Cape Girardeau voters decide April 2 whether to approve public safety tax

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) - Voters will decide on April 2 on a real estate and property tax that the city says is dedicated to police officer and firefighter salaries and benefits.

Unofficial Missouri Municipal Election Results

It means for every $100 in assessed property value, there would be an approximate increase of approximately 25 cents in property tax.

According to the city, if passed, police officers, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics would get an 8 percent raise in the first year.

“At this point,” Cape Girardeau Police Chief Wes Blair said earlier in March at an Optimist Club meeting, “we are 10 officers down and we have three in the police academy right now.”

He, along with city leaders — including Fire Chief Randy Morris — have stayed busy speaking to civic organizations and answering questions about some of the concerns they face.

That includes staffing shortages and low pay.

“We’re losing folks to the St. Louis area and we’re losing folks to getting out of the business altogether,” Morris said at that same Optimist Club meeting.

Blair and Morris say recruiting and retaining has been a struggle.

“Since 2020, we’ve had 17 resignations coupled with nine retirements,” Morris said. “So, we’ve lost a lot of folks and seen significant turnover.”

Morris said his department is trending younger, which he said isn’t all bad. But he said having a good balance of youth and experience is important.

“Some of those [resignations] have been very tenured members of our department, including some of our command staff,” Morris said.

Blair said while they are still down 10 positions, things have started to trend in the right direction.

“In late 2022, early 2023, we were down about 20 officers,” Blair said. “So, we’ve seen some progress, but it’s been very slow progress, and I think a lot of that is attributable to our salaries of our agency versus agencies around us.”

If approved by voters on April 2, the money raised from the new tax is projected to bring in about $2 million a year.

“The ordinance and the ballot language reads, ‘solely for public safety’ and we legally cannot use it for anything else,” said Trevor Pulley, Cape Girardeau’s assistant city manager, who sat down with Heartland News after City Manager Kenneth Haskin said he could not go on camera because of legal matters within the city.

While he didn’t agree to speak on camera, Dr. Haskin did respond to questions via email.

In his emailed response about whether the upcoming vote is a way to even the playing field, he wrote: “The City of Cape Girardeau is already on an even playing field with surrounding communities pay rates for public safety.”

Haskin attached a report of gross pay for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023 for firefighters and police officers that included overtime pay, which reflected more than $50,000 for first-year officers and firefighters. The fire department explained that it has a mandatory minimum when it comes to the number of people per shift, at least 17 personnel on duty on a 24-hour shift.

And because of shortages, if the department has anyone injured or sick, they fall below the minimum. So, someone has to fill that spot, which could result in overtime pay.

Cape Girardeau’s population is just under 40,000 people.

However, according to the city, that doesn’t include daily numbers — meaning there could be upward of 100,000 people in the city.

“We have the hospitals, we have the retail, we have the university,” Blair said. “So, our policing is reflective of a much larger city.”

If you compare Cape Girardeau to other cities like Jackson, there are obvious differences in size.

Jackson has a population of about 15,000 people, according to the latest census numbers.

However, small size doesn’t mean small pay.

According to records from the City of Jackson, the minimum base pay for a Jackson police officer and firefighter is about $48,000.

According to the records request we received from the City of Cape Girardeau, Cape Girardeau’s minimum base pay for starting out for both of those positions is about $44,000 a year.

As for the difference in the amount of calls they go on, Cape Girardeau police went on 43,179 calls last year compared to Jackson’s 18,364 calls for 2023.

The Jackson Fire Department went on 1,758 calls last year, compared to the Cape Girardeau Fire Department’s 6,774.

Regionally, in our records requests to several cities, we found Cape Girardeau public safety is among the lowest paid.

Click here for a spreadsheet that shows minimum salaries for officers and firefighters, along with current pay for the departments’ chiefs of the cities we requested records from.

That includes Paducah, Sikeston, Poplar Bluff, Carbondale and Perryville - overall, they report higher pay for public safety.

Andy Matthews is a captain at the Cape Girardeau Fire Department and president of the Local 1084 Firefighters Association.

He said with Cape Girardeau being a larger city, there are more responsibilities.

“We have more fire calls, we have more emergency medical calls,” Andy Matthews said. “We want to be competitive and get the best employees that we can for the citizens of Cape Girardeau.”

Right now, the fire department is down four positions.

“We have lost a lot of individuals to other departments that have higher pay, etcetera,” Matthews said. “And we have lost some people to regular jobs.”

And, there’s an added struggle. “We’re not having very good luck getting qualified applicants in,” Chief Morris said.

On the police side, recruiting is also a concern.

“We send our officers to the SEMO Law Enforcement Academy, we see St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, even Columbia coming to our academy recruiting officers, offering much higher pay,” Chief Blair said. “So, even our recruiting pool has shrunk.”

So, how did Cape Girardeau get to this point? According to the city, it all goes back to Cape Girardeau’s low tax rate.

“Other smaller agencies, other police departments they make more than Cape officers make more because their city’s tax rate is higher than Cape Girardeau’s,” Pulley said. “So, Cape Girardeau’s at .30 is half of what Jackson, Dexter and some other places are so their officers are able to make more due to the fact that the tax rate is a lot higher.”

Historically, voters in Cape Girardeau have supported taxes that benefit public safety.

For example, the marijuana tax last year.

In April 2023, voters approved a 3 percent sales tax on all tangible personal property retail sales of adult-use marijuana sold in Cape Girardeau.

According to the ordinance, not more than one-quarter of the money collected by the city from the tax would fund the police department for mental health and drug treatment and prevention.

Money from that tax is just starting to gain traction.

According to the city, the marijuana tax has brought in $204,170.39 so far this year through March.

We’re told the police department hasn’t received the funds yet, although the city could be waiting to see how consistent the funds are.

Right now, the police department is using grant money in partnership with the Community Counseling Center to fund its mental health program, which includes dedicated officers.

But that money runs out in October.

Then there was the Use Tax, or “Internet Tax,” that was approved in 2021.

It’s a local tax on goods purchased from out of state, mostly online for delivery to Cape Girardeau.

According to the city, revenue from that has helped enhance employee benefits and improved the city’s pay plan. In August 2021, city leaders said the tax could be used for many things, including enhancing pay for public safety.

“The police chief was telling me about how concerned he was in terms of trying to recruit officers and retain the good officers that we have,” Haskin said in 2021, “and it’s difficult to do that when you’re struggling to pay people what their worth.”

After the measure passed, the city implemented a new pay plan in July 2022.

According to the city, the cost of that plan was $2.5 million annually.

KFVS has submitted a records request for the past two years to better understand how that pay plan was implemented, and the city said on March 11 that it would take three to four weeks to get that information.

Further regarding the use tax, Haskin said this in an email response, “The use tax revenue is, and will continue to be a critical component of the City’s ability to fund the initiatives to enhance employee benefits and improve the pay plan. As an example, the City was struggling to hire PW (public works) Drivers and was faced with having to consider the elimination of our recycling services. The use tax, however, provided the needed resources to increase pay and pay grades, provide incentives, and improve our ability to hire. Were it not for the use tax, we would have eliminated our recycling services.”

Citizens and many members of public safety just want to know that this is a tax that will stay with public safety and not be diverted to the general fund or other resources.

“The decision to dedicate funding to police officers and firefighters, if the voters approve the increase in real estate and personal property tax levy, will provide a sustainable revenue source for the purpose of funding public safety pay and benefits,” Haskin’s email stated. “41.4% referenced in the ordinance is ALL of the revenue resulting from the $0.25 tax rate increase placed into a restricted account devoted to public safety. The projected increased revenue is $1.9 - $2M annually.”

Pulley also wants to make sure that the voters know this new tax would be a dedicated fund.

“It states in the statutes, the amendments that it’s dedicated to public safety only,” he said. “So this is a dedicated tax for them that the city cannot use for anything else.”

As for whether this increase will be enough to get Cape Girardeau up to par with other communities, the police chief said it will get them closer.

“It will at least get us competitive with our surrounding agencies,” Blair said. “We wouldn’t be able to stay at the 8 percent, we would need to keep moving forward and moving that needle. “But that gets us a good bump and I think would help us with recruiting.”

Click here to see the ballot language on this initiative regarding the tax increase that would benefit public safety.

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