Joplin leaders discuss ‘Proposition Public Safety’ measure
The ‘Proposition Public Safety’ campaign officially kicked off in the city of Joplin.
The property tax measure goes to voters on August 2. Officials say passing it will improve the recruitment and retention of Joplin’s police officers and firefighters.
During a press conference at the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce Thursday, city leaders said the measure will implement a property tax of $1 per $100 of ASSESSED value for real estate and personal property. This means for a $150,000 home, the owner’s property tax bill would go up by $285 a year. For someone that owns $30,000 worth of personal property it would be $100 a year.
Joplin Police Chief Sloan Rowland says if it’s passed, the measure would help fill the need that their understaffed department faces. “I think the main goal is to fix the wages. We can talk recruitment, retention and workload but that’s directly related to wages and compensation. That’s what keeps people here, that’s what brings people here, that’s what gets enough officers on the street to relieve the workload that they’re under right now.”
The Southwest Missouri Fraternal Order of Police says the measure will provide safety for the city of Joplin for decades to come.
The proposal just needs a simple majority to pass August 2nd would bring in about $9 million annually to provide for these increased pay ranges for police officers and firefighters.
“There’s not enough revenue in the current budget to actually do the pay increases to make us competitive,” says Rowland. “Not only are we not competitive regionally with Northwest Arkansas and other areas around Missouri, we’re not competitive locally, so I’m losing officers to area departments that are very close to us.”
Rowland says a recent allocation study recommended that they need an additional 22 officers in the city of Joplin to adequately serve the current call volume. “When you take the 22 officers that we need new, and add the 21 openings I currently have in the department, that’s 43 people to effectively do the job.”
Calling it a ‘breaking point’ for his officers, Rowland says “when you’re talking about overworked individuals, mandatory overtime, shortages on the street…there’s obviously a safety factor there when you don’t have enough officers to effectively answer a call, not only is it risky for the officer but its a safety issue to the citizens.”
Rowland says he has had to cut back in a lot of different areas, and it’s not just police that are suffering.
Fire Chief Gerald Ezell says the biggest thing for him and his department is getting a fire station back online in the center part of town near 15th or 20th Streets. He also says they are severely understaffed at the moment.
Former Mayor Mike Seibert says this is a public safety crisis. He also realizes that this is a difficult time to ask propose to citizens but Seibert says it’s their reality, saying they are stretched thin.
Jeremie Humphreys, president of Joplin Professional Firefighters, says action is needed now. “Once considered one of the largest fire departments in Missouri, we can no longer continue to operate in the same manner of doing more with less…its become very difficult due to low wages, lower staffing and an increase in workload.
Humphreys says Joplin Firefighters have been sounding the warning bells for the past twenty years.”These problems don’t just go away if they’re ignored. We’ve now reached the point where out best efforts cannot compensate for the lack of trained firefighters, low wages and inadequate staffing.”
The official question you’ll see on the ballot will look like this: “Shall the City Council of the City of Joplin, Missouri, be authorized to levy and impose annually for municipal public safety purposes upon all subjects and objects of taxation within its corporate limits a tax which shall not exceed the maximum rate of one dollar on the one hundred dollars assesses valuation?”