243.330. Maintenance tax, how apportioned--commission may purchase equipment--cost apportioned, how.
Maintenance tax, how apportioned--commission may purchaseequipment--cost apportioned, how.
243.330. 1. The county commission shall have power and itshall be its duty at the May term of the commission of each yearto levy a tax upon each tract of land or other property withineach district sufficient to maintain, reserve, restore, repair,strengthen and replace the drains, ditches, levees and otherworks of the district for whose benefits such tax is levied.Said tax shall be known as a "maintenance tax" and shall beapportioned upon the basis of benefits assessed for the originalconstruction and shall be limited in any one year to ten percentof the original cost of construction. The tax shall be enteredin a separate column in the ditch tax books opposite each tractof land or other property in the district by the county clerk,and shall be certified to the county collector, or other personduly authorized and by him collected in the same manner andsubject to the same penalties for delinquency as the annualinstallment tax.
2. All taxes derived from the assessments herein referred toshall be the absolute property of the drainage district underauthority of which they were levied and assessed and shall beplaced to the credit of the maintenance fund of the drainagedistrict; except that the county commission may, on request, setaside from time to time a portion of the tax from each of one ormore districts in the county into a fund to be used by the countycommission for the purchase of dredge boats, tools and othermachinery to be used in the maintenance and preservation of theditches, drains and levees of the participating districts. Theportion appropriated from each district to be so used shall bedetermined by dividing into two equal parts the estimated cost ofthe dredge boats, tools and machinery purchased. One such partshall be apportioned in the ratio that the total benefitassessments in each participating district assessed for originalconstruction bears to the aggregate total assessed benefits fororiginal construction in all the participating districts, and theother part shall be apportioned in the ratio that the total yardsof excavation or yardage moved, as the case may be, inconstructing the original improvements in each participatingdistrict bears to the total yards of excavation or yards moved inconstructing original improvements in all of the participatingdistricts.
3. The dredge boats, tools and other machinery so purchased,shall be and become the general property of the participatingdistricts, and be used under the direction of the countycommission in the cleaning and restoration of any such ditch,drain or levee in said districts to its original size andcondition; providing, however, that nothing contained in thissection shall prevent the county commission from maintaining,preserving, restoring, repairing, strengthening and replacing thedrains, ditches, levees and other works of any district and theuse of its maintenance funds therefor, without purchasing dredgeboats, tools or other machinery.
(RSMo 1939 § 12434, A.L. 1953 p. 547)Prior revisions: 1929 § 10844; 1919 § 4511