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Worth County, Missouri

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Budget Y
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Meetings Y
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Elected Officials Y
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Administrative Officials Y
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Permits, zoning Y
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Audits Y
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Contracts Y
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Lobbying Y
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Public records Y
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Local taxes Y
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County websites
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Transparency grading process

Worth County is one of 114 counties in Missouri. According to the 2010 census, Worth County has a population of 2,171.[1]

[edit] Website evaluation

Main article: Evaluation of Missouri county websites

This article was rated on March 19, 2012.

[edit] The good

  • Public records request policies and form are posted.[2]
  • The statute creating an Enhanced Enterprise Zone is posted, along with information on how to apply for tax abatements.[3]
  • Information on how to submit bids is posted.[4]
  • Contracts the county has entered into can be found in the meeting minutes archives.[5] They can also be found on their own page.[6]
  • Phone numbers are posted for all county officials, and email addresses are posted for most offices.[7] Additionally, you can find terms for elected officials on the website.[8]
  • Meeting minutes are posted back to 2005.[9]
  • The current budget is posted.[10]
  • Membership fees for taxpayer-funded lobbying associations is disclosed.[11]
  • Local tax rates are posted.[12]
  • A physical address is provided for the county.[13]

[edit] Budget

[edit] 2011-2012

[edit] Revenue

In 2011, the county projected revenues of $3,012,039.28 from nearly 70 sources.[10]

[edit] Expenditures

In 2011, the county had $2,959,458.04 in projected expenditures, $453,817.80 of which was for payroll. The county's largest expenditure was for the Worth County R-III School District, at $767,338.73.[10]

[edit] Transparency & public records

The county charges $0.25 to $0.50 per page for records, depending on whether a court employee or the requester makes the copies. Requests must be made during business hours, Monday through Friday. Request fulfillment may take 3-10 business days. According to the website, court personnel is not responsible for errors or omissions.[14]

[edit] News

[edit] Voter fraud

Worth County is one of 15 counties in Missouri that has more registered voters than people eligible to vote in the 2010 election. Worth County has 101.4 percent of people age 18 and older registered to vote.

Noted from the same article:

[Update] Laura Egerdal, spokesperson for the Missouri Secretary of State, gave this response on Wednesday:

I would encourage you to take a closer look at the number of active voters, rather than total registered voters. Often, inactive voters appear on the list because the local election authority is waiting the required two federal election cycles before the voter can be removed. The decision in the Department of Justice case you referenced states that federal law “makes it inevitable that voter registration lists will be inflated” because of its requirement that local election authorities wait to remove a voter who has not responded to a canvass mailing until they fail to vote in two successive federal elections.

Missouri’s voter registration rolls are more accurate than ever before, thanks to the diligent work of local election authorities. Over the past 5 years, our office has actively monitored the list maintenance activities of the local election authorities, issued regular reminders on the requirements of state and federal law, and conducted dozens of trainings across the state. Resources such as state vital records information from the Department of Health and Senior Services (identifying deceased voters in Missouri) are updated at least weekly, and we’ve regularly performed matches with the Social Security Administration death records database.

Our office has provided an unprecedented level of support to local election authorities, reimbursing more than $2.27 million their list maintenance activities. We’ve made additional funds available through a grant program that focuses on list maintenance. This includes funding for temporary staff for data entry, printing and postage for NVRA canvass mailings, and even Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. To identify duplicates across state lines, Missouri participates in a multi-state data sharing agreement with 12 midwest states. To identify Missourians who have moved within the state, but not updated their voter registration, we match the voter rolls against the US Postal Service’s “Nation Change of Address” list and send each of those voters a form to update their address.

These proactive efforts by our office go above and beyond the requirements of state and federal law, and they have resulted in the hundreds of thousands of deceased persons and duplicates removed from the rolls since we implemented the statewide list in late 2005.[15]


[edit] A Note from the Worth County Election Authority:

Please note that because Worth County's population is so small (we are the smallest county in the state of Missouri both in geographical size and population), our registered voter numbers can appear higher because we are required to wait for two federal elections to pass before we can remove inactive voters from our system. Sometimes a voter will not tell us when he/she has moved out of the county, or the voter may not have registered to vote when he/she moved out of the county. Therefore, besides the measures listed above by Ms. Egerdal that we take to make sure we have the most accurate list possible, we are waiting for two federal elections to pass to purge inactive voters out of our system.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

http://sunshinestandard.org
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  1. ↑ U.S. Census Bureau "QuickFacts," Accessed October 26, 2011
  2. ↑ Official Worth County website "Public Records," Accessed October 26, 2011
  3. ↑ Official Worth County website "Permits and Zoning," Accessed October 26, 2011
  4. ↑ Official Worth County website "Bids," Accessed October 26, 2011
  5. ↑ Official Worth County website "Searchable Minutes Online," Accessed October 26, 2011
  6. ↑ Contracts
  7. ↑ Official Worth County website "County Offices," Accessed October 26, 2011
  8. ↑ Voter Registration
  9. ↑ Official Worth County website "Agenda and Minutes," Accessed October 26, 2011
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Official Worth County website "2011 Budget," Accessed October 26, 2011
  11. ↑ Budget, pg 6
  12. ↑ Official Worth County website "Taxes," Accessed December 6, 2011
  13. ↑ Physical address
  14. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named rec
  15. ↑ "Fifteen Missouri counties have more voters than census population," Missouri Watchdog, October 26, 2010
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