Business as usual?

It appears Howell County Collector Janet Crow isn't satisfied with business as usual when it comes to the office she took over on Mar. 6 of this year.

Crow appeared before the Howell County Commission last Thursday. According to the meeting's agenda, the county collector was scheduled to discuss an agreement for her office. The conversation centered, rather, on the existing contracts between the county collector and the municipalities of West Plains and Willow Springs.

Since 1985, the Howell County Collector has operated under a contract to perform collection services on behalf of the two aforementioned cities, taking a percentage of the sums collected. Throughout the years, the contractual sum for current and delinquent taxes has varied as necessary to reflect current statutes. The present version of the contract has been in place since 1988 in West Plains and 1990 in Willow Springs. Both cities pay 4 percent of the taxes collected on their behalf, as well as an additional percentage for collection of delinquent taxes.

One percent of the four goes to Howell County's general-revenue fund, Presiding Commissioner Ralph Riggs said. The remaining 3 percent was the focus of Crow's visit to the commission chambers.

These funds are intended "to compensate the Howell County Collector for the services provided by him at the rate of three (3%) percent of the total amount," per the current contract.

Referring to the above language, Crow said, "This is where we really have a problem ... I want you to be aware of the magnitude."

She has a moral objection to collecting these fees as compensation and explained that the county collector receives a base salary of $67,800 annually as well as these commissions and fees from the contracts with the cities. Crow referred to spreadsheets tracking this additional sum and reported it to be slightly more than $51,000 in 2021, including both cities.

"I don't want to take that money," Crow said.

Riggs responded by saying that what Crow chooses to do with these funds is outside the purview of the Howell County Commission. In a follow-up interview, Riggs clarified, "The money from those taxes comes to the collector basically personally. The commission has no authority over that money."

The commission, as the county's governing body, is a party to the contract between the collector and the cities.

Discussion in the commission chambers continued with Riggs suggesting that establishing a sub-agreement to the contracts was unnecessary because the commission has no authority or control over how the collector chooses to distribute those funds.

Crow's overarching suggestion, however, was to renegotiate the contracts to restructure the fees so that they are no longer income for the collector individually.

County Clerk Kelly Waggoner advised that if Crow were to renegotiate these contracts with the cities, all it would take is a future renegotiation to reestablish the contracts on the same terms. Collecting commissions and fees as income to the collector personally is permitted under Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) 70.22.

"All it would take is another contract," Waggoner said. "Declaring something changed forever is not going to happen."

"It would be harder to push it through next time," Southern Commissioner Billy Sexton responded.

"I think you've made some good points," Riggs added.

The commission took no action and moved on with the business of the day. In a follow-up interview, Riggs confirmed, "I'm open minded about it. If there is some reason to tweak this, I'm open."

 

Cities weigh in

In this discussion, there were two points echoed uniformly by every party – namely, under this system the cities are receiving a service for a bargain. West Plains and Willow Springs could not collect these taxes on their own behalf for less than the 4-percent fee they are paying.

Second, no one wants the cities to pay more than 4 percent for this service.

In an interview Friday morning, Willow Springs City Administrator Beverly Hicks said she has only recently become aware that a portion of the fee is income directly to the collector.

"I assumed that it was for the department of the collector to pay for the cost of the service," Hicks said. "I think it is the assumption of the public that the fee was for the department, not an individual.”

The contract in Willow Springs has been in place prior to her tenure as city administrator. Though she is happy with paying the 4 percent fee for the service received, Hicks said she has reservations about an individual receiving the fee.

"Yes, we are open to renegotiate the contract ... it's probably time to revisit it," Hicks said.

In West Plains, City Administrator Sam Anselm disagrees. He says the city is happy with the contract and sees no need to change it, mainly citing that it is rare for a municipality to collect their own taxes. He did say he would be "open to a conversation" about the contracts.

Mayor Mike Topliff also spoke to the Howell County News on Friday morning, agreeing with Anselm's analysis, "We're okay with it. As far as how the county disseminates it, that's a county thing." The mayor said he would be open to a discussion if the other parties wanted to discuss the contract.

 

Why personal income?

The contracts in Howell County have been in place for more than 35 years, and state law allows for fees collected for these services to be paid as income to the collector of revenue personally.

For a perspective on why this is so, the Howell County News reached out to Brian McCollum, Boone County's collector of revenue. McCollum served as the president for the Missouri County Collectors' Association for the 2021-2022 term. The sitting president was unavailable for comment due to an illness.

"County collectors are not required to collect for cities. Collectors themselves are taking on personal liability to collect these taxes," McCollum said. "The collateral is their homes, which is a lot of added liability, and that's where the compensation comes in."

In Howell County, Crow, newly elected to the collector's office, has pledged not to accept these fees as personal income. In Thursday's commission meeting, Waggoner agreed to note in her minutes of the meeting that Crow intends to deposit commissions and fees for the month of March 2023 into the collector's tax-maintenance fund.

Waggoner said Thursday that any potential changes to the contracts would be months in the making because each municipal government would have to approve changes according to their own procedures before these documents would appear before the commission.