Add’l 1 percent utilities tax starts July 1

At their weekly meeting Monday, Ozark County Commissioners voted to adopt Ordinance 4119, implementing an additional 1 percent sales tax on metered domestic utilities including propane, city water and electricity. Telephone service and gasoline are not included in the tax, which will be collected starting July 1.

Presiding Commissioner John Turner estimates the tax will bring in about $80,000 in the first year, with the income split equally between the county’s general revenue fund and the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department. 

“This will help the sheriff’s department stay afloat and help general revenue stay afloat,” said Turner.

The tax does not require local voter approval because Missouri Statute 144.032 specifies that counties or cities may impose sales tax on utilities by passing an ordinance. The new ordinance means that, starting July 1, the county will collect a 2 percent tax on residents’ metered utilities, with the newly adopted tax added to  to the current 1 percent utilities sales tax that was enacted by ordinance in 2013. Income from that original 1 percent tax, which is divided equally between the county’s Roads and Bridges Department and the general revenue fund, helped the county weather expenses associated with the historic 2017 flooding, commissioners said. 

Turner told the Times in March that the additional 1 percent tax on metered utilities  would not be “a new additional tax. Those metered utilities were always subject to sales tax. We had just chosen not to collect it.”

In other business Monday, the commissioners said the county is temporarily unable to complete any new 911 addressing because the service that manages the addresses was previously provided by the South Central Council of Governments under a two-year contract that ended March 31. The county is working to find a new contractor. In the meantime, those needing a new address can call the Ozark County Clerk’s Office, 417-679-3516, or the Ozark County Commissioners, 417-670-4096, to be added to the waiting list.  

The commissioners also approved the closure of a portion of County Road 958 which starts at CR 957 and dead ends on private property in the Thornfield area. The closure was petitioned by the landowners whose property the road dead ends on. Twelve qualifying signatures were collected, and no one contested the closure. 

In other business, the commissioners accepted bids from West Plains Bank for grader financing, and from Coastal Energy of Willow Springs for MC-800 road oil. 

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423