Cole County EMS to cover funding gap for baby box installation, seek reimbursement from state
Haley Swaino
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The street people will be able to access the baby box from has been changed.
Cole County EMS Chief Eric Hoy said after months of work to decide how to close cost gaps for the Safe Haven Baby Box installation at the Cole County EMS Headquarters in downtown Jefferson City, the county has agreed on a solution.
The Cole County Commission on Tuesday agreed to a plan to spend EMS funds upfront to cover a $4,900 construction cost gap that has stalled the installation of the box. The county will then seek reimbursement from the state.
“The legislature did pass House Bill 121, which does outline $10,000 in reimbursement for the installation of one of these devices,” Hoy said.
The project began before HB 121 was passed. The bill went into effect Aug. 28, 2025.
The baby box will allow people to safely drop off infants instead of abandoning them. The original goal was to have the device installed by fall 2025, but funding gaps were not the only setbacks to the project.
“It’s been a long, unanticipated road,” Hoy said. “As we went through this project and developed some locations in the building of where the box could potentially be installed, we ran into a couple areas of difficulty.”
Hoy said the state did not approve the original location the county proposed near the public entrance to the EMS headquarters because it was up a set of stairs.
“So we kind of had to go back to the drawing board and locate a secondary area,” Hoy said. “That secondary area’s in one of the three-story load-bearing walls of this facility.”
He said there are many factors to consider when deciding where to install a baby box at an EMS station.
“One of the things that the state really wanted is that it had to empty into kind of an environmentally-controlled area. So we didn’t want it to be out in the bay space where you have vehicle exhaust and those other sorts of things,” Hoy said.
That left few exterior walls on the headquarters that met all the state’s requirements.
Cole County EMS decided on an area on the building’s east side, behind the engine truck garages. People can access it from East McCarty Street.
“You can have foot traffic right up the apparatus ramp,” Hoy said. “It meets all the requirements for ADA and accessibility.”
But installing the box in that three-story wall brought unanticipated difficulty.
“The community was very generous through their fundraising program. Initially, we thought we had reached a goal that was far beyond what we would need for construction. However, due to some of those difficulties, there was still a funding gap,” Hoy said.
The community raised nearly $28,000 for the baby box. But the added construction costs have now left about a $4,900 deficit.
Hoy said he’s appreciative of the community support in seeing this project through.
“Over the last couple of months, these devices are being used in our state, and we’re happy to bring this ability and capability to Missouri’s capital counties,” Hoy said.
Safe Haven should deliver the baby box in the next few weeks, and Cole County EMS will then work with its contractor to get the device installed by the end of the year.