Category: kmiz-local-news

Stephi Smith

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Jefferson City voters will decide next Tuesday whether to double the city’s existing public safety sales tax to help fund police and fire department salaries, benefits and equipment.

Voters approved the quarter-cent sales tax in 2021. The tax generates 25 cents for every $100 spent on taxable purchases in Jefferson City and raises about $3.5 million annually, according to city figures.

The city’s most recent finance report shows the tax has collected about $3.1 million so far this fiscal year. The city expects collections to reach $3.5 million by the end of the fiscal year on Saturday.

Jason Ambler, president of the Jefferson City Police Officers Association, said the original tax helped fund body-worn cameras for police officers and salaries for the city’s police and fire departments.

But the cost of living, equipment and personnel have increased, Ambler said. Without additional funding, he said, the departments could struggle to maintain their current levels of service.

“We couldn’t have predicted the market … the funds are not keeping up with the expenditures, and that’s why we’re here,” Ambler said. 

Earlier this year, public safety representatives asked city leaders to increase the tax rate to a half-cent. If approved, the tax would collect 50 cents for every $100 spent on taxable purchases. In August, the Jefferson City Council voted to place the proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Ambler said the additional revenue would help replace the police department’s aging body-worn cameras, but he emphasized that funding salaries and benefits is critical to retaining officers.

Ambler and James Noah, president of Jefferson City Firefighters Local 671, said recruitment and retention are the departments’ biggest priorities.

Police, fire departments cite staffing challenges

Ambler said Jefferson City police officers are among the lowest-paid law enforcement officers in Mid-Missouri.

He compared the department’s annual starting salary of $53,345 with $66,432 for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, $60,611 for the Columbia Police Department, $53,487 for Capitol Police and $60,486 for the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.

“We have individuals who are interested in getting into law enforcement; they know about Jefferson City, know it’s the state capital, are engaged with us until we get to the point where we start talking about salary,” Ambler said. 

Ambler said the police department has at least 10 vacancies at any given time. Staffing shortages have forced the department to move some school resource officers and a mental health liaison officer back to patrol, leaving specialized units, including investigations and traffic enforcement, short-staffed.

He said officers who gain four or five years of experience and specialized training with the department may leave for better-paying jobs elsewhere.

“When salaries are not keeping up on a retention level, we’re training individuals and giving them a great background. However, we’re giving them a great background for them to go elsewhere where they can make more money,” Ambler said. 

Noah said the fire department, with a starting salary of $48,367, also has struggled to retain employees. The department, which has 76 personnel, experienced about 27% turnover over the past two years, he said. That figure includes retirements as well as employees leaving for other jobs or leaving the fire service.

Noah said he understands why some employees have chosen to leave, especially younger employees looking to purchase a home or raise a family. 

“If we’re not able to keep pace with that cost factor, they got to do what they can as far as longevity and livelihood of the service and their home life,” Noah said. 

The fire department estimates it costs about $15,000 to train and equip a new firefighter, including academy training and personal protective equipment.

Noah said pay concerns affect employees at all levels, from firefighters to captains. He said the proposed tax is intended primarily to address personnel costs, rather than purchase fire equipment.

The department primarily relies on the city’s capital improvement sales tax and its regular budget for equipment and other capital needs, he said.

City projects budget pressures

The city’s Finance Department presented a 10-year fiscal analysis to council members in July. The analysis projected an initial surplus that could help offset deficits later in the decade.

The projections assume an initial 10% increase in personnel costs, followed by annual salary increases of 5%, annual health insurance cost increases of 10% and annual employee benefit increases of 5%.

Without the increase, there would be a deficit of several million dollars within a few years, according to City Administrator Brian Crane. 

In 2021, voters approved the original public safety sales tax with nearly 70% support. Ambler and Noah said they have heard widespread support from residents and community leaders for the proposed increase.

Both said rejecting the measure could force the city to reduce public safety services.

Ambler said staffing shortages could mean fewer officers available for specialized assignments, including the Community Action Team, which he described as important to crime prevention.

Noah said staffing reductions could affect the fire department’s ability to respond to emergencies, including water rescues on the Missouri River and vehicle crashes.

“Without that new tax revenue, it’s going to be really tough to continue the services that we provide now,” Noah said. 

Barbara Selke, who has lived in Jefferson City since 2017, said she generally feels safe in the city. She described Jefferson City as one of the safest places she has lived and said she feels comfortable walking downtown at night.

Selke told an ABC 17 News reporter Tuesday that she was unfamiliar with the proposed tax and planned to read more about it before voting. She questioned whether doubling the existing tax was necessary.

“Show us why you need the money,” Selke said.

She said she would prefer smaller tax increases over time or a clearer explanation of why the additional revenue is needed.

Ambler said the proposed increase is intended to maintain the level of service residents have come to expect. He said rising costs and competition for employees could make it more difficult for the departments to retain personnel without additional funding.

“This is a level of service that citizens, quite honestly, deserve and expect,” Ambler said.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Mizzou football returns from its bye this week, and Coach Eli Drinkwitz talked about running back Ahmad Hardy’s return to practice during the team’s weekly news conference.

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Haley Swaino

GLASGOW, Mo. (KMIZ)

After missing the deadline to apply for federal disaster relief, small business owner Scott Morris is in limbo on how to get a damaged historic property he purchased in Glasgow fixed.

Morris was just 22 days away from moving into the downtown building at the corner of Market and Second Streets, combining his next-door business — River Brew Coffee Company — and a nearby bookstore — Fitz’s SideQuests. But those plans have been on hold since an EF-2 tornado tore through the roof of the building on April 27.

“For a while we had been a walk-up kiosk,” Morris said. “And we realized to take the next step in a small community, we had to expand and create more local services. And so it was our intention, after forming a partnership with Fitz’s SideQuests, to do a books and brews concept.”

All three floors of the historic property sustained significant water damage. Tarps over the roof that have worked to shield the inside from further damage provide little protection when severe weather hits.

“Every time it rains, because the wind damages the tarps, water comes in,” Morris said. “So we’re scheduled to get another, they’re [roofers] going to try to re-tarp it a little bit different. They can put a roof surface on there. It’s about $80,000, and that would work for about six months.”

Top floor of 601 Second St. in downtown Glasgow on Oct. 26, 2026.

There’s also worry about what damage winter weather could cause.

After late-April storms hit parts of Mid-Missouri, Gov. Mike Kehoe requested federal funding to support communities with recovery. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced assistance would be available in Chariton, Howard, Monroe, Randolph and Saline counties.

But Morris said the chance to get his hands on those needed funds was missed.

“I’m just a small business owner. I don’t have all the answers to everything. I do a lot of research, and I try to do the best I can. But the federal disaster assistance wasn’t widely available. The information wasn’t something that people were walking along and handing out to business owners and telling them to explore,” Morris said.

Like many in a small town of just over 1,000, Morris said he relies on community in difficult times.

“I was really relying on other people to help guide me through that process, which unfortunately didn’t work out. I was in a situation where I missed deadlines for submission,” Morris said.

The mayor, according to Morris, was also unaware of such deadlines.

Morris said he did not blame the mayor for not knowing about FEMA assistance deadlines.

“There’s things that we’re not aware on, policies at the state level, the county level, the federal level. And unless you’ve gone through the training or you’ve got some prior experience, it makes it very challenging, Morris said. “And our mayor was doing the best he could. And at the end, it just didn’t work out in our favor.”

The Missouri State Emergency Management Agency acts as a direct liaison between the federal government and local jurisdictions in these cases. According to SEMA’s website, mayors and county commissioners are notified of FEMA assistance deadlines primarily through SEMA.

For the past six months, Morris has been left to figure out how much insurance can help.

“Adjusters came out and did kind of a walk-through and looked at stuff,” Morris said. “And like any insurance policy, you have depreciation. This situation is a little unique. The building was built in 1860, has had a lot of restoration work done to it, but it’s still an old property.”

Through that process, Morris realized there were issues that went far beyond the surface damage.

One issue on the top floor is cracking in the wall’s foundation, which Morris said resulted from a tornado.

Morris said that without tuckpointing work, the wall probably would have collapsed.

Structural crack caused by April 27, 2026 tornado at 601 Second St. in downtown Glasgow. Photographed on Oct. 26, 2026.

Water has seeped all the way into the basement, inside an old jail cell. The second floor, where many renovations were already made, sustained significant floor damage where water pools and drips to the basement. Upstairs, the openings in the roof cause water to descend down to the bottom level. Morris said fixing such a historic building with rich architecture has been difficult.

“These windows are 3-feet-by-3-feet wide, and they’re 9-feet tall,” Morris said. “And they don’t make them like this anymore. So trying to replace them has been an issue.”

The building has served many different capacities since 1860. Among them are a courthouse, a jail, a town hall, a post office and a senior center.

Original jail bars in the basement of 601 Second St. in downtown Glasgow on Oct. 26, 2026.

The building was sold to Morris in 2023. He said it had been condemned when the back wall collapsed.

“It was in disrepair, and the city didn’t want to lose it, but they couldn’t afford it. And so I took on the project,” Morris said. “The first thing I did when I purchased this building within two months was rebuilt. The rear foundation that had collapsed, the city couldn’t afford to do it.”

Being less than a month away from moving into the building, excitement was building to provide a new life for the property and a unique space for the community.”

Both the coffee shop and bookstore were looking forward to the expansion. Morris said Fitz’s SideQuests has outgrown their current space.

“They have after-school literacy programs and different things that they work with kids on. And having more space means that we can accommodate more kids,” Morris said. “And we’re really trying to focus on the community and add to what the school systems have.”

Those dreams were not damaged with the building.

“We’ve invested heavily in the building itself, and when the tornado hit, it kind of put everything on hold,” Morris said.

Both the River Brew Coffee Company and Fitz’s SideQuests continue to operate out of their original locations. Morris said he continues to relay rain damage reports to the insurance company as they process his claims. He is also exploring other ways to move forward with the project.

“One is, depending on how it all works out insurance-wise, we may take the roof off and stabilize the upstairs walls, open up every single one of those windows and turn it into a roof garden where you can still enter through the coffee shop,” Morris said.

Caution tape outside 601 Second St. in downtown Glasgow after a tornado damaged the building on April 27, 2026. Photographed on Oct. 26, 2026.

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Matthew Sanders

Should Missouri welcome new data center projects, or work to limit them? Vote and see live results on SquareOffs.

Data centers remain a huge issue in Missouri as development continues on two Montgomery County projects and local governments across the area wrangle with citizens’ concerns about them.

Regulators told ABC 17 News in a special report that Missouri has protections in place to keep consumers from bearing costs related to increased power demands, but some are skeptical of those claims.

For the most part, that is yet to be seen, as many large-scale projects remain under development. Regardless, a political battle has popped up over whether to welcome data centers as economic development or limit them because of their potential costs to consumers.

Which way do you think Missouri should go? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A pedestrian in Callaway County was seriously injured Monday night in a crash, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report.

The report says a 2014 Ford Flex – driven by a 33-year-old Mokane woman – was heading northbound on Route C, just south of County Road 400 near Mokane, when it hit a woman who was standing in the road.

The pedestrian was a 65-year-old Mokane woman. She was taken to University Hospital in Columbia with serious injuries.

The driver had no reported injuries and the report says she was exempt from using a safety device. The Ford had minor damage.

MSHP reports do not name those involved in crashes.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Boonville man was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor after he was accused of pointing a gun at a truck driver Saturday on Interstate 70.

Cooper Pfeiffer was charged with unlawful use of a weapon, armed criminal action and misdemeanor reckless driving. The probable cause statement says his hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 22. A warrant was ordered on Monday, court filings show.

The probable cause statement says a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper saw and heard a semi-truck driver sounding his vehicle’s horn and “waving his arms aggressively” to get his attention. The trooper indicated he was going to get off the interstate at exit 106, but the truck driver stopped his tractor-trailer in the middle of Interstate 70 and told the officer someone had pointed an AR-15 at him, the statement says.

Pfeiffer allegedly tried to drive around the truck and patrol vehicle, but the victim was able to point his vehicle out, the statement says.

Pfeiffer allegedly told the trooper that the truck driver cut him off on the highway and the driver made obscene gestures, the statement says. He then allegedly claimed he pointed at the driver “imitating a firearm,” the statement says. The trooper found an AR-15 in Pfeiffer’s vehicle, but Pfeiffer claimed he only used it for hunting and that he had pointed at the gun during the exchange with the driver, court documents allege.

The truck driver allegedly told the trooper that Pfeiffer made an obscene gesture while passing the truck and that Pfeiffer pointed the gun at him, the statement says.

Pfeiffer then allegedly told law enforcement that he did not have the gun on his shoulder, but “pointed it,” before restating he “pointed at it,” court documents allege.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced on Monday that her office sent a cease-and-desist letter to a pharmaceutical company.

A press release from Hanaway’s office claims Eli Lilly and Company cut off MU Health Care from 340B program pricing for refusing to comply with a policy change by the company “requiring 340B hospitals to submit detailed claims data for every dispensation of any Lilly product, regardless of setting.”

The letter alleges the claim-data submission requirements violates the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.

“By representing that covered entities may purchase drugs at federally required 340B prices while simultaneously denying those prices to Missouri hospitals that refuse to provide unnecessary claims data, Lilly misled consumers and used its market position to force unlawful conditions on Missouri healthcare providers,” Hanaway’s release says.

“We appreciate the Missouri Attorney General’s efforts to protect patient privacy and preserve our ability to provide high-quality care to all patients,” MU Health Care spokesman Eric Maze wrote in an email to ABC 17 News.

CD-Letter-Re.-Eli-Lillys-Claims-Data-Submission-PolicyDownload

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The fall election is eight days away and committees were required to file financial reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission on Monday.

Finance reports from multiple groups for and against Amendment 3 show $32.1 million has been spent so far. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Amendment 3 aims to reinstate an abortion ban that voters overturned in 2024. The amendment would also enshrine a ban against gender transition treatments for minors in the state constitution, if approved.

“Stop the Ban,” which supports “no” votes on Amendment 3, has spent $24.7 million this election cycle. It’s garnered $26.8 million in total and has $1.8 million on hand, its finance report says. Another group opposing the Amendment – Protect Freedom and Democracy – has spent $475,420.59 this election cycle. It has received $1.4 million in donations and has $691,579.41 on hand.

Her Health, Her Future PAC – which is ran by Missouri first lady Claudia Kehoe – is in support of the amendment’s passage. That group has spent $5.9 million so far this election. It has raised $6.6 million and has $675,923.43 on hand.

“Vote Yes On Amendment 3,” the newly formed committee formed by former FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, raised $1 million and has spent it all. “Missouri Students For Life,” has also spent all of its $45,616.54 that it raised.

Prop A

Proposition A will ask voters on whether or not to approve the 2025 congressional maps created by the Missouri Legislature that led to several legal battles during the past year.

The group People Not Politicians is against the measure and has spent $11 million so far this election to promote the “ no” vote. It has raised $13.6 million this election cycle and has $2 million on hand, according to its filing.

Boone County Jail measure

Proposition L is on the ballot and is asking voters to approve a 3/8-cent sales tax to build a new jail that would be more than twice the size of the current jail.

“Prop L Supporters” have totaled $75,600.07 in contributions this cycle and have spent $58,815.13 so far, its filings show. The group has $14,834.87 on hand.

“No on Prop L,” has raised $2,792.65, spent $75.89 and has $1,854.11 on hand.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Missouri Department of Conservation will begin requiring permits to camp on its lands beginning in March, according to a Monday press release from the MDC.

The MDC gave final approval on the measure on Friday, the release says. The MDC manages about 1,000 conservation areas, with more than 320 offering camping.

“Campers and MDC staff have noted an increasing number of problems involving compliance issues, safety concerns, and environmental impacts from vandalism, illegal activities, and illegal stays on camping areas,” the release says.

Would-be campers will have to buy a $5 permit for up to five days of camping, which can include up to 10 people, the release says. Each person is limited to three consecutive camping permits and six total permits annually, the release says.

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Olivia Hayes

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia Board of Education’s Policy Committee on Monday discussed how to best honor students at graduations who died before getting a chance to receive their diploma.

The policy introduced outlines the process schools and administrators need to take leading up to graduation, on the day of and after.

Under the guidelines, any student will be eligible, regardless of when they enrolled. A memorial chair for each student will be placed alongside other graduates. Each chair will be decorated with a cap, gown, diploma cover and flowers. The names of the dead students will be read aloud, if the family wishes. A moment of silence will then take place to honor the students who have died prior to graduation.

School administrators will be tasked with coordinating amongst the impacted families to ensure the actions taken on graduation day align with their wishes. Families are allowed to opt out of the memorial proceedings.

Following graduation, the district will provide the parents or guardians of the student with a commemorative tassel and diploma cover.

Parent Tonya Avery lost her son Evan in a 2023 car crash when he was just 15-years-old.

“Our Evan had hopes and dreams that he was looking forward to. He made memories with his classmates and friends. Those friendships are still remembered and celebrated by his ‘boys,’ as Evan called them, today,” Avery wrote in a statement to ABC 17 News.

His name was almost not read at the 2026 Rock Bridge graduation ceremony, until a push for change by Avery and the community. Avery shared her support for the policy saying there should “never be any reason to not do the right thing by honoring any student.”

“No parent should have to fight to hear their child’s name said and I’m glad the district has recognized that for future families,” Avery wrote. “Evan was and always will be a part of the graduating Class of 2026 at Rock Bridge.”

Policy Committee Chair Paul Harper said it was the confusion surrounding 2026 graduation procedures that motivated the creation of the policy.

“We felt that we needed something in policy to ensure that moving forward this didn’t happen again, that the staff understood exactly what to do when something terrible has happened,” Harper said.

At Monday’s meeting, members agreed to tweak some language in the policy to make it more general so no students are at risk of being left out. The adjustments will be discussed again at the next policy committee meeting and whether to send it to the board for approval.

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