Would a Sales Tax Put Drones in the Sky Over Columbia?

If you live anywhere near Columbia and keep half an eye on how the city handles 911 calls, there’s a ballot measure headed your way on August 4 worth understanding — and buried in it is a detail that caught my attention: drones.

According to ABC 17 News, Columbia Police Chief Jill Schlude has floated a “Drone as First Responder” program as one of the things a new public safety sales tax could pay for. The idea is straightforward: launch a drone toward a 911 call before an officer even gets in the car. The units under discussion would carry zoom and thermal cameras, lights, and a real-time video feed back to dispatch and the officers on their way.

“That’s something we’re definitely interested in here,” Schlude told ABC 17. “The officer safety aspect of that is very compelling.” The thinking is that a drone overhead can tell an officer what’s actually happening at a scene — how many people, whether anyone’s armed, where the exits are — before they walk in without knowing.

The tax itself is a 1% public safety sales tax on the August 4 ballot, expected to raise around $38 million a year for the police and fire departments if voters approve it, with roughly a third of that coming from downtown sales, per ABC 17’s reporting. The drone program is one item on a longer list that also includes hiring 50 more officers, building a new headquarters, and upgrading equipment like body-worn cameras and translation tools.

Not everyone frames a move like this as a simple safety upgrade. University of Missouri-Kansas City criminology chair Seth Fallik, also quoted by ABC 17, put it more bluntly: “I think it’s an adapt-or-die situation for folks that are in urban spaces” — his read on why police departments nationwide are moving this direction, welcome or not.

For Rocheport and the rest of the county, this particular vote doesn’t touch our own fire district or the sheriff’s office — Columbia PD serves the city of Columbia, not the county at large. But a lot of us shop, work, or send kids to school in Columbia, and what the region’s largest police department looks like in five years shapes what “normal” policing looks like for the whole area, not just inside the city limits.

ABC 17’s reporting didn’t include a firm timeline for when a drone unit might actually be in the air, or a specific dollar figure carved out for it — those details would presumably get worked out after the tax passes, if it passes, as the department builds out its spending plan alongside the new hires and the headquarters project. Worth keeping an eye on as August 4 gets closer, and again afterward if voters say yes. If you want a say in it, the vote is August 4.