Platte County voters reject 20-year, half-cent sales tax hike to fund jail expansion
A half-cent sales tax to expand the jail in Platte City was overwhelmingly rejected during Tuesday’s primary election.
The ballot asked two questions, one about issuing general obligation bonds that needed a 4/7 majority and a second for the sales tax, which required a simple majority. Both had to be approved to move forward with the project.
The bond question had a 53.7% approval rate while the sales tax failed with 37.6% of voters in favor of the 20-year tax.
A 2019 measure to expand the facility also failed.
Platte County Sheriff Mark Owen, who is not running for reelection, said last month that the jail was operating over capacity. In a one day snapshot last month, 202 people were detained at the facility, which was built in 1998. The jail’s capacity is 180. It has reached up to 240, Owen said.
Some cells originally designed for one person housed three.
Owen, who supported the sales tax, said older parts of the current jail, like vents, were rusting. Those materials can be pried off and made into weapons.
Sometimes, the sheriff’s office has to send people to jails in Cass and Buchanan counties when they are over capacity, which requires additional costs for staff time and transportation.
Platte County Commissioner Joe Vanover, who claimed a Republican primary win Tuesday night, said he was “shocked” by the results.
“Our situation will only get worse,” said Vanover, an attorney and former prosecutor. “More and more Platte County citizens will feel firsthand the impact of soft on crime policies.”
If the ballot question had passed, the jail would have expanded to 470 beds, a 161% increase in capacity. The funding would have renovated the current facility, added a new building and paid for operations costs. It was expected to have been able to meet the county’s needs through 2048.
HMN Architects, an Overland Park firm that has designed several jails in the region, already won a design contract for the project at the end of 2023.
The sheriff said he expects the number of people in jail to increase in the coming years. The county hired a national jail consultant to calculate the number of beds based on the county’s growth and trends. Jail populations fluctuate not only because of crime rates but because of policy decisions that determine who should be incarcerated and for how long.
Nationally over the past decade, the number of jail beds in the country has increased, while the occupancy rate of local jails has decreased, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Under the proposal, people in Platte County would have had to pay an additional tax on purchases, including online sales, for the next 20 years. The sales tax was projected to raise about $400 million, according to Platte County.
The measure’s language says the county could have used the funds for the jail’s operations and maintenance. With the sheriff’s anticipated increase of people in the jail, he said they will also need additional staffing.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 9:21 PM.
