Osage County sheriff asking for sales tax vote

The Osage County sheriff asked Osage County commissioners Thursday to put a half-cent sales tax on the April ballot to help improve county law enforcement services.

If commissioners place the sales tax initiative on the ballot, Sheriff Mike Bonham said, voters would be asked to approve a measure similar to one passed in Cole County in 2007.

In August 2007, Cole County voters approved a permanent sales tax to build and maintain the county jail at Adams and High streets, and to pay for county law enforcement needs.

“If this measure passes, deputies would have a starting salary of $31,800, and they would top out around $34,100,” Bonham said. “Right now, as soon as they cross the river and go to Cole County, their starting pay goes up. There’s a huge pay gap, and the result is that we don’t have enough officers to fill the current positions that we have available.”

In September, the Cole County Commission approved Cole County Sheriff John Wheeler’s request to increase Sheriff’s Department salaries. The starting pay for a jailer went from $29,000 to $30,300 and $35,000 to $37,000 for a starting road deputy.

A total of 113 employee positions — 89 full time and 24 part time — were affected by the raises, expected to cost $190,000 for 2019.

Bonham said the current starting pay for an Osage County deputy is $25,500 and they can top out at $30,000. He said he has a staff of seven deputies, with one opening right now, and believes the commission will allow him to have two more deputies at the start of 2019. The sheriff also said the measure, if it is approved, would raise starting pay for jailers from $24,500 to $28,000. He said he has five jailers on staff.

Bonham said the tax would generate at least $500,000 a year, all of which would go toward “retaining, hiring, equipping and training” sheriff’s deputies. Bonham said his men and women would get a raise of almost 27 percent.

“By offering a competitive salary, we’d be able to fill the vacancies that we have now, plus possibly putting some additional officers on the street,” he said. “The money will also be used to upgrade our in-car computers so we can use GPS dispatching and get to people in our county with the fastest response times possible.”

“Law enforcement right now is not sustainable, and that’s a concern, because there are simply not enough people coming into the profession right now to counter the ones who are leaving,” Bonham said.

The deadline to have measures placed on the April ballot is Jan. 22.