes place before and after an EOC activation. Planning, training and preparedness get you ready, and the administrative function kind of sorts things out afterward.”
Olsen is performing double duty as he is still serving as fire chief for the Boone County Fire Protection District. Before Olsen took over Emergency Management, the city’s EOC was in the basement of the city Armory on Ash Street. In the event of a disaster now, the EOC would be activated at the fire district headquarters at 2201 I-70 Drive N.W.
Starting Oct. 1, Columbia’s sales tax rate will increase to 7.975 percent with the collection of the new 9-1-1 tax. Centralia, Sturgeon and Columbia will share the same rate, which will be the highest in Boone County. Unincorporated Boone County will have a rate of 5.975 percent. Those rates do not include additional sales taxes in special taxing districts throughout the county.
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