Voters in Howard County will have the opportunity to vote on two proposed tax increases and will decide who will be the new Circuit Clerk and Recorder of Deeds during the primary election on Tuesday, August 2. Howard County Clerk Shelly Howell predicts up to 50 percent of voters could turn out for the election.

Polls will be open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. The deadline to vote in-person absentee in the Howard County Clerk’s office is 5 p.m. on Monday, August 1. Full ballots appear on page 5 of this newspaper.

Teresa Syferd and Angie Nelson, both Republicans, are running for the office of Circuit Clerk and Recorder of Deeds. Longtime Circuit Clerk Charles Flaspohler, a Democrat, announced he will not seek re-election after 11 terms and 44 years on the job.

Most county officer holders are running unopposed for additional terms. Those include longtime Howard County Treasurer Susan Keyton, running on the Democrat ticket. Uncontested Republican candidates are Associate Circuit Judge Mason Gebhardt, Howard County Presiding Commissioner Jerimiah Johnmeyer, County Clerk Shelly Howell, Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Riekhof, and County Collector Jinger Felten.

Both the Howard County Fire Protection Service and the Howard County Ambulance District are asking voters to approve increases to their property tax levies. The fire district will ask for a tax levy increase of 22 cents from 42.62 cents to 64.62 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. (The fire protection’s base tax rate of 30 cents per $100 of assessed valuation has remained unchanged since 1980. An additional 12.62 cents goes toward a 15-year bond issue that was passed in 2016. The tax increase, if passed, will raise the base rate to 52 cents.)

The ambulance service will ask voters to approve a 19-cent hike to its tax levy ceiling from 30 cents to 49 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The ambulance district benefits from property taxes throughout the county.

The Howard County Ambulance District has struggled in recent years to make ends meet, largely due to increased costs of ambulances and equipment, along with striving to make salaries competitive with neighboring services.

A flyer delivered to homes throughout the county from the ambulance district states that if the tax levy increase is not passed, it would have to cut costs “by staffing only one ambulance for the entire county and second by changing to a Basic Life Support service that does not carry the life-saving drugs and equipment of an Advanced Life Support service.” That would mean that crews would be made up of Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), who have less training and allowances than paramedics. They would be allowed to give CPR and control bleeding by bandaging wounds but would are not authorized to administer drugs, start IVs, or read electrocardiograms (EKGs).

Also on the ballot are hotly contested races for the U.S. Senate. Twenty-one Republicans, including Vicky Hartzler, U.S. representative for Missouri's 4th congressional district, which includes Howard County, and 11 Democrats are seeking the seat that will be vacated by current Republican Senator Roy Blunt.

During the last midterm primary election in 2018, 44.1% of Howard County voters turned out to the polls, largely driven by a proposal to increase the local school tax levy and contested races for Howard County Presiding Commissioner and Circuit 14 Presiding Judge.