One week from today, residents throughout Missouri will go to the polls to vote in city and municipal elections. One election in Jasper County will ask residents to pay a little more to pay for County Emergency Services. KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.

The Jasper County Emergency Service 911 Board is asking residents to vote in favor of a sales tax measure that would increase local funding of emergency services from 1 10th of 1 percent to ¼ of 1% to improve 911 communication throughout the country. Another way to think of it, currently for every $1,000 worth of goods in Jasper county consumers pay $1.00 towards emergency services. If passed, the measure would increase that dollar amount to $2.50.

Jasper County 911 Executive Director April Ford joined KCGS’s Newsmakers program in June to talk about the ballot measure. “It’s for infrastructure. That’s the 911 system, itself, so that’s the center. The 2nd part of that. We want to fund a countywide public safety radio system. So we have four different radio systems in Jasper County currently. Amongst all of our fire, police and medical agencies. And that includes states. The state has a radio system in the country as well.” Currently JASCO has the 2nd lowest sales tax rate for 911 emergency services in Missouri. The election takes place next Tuesday, August 3.