Missouri voters have made up their minds on a ballot measure to help fund law enforcement pensions. Roughly 61% of Missouri voters opposed Amendment 6 on Tuesday.
It would have reinstated a $3 court fee to help fund the Missouri Sheriff’s Retirement System. The funding would have been used for current and former sheriffs, circuit attorneys, and prosecuting attorneys.
Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak said without the increase, the Sheriff’s Retirement System will be bankrupt in nine years.
“It’s important that we have qualified sheriffs and prosecutors in the state of Missouri that step forward and want to do the job, and I think these benefits are a critical part of that,” he told Missourinet.
Opponents argue that reinstating the fee could lead to more drivers being ticketed on Missouri’s roads.
Lauren Bonds, of Kansas City, is Executive Director of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP). Her organization opposed Amendment 6.
“It ties salaries and benefits for law enforcement to them enforcing the law, so it kind of creates this policing for profit incentive,” Bonds told Missourinet. “Maybe not at the rate of $3 per filing, but it can definitely, it definitely opens the door to that. There’s statistics that show that enforcement goes up, that there are more arrests, that there are more citations, when there is a connection between citation revenue and that citation revenue going directly to a law enforcement agency.”
According to Marshak, Missouri currently has 200 retirees and survivors, with 114 active sheriffs contributing a portion of their salary to the fund.
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