Joplin City Council Informal Meeting – April 21, 2025
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Joplin City Council Informal Meeting – April 21, 2025
The Joplin City Council held an informal meeting on Monday, April 21, 2025, at 11:15 AM UTC. The meeting included a financial update from Finance Director Mrs. Haas and a police department update from Chief Pearson. Council members asked questions and discussed various topics, but no formal votes were taken.
Financial Information Update
- Sales Tax (April – 6 months through year): Down just over 9.25% for the month, but year-to-date essentially flat compared to the same period last year.
- Use Tax: Up about 10.5% for the month, year-to-date up just over 8%.
- Marijuana Tax: Up for the month, but timing may affect the comparison; averaging suggests normal levels.
- Quarterly Graphs (February–April, top 100 businesses): Discount stores performed better in 2025 vs. 2024; construction/home improvement, motor vehicles, convenience stores, and North Park Crossing (due to a change in included business) were down. Year-to-date: discount stores up, but restaurants, construction/home improvement, motor vehicles, convenience stores, North Park Crossing, general retail, and other categories down.
- General Fund (5 months through March): Revenue below budget by $387,785; operating expenditures below budget by over $750,000; one-time revenue and expenditures also below budget. The projected loss is better than budgeted.
Council member Carlin asked what “other” consists of in the top 100 categories; Mrs. Haas agreed to investigate and report back.
Police Department Update
Chief Pearson presented key statistics, staffing levels, and initiatives. Notable points:
- Key Statistics (2023 vs. 2024): Arrests down 10%; incident reports up 6.3%; total calls for service down 9.3%; vehicle stops down 26.4%; vehicular accidents up 1%; traffic fatalities: 13 in 2024 (up from 9 in 2022 and 2023), partly attributed to semi-tractor trailer crashes. Homicides: 0 in 2024 (10 in 2022, 1 in 2023). Pedestrian safety violations: 74 in 2023, 113 in 2024.
- Staffing: Sworn officers authorized 115, 94 available (21 unavailable, including 13 vacancies). Jail authorized 16, fully staffed. Communications authorized 20, currently 18 (2 vacancies).
- Key Initiatives: Community engagement (coffee with chief, Citizens Police Academy, Kids Academy, neighborhood block parties, bicycle rodeo, trunk or treat). Visibility (part-time bike patrols, e-bikes, take-home fleet). Adequate staffing (targeted recruitment, working with PIO). Co-responder program (partnership with social services, court, jail). Flex platoon (narcotics, quality of life, wanted subjects). Partnership with probation/parole for habitual offenders. Expungement events (first planned for late May/early June).
- Major Tasks: Mobile radio console backup installation (July). CalEA on-site inspection (passed with only recommendation for a second evidence tech). High-density storage shelving in property room (July).
Discussion Items
- Council member Carlin asked about bicycle accident reporting; Chief Pearson clarified they are included in vehicle accident statistics.
- Council member Border raised concerns about the “revolving door” of arrested individuals being released quickly; Chief Pearson noted staffing shortages in the prosecutor’s office and judicial decision-making, but said the department works with them to prioritize cases.
- Council member Copel suggested reinstating a teen academy, as it was a valuable program in the past. Chief Pearson agreed to look into it.
- Council member Lawson expressed frustration about speeding and expired temp tags; Chief Pearson noted ongoing enforcement and state-level legislative discussion on temp tags. He also mentioned that officers are “doubling down” on expired temp tag enforcement.
- Council member Jackson asked about the tip reward line (TIP 411). Chief Pearson confirmed a purchase order is in process; the system costs about $8,000 and should be operational within 30 days. Jackson also asked about motorcycle enforcement; Chief Pearson explained that they do not chase motorcycles for safety reasons but use Flock cameras and license plate identification to follow up later.
- Council member Shaw asked about photographing license plates of motorcycles; Chief Pearson confirmed that is standard practice.
- Mayor praised the police presence at the recent Third Thursday event, noting positive interactions with the community.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes or resolutions were adopted.
- Chief Pearson committed to exploring a teen academy and moving forward with expungement events.
- The TIP 411 anonymous tip line is expected to launch within 30 days.
- Police will continue pedestrian safety enforcement as a new “way of doing business” and maintain a no-chase policy for motorcycles.
- The next regular city council meeting was scheduled to begin after a 15-minute break.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Joblin City Council informal meeting for this Monday, April the 21st, day after Easter. Hope everybody had a great Easter. We are going to get started today with the financial information update. Good evening, Mrs. Haas. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Tonight I'm gonna present sales tax to you for April. That's six months through the year. Sales tax is down just over nine and a quarter percent. And so for the year, we're essentially flat, uh almost exactly where we were at this time last year. Use tax. We're actually up about just over ten and a half percent. So for the year we're up uh just over eight percent uh marijuana tax, um, it's up for the month, uh, but if you look at last month, I think some of this is timing uh between the two months. If you average those, then uh we're in the ballpark of where we normally are, and then we've got our quarterly graphs. So this is just for the quarter, uh February through April, and this uh as a reminder, this is just our top 100 businesses. The top 100 businesses does represent the majority of our sales tax, but if uh one business reported one business qualified as a top 100 in 2024, but not in 2025, it can make uh these comparisons look uh a little odd. Uh so I'll just say that as a disclaimer, but generally speaking, it's a pretty good comparison to look at. Helps explain our our sales tax picture that we're seeing. Uh so you can see uh that discount stores are are doing a lot better in 2025 so in the second quarter than uh 2024. Um construction and home improvement, however, uh doing worse than last year, motor vehicles considerably worse than last year. Convenience stores are down, North Park Crossing is down considerably. Uh that is uh a change in a business that was included in 24 but not 25. Um, and then other is down considerably. And then if you look at year to date, so this would be the whole six months for 2024 compared to 2025. Again, discount stores uh doing well compared to last year. However, restaurants are are not doing as well as they were last year, along with uh construction and home improvement, motor vehicles, uh convenience stores, north park crossing, uh general retail is down a little bit, and other is down. So that gives you a little bit of a picture of what's going on with sales tax, and then I'll move to the the general fund um financials. So for the year, uh we're this is through March, so five months. Uh we are below uh what we budgeted for revenue at this point in time by 387,785 dollars. We are below our operating expenditures by just over 750,000. We're also below our one-time revenue and our one-time expenditures. Um the the gain is better, actually, the loss. We budgeted a loss, so the loss is uh better than what we've budgeted at this point in time. And then you can see the graph. Um again, you can see what we budgeted for 2025, and uh with the projections, uh, you can see the the path that we're on. So with that, I would be happy to answer any questions. Council, any questions for our finance director? Mrs. Carlin. Leslie, what typically makes up other anything that doesn't fall in those other categories? I mean if it's a top 100 business, yeah. It's uh essentially anyone collecting sales tax that doesn't fall in those other categories. Um I don't know that I know an example off the top of my head. Wouldn't it be marijuana? No. Uh well. No. Uh I'll I will look at that and I'll let you know. Yes. I'll I'll I'll find out.
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