County voters have three items on the ballot for Tuesday, two taxes and 911. The two taxes are each for one-third of a half-cent (.166 percent) for the sheriff and the jail. The sheriff has hopes of serving the county with more law enforcement personnel and the jail has lost department of correction prisoners and, with its current budget, likely to go broke soon without more money.

The 911 question is not a tax. Rather it is a vote to change what the tax money pays for. Currently the bulk of the money goes for equipment and not operation — paying someone to answer the phone and maintain the system. The equipment has been purchased, but now that it’s time to run the system, there is not enough money allocated to do so. This vote is to adjust the money split so more money goes to pay for the operation of the system.

Why the law was written in such a way that did not anticipate this problem, we do not know. But given all the problems the 911 system has had in the more than 10 years it has taken to get it in place, we should not be surprised. Beyond the long delays in getting system up and running, the fact that we have two 911 systems in our county is baffling and cannot be a good use of taxpayer money.

However, those issues are not up for a vote on Tuesday, only the allocation change for funding 911. We will vote “yes” for the change in 911 funding.

The estimated annual cost for the sheriff and jail’s tax requests would separately cost the taxpayer 17 cents for every $100 spent. So if you spend $10,000 per year on things that require sales tax, it will cost you $17 per year extra for each of these taxes. Having a solvent jail and a better law enforcement in our rural areas from the sheriff’s office seems worth an additional $34 per year.

Even if both these taxes are passed, we believe the jail, sheriff’s office and 911 can do a better job of cutting duplicate duties and provide better service to the county.