LIBERTY – The Clay County Sheriff’s Office is under the gun on a tax renewal question going to voters countywide Tuesday.

The office learned two months ago, in August, that the ongoing eighth-cent law enforcement tax would come up for renewal Nov. 2, leaving little time for the office to rally support, office spokeswoman Sarah Boyd said Friday.

The tax raises about $5 million annually for critical law enforcement service the office provides countywide, including road patrols, Boyd said. Losing that level of income would be a severe blow to county law enforcement, she said.

“That would be catastrophic,” Boyd said.

Representing about 25% of the overall, $20 million law enforcement budget, losing the tax income would slash services and personnel.

“This tax is a critical source of funding for everything our office does to ensure public safety in Clay County,” Sheriff Will Akin stated. “It provides everything from jail maintenance and staffing to school resource deputies.”

The office would seek to minimize the effect if the money is cut, Boyd said.

“Definitely a reduction in services,” she said, and in staff. “(Cutting) the staff, I know, the sheriff would try to do by attrition, if possible.”

Attrition means not replacing people who retire and not filling vacancies that may arise, though if required financially, the cuts could be more severe. The result would be fewer people doing the same work.

Sheriffs under Missouri law must service civil papers, jail services and court security.

“Anything else would be up for elimination,” Boyd said.

 “Anything else” includes road patrols, which are not required, but Akin is unlikely to cut entirely.

“That is something I think we would try to keep for sure,” Boyd said.

But whether patrols would remain at the same level is subject to having money to cover the cost.

The specter of fewer people doing the same amount of work comes at a time when Akin’s office has taken over policing duties for the communities of Holt, Mosby, Birmingham and Randolph.

“That’s additional people we needed to cover those areas and we took over county parks in March,” Boyd said.

In addition to renewing the tax, the public is asked to remove the 12-year extension requirement, making renewal automatic. Doing so would end the risk of having a future sheriff being blindsided by learning too late, perhaps after the fact, that the tax needed renewal. Also, placing the issue on the ballot would cost about $100,000 and ending the extension requirement would end the need to spend money on elections.

The original tax, dating to 1997 under Sheriff Bob Boydston, last receive a public renewal vote in 2009, also under Boydston.