No-excuse absentee voting begins Tuesday in Missouri. Jackson County voters will elect federal, state and county officials, decide whether to retain judges and weigh in on several statewide ballot measures — such as abortion rights and redistricting.
While many of those issues involve Kansas City and its residents, local voters will see one ballot item that’s hyper-specific to them: A question over whether to renew a sales tax funding much of Jackson County’s crime and drug prevention efforts.
If passed, the quarter-cent Community Backed Anti-Crime Tax, known as COMBAT, will be renewed for 10 years to fund courts, the county prosecutor’s office and law enforcement agencies including the Jackson County Drug Task Force. Dozens of nonprofits also receive grants from COMBAT funding.
COMBAT was first established in 1989 after the Jackson County Legislature declared a “violent health epidemic” to deal with drug-related crime and substance abuse related to the crack cocaine crisis. The tax was the first of its kind in the U.S., according to the organization’s website. In 2009, the scope of the tax was expanded to address and prevent all forms of violent crime, drug-related or not.
“It’s the most comprehensive pool of public safety funding we have,” said Murray Woodard II, director of Jackson County COMBAT, the organization that oversees the sales tax fund. “It invests in every piece of that continuum, the public safety continuum.”
What Jackson County Question 1 would do
The ballot language reads as follows:
“Shall Jackson County continue its anti-crime sales tax, commonly known as COMBAT, at the rate of one-quarter of one cent for a period of ten years for the purpose of promoting and providing public safety within Jackson County, including the prevention and treatment of drug abuse and addiction and the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and detention of violent criminals and drug dealers? The proceeds of this tax shall be deposited in a special Jackson County Anti-Crime Sales Tax Trust Fund, separate from the general fund or any other county funds.”
A “yes” vote supports extending the anti-crime sales tax for 10 years, until March 2037. A “no” vote means the tax would end in March 2027.
Jackson County voters have historically shown strong support for the COMBAT tax at the ballot box. The tax was first approved by voters in 1989 with 63% in support. At its most recent renewal in 2016, the measure passed with 73% support.
There is currently no organized opposition to the tax renewal. The Jackson County Legislature referred the measure to the ballot with a unanimous 8-0 vote. (Legislator Megan Smith was excused.)
How COMBAT funds are used
COMBAT generates between $25-30 million per year from sales taxes. Just over 60% of the money funds courts and law enforcement agencies. It’s the primary funding mechanism for some county programs, including Jackson County Drug Court and the Jackson County Drug Task Force. That task force seized more than 12,000 grams of fentanyl and nearly 60,000 grams of methamphetamine last year.
Most of the rest of the funding — $10.3 million in 2025 — is allocated for grants to nearly 90 violence prevention and treatment programs. Another $3.2 million went to law enforcement school-based initiatives and the STRIVIN’ initiative.
“Law enforcement can't do this alone,” said Julie Donelon, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Organization Countering Sexual Assault, or MOCSA.
Her organization received approximately $136,000 from COMBAT in 2025, to fund programs such as crime prevention through environmental design and age-appropriate sexual abuse prevention education for students in more than 30 school districts across the metro area. While it’s only a small portion of MOCSA’s $9 million budget, Donelon said the COMBAT contribution is crucial.
“Prevention funding is historically difficult,” Donelon said. “The gains are long term and they're harder to quantify. And so, you really need stable funding over a long period of time to see those gains.”
Cornerstones of Care, which aims to help children and families impacted by trauma, received $277,000 from COMBAT last year for programs including Functional Family Therapy. Youth and their families, often referred to the program by schools or courts, receive 14 weeks of targeted therapy to help them address challenges with the goal of keeping them out of the juvenile court system.
That format works, says Justin Horton, chief programs and innovation officer for Cornerstones of Care. Most of the youth who go through the program don’t have problems with recidivism.
“If we are providing good evidence-based therapies that are trauma-informed, we're addressing substance use, and we're stopping substance use… and we're healing their trauma,” Horton said. “And when they're adults, the hope is that they're not incarcerated, they're not underhoused, they're not hospitalized all the time, and we're saving our community money.”
In 2019 and 2020, audits found that millions of COMBAT tax dollars had been spent, for years, with little or no oversight and without the knowledge of Jackson County COMBAT management. Often, those dollars were being spent on things that had little to do with addressing violent crime.
Woodard, who was hired in 2025 to lead Jackson County COMBAT, says those oversight problems were fixed by moving the program into the county prosecutor’s office. Community members review and score grant applications before they are seen by the COMBAT commission and finally approved by the Jackson County Legislature.
COMBAT’s total impact can be hard to measure directly. The number of homicides in Kansas City has been trending down over the last few years, following a peak of 185 deaths in 2023.
Woodard says the evidence to support COMBAT is clear.
“What would happen if those 21 million doses of fentanyl were still on our streets today? What would happen if those 200-300 weapons that they seize every year were still out here on our streets?” Woodard said.
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