SPONSOR: Reedy
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted "Do Pass with HCS" by the Standing Committee on Local Government by a vote of 15 to 1. Voted "Do Pass" by the Standing Committee on Rules-Legislative by a vote of 11 to 0.
The following is a summary of the House Committee Substitute for HB 3496.
This bill allows the valuation of nonclassed property and abated property to be included in the total valuation of the county used to establish county classification.
The bill increases the statutory salary schedules for various county officials. The salary increase will affect all terms beginning after August 28, 2026. Certain salary schedules will be adjusted each year based on a calculation provided in the bill.
Every noncharter county has a salary commission, the members of which are specified in state statute. This bill removes the county prosecuting attorney and county sheriff from the list of members of the salary commission, except for in Boone County, where the prosecuting attorney and sheriff will remain on the salary commission.
The bill makes assistant prosecuting attorneys members of the salary commission in any county that utilizes them.
The following is a summary of the public testimony from the committee hearing. The testimony was based on the introduced version of the bill.
PROPONENTS: Supporters say that these minimum salary schedules haven't been adjusted in four decades. Every office included in the bill was represented on a task force put together to discuss this topic. Linking compensation to assessed valuation takes into account the different economic conditions of different counties. Reasonable pay is necessary to compensate the difficult work these officials do for their communities. Testifying in person for the bill were Representative Reedy; Joe Gildehaus, Warren County ; Missouri Association of Counties; and Arnie Dienoff.
OPPONENTS: There was no opposition voiced to the committee.
Written testimony has been submitted for this bill. The full written testimony and witnesses testifying online can be found under Testimony on the bill page on the House website.
Statutes affected: