A judge has sided with the city of Warrenton in a lawsuit against the Warren County Emergency Services Board, which oversees the county’s 911 dispatch center.The legal fight started in 2017, when the emergency services board refused to pay tax money into a fund for redeveloping the former Warrenton outlet mall, now known as the Shoppes at Warrenton.Associate Circuit Judge David Hoven of Franklin County delivered a ruling in the case earlier this month. In it, Hoven said the emergency services board is required to pay a portion of the sales tax revenue it gets from the mall to the city of Warrenton.At issue was a tax increment financing (TIF) agreement the city of Warrenton established to reimburse certain redevelopment costs at the mall. TIF is a system in which a portion of the sales and property tax revenue generated at the mall is used for the reimbursement.The tax money from the mall is normally split between the city, emergency services board and several other political entities. Sales taxes and property taxes are a major funding source for a number of public services, including the 911 dispatch center and other emergency services.TIF rules established by Missouri law require the emergency services board, along with each other entity that collects taxes from the mall, to pay a portion of that tax revenue into the TIF fund to reimburse the mall developer, according to the judge’s ruling.The 911 board had refused to pay its portion of the TIF money, pointing to a provision in the law that allows emergency services to request reimbursement out of that same TIF fund. Board leaders argued that they could simply keep the money, rather than paying it into the fund and then asking to get it all back.Judge Hoven flatly rejected that argument, writing that the emergency services board has “no authority to collect and retain the (TIF money) for its own reimbursement.”The judge ordered that the emergency services board must pay the required amount of money into the TIF fund for the mall redevelopment project. The board must also pay the city of Warrenton for the cost of its lawsuit.

911 operators monitor their stations at the Warren County Emergency Services Dispatch Center in Warrenton Tuesday, Jan. 29. The board that controls the dispatch center is being required by a court order to pay part of its tax revenue into a fund for redeveloping the former outlet mall in Warrenton. 

Record photo/Adam Rollins