County to work with sheriff during budget crisis

Ozark County Sheriff Cass Martin, still facing funding issues after announcing recently that his department would be reducing patrols, appeared again before the Ozark County Commission Monday morning looking for answers.

Martin asked commissioners if money the county received from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) could be used to bolster the sheriff’s department’s budget during this lean time.

Presiding Commissioner John Turner said that he would prefer any supplement to the sheriff’s budget come from the county’s general revenue fund instead of ARPA.

Turner explained that ARPA funds have a deeper paper trail and a few more hoops to jump through. “It’s just a lot easier to transfer the money from general revenue,” Turner said. “ARPA money is really meant more for a one-time deal and not for continuing expenses. ARPA money won’t be there next year so we can’t really count on it,” Turner said.

Turner said the county still has about $1.16 million of ARPA money, which is federal money given to the county for covid-19 relief. Of the remaining amount the county has at its disposal, commissioners have earmarked $1 million to assist White River Valley Electric Cooperative in establishing high-speed fiber optic internet in the county.

Turner told the Times following the meeting that commissioners and county clerk Brian Wise will be working closely with the sheriff’s department for the next few months and will make sure that the sheriff’s expenditures are taken care of.

“We’re going to be working with the sheriff to see how his expenses are and how revenues come in,” Turner said. “We may be getting some sort of reimbursement from the state for housing prisoners.”

Wise said that the state of Missouri currently owes Ozark County more than $60,000 for per diem housing of prisoners. “We’ll probably end up getting about $12,000 of that, and who knows when that will be,” Wise said.

Wise said he wanted to clarify the idea of transferring money from one county department to another. “I think there’s this big misconception that any given county fund can support another county fund  - and that’s just not true,” Wise said.

Commissioners and Wise talked briefly about sales tax revenue being flat, although Turner said it was up 3.73 percent for the year. “It’s actually trending down now,” Wise said.

Western District Commissioner Layne Nance said he thinks the higher gas prices this summer has probably helped local sales tax revenues. 

“I think there are a lot of people buying local instead of going out of the county because of the gas prices,” Nance said. “I think that has helped hold up the local sales tax revenue.”