Cass County Commission - Regular Meeting

We're going to go ahead and call until July 15th, 12 p.m. Commission meeting order. We'll call, please, Kathy.

Bob Houston. Present. Jeff Fletcher. Here. Mike Moreland is absent.

He's right to pledge. presented. So move. I'll second that. All in favor. Two votes for. Zero against. Need a motion to approve the commission meeting minutes from July 8, 2026. So move. All in favor. I'll second that. All in favor. Two votes for. Zero against. Need a motion to approve the work session minutes from July 6, 2026, Road and Bridge on Aponee Creek Road on July 7, 2026, our department head meeting. So move. I'll second that. All in favor. two votes for zero against cascading health department resolution 26-66 approving the agreement with missouri department of health and senior services regarding the wic local agency nutrition services i need a motion so move i'll second that matt staff report please this is just our annual winning contract we do this every year it's for about 261 000 and change most of this is going to be used to pay salary for employees and then a small portion that's going to go towards

All in favor of Resolution 2666. 2 votes for, 0 against. Resolution passes. Cass County Road and Roots Park Resolution 2667, approving work order number 5398 with Great River Engineering.

I need a motion. I'll second that.

all in favor two votes for zero against resolution 2667 passes

approving the memorandum of understanding with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for access to the state vital records system. I need a motion. So moved. I'll second that. Matt, staff report please.

So this update is for the providing the service of printing birth and death certificates for residents in Cass County. The prices are set at the state level. We just access the information through their database. They provide technical support whenever we need it because it is their database. And that's just about $90,000 a year in revenue. Okay, thank you, Matt. Any further discussion?

All in favor? Two votes for, zero against. Resolution 2668 passes. Cass County collector, resolution 2669 approving an award a bid of publication in the belay point real estate tax cell notices for cass county missouri i need a motion so moved mr good afternoon this is required in statute 140

that we do publish the notice for tax sale in a paper of record. We only have one bid this year. It was the Tribune and Times, and I would encourage the Commission to award it to the sole bidder. Thank you, Chris. Any questions for Chris?

All in favor? Two votes for, zero against. Resolution 2669, that's this. Cascading Treasurer is a six-month settlement report. We will put that in official record.

revenue expense projections for the road and bridge department thank you mr commissioner uh this was already distributed in your packet but uh there's been some discussion public discussion uh we wanted to make sure that we were getting information out to the public and that we've been available to them to answer any of their questions in terms of the revenue and expenses at road and bridge the Funding sources that we have in Cass County for Road and Bridge are pretty diverse. They come from a number of different sources including a county property tax, a sales tax, a bond which was issued which helped pay into that, and the tax then that pays back that bond. also local use tax a third of our use tax goes to the road and bridge department as well as the gas tax that comes in from the state so a pretty diverse set of revenue streams if you fold to page two in the top left corner it's going to give you the big overall picture that this year we project road and bridge to take in about 11.2 million dollars of usable money the reason i say usables of some of the the complexities of this require that money moves through different funds and then back out for example to the esb board for is a good example of that another example of it's going back to the cities some of the money comes in through a sales tax but that goes back out a third of it goes to the cities right uh last year uh as best we can calculate it down we spent nine and a half million dollars on building our roads Those costs continue to go up. I know that Rodenbridge has been working extremely hard and is doing a good job. I know you've encountered some acts of God and nature that have made it harder on you. So we anticipate those numbers to go up off of about somewhere around 10 million or a little bit more on the conservative side, but could go up even more than that. The other things that you'll see, guys, Mr. Commissioners, is that there was the option of different sales taxes or property taxes. The one that the public has the option to decide if it's what they would like the city or the county to do would be the new quarter cent sales tax that you see sort of in the middle top page. And that would bring in a little bit of additional revenue than what we currently are getting. But it also would come with a property tax cut to those people who pay into the county property tax. So net, all in all, it would be a little bit of an increase in revenue. But we are doing fine as it is right now. And I don't think that the commission really was looking for a way to reduce road and bridge funding given the circumstances of increasing cost, which would have been that eighth of a cent, would have been a reduction in funding. And so that's the state of where we are. Right now things are going pretty well, but we do have rising costs and we do have the road crew that's committed and working harder than ever. So anything else or any questions?

any other public uh or comments happy to give them the facts and lay out anything i can to make sure we have the proper information now it's it now it's in the voters hands sorry yeah so the course of sales tax passes the property tax would be eliminated on the cass county road and bridge department on the cass county road and bridge department that's correct thank you jack i appreciate you At this time, we're going to open the podium for any public comment. If I can speak to the commission, please step forward and state your name.

Good afternoon. Again, Chris Mullen, Dorpkast County Collector of Revenue. A couple of important items that folks need to know. As I speak, there is a team from Missouri Tax Flow in my office. We are unplugging the green screens. We're gonna move from 1979 to 2026 here in the next few days, pretty exciting. We are in the process of making a merchant license, tax payments, personal and real estate, all the functions that we have at CassCountyCollector.com we're upgrading. We're making it easier for that taxpayer to self-serve. Our goal is to go live at midnight July 31st. So it is possible, it is possible that taxpayers will receive, will encounter possibly some problems with my web portal over that weekend. We are migrating from one vendor to save about $3,000 a month to this new vendor. The new vendor will host the website in Azure in the cloud. So we'll still have the capacity to process hundreds and hundreds of simultaneous, thousands of simultaneous payments. But it is possible taxpayers might have some trouble with the website. We will operate CassCountyCollector.com and we will operate CassCountyCollector.org to end the confusion for taxpayers. Both of those report will point towards my software. So folks may have some some, uh, difficulty that weekend, we will be monitoring it all weekend. We're working with our former vendor humor to make that transition at midnight on the 31st. Uh, it is our intent, uh, to begin settling our books on a monthly basis with the new software for August of 2000. 26. We will also, uh, just one taxpayers as staff goes through training, phone calls may not be picked up as quickly. We're working through new screens. We've eliminated the step where we have to go to the credit card processing website. This software integrates their website, one click, one stop, one shop. So we're trying to make it easier for employees to process payments faster so taxpayers can have an experience that's more like Wayfair and less like what they're used to. So we certainly want to let folks know we're doing our best. We're going to do a press release on LinkedIn, Facebook, and to the two local newspapers announcing this change. Long term it'll allow taxpayers to print their own receipts so we don't have to do it. We're trying to drive down the cost of postage. We're trying to drive down the cost of paper. The green paper will go away. There will be no more green receipts. also working with the department of revenue and their attorney i am the last first class county that does not upload vins and serial numbers on every piece of personal property they are making fraud prosecution a priority including finding those folks that have tagged cars in south dakota florida and montana so be on alert if you have a missouri residence a missouri driver's license But you've tagged a car in another state, they will be coming to talk to you. I'm the last first class county. And on the 3rd of August, every VIN and every serial number on every piece of personal property will begin uploaded to the Missouri Department of Revenue every night. So we're participating in their efforts to end fraud, waste and abuse. The other issue is for those tax properties. Now we're going to shift gears. Tax sales coming up on the 24th of August. We have 151 properties left. If those properties are not paid by next Tuesday, close of business. They will be in the Tribune Times newspaper for the entire public to view on the 23rd, Thursday the 23rd. We will also print Thursday the 30th and we will print the 6th of August. So those are the three print dates this year. If those parcels aren't paid by the 6th of August, on the 7th of August, a large orange sign will be placed in the yard. That sign will be digitally photographed. It will be recorded on thumb drive and on a portal in case we do have a lawsuit, a court case. And so we're now going to be digitally time and date stamping those signs that go in those yards at the moment they go in the yards. And so we're letting folks know not only through traditional mail but through our social media outlets. Those are the deadlines to avoid publication. And those are the deadlines to avoid a sign in the yard. Again, I don't want to sell a lien on any property. I want all of these paid before the 24th. So Steve and the other spotters have nothing to spot. That's the goal. We're trying to find these folks. as fast as we can. The last item is we will have tax sale here in the historic courthouse on the second floor just beneath us. Already working with the sheriff's office and finding some deputies to staff that for us under the extra duty program. But we would just remind everybody the doors will open about 9 30. The sale will start when the clock tower hits 10 a.m. and we will try to get that sale done as quickly as possible. So those are the three things. This is a busy time of year for our office. And we're trying to get the software installed so this fall we will have a new system for printing tax bills. They will now be tracked. So if a taxpayer calls and says, I didn't get my bill, we will now have an interface with the United States Postal Service that will tell us when did that envelope enter the system, where did that envelope enter the system. who is the carrier and the route driver that had that envelope we're going to track every single piece of mail we're going to have time and date stamps as it travels through the usps so when taxpayers call we're going to tell them this is when it was this is where it was we're also going to be able to enable better householding so if a person has 11 bills they're not going to get three or four envelopes they're going to get one So we're going to drive down paper. We're going to drive down postage. That's the goal. We want to work smarter, not harder. We want to be less expensive to administer this as quickly as we can. So those are the things going on in my office. I'm open for any questions or comments. And, of course, there's always a reasonable amount of criticism. How's that number compared to years in the past that's going to be on the sale so far? We're actually, frankly, we're ahead of schedule. We're better. We are about 17 parcels ahead to this date last year. Last year we were 168 and 169. We're at 151 this morning. We've got the install team there, so I've not been at the window. We may have had a few paid today, but we are ahead of schedule, and that is really good news. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. Thank you.

Is there any other public comment at this time? Seeing none, we're going to close the public comment. Commissioner of Communications? Seeing none. Motion to adjourn. I'll second that. All in favor?