Joplin voters to decide property tax question

Jul. 30—A proposed property and personal property tax increase that Joplin city officials have committed to public safety purposes will be decided Tuesday by Joplin voters.

Voters will be asked to impose property and personal property taxes in the amount of $1 per $100 of assessed valuation with the revenue to be designated for public safety needs for an increase of about $285 on a $160,000 house. The increase in taxes would amount to about 21%, said Mike Seibert, co-chairman of the Proposition Public Safety citizen group that is providing information in community presentations and advocating for the proposal.

Joplin property owners in Jasper County currently pay about 41.99 cents per $100 assessed valuation. Of that, 25.45 cents goes to the Joplin Public Library and 17.46 cents goes to the city and is dedicated to the parks, health department and recycling services. Residents of Newton County pay 41.19 cents per $100 assessed valuation with 17.46 cents going to the city and the rest supporting the Newton County Library.

The ballot proposal, called Proposition Public Safety, will need a simple majority to pass.

City officials have projected that the taxes would produce about $9 million a year. City officials have said they need $8.5 million to provide increased pay ranges for police officers and firefighters, hire additional public safety workers and equip them, and build an eighth fire station.

As part of the effort, the city would include in the new pay plan money to allow retirees of both the police and fire departments or those eligible soon for 20-year retirements to take retirement and stay on the job at the new pay rates. Currently, retirees or those who are eligible for retirement take a 20% reduction in wages if they want to stay or return to their jobs.

Police Chief Sloan Rowland has said that 163 officers have left the department in the last 10 years. With 110 approved positions, the department had 78 on duty in July because of open positions and some officers away on military leave, sick leave and other reasons. He has imposed mandatory overtime of 20 hours per week and has moved officers out of investigations and other divisions to put them on patrol to answer calls.

"We're working our people to the point they're breaking," Rowland said Wednesday at a public meeting.

Assistant Fire Chief Andy Nimmo said his department is "having a significant problem with hiring." He said nearby towns have passed taxes for fire departments or fire districts and are able to pay as much or more than Joplin, sometimes recruiting Joplin hires before they finish the fire academy.

"We are seeing this is going to be a continuing issue," he said.

Nine years ago, Joplin's call for fire department testing would attract about 100 candidates. Now there may be only one to a handful, he said.

"This proposal will put us in a position to be the fire department where everyone wants to work" if the proposal passes because of the new pay scale.

City Manager Nick Edwards has said that property tax rather than sales tax is the best option to address public safety hiring and retention because it provides a more reliable revenue stream. Sales taxes have been flat for several years and does not have an automatic increase like real estate, which is reassessed every two years, he has said.

However, residents at a public meeting Wednesday night challenged the idea that sales taxes have not increased. During a meeting at the former Silver Creek Village City Hall, one resident said the city's figures show a cumulative 6% increase in sales taxes over the last several years.

Several people who attended that meeting, as well as others who attended a public meeting July 21, told city officials that while they support police officers and firefighters and believe they should get higher wages, they do not favor property taxes as the source.

There were comments at both meetings that real estate property and personal property taxes could be a burden on fixed or low-income residents and seniors.

At the July 27 meeting, resident Rita Ball said that she is 69 years old but cannot retire because her income would be too restricted.

She and others at the two meetings said they believe that a sales tax is more fair than a property tax because many people who do not own property also rely on public safety services.

"It really infuriates me that you have the gall to ask us to pay this," Ball said. "I don't think it's fair it only comes from people who own property."

Seibert provided information about a state tax credit that people ages 65 and older or those who are disabled can obtain to pay toward their tax bills. A form can be filed by itself or with a tax return in order to apply for a state payment.

Another Joplin resident, Jim Stratton, wrote in a letter to the Globe that while he supports police and fire and believes they should receive increased pay, he questions why the city did not propose a sales tax rather a property tax.

Stratton wrote that "the one dollar per $100 on the assessed valuation of their property might be an eye-opener" for residents. He suggested that people could check the impact of the proposed tax increase by looking at last year's property tax increase, drop the last two digits of the property's valuation, and the remaining figure would indicate the tax increase within a few cents.

Residents also have told city officials at meetings on the proposition that they believe there has been mismanagement or bad decisions on spending and that the city is not effective at cutting expenses.

In a recent presentation at a City Council meeting, city staff said that the city has controlled expenditures over the past several years by eliminating jobs, freezing wages and reducing expenses because general fund revenues dropped from nearly $35 million in 2012 to about $29.5 million in 2014. It remained at revenue of about $30.2 million last year.

Because local taxes provide the financial base for cities in Missouri, many of them have both property and sales taxes, city officials have said. They say that because sales taxes can suffer in economic downturns, property tax is a more reliable source of revenue than sales taxes alone.