When St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann talks about Missouri’s Deputy Sheriff Salary Supplemental Fund, he uses a pejorative to describe the scheme.
Ehlmann, a Republican, says the fund is an example of “rural socialism.â€
The phrase adds important context to two public safety decisions made in the past week by Gov. Mike Parson. In one case, he signed a bill to add money to the deputy fund; in another, he vetoed money earmarked for a new 911 center in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
The fund was created by the Missouri Legislature in 2008 to raise the pay of deputy sheriffs in the state’s rural areas, where there is a low tax base and the pay is paltry. That’s not a bad idea, but the people paying for it live in St. Charles County, ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, Jackson County and the rest of the state’s larger population centers.
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The fund gets its money from a $10 court fee attached to civil cases when papers are served. Ehlmann keeps a spreadsheet of where the money comes from (the cities) and where it goes (tiny counties far away).
ºüÀêÊÓƵ County is the biggest donor, providing more than $10 million of the $40 million raised since the fund’s inception. Almost none of that money (only $17,000) has come back to the county.
Tiny Dade County in southwest Missouri is the biggest beneficiary of the program, receiving a 7,200% return on what it has put into the fund. Rural socialism, indeed.
Mike Yoakum, a process server I know from Boone County, calls the fund a “tax on small businesses and poor people.†This year, the Legislature added a new $10 fee to the scheme, this one to be charged by private companies that provide court services. Parson, a former rural sheriff, signed the bill into law this past week.
That action came just a few days after Parson vetoed a line item in the budget with significant implications in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Lawmakers had included $23 million for a new unified 911 facility in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, perhaps as important a public safety priority as exists in the state.
As last week’s damaging storms proved yet again, the center is urgently needed. Two people died in the storms — 33-year-old Katherine Coen in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and 5-year-old R.J. Thomas in Jennings — at least partly because first responders were slow to arrive as Good Samaritans were on hold for 30 minutes or longer trying to get help. The 911 system throughout the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region, but particularly in the city, has been broken for a very long time. It’s the fault of three successive mayors, the Board of Aldermen, bickering police and fire unions and the fractured governance in the region. It is, also, the fault of the governor.
In vetoing items in this year’s budget, Parson said some priorities are best left up to local folks. Like deputy sheriff salaries, perhaps?
The sad reality is the Missouri Legislature has long practiced a form of rural socialism by ignoring priorities in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City, the state’s two economic engines, while using money generated in those cities to prop up rural needs. One of the best examples is in transportation funding. In 1952, after three proposals for gas tax increases to pay for state roads had failed, Missouri leaders made a deal with the devil. They told rural voters the state would take over 12,000 miles of county roads, and provide funding to pave those roads, if the voters approved a gas tax increase.
The tax passed, and Missouri’s cities have paid the price ever since. None of that state transportation money, for instance, goes to transit, unlike in most states. Missouri has more road miles per capita than all but three other states. City taxpayers are subsidizing little-used rural roads and the deputy sheriffs patrolling those roads.
In the same budget in which Parson vetoed 911 funding, he approved pay increases for the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, but those patrolmen rarely do traffic enforcement in the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ. The budget also includes $2.8 billion to expand Interstate 70, which is a long-delayed need — but most of the project is in rural Missouri, not the cities.
The Legislature spent much of the session pretending to care about public safety in ºüÀêÊÓƵ but it was mostly talking about the wrong things. It’s easier to use the city and its political leaders as punching bags than to work with them to accomplish big things.
Fixing the broken 911 system is, indeed, one of those big things. The most comprehensive proposal I’ve seen come from the nonprofit , which is the former Ferguson Commission, dedicated to improving racial equity. would streamline 911 services across geopolitical boundaries, upgrade technology, consolidate call centers, treat dispatchers as first responders and encourage non-police responses (such as dispatching behavioral health specialists) to mental health emergencies.
The organization’s call for a big fix is a reminder of what ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Missouri leaders can do when faced with an emergency. The very existence of the Ferguson Commission — created by former Gov. Jay Nixon in 2014 with the support of civic and business leaders throughout the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region — showed what leaders can accomplish when they are more interested in solving problems than pointing fingers.
Nearly a decade later, that organization is pointing the way to a better 911 system. But fragmentation in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region and the state’s rural-urban divide stand in the way.
“Our region’s fragmentation has resulted in numerous racial disparities, from health care to justice to economic opportunity. Our 911 delays are yet another consequence of this fragmentation,†says Jia Lian Yang, the director of communication for Forward Through Ferguson. “It’s time to work towards transformation rather than resigning ourselves to living with heartbreak, year to year, from generation to generation.â€
Since the law's inception, more than $8 million of the fund's $21 million has come from ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, and less than $20,000 has returned to the county.Â
Messenger: A couple of ºüÀêÊÓƵ area residents offer their thanks to bystanders and first responders.Â
Progressive majority has massive challenge and opportunity to forge new path forward.Â