VIENNA — During the Maries County Commission’s Nov. 27 meeting, the commissioners decided to renew the county’s health insurance options with Anthem through the broker Wallstreet Group. The commissioners cited familiarity with Wallstreet Group as one of the reasons for keeping the options the same.

The county offers two plans. One is a $6,000-deductible base plan. The other is a $3,000-deductible buy-up option. Next year, the rate of the base plan will increase from $555.31 to $718.56. The rate of the buy-up plan will increase from $657.30 to $852.17. The county still plans to pay 80 percent of the cost.

Also during the meeting, Jennifer Gerling with Wallstreet Group brought the commission another quote for a cyber insurance policy. The commission’s interest in cyber insurance has increased following a cyberattack on the courthouse in September. The cybersecurity measures in place kept the attackers out, but the attack caused a delay in internet and phone service at the courthouse.

The latest quote came from CFC Underwriting, a company specializing in cyber policies. The policy would come at a $3,580 cost to the county, which is less than half of the other cyber insurance quotes the county has received.

Coverage includes costs related to incident response, IT security and forensics, crisis communication, privacy breach management, funds transfer fraud, theft of personal funds, extortion, telephone hacking, push payment fraud, system damage and rectification, income loss and extra expenses, consequential and reputational harm, hardware replacements, network security liability, privacy liability, intellectual property rights infringement and more.

Deductible and liability limits vary for each coverage clause. Some offer up to $1 million in coverage. The policy has a waiting period of six hours.

Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel asked if the policy would cover the county in a situation like the previous cyberattack, which caused issues with the dispatching center’s calls. He also wanted to know how monetary loss would be determined in any scenario.

Gerling said she could find out the answers and share them with the commission.

IT Manager Shane Sweno said he thought cyber insurance could be beneficial to the county following a cyberattack. Insurance claims could help with the cost of rebuilding servers.

The group also discussed the county’s renewal rates with MOPERM, which provides the county’s property and liability insurance policies. While reviewing the new limits on county-owned buildings and their contents, the commissioners found the $200,000 limit on 911 dispatch contents did not reflect the increase in valuable equipment in the dispatching center over the last couple of years. The new equipment includes a computer-aided dispatching system, a Motorola radio system and a 911 system in addition to other networking hardware.

Sweno estimated the dispatching equipment would cost about $1 million to replace.

“That’s quite a bit of difference if it’s $200,000,” Drewel said. “It needs to be raised up to something.”

The commissioners agreed that they would like to see the limit raised to $1 million. Gerling said she could make the addition.

County Cemetery

Drewel mentioned during the Nov. 30 meeting that many local people were using county roads to get around the bridge construction on Highway 28 over Dry Fork Creek. Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman asked if the commission could look at the county geographic information system (GIS) maps to see the routes.

Sweno displayed the maps on the commission room TV. After looking at the routes, Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre asked if they could look at a 1.03 parcel of land near the Miller County line. A Road One employee had mentioned to him that the county owned the strip. Land owned by Bradley and Dianna McMeekan borders on all sides.

The commissioners did not know what the parcel was or why the county owned it. They suspected it might be a cemetery like other small plots of land that in recent months they have discovered the county owns. At a meeting in October, they went through a stack of documents from the assessor’s office that listed about 30 county-owned cemeteries.

After the commission asked about the parcel, Assessor Dana Simmons came to the meeting with a deed identifying the parcel as West Fairview Cemetery. The county acquired the land in 1938.

Stratman called Bradley McMeekan to let him know that the cemetery is there and it belongs to the county. He said he did not want McMeekan to have paid property taxes on the cemetery if he did not own it.

Motor Vehicle Revenue

Treasurer Angie Stricklan shared reports on revenue from motor vehicle taxes and fees. Motor fuel taxes total $432,934.29 so far this year, which surpasses the 2022 total of $407,264.34. Revenue in November 2023 increased by about 7 percent from the previous November.

Motor vehicle taxes total $108,353.13 so far this year, which surpasses the 2022 total of $105,992.86. Revenue in November 2023 increased by about 38 percent from the previous November.

Motor vehicle fees total $45,781.33 so far this year compared to $44,395.21 at this time last year. Revenue in November 2023 decreased by about 11 percent from the previous November.

The two road districts split revenue from motor vehicle taxes and fees. Road One receives 55 percent of revenue and Road Two receives 45 percent of revenue.

Other Business

The commission appointed Erica Smith to the Gasconade Valley Enterprise Zone (GVEZ) board in replacement of Kevin Guffey, whose term expired. Smith’s term will end in 2026. Community leaders from Maries, Osage and Gasconade counties serve on the GVEZ board to promote and help the expansion of new or expanding businesses in the area.

The county received correspondence from the Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System outlining the changes to the system beginning next year. After Gov. Mike Parson signed Senate Bill 20 and Senate Bill 75 in July, each person who is a member of the Sheriffs’ Retirement System must contribute 5 percent of their annual pay to the system.

Stratman complimented the courthouse Christmas tree display arranged by The Flower Basket owner Angie Thompson.