By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Buchanan County was honored with a Blue Shield designation, and now with money coming from the state will be able to purchase new equipment.
Last month, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe announced nearly $10 million in state grants with the program to help improve public safety.
Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett says now, after months of planning, his office knows how much they will be able to get through the grant
“We are earmarked to receive $50,000 no matching funds, it’s a direct award from the state, and so that’s going to help buy some equipment, mainly it’s directed towards equipment and things like that, not salaries or anything,” Puett says on the KFEQmunnity show. “And so we’re looking at a couple UTV’s and a trailer.”
Puett says the current UTV the department has is worn down and needs to be replaced, pointing out the vehicle is valuable to be used in special events such as floods or ice storms
“We have plenty of incidents where people are lost in wooded areas or we have to recover injured or deceased people that are way out in a bad area that you can’t get to with vehicles and things like that,” Puett explains.
Puett says the vehicle is also helpful to have for accidents along the interstate to help move supplies back and forth.
Puett says having this would help expand his deputy’s ability to get to people and serve them better and quicker, especially in tight and bad locations.
Once the money is spent, will there be more to come? Puett says they are hopeful Kehoe will continue these public safety programs
“Obviously as we pay state taxes and it goes to the state, it’s nice to get some of our tax dollars that we pay back into our community for things that we’re able to utilize and all those things here locally instead of going somewhere else in the state, so that’s a plus,” Puett says.
Puett says they won’t know if this will continue however until after the first of the year, but also points out many things were held up and in limbo due to the recently ended federal government shutdown.
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