Poll: Should St. Louis City & St. Louis County Reconcile? If So, How?
For decades now there have been efforts to nullify the “Great Divorce of 1876“, when the City of St. Louis removed itself from St. Louis County, becoming an independent city with municipal & county offices. All have failed.
Past failure, however, doesn’t deter some from pushing the idea again. An editorial from last month: Time to go public on mediation talks for the Great Reconciliation. A perfect subject for a poll.
Here are the options, in order from no change to big change:
- St. Louis City & St. Louis County should remain completely separate (no change)
- St. Louis City & St. Louis County should remain separate, but partner more
- St. Louis City should rejoin St. Louis County as the 91st municipally
- St. Louis City & St. Louis County (and all its municipalities) should become one government body
- St. Louis City & St. Louis County (and all its municipalities, schools districts, fire districts, etc) should become one government body
The answers will be presented in random order in the poll, located in the right sidebar. Interestingly, any change would require a statewide vote since the state constitution would need to be amended.
— Steve Patterson
A statewide vote is not needed for partnerships between St. Louis City and St. Louis County, annexation of City into County, or to form a consolidated government.
Missouri Constitution, Article VI, Section 30(a).
“The people of the city of St. Louis and the people of the county of St. Louis shall have power (1) to consolidate the territories and governments of the city and county into one political subdivision under the municipal government of the city of St. Louis; or, (2) to extend the territorial boundaries of the county so as to embrace the territory within the city and to reorganize and consolidate the county governments of the city and county, and adjust their relations as thus united, and thereafter the city may extend its limits in the manner provided by law for other cities; or, (3) to enlarge the present or future limits of the city by annexing thereto part of the territory of the county, and to confer upon the city exclusive jurisdiction of the territory so annexed to the city; or, (4) to establish a metropolitan district or districts for the functional administration of services common to the area included therein; or, (5) to formulate and adopt any other plan for the partial or complete government of all or any part of the city and the county…”
The purpose of Rex Sinquefield’s statewide ballot proposal is to disenfranchice St. Louis City and St. Louis County voters to force City annexation into the County, while at the same removing the constitutional grandfather clause for the City’s charter, thereby eliminating the charter government status enabling the earnings tax.
See http://www.senate.mo.gov/13info/pdf-bill/intro/SJR13.pdf
Please Note: “…Matter enclosed in bold-faced brackets [thus] in this bill is not enacted and is intended to be omitted in the law.”
Marie Ceselski
7th Ward Democratic Committeewoman
@stl7thward
If we consolidate the city, county, schools, fire districts, etc. into one unit of government we wouldn’t need the earnings tax.
Nothing is free. Either we pay for public safety services delivered by City and fund that with earnings tax or some other tax or we pay someone else for the service via earnings tax or some other tax, or membership fees, or receive a bill from a private company.
Don’t drink the Rex Sinquefield Kool-Aid. Proponents will, if the history of other local government consolidations repeats itself, use cost savings as the major selling point but the numbers will be incredibly inflated and fail to properly account for the start up costs associated with creating the new larger bureaucracy.
It is troubling that the debate seems to headed totally into the cost savings direction, leaving legitimate questions about customer service and efficiency far behind. If bigger were always better, we would not operate our own water company. If bigger were always better, the Federal government would be in charge of our city streets, city zoning, issuing marriage licenses, etcetera.
I support change. It depends on the issue. When it comes to City-County relations, I wish the focus was working on combining services- City-County Corrections & City-County Health- and see how those work, instead of jumping in the deep end.
Marie Ceselski
7th Ward Democratic Committeewoman
@stl7thward
Very well put Marie. I’m so tired of people complaining of too high tax on one hand, then complaining about sub-services on the other. Is there some waste? Sure. But not everything is waste and there are only so many things that can be cut.
Rex could be doing a lot of good things with his money, but instead seems to be intent on pushing Missouri to the bottom and then won’t be satisfied until we are living in Rexissouri. People need to ask…what are his motivations and not believe the Kool-Aid of his ads and his many political policy action groups.
I agree, and I would go further. Anything that Rex S is asspciated with should be
opposed, since it will involve cutting taxes on the rich, reduction in public services,
distorted analyses and misleading advertising. And further–do not support
any politician who accepts his money, since that means he has bought them,
He is a blight on the democratic process
And just think…if he had put just what he has sunk already into “public policy think tanks”, ads, and “contributions” to political entities….how much different our area, not just the City, our area would have been. He could have made a legacy of being a great philanthropist instead of a typical 1%er.
Does, St Louis need 91 mayors, countless aldermen, many fire districts, public works departments, school superintendents, police and fire chiefs? The saving would be real but painfull to the political class. If St Louis became a city in the county it would be entitled to a 5% bump in the gas tax. Is that enough to make a difference?
Based on what evidence?
It’s a numbers game, within the city & county we collectively pay enough taxes to cover our services. The earnings tax was created because of a shrinking tax base. A new government of the city & county would have a population if 1.3 million.
No matter hoiw you slice it, if you do away with the earnings tax, either
you cut services or you use some other tax dollars to make up for it.
And if you use other tax dollars, then you have to cut services that had
been paid by those other tax dollars. Its called arithmetic.
No, you’re wrong. The 1.3 million people are paying enough per capita in taxes we likely wouldn’t need the earnings tax on 300k. We also wouldn’t give tax credits to Sam’s open a store in St. Louis to later have adjacent Maplewod give Sam’s tax credits to move that store (sales tax & jobs) to Maplewood. We’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot for decades with all these tiny municipalities.
So you think that the County residents will fork over nearly $140 million dollars? Shooting ourselves in the foot I agree with, but we all know that there is no way the County will vote to take in the City so the City can then drop it’s earning tax. “wouldn’t likely need” is not good enough. Fact is, we do need it. And I’ve read no plans on how to eliminate $140 million in duplicate services.
We wouldn’t need all 1.3 million residents of the new consolidated Saint Louis to pay a 1% earnings tax!
Most city residents pay the earnings tax, as well as many county residents, already. The need for that revenue – pensions for city employees won’t go away, even if duplicative services are reduced. The math simply doesn’t work.
Of the million county residents how many do you think work in St. Louis and pay the earnings tax. Neither of us have done the actual math, but I’d like to see it before concluding the earnings tax is a must.
The earnings tax is not a “must”, but eliminating anything that makes up a third of the current revenue stream WILL certainly have an impact on the budget. And while I agree with your current statement that “within the city & county we collectively pay enough taxes to cover our services”, what you’re forgetting (or ignoring) is that a big chunk of the city’s budget is dedicated not to delivering services, but to funding pensions for both current and retired city employees. From the St. Louis Business Journal: “About 10 percent of the city’s revenue goes toward legacy debt — pensions and retiree health costs, among other things, according to Comptroller Darlene Green”, in addition to funding pensions for current employees.
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2013/07/pension-costs-crippled-detroit-st.html?page=all
http://www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/2013/Pew_city_pensions_brief.pdf
St. Louis County and its 90 municipalities also have employee pension & healthcare obligations. The county and these munis are losing population, just like the city did decades ago.
Not at the same rate nor with the same intensity. For just one example – how many officers have retired from the city police dept. (and are still receiving pensions) versus the number that have retired from the county police? “The St. Louis County Police Department was established in 1955. The department was created with 95 officers and 18 civilian employees.” It now has over 1,000 employees – wikipedia. In contrast, the city police had 1260 officers in 1904 and over 1800 employees today – http://www.slmpd.org/images/Updated%20History%20for%20Website.pdf
The same issues face the city fire department, which currently “employs approximately 900 personnel, which includes Firefighters, EMTs, Paramedics, and Civilians.” It should also be noted that ” The St. Louis [Police and] Fire Department[s] protect a city that . . . has a population of approximately 319,294 full-time residents and a daytime population approaching 1,000,000.” http://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/public-safety/fire/about-us-fire.cfm . There are no comparable fire departments in the county, in either size or number of runs – “In 2012, the St. Louis Fire Department had a total of 81,489 responses, of which: 32,223 were fire suppression responses and 40,063 were emergency medical services responses.” ibid.
St. Louis County has always had more than 8 times the total land area of the city. since the 1960s it has had a greater population than the city. How many total police & fire personnel currently work in St. Louis County? Total = county + municipal + districts. Sure, some of the 90 municipalities use county police rather than have their own force, but the pension obligations in the county must also be substantial.
It takes 20-30 years before an employee can (could?) retire and collect a pension with full benefits. Pensions can either be paid directly from growing revenues (as the business or the jurisdiction expands) or pensions can be paid from sound investments made over the course of the retiree’s employment. The problem facing the city is that neither occurred and we’re now having to pay pensions to a large number of retirees, some whom retired 30 or even 40 years ago, out of falling revenues, as well as funding pensions for our current employees. It’s no different than the actuarial reality facing Social Security – many people have been collecting “more than they put in” for many years, and those of us who are approaching retirement age are expecting the same thing. Unfortunately, the younger workers don’t want to see an increasing portion of their hard-earned paychecks being directed to benefits for the Baby Boom generation.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/st-louis-cost-for-police-pensions-to-skyrocket/article_5931dea7-0207-562e-84b2-0fb74e42a46f.html
http://www.24thstate.com/2011/01/st-louis-police-pension-a-pot-of-gold.html
I’m well aware of the pension issues in the city. I also know the county has had as much population as the city for nearly 50 years now. What I’ve not seen reported is the status of the county pension system, and that of all 90 municipalities. How do they compare?
When first approached by my firm about moving to St Louis, my wife and daughters raised all kinds of hell. So we visited STL and eventually decided to live in the county, which requires me to commute a fairly long distance to my downtown offices. Because of the bad PR the city receives in many publications any time crime-heavy cities is discussed, and because of the underperforming city school systems which is also a matter of public knowledge, my wife placed two conditions on the move: 1) we’d never move within city limits; 2) I’d sign only a 5-yr contract with my employer. I am one who would not want to merge any county-city services, school boards, police or municipal employees. It is my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that the city stands to benefit more from any merger than the county would, and I’m not entirely sure that it is fair to the county to have to deal with the city school issues and the city crime.
The suburban solution has always been to turn its back on its center city. And that’s why this will be a tough sell. The region is dominated by suburbanites, and the question is whether the city should be joined with them. Who supports an issue when they are motivated by their own self-interest over the common good?
One, I think a total merger and consolidation would be a great idea – ain’t gonna happen. Two, I’d love to see the city earnings tax go away – ain’t gonna happen, at least not UNTIL some other source of revenue replaces it. That leaves becoming just another city in the county. The reason is simple – MONEY!!! People in wealthier / healthier parts of the county see no reason why “their” taxes should be used to fix the problems confined to the poorer / economically-struggling parts of either the city or the county. The city has huge legacy costs in pensions for retired and/or disabled city employees, to say nothing of the millions (billions) of dollars in deferred infrastructure maintenance – the residents of Kirkwood, Chesterfield and Affton see no obligation to fund them in addition to those of their own local needs, any more than they see a need to “fix” the problems in Bel Nor or Welston! The earnings tax generates a third of the city’s revenue – if it goes away, will we raise the local sales tax by another 2%-3% or will we raise local property taxes by 20%? Or both?! Most voters are selfish – they want to see what’s in it for them. If I can get someone else to pay for my services, hell yes, it’s a great idea! But if I’m going to see my taxes go up while my services remain the same, or worse, decline, why would I vote for something so not self-serving?! We’ve evolved into a bunch of balkanized states – it’s going to take a whole lot of effort and convincing to undo it. A bunch of small steps will be easier than one huge do over!
“Why would I vote for something so not self-serving?” Sadly, the answer for many is that Fox (non)news or Rush or in this case, Rex, told them to.
So, moe people should be selfish unless Fox News or Rush tells them not to be selfish? What a stinkin liberal, pinko that Rush is. LOL.
No Joe…the problem is that tooooooooooo many voters take the easy way out of democracy and vote based on sound bites, what’s best for them in the short run (like that day or week), or blind political party lines. They will not put any effort into examining an issue, deciding the pros and cons, doing a little introspection based on their own view of society/issues (i.e. reconciling a possible confrontation to their own views), performing a long-term costs/benefits analysis much less the short-term analysis, thinking of things other than their pocket book.
The recent income tax repeal pushed…no, strike that, bankrolled by Rexie is a prime example. On the surface it meets the selfish standard as JZ mentions and as the sound bites make it sound good, after all our income taxes supposedly will go down, but upon closer review, people would find that most of their other taxes would go up while only business and high wage earner taxes would go down…definitely not self-serving for the majority. And if low business taxes bring about a booming economy, then why isn’t Missouri’s booming? Afterall, we are ranked 18th in overall business tax ratings (at 9.2%) meaning there are only 17 states more business friendly with Texas ranking 17th (at 9.2% also and Colorado at 16th at 9.2% and Delaware #1 at 5.1%). And all those states are experiencing severe social/educational problems because in part of this.
http://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/Portals/0/upload/AEG%20Tax%20Burden%20Study%204th%20Edition%20-%202013.pdf
Oh and Fox isn’t news, and Rush would love to live in a dictatorship where, to quote George Bush, “as long as I can be the dicatator.”
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
So Rush wants to be dictator like, Putin, Castro, Chavez? Sounds like a socialist, where’s’ Senator McCarthy when you need him. As Senator Long use to say:” Don’t tax you, don’t tax me tax the fellow behind the tree.” As long as we expect other people to pay for what we want there will be a problem.