Boone County Sheriff makes pitch for 3/8-cent sales tax increase
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey argued for his proposed 3/8-cent sales tax increase to be added to the ballot during a Boone County Commission meeting Monday.
If approved by the commission, Boone County residents would be able to vote on the measure during the August election.
Boone County Auditor Kyle Rieman estimated that, based on current 1/8-cent collections from 2025, the tax increase would generate at least $17 million annually. The funds collected would be used to build a new Boone County Jail.
According to prior reporting, it cost over $2.5 million in 2025 to house inmates. It previously cost around $499,000 for housing in 2022.
Carey told commissioners Tuesday that his office is looking to accommodate around 570 beds. The facility would be broken up into three sections: 420 beds for male inmates, 88 beds for female inmates, 50 single-unit beds for inmates certified by the Department of Mental Health, 10 single-unit beds for medical rooms and 10 single-unit beds and a recreation area for juvenile inmates. Carey said the jail will be able to be expanded in the future, with plans to fully maintain operations during construction.
The county's website says the jail has a maximum occupancy of 246 inmates; however, it is currently housing 201 inmates due to housing constraints. Four juvenile inmates and 25 inmates waiting to be housed by the Department of Mental Health are required to be either separated from the general population or in single cells, which Carey reports the current jail was not built for.
"They eat up two-man cells, you lose 25 beds right away with those 25," Carey said. "Then our female population, from when I started in '89, has just blown up."
Carey adds that funding for mental health hasn't been given to the county.
"Funding was supposed to be held for the state and federal government, still haven't seen it," Carey said.
Boone County is paying to house about 180 inmates outside of the county. According to prior reporting, the cost to house out-of-county detainees from January to March this year was around $1.12 million. Carey said Tuesday that due process is key, with inmates spread across Mid-Missouri often slowing down court progress or using up department resources for transports.
"When you think about it, we're housing 12, soon to be 13 different counties, let's say a public defender has a caseload," Carey said. "They have to go down to Greene County to see a client, that's going to be an all-day trip."
Carey said he has spoken with sheriffs in Jackson and Jefferson County who have reported that they are also overcrowded.
"At some point, am I going to have to start talking to people in Iowa or Illinois? Because we're going to end up filling everybody up in Missouri," Carey said.
Several residents were in the audience, with many opposing the measure in favor of funding more preventative resources in the county.
"We must have a reckoning about the work of prevention by providing basic needs and a number of community members being detained as an eventual result of poverty and instability," the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon told commissioners.
