If accurate, the document states that Ways and Means Committee will hold two upcoming meetings at locations other than St. Louis City Hall. The information for each is as follows:

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

6pm to 8pm

Omega Center

3900 Goodfellow 63120

Thursday, March 18, 2010

6pm to 8pm

Grbic Restaurant

4071 Keokuk 63116

View Larger Map

These “public” meetings apparently will bookend the Committee’s hasty actions to rubber stamp regressive tax increases whose proceeds will solely benefit private developers.

On Wednesday, March 10, 2010, the Committee will consider the following:

Phyllis Young’s Board Bill 328, which will approve a Community Improvement District for the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 200 North Fourth Street in Downtown. The Bill will provide the District’s petitioner with the power to assess a 1% sales tax within the District for a period of 25 years. Unlike Lyda Krewson’s Bill to create a CID for her friends in the Central West End, Phyllis Young’s Bill actually includes a copy of the relevant attachments.

On Friday, March 12, 2010, the Committee will review another of Young’s proposed CIDs:

Board Bill 342 will grant the developers of the Railway Exchange Building the power to impose a sales tax whose proceeds will likely allow them to come a bit closer to repaying their ambitious TIF. As this Bill does not include its relevant attachments, I can only assume that the CID will exist solely to back the Railway Exchange’s TIF, which the Board of Aldermen appears poised to approve in the form of Board Bills 338, 343, 341, and 344. The entire “redevelopment project” appears to have only one aim–reducing the size of the Downtown Macy’s while its “developer” rakes in as many Federal tax credits and local subsidies as possible.

Why the Board of Aldermen thinks that it is in the public interest to shovel public dollars into private pockets with no restrictions is beyond me. Furthermore, I have great difficulty understanding why we should permit such gross hypocrisy by our elected officials. Remember how they intend to balance the budget without tax increases?

Apparently that rule only applies to taxes that would equitably fund public services available to all. Increasing taxes on consumers while allowing developers to reap the profits is the only thing that our Aldermen know how to do.

I am not going to bother attending either of the Ways and Means Committee hearings out in the community. Our Aldermen are only gathering public input for their benefit and the benefit of Harry Kennedy. I would venture to guess that the Fiscal 2011 Budget is largely already written and will represent the complete destruction of the public sector.

The Board of Aldermen’s penchant for CID approval tells me that they believe the benefits of taxation should accrue to the wealthy and that the powers of public institutions exist solely for the benefit of their campaign contributors. Our Aldermen are neither Democrats nor public servants; they are greedy and out of touch elites whose actions are destructive to the community they nominally serve. Any public testimony offered to the Ways and Means Committee will only provide the Aldermen with talking points to frame and justify budget decisions that Jeff Rainford and the Mayor’s Staff have already sought to effectuate.

Our Aldermen feel no pressure from public testimony. They will only feel the heat if persons dare to run for their offices. Even Wards and Lewis Reed are up for reelection in 2011, and I am more than happy to assist in drafting messages and field plans for the removal of these heinous failures from office.

6027 Westminster Place, March 2010

The Board of Aldermen’s legislative work is so laughably divorced from the realities of life in our City as to render it incompatible with what one would expect from our Nation’s supposedly advanced democratic systems of government. I mean, really, can anyone explain how the entire City benefits from the approval of a parcel-specific tax abatement in Skinker-DeBalivere?

Maybe Lyda Krewson would care to respond. After all, she is the driving force behind Board Bill 279, which seeks to “blight” and tax abate the above-pictured property.

If we read the text of Board Bill 279, the whole enterprise of its passage appears pretty absurd. On the subject of “blight,” this is what the Bill states:

There exists within the City of St. Louis (“City”) a blighted area, as defined by Section 99.320 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, as amended (the “Statute” being Sections 99.300 to 99.715 inclusive, as amended) described in Attachment “A”, attached hereto and incorporated herein, known as the 6027 Westminster Pl. Area (“Area”). The existence of deteriorated property and other conditions constitutes an economic or social liability to the City and presents a hazard to the health and well-being of its citizens.

I guess that I just do not possess Lyda’s expertise in identifying “a hazard to [my] health and well-being.” An occupied brick duplex with no broken windows, missing bricks, or peeling exterior paint is clearly a menace.

As for its authorization of a tax abatement, the Bill dictates the following:

A Redeveloper which is an urban redevelopment corporation formed pursuant to Chapter 353 of the Missouri Statutes shall hereby be entitled to real property ad valorem tax abatement which shall not include any Special Business District, Neighborhood Improvement District, Commercial Improvement District or any other single local taxing district created in accordance with Missouri law, whether now existing or later created, for a total period of up to five (5) years from the commencement of such tax abatement…

Lyda certainly knows how to look after her own. While depriving City Schools, City Libraries, and the City’s General Fund of property tax revenues, the tax abatement for 6027 Westminster Place will not apply to “any…single local taxing district created in accordance with Missouri law.” Community Improvement Districts and Transportation Development Districts–the slush funds of choice for developers–are exempt from the impacts of her obscene fiscal handiwork.

Good work, Lyda.

“If you get a paycheck from the city of St. Louis, you ought to be required to live in the city.”

-Mayor Francis Slay, qtd. in “Police Board drops city residency requirement for veteran officers,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 2005

A corollary to Aldermen Cohn and French’s Board Bill 323 is pending at the Board of Aldermen in the form of anti-worker Alderman Stephen Gregali’s Board Bill 80. As introduced, the measure proposes to repeal “Section 2 of Article VIII of the Charter of the City of St. Louis relating to City Officers and Employees” and replace it with new language that will require voter approval.

Before even considering the proposal, though, I think that it is imperative for us to consider what Article VIII Section 2 of the Charter presently provides. It reads as follows:

Section 2 – Residence Requirement

In addition to other qualifications required by this charter, except as provided hereinbelow, all officers and employees (in non-temporary, full-time positions) must reside in the City of St. Louis on or before 120 days have elapsed after appointment or, if the officer or employee serves in a working test period as provided by Civil Service Rule, then 120 days after the end of an initial working test period, not to exceed one year, and all employees and officers must maintain residence within the City of St. Louis during the entire tenure of their employment or of their appointment as an officer after said 120-day period and failing or ceasing so to reside, shall forfeit their office or employment. A waiver to the above residence requirements may be granted to an individual officer or employee, other than a Director or person who acts as a Director of a City Department, on an annual basis by the Civil Service Commission when said officer or employee occupies a position requiring a very high degree of specialized education or skill and when qualified candidates who are willing to fill said position and reside within the City of St. Louis are not reasonably available. The Civil Service Commission shall report annually in writing to the Board of Aldermen on all waivers granted in the preceding year with written explanations for each waiver that was granted.

As zealous guardians of the public interest and public monies know, the City’s residency requirement enjoys broad-based voter support. After all, residency is a bond that ties those drawing City paychecks to the community they serve.

Indeed, an April 1995 non-binding referendum on the matter of a residency requirement for our City’s Police yielded these results:

With 100 percent of the ballots tallied, 25,023 voters favored the requirement and 11,605 opposed it (“Voters in city tell police they make good neighbors,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1995).

The notion of residency never enjoyed much popularity among the Police since its adoption in 1975, however, as the Police Officers Association contended that “the requirement hurt[] recruiting and cause[d] veteran officers to quit” (ibid.).

Exactly one decade following the resounding endorsement of residency for City Police by City voters, Governor Matt Blunt’s appointees to the Police Board voted in April 2005 to undemocratically eliminate the rule. The Post-Dispatch reported:

The Police Board voted 3-2 to allow officers with seven years of service to live outside the city limit, effective immediately. About three-fourths of 1,360 current officers are immediately eligible to move. New officers will have to complete training and a probationary period before their experience will count toward the seven years….Officers who leave the city must live within an hour of the patrol station where they report to duty (“Police Board drops city residency requirement for veteran officers,” April 23, 2005).

In September 2006, the Police Board eliminated the residency requirement for civilian members of the Department as well. Here is what the Post-Dispatch observed:

The board…approved — over the objection of Mayor Francis Slay — lifting the requirement that the department’s 500 civilian employees must live in the city . Now, those employees will have the same option granted the 1,400 commissioned officers last year — the ability to move out of the city after seven years on the job (“City police will get 3 percent pay hike,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 21, 2006).

The undemocratic actions undertaken by the Police Board in 2005 prompted many Aldermen–including Gregali–to sponsor another non-binding referendum on Police residency for the November 7, 2006 general election ballot. The measure yielded almost identical results to the 1995 referendum, according to the Post-Dispatch:

In St. Louis city, voters….once again resoundingly told their St. Louis Police Board that they want police officers and civilian department employees to live in the city. The vote in the advisory referendum was 64 percent in favor, according to incomplete results — almost as much as in 1994, when voters endorsed the residency rule in a similar advisory vote by 68.4 percent (“Dooley breezes to victory in county,” November 8, 2006).

Despite the overwhelming consensus among St. Louis City voters as to the value of residency, as recently as February 2009 the Police Board granted waivers to civilian employees in “technical jobs that pay more than $50,000” so that they could avoid the Department’s present seven-year residency requirement (“City’s residency requirement waived for police radio IT jobs,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 19, 2009; see also: “Board drops residency rule for 18 high-tech civilian jobs,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 13, 2006).

Now, against the backdrop of Francis Slay’s push for “local control” of the Police Department, Alderman Gregali is pushing an amendment to the City Charter that will eliminate residency for all City employees. Here is the language of the new Section 2 to Article VIII of the City Charter that Gregali’s Board Bill 80 seeks to place before City voters:

Section 2 – Residence Requirement

In addition to other qualifications required by this charter, except as provided herein below, all officers and employees (in non-temporary, full-time positions) must reside in the City of St. Louis on or before 120 days have elapsed after appointment or, if the officer or employee serves in a working test period as provided by Civil Service Rule, then 120 days after the end of an initial working test period, not to exceed one year, and all employees and officers must maintain residence within the City of St. Louis for a duration of not less than seven (7) years. After such time, all officers and employees must reside no more than ten (10) miles from the City limits and must reside in the State of Missouri. Officers and employees failing or ceasing so to reside per the requirements of this Section, shall forfeit their office or employment.

Funny, but with the exception of the “10-mile” limit, Gregali’s gutted version of residency for City employees appears to track the Police Department’s present rule allowing its employees to move to the suburbs after seven years on the job.

This is significant in relation to “local control,” because success by our State Legislators in rescinding Missouri’s control of the Police Department would necessarily require the Police Department’s compliance with City Charter provisions mandating residency for City employees. As the Police Department does not presently have a residency requirement for its employees after seven years of their service, those persons presently employed by the Police Department but not residing in the City risk “forfeit[ing] their office or employment” if the State grants “local control” to the City in the absence of Gregali’s Charter Amendment.

On April 17, 2005, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

…it will be far more difficult for other city employees to lift the residency requirements. It would require amending the City Charter, which needs a 60 percent vote of city residents.

“Changing the charter is a monumental task,” said Paul E. Davis, president of the St . Louis Firefighters Association (“City residency rule for police officers appears doomed”).

I have to wonder whether delays in passing Board Bill 80–it was introduced in May of last year–are a contributing factor to the extreme animus directed toward the City by the Police Officers Association. I always believe that what disputants refuse to say can often signal their true source of disagreement or discomfort.

▶ This week’s edition of the Board of Aldermen’s Calendar Letter references a “Committee Substitute” version of Board Bill 80, but I cannot find an online record of anything other than the “Introduced” legislation. Time will tell how egregious Gregali’s decimation of the residency requirement for City employees becomes. The Board of Aldermen’s website is certainly not telling at present.

St. Louis Police Officers Association is Against City Control, February 2010

Long before Francis Slay and his allies glommed onto the concept of “local control” for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, community leaders from all backgrounds promoted the idea. Indeed, community support for local control is what propelled Irene J. Smith during her 2009 run for Mayor to demand Governor Nixon’s attention to this matter. On January 12, 2009, the date of Nixon’s inauguration, Mayoral Candidate Smith wrote:

…As asked in previous correspondence with other residents of this city, I urge you as the new Governor of Missouri to take a stand in favor of local control. Please request the resignation of the current Police Commissioners. We need local control legislation that will give St. Louis the opportunity to structure our own police department. Every other governmental entity in the state of Missouri, except for St. Louis City and Kansas City, has local control of its police department.

Today, I am requesting that you ask for the resignation of the four members of the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, all of whom were appointed to their present position by your predecessor, Governor Matt Blunt. The current members of the Board are Colonel Chris Goodson, Colonel Julius K. Hunter, Colonel Todd Epsten, and Colonel Vincent J. Bommarito. The citizens of St. Louis and I will take responsibility for removing the sole elected member, Mayor Francis G. Slay.

At the time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered Smith’s admonition to the Governor on its website, while the Arch City Chronicle inexplicably chastised Smith for making such a bold request to Nixon.

Fast-forward to the undemocratic selection of Joseph Keaveny as Fourth District State Senator and the City’s unprecedented budget shortfall, and now all of a sudden Francis Slay is pushing as hard if not harder than did Smith for legislative action at the State level that will afford him almost exclusive control over the Police Department’s operations. Unlike Smith’s consensus-building approach, however, Slay has an entitlement mentality of winner take all. Here is what Slay said on the issue of local control just last week during his St. Louis on the Air interview:

Well, the problem is this. You have a Police Board that doesn’t report to me. I’m one out of a five member Board. I’m an ex-officio member as the Mayor. It meets once a month. We have a Police Chief that does not report to me directly. Now, and I will tell you that I support this Police Chief. We have a very good relationship, but the fact is he or this Department does not report to me directly. This isn’t about me. I mean, you know, I’m not going to be Mayor forever. This is a system that’s been in place for reasons totally different than what the arguments that are being made to keep it in place right now.

For Francis Slay, “local control” means enhancing the power of the Mayor’s Office and nothing more. No wonder the St. Louis Police Officer’s Association opposes what it terms “City Control.” Who on earth would willingly acquiesce to being subservient to Slay? The hardworking members of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department know better than to allow Charles Bryson to dictate their Department’s policies. Here is what the Police Officer’s Association has to say about local control:

• The hidden agenda of Mayor Slay, his political allies and his supporters is to gain control of the SLMPD Pension System. They claim the pension system, along with the Fire Department and Civil Service pension systems, will bankrupt the city. They claim that city employees do not contribute to the pension systems. While this is true for the Civil Service system, Firemen contribute 8% and Police Officers contribute 7% of their salaries. WE DO CONTRIBUTE. In fact it is quite apparent with the recent ballot initiatives filed, in essence by Mayor Slay, that their true intention is to obtain control of our pension system.

• Mayor Slay, his political allies and his supporters cannot answer our one simple question: “How will City control make the SLMPD a better department”? The fact is crime was reduced this past year and has decreased each of the last three years. St. Louis City politics will interfere with the day-to-day operation of the Police Department. The mayor, 28 alderpersons, and other appointed and elected officials, will have direct influence on the daily workings of the Police Officers.

• The structure of St. Louis City government has not adapted to the decrease in population of the City. The structure, which has been in place for over 100 years, continues to mandate the same number of Alderpersons today with roughly 350,000 residents as opposed to when this government was first formed with twice the population.

• St. Louis City government has grossly mismanaged most, if not all, departments under its control, as determined by State Auditor Susan Montee. The audits of The Department of Public Safety, The Streets Department, and Lambert International Airport, to name a few, all have serious monetary discrepancies and procedural inefficiencies.

The above-enumerated concerns are but a few presently listed on the Police Officer’s Association website. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining how anyone in City Government can dispute the message advanced by the SLPOA. Perhaps that is why Francis Slay is so combative toward the Police. Again, here is what Slay said during his interview last week:

Well, the Police Department first of all, this is a Department that’s really not accountable to anybody. They do not want accountability. They want to be able to run the Department the way they want to, and if they don’t want to talk about something, they don’t have to talk about something…

I’m sorry, but I find the Mayor’s anti-Police rhetoric quite disturbing. How can we ever hope to move forward with local control, when the Mayor is antagonistic toward those who dedicate their lives to keeping our streets safe? I think that the Mayor is definitely getting off on the wrong foot with his local control push. A change in Departmental governance as disruptive as is currently proposed needs buy-in from all parties. Even if Slay succeeds in wresting control from the State, do we really think that our community will be better off with a Police force of resentful officers? I doubt it.

Alright, so exactly what legislative changes are percolating at the State and Local levels these days?

In the Missouri House of Representatives, Representative Jamilah Nasheed of the 60th Legislative District is the sponsor of House Bill 1601, which will “allow[] the city to establish a municipal police force completely under the city’s authority.” Just yesterday, the Bill advanced out of its first Committee. On the Senate side of the Missouri Legislature, Senator Joseph Keaveny is the sponsor of a Senate Bill to give his political patron Mayor Slay dictatorial control over the Police Department. Senate Bill 643 is quite similar to its House counterpart, Bill 1601. In addition to these Bills, ballot initiative language submitted by Slay confidante and attorney Bradley Ketcher and approved for petition circulation by the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office would also grant the City of St. Louis control of the Police Department. A lawsuit filed by the President and Vice President of the St. Louis Police Officers Association challenges the Secretary of State’s approval of this initiative petition language.

At the local level, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen is in the process of rubber stamping Board Bill 323, which, for now, will facilely maintain all current Police Department policies should the State of Missouri grant the City local control. Its sponsors include President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed and newbies Cohn and French. Time will tell whether their blatant expression of political opportunism will prove to be good politics or ultimately cause resentment by the Police Officers Association. One point is clear to me, however, and that is Bill 323 permits a continuation of a residency exemption for Police Officers and Civilian personnel after a minimum number of years of service to the Department. Legitimation by the Board of Aldermen of the residency exemption is counter to the will of City voters, but, hey, why should we dare to question the content of what Cohn and French are proposing?

The backdrop to the current debate is messy and the emotions undergirding it are heated. Despite a renewed push to pressure Governor Nixon to support local control for the St. Louis Police Department, Governor Nixon retains a compelling trump card in the legislative process. Consider the following contention by Mayor Slay:

It’s an insult to suggest that the people of St. Louis cannot handle their own police department. Every other city in America, every other county in America has its own police department but for Kansas City. If it was such a corrupt way of doing business, then why is every other city and county in America, why does every other county in America has its own police department? All we’re asking for is for equity and, I mean, we can go back and to somehow suggest there’s no corruption at the State level is ludicrous. I mean, there’s, all you have to do is open the paper and over the recent months and I mean there’s been a lot of issues at the State level. But at least if you if the people of St. Louis have their own Police Department, at least there’s accountability.

Slay says that the push for local control is about “equity,” yet the Bills and ballot initiative language pending at the State level only address St. Louis. While the politics of St. Louis exceptionalism may play well with voters locally, I think that Governor Nixon could easily refuse to endorse local control legislation that does not also address the status of Kansas City’s Police Department. A truly “equitable” push for “local control” would eliminate the Governor’s influence over policing on both sides of the State simultaneously.

I am quite skeptical of the St. Louis State Legislative Delegation’s ability to win over friends and supporters in outstate Missouri. I just hope that cooler heads will ultimately prevail on a measure that can win the support of both the Police and the community. The present proposals, unfortunately, do not.

The vast majority of things that are on that list that we have–it’s on my website–is we’re going to have to do ‘em. If we did if we did the vast majority of ‘em, it still probably would not balance the budget, so it’s that’s the reality here.

–Francis Slay, St. Louis on the Air, February 23, 2010

As the trial in Smith et al. v. City of St. Louis continued last week, I began to mull more seriously what the debate over the Paul McKee TIF represents and why so many stand determined to fight him. The issues of concern go much deeper than the undisputed relationship between the City’s budgetary woes and the blithe handiwork of our TIF establishment. They even extend beyond the shocking human toll of an enterprise that successfully dispossessed hundreds of African Americans of their property. McKee’s money grab is a textbook story of private greed and its legitimation by obsequious government officials, yet the strength of McKee’s opposition is disproportionate to its political power.

I know that this is a source of consternation and conspiracy theories extending from the offices of Eagle Realty to the Mayor’s Office. Whether Paul McKee chooses to admit it or not, big money interests are not behind efforts to send him home chastened, penniless, and disgraced. Rather, the diversity of those fighting him is the true source of the effort’s strength. I should hope that it is obvious that when liberals, libertarians, and conservatives find common cause, there are bound to be consequences.

But how did such a disparate group arrive on the same page?

If I had to venture a guess, it has something to do with a collective desire by concerned citizens of all backgrounds and ideologies to force our elected officials and those seeking to impact our lives through the legislative process to display candor in the discharge of their work. The secrecy that McKee, Slay, and countless Aldermen used to coerce land from African Americans is the root cause of the City establishment’s political, legal, and public relations problems today. It was only a matter of time, as far as I am concerned, before St. Louisans awoke to the reality that nearly everyone in elective office from our community has problems with transparency.

Voting against the McKee TIF while concomitantly stating that subsequent approval of his TIF notes “shouldn’t be a problem” does more than create cognitive dissonance; it redoubles the determination of those with divergent views to affect change.

Everything crystalized for me last week, when I realized listening to his St. Louis on the Air interview that Mayor Francis Slay is the Blairmont of City Government–a sleeper whose shell game has as its objective nothing less than the complete destruction of that which it captures. Just as McKee extracted wealth from North City in the form of “land assemblage” supported by Missouri tax credits, Slay did the same to our City by giving away everything of value before finally seeking to turn off the lights in Fiscal 2011 through a flurry of profit. Neither McKee nor Slay operate alone, yet they represent two sides of the same coin, serving as interlocking cogs in a system of destructive machine politics that advances the interests of its parties by dispossessing those who reject its legitimacy of their property, power, and voice.

The fight against McKee is proxy for the fight to save St. Louis City from an undemocratic demise. No matter how many dollars are behind McKee’s effort, I would never bet against the power of an enlightened public and creative attorneys.

St. Louis Police Officers Association Headquarters, 3710 Hampton Avenue, View to Northeast, February 2010

Sometimes, it is best to sit back and watch your opponents stick their feet in their mouths. In that spirit, here is my transcription of the February 23, 2010 St. Louis on the Air:

Francis Slay: There sure is. There sure is.

DM: Let’s begin with Mr. Bommarito. That’s the front-page story today. Is he doing the right thing?

FS: Absolutely. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for Mr. Bommarito. He’s been a civic leader, a business leader in the City of St. Louis. He’s been engaged philanthropically. A very generous man and has served the Board of Police Commissioner extremely well. I think what happened here was, I believe him when he said he did not intend to interfere with Police work when he made the call. Unfortunately, that’s what happened. He is looking out for the best interests of the Department. I respect him for that. I think he’s making the right decision. Until this until this gets behind us, and I believe it has now, I believe, it really leaves a cloud over the over the Department and over the Board and I think Vince is really a stand-up guy and he’s doing the right thing.

DM: Well, it leaves a cloud over a time in which you’re working very very earnestly (1:45) to convince the Legislature that the City should have control of that Police Board. What does this do to that effort?

FS: Well, I think basically it’s it’s an indication of what’s wrong with the system. Not that under any system there couldn’t be opportunities for attempts at influence and things like that, but if Vince Bommarito didn’t do the right thing, if he did not resign from this Board–as he has–the people of St. Louis would have no recourse, because we have a Board that is not accountable to the people of St. Louis and the Governor is not accountable for the Department. I mean, he does appoint the members of the Police Board, but these are relatively unknown individuals who are making decisions about this Department and they’re not directly accountable to the people of St. Louis.

DM: Well, wouldn’t a board under City control also be comprised of people who are relatively unknown, or would that change somehow? (2:45)

FS: Well, it changes dramatically, because if you have someone in charge of the Department. In this case, the Mayor would basically be the person accountable to the people of St. Louis–directly accountable to the people of St. Louis. Under our Charter–and our Charter is written in anticipation of the Police Department coming back to the City of St. Louis–and basically what it provides it would be set up just like the Fire Department, where the Fire Chief is reports to the Director of Public Safety and the Director of Public Safety reports to the Mayor. In a case like that, if something goes wrong in the Fire Department, or something happens in the Police Department, then people know where to go. They can go right to the Mayor’s Office and say hey Mayor what are you going to do to fix this and what went wrong?

DM: But you know, you’ve heard this many times–those who are concerned about returning control to the City think that these become political appointments, patronage appointments, and that politics as many Police Officers feel will be detrimental to the oversight of the Department.

FS: Well, first of all, I think that’s a red flag. It’s an insult to suggest that the people of St. Louis cannot handle their own police department. Every other city in America, every other county in America has its own police department but for Kansas City. If it was such a corrupt way of doing business, then why is every other city and county in America, why does every other county in America has its own police department? All we’re asking for is for equity and, I mean, we can go back and to somehow suggest there’s no corruption at the State level is ludicrous. I mean, there’s, all you have to do is open the paper and over the recent months and I mean there’s been a lot of issues at the State level. But at least if you if the people of St. Louis have their own Police Department, at least there’s accountability. At this point as I said if you’ve got if you’ve got some corruption then we know where to go we know what to do about it. If you’ve got a Mayor that’s not handling things, the people of St. Louis know exactly where to go–they can go right to the Mayor’s Office to get to get relief.

DM: You say that it’s an insult to think this way, but a great many members of the Police Department, Police organizations feel exactly that way. Why do you think they’re so concerned?

FS: Well, the Police Department first of all, this is a department that’s really not accountable to anybody. They do not want accountability. They want to be able to run the department the way they want to, and if they don’t want to talk about something, they don’t have to talk about something. And I think that it’s a system that has and I can understand that–their people don’t want accountability. I disagree with that. I think people should have accountability. We have the Police Department is one third of the City operating budget. We pay the bills. The taxpayers of St. Louis pay the bills, just like every other city in America and every other county in America, but unfortunately the people of St. Louis there’s no accountability to the people of St. Louis. Now, so I think that these arguments are weak, they’re I believe that I mean if they were strong arguments, then why is Congress not in charge of the State Highway Patrol or you know I mean it’s kind of a similar situation.

DM: You say that if the Police Department doesn’t want to talk to anybody, it won’t. That’s pretty much the way it’s running these days. It’s very difficult for news people to get information out of the Police Department. You’d like to change that. You’re on the Police Board, change it.

FS: Well, the problem is this. You have a Police Board that doesn’t report to me. I’m one out of a five member Board. I’m an ex-officio member as the Mayor. It meets once a month. We have a Police Chief that does not report to me directly. Now, and I will tell you that I support this Police Chief. We have a very good relationship, but the fact is he or this Department does not report to me directly. This isn’t about me. I mean, you know, I’m not going to be Mayor forever. This is a system that’s been in place for reasons totally different than what the arguments that are being made to keep it in place right now. The reason this was set up was because of the Civil War. State Government was concerned that the Police Department was gonna be used as a militia against the Confederacy and maybe try to take over the State Capitol, so they took over the Police Department. It was supposed to be given back to the City after that and it hasn’t. It hasn’t been given back.

DM: Jeff Rainford, your assistant, had a great line that he doesn’t believe the Police Department is going to be raiding the Arsenal, as was the concern a hundred years ago.

FS: Right.

DM: You testified and made a statement before a House Committee within the last few days with regard to all of this. Just a couple of things here that I’d like to ask you about and have you elaborate on. You said I’d like to fix the Police Pension Fund without crippling the Department or unduly burdening our residents and businesses. The Pension Fund is another one of those things that has many in the Police Department very concerned that they’re going to be losing benefits down the road. Just address that if you would.

FS: Well, first of all, and that’s a very good question. First of all, the Bill that we’re supporting in Jeff City does nothing to affect the Police Pensions. The State of Missouri has we cannot change the Police Pension benefits or the Fire benefits, because without the approval of the State Legislature. Unfortunately, though, I mean, this is very bad policy by the way we have a State Government that controls the pension and I want to tell you we are not trying with this Bill we’re not trying to get we’re not trying to get control of the Pensions. We never suggested that we wanted any control over the money. There is a Board of Trustees set up under State law. I support that, but they actually invest the funds and they manage the system. The problem is the State Legislature also controls the benefit levels. Unfortunately, the pension costs in the City of St. Louis have gone up over a thousand percent over the past ten years, probably by the next fiscal year it will be up over twelve hundred percent. So our pension costs overall have gone from six point four million dollars since I took office to it looks like next fiscal year maybe as high as seventy five million dollars. That is almost a seventy million dollar increase in pension costs. We have a forty five million dollar shortfall right now. Now, this is something that is going on in cities all over America, but the problem is we can’t do anything to address it. I don’t have any problem with the State having the pension funds, but they really should address them responsibly they should either fix the pensions or pay for ‘em. That would be fine with me. But this Bill to get local control has nothing to do with pensions and it’s very clear that we are telling them that we don’t want to get our hands on the money–and I never suggested I did–and we’re not trying to do that with this effort.

DM: Well, clarify this for me, if you would. Lewis Reed, President of the Board of Aldermen, was on a couple of weeks ago and what he’s interested in doing is renegotiating City pensions for City employees. Wouldn’t the Police Department be involved in any such renegotiation if it happens?

FS: Oh, absolutely. The fact is we have had over the last couple years, we’ve had pension task force, we’ve had representatives, employee representatives and trustee representatives from Police and Fire and Employee retirement funds in the room. Unfortunately, the employee representatives basically said that we are we’re not going to support any changes, and here’s what’s going

DM: And can you blame them?

FS: on But but but well I will tell you that I can understand, you know, why they’re taking that position, but they’re being very short sighted and I’ll tell you why. This is impacting everything we’re doing. City employees paid compensation has gone up by somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 plus percent over the past ten years, but the employees they don’t know that because it’s not in their paycheck. Their healthcare costs are going up and their pension costs are going up. Right now, the Firefighters’ Pension is 68 percent of payroll. Not pension, I’m sorry, their benefit package overall is 68 percent of payroll and a big portion of that is pension costs and healthcare costs. The Police Department is 66 percent of payroll. General employees is 51 percent of payroll. So, if you have a firefighter on a fire truck, imagine an invisible firefighter, three quarters of a fire fighter standing next to that firefighter. Now, here’s what’s going on: the pension cost for the Firefighters has gone up by six million dollars, it will be going up by six million dollars for the next fiscal year. Their total budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of, I don’t know, 40, 50 million dollars somewhere in there. That’s a big increase. Our revenues are down, our pension costs are up. So the firefighters, the Fire Department is going to have to figure out a way to absorb a six million dollar shortfall. That will be very, very difficult. So if you can imagine so what I’m saying is every dollar we put in these pension funds affects everything else we’re going to do. We have to cut 45 million dollars out of the pension, I’m sorry, out of the revenue, out of our budget this year and the main reason for that is because our pension costs. People are going to lose jobs and there’s going to be a lot of other things that are going to be done that the people of St. Louis aren’t going to like and the people within those departments aren’t going to like because of the looming, the increase in cost and the big portion of that, the worst part of that is the pension cost increases, so they really need to come to the table and we’ve talked to them about this and I’ve talked to them personally about it to figure out how we can make sure that there are good pension benefits that are there for Firefighters when they retire, because right now our co our pension costs are going up by an average of, will be going up by an average of about ten, twelve million dollars a year where it’s 75 million dollars soon, it’ll be 85 million dollars, 95 million dollars, 100 million. I don’t think the people of St. Louis will appreciate it if they understand their money that they’re, we’re, that they’re providing to St. Louis is going into pension funds and not going to providing services. Two years ago we went to the voters and we asked them to increase, you know, taxes to help give City Employees pay increases and to increase the pensions and to also add some more Police Officers and to also to increase, to supplement our pension payments. We put a hundred and 45 million dollars in the three pension systems in ‘08. That money’s gone, and we’re and those pension and so it was not enough. The pensions are still in trouble, and it’s getting worse. So, I think it would behoove the employee representatives to the Police Department, the Fire Department, and the general City Employees to come to the table and talk about what do we need to do together to address this very difficult problem.

DM: I have to take a break, but is there anything scheduled, any meeting scheduled, any get-togethers to

FS: We

DM: to deal with this?

FS: We are continually talking to labor representatives about that. I just had a meeting last week with

DM: That’s Mayor Francis Slay of the City of St. Louis. We’re talking about issues facing the City at this time, and we will continue our discussion in just a moment. This is St. Louis on the Air on St. Louis Public Radio, 90 point seven, K W M U. (14:33)

DM: Hello again and welcome back to St. Louis on the Air. I’m Don Marsh and with me in studio is St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and we’re talking about the many issues that confront the City these days, and we’ve been talking pretty much so far about the Police Board, Mr. Bommarito, and Pensions, which are all kind of tied together. One other statement you made during your statement to the House recently is you say I’d like to explore the notion that we can make our City and the St. Louis region safer with some sort of common public safety discussion with St. Louis County. What do you have in mind there?

FS: Well, first of all, we have separate Departments, we have, we have separate training facilities for County public safety, whether it’s Fire, or whether it’s Police, the same thing with you know so we have separate training facilities and I think that one of the things that we can explore is having a central training facility where Police and Fire and possibly you know EMS and others could be trained, rather than having separate services costing more money. That’s one thing that I think we can look at.

DM: We had and with folks knowing you were coming here we had some communications with us through the Twitter and through Facebook and, in association with what we’ve just been talking about, Michael writes, How can we move forward with respect to creating a regional government? I don’t quite understand what he has in parenthesis here, maybe you do–How can we move forward, not just reuniting the City and County?

FS: Yeah, well, I think first of all that we need to have the City reenter the County as a municipality. That’s the way it was before 1876. I think that as a result County’s population would go up first of all by three hundred fifty thousand, I think that’s that’s a big deal right there, to have a bigger County. It helps with the prestige Nationally, it’ll also help us work to create efficiencies. There’s a lot of redundancies and duplication of services. The County has its own health department, we have our own health department, they have their own workforce development agency, we our own. Health and Economy does not stop at City-County lines. We have our own economic development agency, they have theirs. We have our own, I mean, there’s a lot of other, lot of things we can look at in terms of cost savings to make our tax dollars go farther as a Region.

DM: But you know as well as I do that the people in St. Louis County would say, whoa–look at all the problems the City has, we don’t want to have to absorb those problems.

FS: No, they, first of all, this would only work if this were a net positive for St. Louis County, and it would be. We can create savings. The idea wouldn’t be that the County would we first of all we we bring a lot to the table. We have the highest pop we have the highest job base of per capita we have the lar the second largest employ employment district in the Midwest next to Chicago, our Downtown, great cultural and entertainment facilities and attractions, wonderful neighborhoods, and we do a lot of things extremely well in the City of St. Louis that we can help you know help the County with, you know, whether it’s dealing with, you know, and I can talk about that for a long, long time, but the other thing we can deal with, I think, in a much better way is if we’re all working together in promoting the Region, rather than competing with each other. That is a self destructive approach, where the County’s competing with the City and vice versa. If a business leaves St. Louis City and goes to the County, City County’s a winner, St. Louis City’s a loser. Same things when what happens if a County business leaves and goes to the City, which is happening, County’s a loser, the City’s a winner. You know, I think we need to really start thinking more regionally so we can compete better, and I think that’s the most important…

DM: On a scale of one to 10, what do you think the chances are of St. Louis County absorbing the City?

FS: I think it’ll happen, uhm, it’s a question of when and how long (18:36) it’ll take to get it done. I think average citizens actually are very much open to the idea generally, and I think that younger generation people generally are more open minded people than have been around a longer time, I think are used to way things are and a little bit less, uhm, uhm, a little less open to change. I think that we’ve got, you know, a younger generation of people that’ve got different ideas about how things ought to be run, how government ought to be dealt with and how we can create efficiencies. In this economy, we really have to figure out how we reinvent government. We just can’t keep slashing and burning and if you look out in you know all the different Police Departments, all the different governments units, all the different Councils and Boards of Aldermen throughout the St. Louis Region, we have we have some of the mo we have probably have the second most, I believe, government entities anywhere in the Nation, next to, I believe, Pittsburgh. Uhm, you know, it’s there are more elected officials per capita, by far, in St. Louis County than there are in St. Louis City. We have to start thinking about is this the best way to do business? I don’t think so. I do think there’s a better way of doing it, and I think you know we’ve seen other Cities and regions throughout, whether it’s Denver, Louisville, Toronto’s done it, Indianapolis is, uh, done some things to try to (20:01) do more regional governance, so that we can work together more rather than competing with each other.

DM: You’re asking for a lot of political turf to be shifted, a lot of quite frankly politicians, police chiefs, fire chiefs, and school board people who would look at that and say, okay, I kinda like what I’ve got here, in the position that I’ve got here.

FS: Well, I think all we’re asking for is to have the City reenter the County. That way, the jurisdictional, those jurisdictional disputes, you know, if somebody wants to take another step later on, years from now that’s a whole different I think eventually it should happen, but all we’re asking for now is having the City reenter the County as another municipality, so the go the County would still have its own governance, the City would still have its own governance, so you would not really, uh, disrupt those political turfs as some people may call ‘em. Uhm, as people are concerned about.

DM: The mechanism for doing that is what?

FS: Well, we would have to it’s, uh, one of the things, there’d have to be a Board of Freeholders that would be called, it would be City-County

DM: We’ve been down that road before.

FS: We’ve been down the road before. I don’t think because it failed that we should give up on it. I believe very strongly in this, and I’m hearing more and more people–political leaders as well as business leaders–opening up to this discussion. I think the more people know about what this really means, and I think that’s going to be really important, the communication aspect, then the better off we’re going to be and the better chances we’re gonna have. But I do believe that St. Louis County is going to have to be convinced that this is going to be a net benefit for St. Louis County, and it will be.

DM: I want to go to the phones in a couple of minutes, but I’m going to take a call now while the subject matter is still relatively fresh and that deals with the Police Board situation, so let’s bring in Jeff calling from St. Louis. Jeff, what is your question or comment?

Jeff: Hi, thank you, Don. And thank you, Mayor, for addressing this. And as an aside really quick, I just want to say I think there still are some outstate people who are concerned about Union sympathizers in St. Louis (22:00). I agree with the Mayor on the issue involving local control. I consider myself very pro-Police and I work with Police as a member of our tax district Board, but I don’t agree with their insistence that we shouldn’t have this. I believe we need the accountability, the political accountability, cuz if the Mayor, if they’re answerable to the Mayor, the Mayor’s answerable to the public. Uhm, I also believe there needs to be another layer of accountability in the form of a of a genuine, uh, Civilian Review Board and I know that Lewis Reed has been for that for some time (22:45). I wonder if the Mayor agrees with that and how likely is that to happen?

DM: Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff: Thank

FS: Well,

Jeff: you.

FS: first of all, we have to take one step at a time and I will tell you that I have been publicly in support of a Civilian Review Board, basically, that would help connect the community more closely with the Police Department and have some oversight. I’m not in favor of a board that would interfere with the interruption with the Department’s operations, but one that would be at the table and look at everything and so I actually supported one at the Police Board and we got the Police Board to actually approve a Civilian Review Board but it’s it got held up at the Board of Aldermen and But I think that what’s important about this City the, getting local control that I didn’t mention before is not only will it improve accountability but it will help with efficiencies. The Police Department is one third of our budget. They have their own Budget Department, they have it has it has its own Supply Division that buys things, a purchasing department, has its own IT, Accounting, Legal. The Police Board itself costs two hundred fifty thousand dollars, they have a two hundred fifty thousand dollar budget. I mean, there’s there’s a minimum, I believe, of two to four million dollars in savings if the City would get control over it. That’s real important under these difficult economic times.

DM: Governor Nixon has two positions to fill now on the Board. What will you be looking for in his choices?

FS: Well, uhm, you know I’ve I’ve served under three Governors as a Mayor now, and I will tell you that it’s kind of unfortunate that none of them have ever asked me what I’ve looked for in a member. But what I’m looking for is someone who understands the role of a Board, I think, most importantly. Somebody with integrity. Somebody who is, who understands also that this is a public agency that is that represents the people of St. Louis, uhm, and, uh, and someone who will work not only to oversee and to hold the Chief accountable but also to try to help support that Chief in being successful. And someone that also understands the very important how important it is that the City and the Police Department work together because it isn’t one third of our budget and we are putting in the money.

DM: You’re a Democrat. The Governor’s a Democrat. I can’t imagine given the importance that you place on City control of the Board that you haven’t had a discussion with him about this.

FS: I can’t either.

DM: Which means you haven’t, obviously. No discussion?

FS: I have not had any discussions, you know. All I can tell ya is that I’m under th our third Governor and it’s extremely rare where a Governor will call me and say, it’s might of happened and I’ve gone through several Boards, you know, now, since I’ve been Mayor. It’s been v a very rare instance where a Governor has called and said, hey Mayor I’ve got a appointee that I’m thinking about, what are your thoughts about this, or who would you like what would you like to see in terms of, you know, what kind of person would you like to see on this Board. So, this is not unusual and I suspect historically that’s just the way it is. The fact is this Board is not accountable to the people and the Governor is not accountable for this Department. I mean, when something goes wrong, I’m the one sitting at the microphone asking the questions answering the questions or if something happens that is controversial, I’m the one that gets the questions. I really I don’t see I never see any of the Governors stand in front of the camera and say this is our Department, this is what we’re going to do to fix it, this is what we’re going to do to improve it and it just it just doesn’t happen. That’s what’s wrong with the system.

DM: I want to invite the listening audience into the conversation, now, three eight two eight two five five, or three eight two talk. Before I take those calls, though, just one other thing I want to get to, because it’s critically important, we’ve alluded to it throughout. That is the forty five million dollar shortfall that the City is facing now. As I have been reading about it, there are a number of areas in which the City could hope to make up at least some of this money. We (27:10) have mentioned the Pension Fund, and what you call the necessity of fixing that. You say no new taxes. That’s not going to happen.

FS: That is correct.

DM: Okay. No Police reductions.

FS: That is correct.

DM: You almost hesitated there for a sec

FS: No, I mean, there’s it’s we are committed to no Police reductions, that is correct. I mean, right now we are up. We have we have a Federal grant and, uhm, and we are required to keep up our strength to a certain amount or we lose the grant, which means that we would either lose more Police Officers, so we are committed to keeping the number of Police Officers.

DM: Speaking of Federal grants, are you any happier these days with Stimulus money coming to this area than you were months ago?

FS: Well, I am happy with the Stimulus money that we have received, of course, you know, we always want more and I do think that, generally, Nationally that the cities that more money should go should have gone directly to the cities, instead of directly to the States because very little of it, Nationally, has really gone to the urban centers where we have a lot of people, a lot more needs, a lot more people, a lot more needs. And that was no different here in Missouri.

DM: I’m sure you’re happy with the high speed rail, which will provide some jobs and some activity here in the area.

FS: Oh yeah, oh yeah, we’ve gotten significant amount of money. And the other thing that I will say is that the Federal Government has, they’re investing in a lot of Federal facilities here in St. Louis City, which is going to benefit us tremendously, so I can’t say I’m displeased with the Stimulus money, but of course, you know, as a Mayor I’d always like to see us get more.

DM: Of course. Other areas of perhaps helping ease this burden on the City. Comptroller Darlene Green has proposed a one hour a week furlough. Make sense to you?

FS: We’re doing furloughs this year and furloughs is certainly on the table.

DM: Reduced trash collections?

FS: I believe that’s on the table, and that’s something that we should seriously consider. Most. We have twice a week, and most municipalities in the region only has once a week.

DM: Well, the time. The clock is ticking on this. When, when are the decisions going to have to be made for meeting this shortfall?

FS: We need to have a Bill to the Board of Aldermen by May first, so we still have a few weeks. The fact is there’s a lot of things that are that have been proposed, and we’re open to other ideas. We do have to we do have to balance our budget. This is not a situation that we created as part of the economy, other states and cities are dealing with it as well and some very difficult, probably some unpopular decisions are going to be made, but the fact is that we’re going to have to do some things that are there’s going to be some pain in here.

DM: Which way are you leaning with regard to meeting this problem, in terms of specifics in saving money. (30:00)

FS: Well, generally for me, there’s a couple things we have to do. First of all, we have to make sure that we pay attention to our core what our core mission is, and I believe it is to keep our City clean and safe. I think those are two things that we have to make sure that we do, and everything should be looked at. And I also think that we should be reevaluating while we’re doing that what we are doing. For example, you may have seen in the Post-Dispatch a editorial today about the Cable Channel. We’re in the TV business in the City. It is very. It’s a luxury. It’s nice to be able to go on television and communicate with our constituents and those things, but, I mean, when you’re looking at cutting forty five million dollars out of the budget, I mean, would you rather cut another million out of the Police Department or would you let or would you rather cut, you know, the million plus out of, you know, get rid of our cable TV channel, and that’s a luxury, but as I said I’m really staying away from being wedded to too many things, because it all is up to discussion, but I would tell you this. The vast majority of things that are on that list that we have–it’s on my website–is we’re going to have to do ‘em. If we did if we did the vast majority of ‘em, it still probably would not balance the budget, so it’s that’s the reality here.

DM: Wherever you cut, there’s going to be blood. I mean

FS: Well, it’s gonna be and it’s gonna affect people, because proba seventies and this this rough seventy five percent of our general operating budget is personnel related–salaries and benefits. Something has to give here. We have worked hard to streamline City Government since I’ve been in office. We have (31:41) cut a lot of waste, about we’ve probably eliminated o we have over five hundred positions in City Government since I’ve been in office already, so this is really going to be especially tough.

DM: I have to take another break. Mayor Francis Slay of St. Louis is our guest on St. Louis on the Air. We’ll come back and pick it up with your phone calls. When we do, this is St. Louis on the Air on St. Louis Public Radio, ninety point seven, K W M U.

DM: Welcome back to St. Louis on the Air. Mayor Francis Slay joins us, so much to talk about and so little time as they say, but I did promise to go to the phones, so let’s do that. We have a call from Dee waiting in Eureka. Go ahead, Dee, you’re on the air.

Dee: Good morning, Mayor Slay.

FS: Good morning.

Dee: I would like to respectfully take the Mayor to task if I could about his portrayal of the Pension Funds. It seems a lot of people don’t understand how funds like that are supposed to work. The City’s been taking money out of Fire and Police employees’ paychecks for all these decades for their retirement and supposed to be investing it and now the money’s not there and they’re whining that they can’t meet their obligations. I’m wondering where that money went. Where’s the Fund?

FS: Well, first of all, let me correct something. As far as the Police and Pire Fire Pension Fund, every dollar that they put in out of their paycheck goes back to them. Every dollar goes back to them when they retire. That money does not go in to pay for Pensions. That is their lump sum retirement money they get. The City has been putting in millions and millions and millions of General Revenue dollar into their pension system that is not matched by the employee. Okay, that goes in for their monthly benefit. The only thing that

DM: Dee, hang on just a second let the Mayor finish; then you can come back

FS: So, we have put in since I’ve been in office, we’ve put in tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in the Pension Funds. Those monies are not invested by the City. We are not taking money out of those funds. We have not taken a dollar out of those funds. We’ve been putting money in those funds every single year. In ‘08, one hundred and forty five million dollars. This year, sixty one million dollars. Next year, probably seventy five million dollars. We have paid every dollar we were supposed to. We have not taking one dollar out of it, so there is some misinformation, unfortunately, that you’re getting about the systems’ Pension Funds.

Dee: Aren’t pension funds supposed to work like an employee investment–I mean, where’s the money go? It’s designed so that the City does not have to pay as much currently in salaries in a promise for investing that money for the employee in the future, when they retire, right? Isn’t that the way a pension fund is designed?

FS: That’s the way these systems. That’s the way the system works is, first of all, our systems are not employee contributed. In other words, these our employees do not contribute to the monthly benefit that they get when they retire, except they do put some money in that they get back in lump sum. The interest on that money, I am told, goes into, you know, helping support their pension. That is not their pension benefit. That is their lump sum payment at the end, so what they put in they get back. We do not–I want to correct–the City does not invest the money. It is set up by a trustee Board of Trustees that it was set up under State law. They control the pensions. They make investments, and the market has gone this is this is a defined benefit fund. In other words, there’s a certain benefit that people get. It’s unlike it’s unlike a 401K. Most people when they’re saving money for their retirement, if the stock market goes down, they lose money. Well, in this particular situation, when the Pension Fund lose money, the employees aren’t losing it, the City keeps funding it, so we have now put hundreds of millions of dollars in the system and they’re still in trouble and that’s because of the way the system’s set up and it needs to be fixed.

DM: Thanks Dee. Let’s take a call from Jerry in O’Fallon. He raises a point that I tried to raise a little while ago, but I don’t think that I did it very effectively so, Jerry, go ahead, please.

Jerry: Good morning. Good morning, Mayor Slay. I certainly wouldn’t want to have the things that you have on your plate (36:00). You’re a very busy man.

FS: Yeah.

Jerry: Just really quickly I think Vince Bommarito did the right thing in resigning, but I don’t know why he carried the ball down to the five yard line and then still says he really was interfering because, let’s face it, that’s, in my opinion, exactly what he was doing. I’m a little bit sensitive to the subject of pensions, because I used to work for the premiere air carrier that was here in St. Louis and, of course, we watched our pensions go through several bankruptcies and, you know, it’s really a fraction of what at least we had been told to expect when we signed on. I really think that those are obligations that should be sacrosanct, so to speak. We’re one of the few countries that doesn’t  have any kind of government guarantee or, at least in the investment of or in the handling of pensions, so I guess, from the perspective of an employee, a lot of people do go into government work knowing that they are going to be paid less but there is a certain amount of security that’s attached to that and I understand your dilemma because it’s the dilemma faced by practically every government and private company and business in the United States at this point.

DM: Jerry, speed it up a bit, would you please–

Jerry: No, that’s it, really. I just want to say I understand but I really do believe those are obligations, and I know it doesn’t show up in services when you’re paying pensions.

FS: No, and I get that and I think with TWA, they filed bankruptcy and was part of the problem. They went out of business. We don’t want to do that. And you know when your pension costs and this was not TWA’s prob issue, it wasn’t the pension costs that were going up that put them under

DM: Jerry goes back to Ozark

FS: Or Ozark but what we have today is the pension cost increase that are breaking the bank in the City of St. Louis and cities that have these type of pension systems all over America and we just can’t sustain it. And I don’t disagree with you but what we need to the extent people should be able to rely on a pension when they retire but we need to get our pensions to a situation where that could happen, because right now we’ll end up with ten police officers with great pensions. That doesn’t work. We’ve gotta we’ve gotta provide services to the people of St. Louis.

DM: A lot of our calls are dealing with the Police Department and the Police Board. I’m going to take one more call then get to another, couple of other issues I’d like to bring into the conversation, so Drew in Tower Grove, Tower Grove area, bring your question to us, please. Go ahead.

Drew: My question is if the Board of Police Commissioners is a governing Board, why is there not Board training in how to conduct themselves because in a governing Board, there would not be any room for micromanaging, there would not be any room for Police Officers talking, even communicating problems to the Board of Commissioners, nor would there be any room for the Board of Commissioners talking to the Police personnel. I don’t understand that. It seems simple to me if you’ve been on a functioning board, how it works and how the Board of Police Commissioners does not work.

FS: Well, I agree with you and that’s a good question for the Governor to find out why. I mean, that’s a State agency. I have no control over how that Board is operated and, frankly, I really can’t get anybody, very many people at the State level to listen to some of my concerns about the Department and the way it’s structured.

DM: Drew, thanks for the call. A couple more Tweets that we’ve had here, Mayor. I’m going to call for kind of quick hits on these, because there are a number of things that I at least want to touch upon in our conversation. How do we keep the legislature from taking away the earnings tax?

FS: Well, first of all, it’s the voters are going to have to turn it down, because it’s their they’re looking for a statewide initiative petition. So, if it goes on the ballot statewide, then it goes on then it would go on the ballot in the City of St. Louis. The people of St. Louis will have to oppose it. Or I think the answer is going to be do they want to keep the earnings tax, they’re going to have to vote yes.

DM: Well, this is something that your friend, or at least your financial mentor in a way, Rex Sinqufield, is pushing. He’s donated about a quarter of a million dollars to your campaign coffers. What are your thoughts about his involvement in this?

FS: Well, first of all, Rex is he’s fundamentally against income taxes of any kind. He did not tell me that he was going to put this on the ballot until after it was given to the Secretary of State’s. I expressed to him my concerns about the earnings tax. If it goes away, the City of St. Louis will be devastated. It is one third of our General operating budget. Now, Rex assures me and he’s assured others that his intention is not to hurt the City of St. Louis. What we would have to do, and he is to replace the earnings tax with other revenues, other revenue sources and, you know, replace it with a combination of other revenues and some cost savings. (41:00) I’ve had this discussion with him and I’m continuing to talk to him. Now, the fact is they’re out continuing to get now, what I’m going to do is if it gets on the ballot in April and there’s no and I don’t see any way of getting a plan by then, it would be next April if it gets on the City ballot next April, I think it’s on the State ballot in November and if it gets on the City ballot, I am going to make an effort to tell the voters of St. Louis exactly what this is going to mean. It would be devastating.

DM: Do you have any leverage with this man with, given the amount of money that he has provided you–a quarter of a million bucks.

FS: Well, frankly, I don’t have leverage. I mean,

DM: Well,

FS: he’s never asked

DM: influence, call it what you will.

FS: Well, I think he’s got respect for me. We have a good relationship.

DM: I guess.

FS: Well, I mean, I think I think first of all I think the debate is an important one. I think the timing is very, very bad. Okay, I think it would and he has funded a study to come up with ideas for replacing it through some revenue savings, but we’re going to have to do other things like, you know, get our pension costs under control, maybe have the City reenter the County, I mean, this is going to have to be a long term deal, but I will tell you he doesn’t come to me to ask me for anything. He has given me a lot of money in my campaign, but he’s never asked me for anything. I mean, I think he supports me mainly because of my longtime, long before I knew him. Longtime support for Charter Schools and educational choice in St. Louis and he’s a big advocate for kids.

DM: But you can see how eyebrows get raised when we’re talking that kind of money, from one person to a public official–that, it smacks of or it at least is the perception is that he has a lot of control over that politician.

FS: Well, if you look at it like in what way is he controlling me here? He, firstly, is doing what he wants to do. He’s got his own mind. He’s very headstrong, and I think he’s he’s he’s raising a debate that I think is an important one, but I think the timing–and I’ve discussed (43:00) this with him–is very, very bad. You know, it’s the fact is he never asks me for anything. He hasn’t asked me to endorse this. I’ve told him that if it’s on the ballot, I will oppose it and when it goes to the voters in April, if it goes to the voters next April in St. Louis, so in the meantime I’ve asked them to continue to help us to figure out a way to deal with this and he’s been giving it some thought. But the fact is that the thing about Rex Sinquefield, he’s an independent guy. He’s supporting me mainly because of my support for of Charter Schools and education choice, which I’ve done long before I’ve only known him for a couple of years and I’ve been advocating Charter Schools for a long time. But the fact is that, you know, because he gives my campaign money doesn’t mean I have leverage with him. He doesn’t need anything from me. I mean, he’s a very wealthy guy.

DM: Alright, well, again eyebrows certainly are raised. You understand that.

FS: Well, yeah. I don’t understand what how they would think that he’s influencing me; this is something that he’s doing. I’m not doing him. I’m not doing it and it certainly not. He is but I’m hoping, and I will tell you that I’m working with him to try to find a way to deal with this. I’ll tell you what’s a more pressing problem at this point and that’s the pensions. And I will tell you I need some help at the State level. That will really help. Right now, our pension costs as I’ve said have gone up by over sixty million dollars. Uhm, that’s about (44:44) almost half of the earnings tax. Think about it.

DM: Moving along, as time gets away from us, I’d like to bring in the Paul McKee story, if I may. How comfortable are you with Paul McKee and what he’s doing and isn’t there a possibility of this whole thing will be deep six-ed as a result of the court case that’s currently underway?

FS: Well, the lawsuit I haven’t looked at very closely. First of all, I will tell you that, and you know, people can file lawsuits for any reason or for no reason for that matter.

DM: A lot of people from that area are unhappy, clearly.

FS: Uh, that’s not my understanding. I think that, first of all, I think that Paul’s done a great job of reachin’ out to the community, and I’ve been out there. I have not seen overwhelming opposition to this. I have seen, you know, a lot of support in the community. This is a economically distressed area that has experienced a lot of disinvestment, benign neglect over many, many years. Paul is a guy with a good reputation, he’s got a good track record. He can he this is a tough time economically, and you know what? This is gonna be a difficult thing to get done, but if it doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean we should just say Oh, it’s not going to work so let’s just not do it. This is this could be an opportunity for tens of thousands of jobs, providing opportunity in a neighborhood for a lot of people that never seen opportunity before and would help us revitalize an area of the City that has seen so much disinvestment and benign neglect for decades and decades, so, uhm, he wants to build a community that will include a lot of rehab, new construction, businesses, schools, parks, uh, new, new infrastructure in a way that will be environmental responsible. I think it’s exciting. I’m looking forward to this huge investment and this huge transition to a neighborhood that needs some attention.

DM: We have a very limited amount of time left, so again I’ll go back to my quick hit format here. A couple of these Tweets, Jamaica writes When will we have citywide recycling pickup in either curbside bins or co-mingled dumpsters?

FS: Okay.

DM: This is getting down to the nitty gritty.

FS: Yeah, that’s a financial issue. I mean, it’s costly and we are working on a plan to expand recycling now but it is it has a lot to do with costs. There are costs associated, and this tough economic times and we are working on a plan.

DM: Here’s one for you. When will St.–this is from Matthew–When will St. Louis have 24 hour nightlife?

FS: Well, we’re pretty close to it right now, I mean, if you know the City of St. Louis is rocking. Downtown, the Central West End at all hours of the day or night and I can tell you it’s if people like the nightlife, we certainly have it here now. I don’t know if you can do anything after three o’clock in the morning, but I do think we our nightlife opportunities have surely increased in the past ten years tremendously.

DM: The next one from Gus. When will the City have complete WiFi in all areas? (47:52)

FS: That’s a cost issue as well. That’s something that we have been exploring and, uhm, yeah, it’s a cost issue.

DM: There’s an effort underway in Jefferson City now to undo the Mark McGuire Highway. What are your thoughts on that as we approach the baseball season?

FS: Well, nobody asked me when they were going to name it after him to start with. It’s kind of funny. People were asking him that question now. That’s not my concern one way or the other. I don’t care whether they change the name or whether they keep it the way it is. It’s a State Highway. From my standpoint, though, nobody asked me about it before, so and nobody’s asking me asked me much about it now it’s. You know, he’s with the Cardinals. I am a big Cardinals supporter as much as I will say and I will be rooting for the Cardinals this year as hard as ever.

DM: Can you give us a forty five second update on Kiel and Ballpark Village?

FS: Uh, Kiel’s on hold because of the economy. Because of, you know, uh lending’s tight and Ballpark Village is on hold. It’s on hold in the sense that there is no new announcements. There is still efforts to try to move it forward, but with you know the tough economy and and, uh, and lending being so tight bond, the bond market’s very tight. Uh, those projects are there’s no announcements in the immediate future, but I’m more hoping that will change, particularly with respect to Kiel shortly. (49:24)

DM: That’s Mayor Francis Slay. Our time is up. Very fast hour, Mayor. Thanks for being with us.

FS: Happy to be here. Thank you.

DM: A lot of material to go over and we haven’t done much more than scratch the surface, but thanks so much for being with us.

FS: Happy to be here. I always appreciate being with you.

DM: Mayor Francis Slay. (49:12)

My first visits to the Central West End were prior to the most recent rehabilitation of Maryland Plaza, construction of an enormous condominium tower, and other physical changes that are of dubious social value. In one short decade, a once accessible neighborhood has become increasingly genteel to questionable effect. Now, as our City faces the prospect of providing ever fewer taxpayer funded services despite high levels of taxation, certain Central West End Business owners are hedging their bets with the assistance of their Alderman, Lyda Krewson.

BB 319, As Introduced, February 12, 2010

Krewson, an avowed believer in right-wing, “trickle-down economics,” is pushing Board Bill 319, which will create a Community Improvement District for the following area:

“generally described as follows: Kingshighway on its most Western boundary; Washington Avenue on its most Northern boundary; Walton Avenue on its most Eastern boundary; and Lindell Avenue on its most Southern boundary, provided that said boundaries are irregular and do not encompass all parcels located therein.”

• If you read the above and have no idea which parcels are included in the district, then you are not alone. Krewson’s Bill does not identify the district’s boundaries, as it instead requires the curious to request a copy of the CID petition from the City Register.

The Bill also mandates expenditures by the City Register’s Office to administer the CID yet does not identify a source of funding for these services:

“The Register shall retain this report as part of the official records of the City and shall also cause this report to be spread upon the records of the Board of Aldermen, pursuant to Section 67.1471 of the CID Act.”

• The Board of Aldermen does not “score” its legislation for costs to the taxpayer. This is a major contributing factor to our City’s collapsing fiscal outlook.

Unfortunately, these are not the only problems with Krewson’s opaque legislation.

Board Bill 319 makes many ridiculous legislative findings to justify its ultimate goal–a sales tax increase of 1% for persons shopping at Central West End businesses that are parties to the CID petition. Here are some of the Bill’s dubious assertions:

“…this Board of Aldermen hereby finds that the adoption of this ordinance is in the best interest of the City of St. Louis….the City as a whole…will benefit from the establishment of The CWE Business Community Improvement District.”

• I wonder how we will all benefit from the imposition of a sales tax whose proceeds will become discretionary funds for use by those lucky enough to be on the CWE Business CID’s Board of Directors.

It continues with the following:

“The City of St. Louis hereby finds that the uses of the District proceeds as provided for in the Petition will serve hereto a public purpose by encouraging the redevelopment of real property within the District.”

• Perhaps my untrained eyes are wrong, but the Central West End appears pretty well redeveloped. Does the City really need to “encourage” more “redevelopment” in the Central West End?
  

The Bill, using CID boilerplate, identifies the true sources of greed and fear propelling this legislation forward:

Pursuant to the CID Act, the Board of Aldermen shall not decrease the level of publicly funded services in the District existing prior to the creation of the District or transfer the burden of providing the services to the District unless the services at the same time are decreased throughout the City, nor shall the Board of Aldermen discriminate in the provision of the publicly funded services between areas included in the District and areas not so included.

• Wouldn’t it be nice if all neighborhoods received a similar guarantee that “the Board of Aldermen shall not decrease the level of publicly funded services in the District?” I can assure you, however, that making such a promise to neighborhoods other than the Central West End would be extremely controversial and likely legislatively unviable.

It then stokes the ego of Francis by affording him appointing authority for the District’s Board of Directors:

“By his approval of this ordinance, the Mayor does hereby appoint the following named individuals as Directors of the District for the terms set forth in parentheses below, and by adoption of this ordinance, the Board of Aldermen hereby consents to such appointments…”

• My reading of the Missouri CID law is that a Board of Directors can be either appointed or elected. Lyda is throwing her support behind a paternalistic CID that deprives voters of a voice.

In accordance with this theme, the Bill concludes with this undemocratic punchline:

“The Board of Aldermen hereby finds and determines that this ordinance constitutes an “emergency measure” pursuant to Article IV, Section 20 of the City Charter…”

• Emergency measures expressly forbid voter review of their legislative determinations.
  

Feel free to review my highlighted copy of Board Bill 319, as Introduced on February 12, 2010.

I wish that our Aldermen cared enough about our City to read what they pass and to ask pertinent questions, like, “Why does the Central West End need a CID when it is already home to multiple “Special Business Districts” funded by additional property tax assessments?

Our Aldermen do not care about being legislators, and we are all impoverished for it.

Revised Calendar Letter for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, February 22, 2010 Through February 26, 2010

This week at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen appears action packed, with our elected representatives poised to consider nearly two dozen pieces of legislation in more than half a dozen different committee hearings. From the Central West End to North Riverfront Park, our City may soon receive legislative improvements on matters related to diseased trees, governance of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, litter receptacles, and public art (to name a few). Oh, and add to this list no fewer than 11 real estate tax abatement bills, which forgive property tax liabilities of the politically connected for periods ranging from five to 15 years.

Ambitious does not even begin to describe the agenda that our Aldermen are pushing in advance of their upcoming recess. Ludicrous strikes me as a better word, because reasoned action on any and all of these Aldermanic pet projects necessarily crowds out time better spent transparently developing a sustainable operating plan for the city’s current fiscal year and the years that will follow.

I read a great New York Times article back in October entitled, “Salute All Cars, Kids. It’s a Rule in China” that resonated strongly with me. I was going to mention it in a yet-unwritten post critical of the laughable “China Hub” myth that many of our region’s elected officials are pushing as a solution to St. Louis’s negative job and population growth. After reading this week’s Calendar Letter for the Board of Aldermen, however, I have to quote the New York Times feature on local lawmaking in China here, in this post, instead:

This is hardly the only nation where local bureaucrats sometimes run a bit too free. But in China, where many local officials are less than well trained and only the party can eject them from office, local governments’ dubious edicts are common enough that skewering them has become a favorite pastime of China’s Web users. Even the state-run media join in, although they rarely report who was behind the rules or suggest that they indicate a lack of competence to govern….

Scholars say the proliferation of such regulations stems from a lack of professionalism among some local officials.

The Communist Party has been trying in recent years to correct these problems by providing better training and more channels for public feedback. Party schools that groom officials now stress administrative skills as well as ideology. Job evaluations are supposed to be based on concrete results.

Some local officials who used regulations to bilk the public have been dealt with harshly. The party secretary of Feicheng, a town in northeastern China, was fired after imposing a fine of $73 on any farmer who cut down a corn stalk without a license. Farmers complained that they could not harvest their corn without fear of being penalized.

The punchline of my back burner “China Hub” piece was going be something to the effect that developing a trade relationship between St. Louis and China seems totally appropriate, given the apparent cultural similarities between our respective one-party systems of governance and lawmaking. That said, I do not want to criticize the Communist Party in China, as it purportedly is “providing better training and more channels for public feedback” in its process of lawmaking. [wink]

Perhaps you can tell that I remain extremely skeptical of our Aldermen and their abilities to act in the best fiscal interest of St. Louis City. I especially distrust the inclinations of my own Alderman, Matt Villa, whose family business is the beneficiary of a tax abatement. (How does that saying go–Matt Villa “doth protest too much?”) From all outward indications, our Aldermen are feigning interest in representing us during the ongoing and upcoming budget debates while continuing their irresponsible practices that waste our money.

Each proposed bill before our Aldermen this week has many flaws that a functional legislature might fix in the discharge of its duties. I expect none of that from our Democratic Party officials, though, since Brian Wahby does not believe in “training.” Maybe that “China Hub” is on indefinite hold for a reason, after all.

Certain expenditures in the General Fund represent governmental functions whose revenues derive from a combination of other funding sources. In considering the City’s spending as expressed through its CAFRs, one point became readily apparent: variations from fiscal year to fiscal year in General Fund expenditures do not necessarily serve as adequate indicators of our City’s commitment to meeting enumerated community needs. The General Fund does not encompass property taxes earmarked to retire bonds, revenues from undemocratic lease agreements, or sales taxes for parks and other priorities. To look at the General Fund in isolation could mean missing the forest for the trees (to use a green space metaphor).

That said, I do want to draw attention to two findings from my dataset of constant (2009) dollar expenditures from the City’s General Fund as reported in CAFRs from Fiscal 2000 through Fiscal 2009. Despite the rabid assertions by Francis Slay and his Aldermanic cronies that the City of St. Louis faces a “pension crisis,” there is actually little evidence to substantiate their concerns. Firstly, I think that we need to consider how City pensions receive their funding and to acknowledge that there are three primary pension funds: Police, Firemen’s, and Employees’. Each pension system is unique, as evidenced by testimony from public employees’ bargaining representatives at the Ways and Means committee hearing on February 10. Consider the following narratives from the City’s 2004 CAFR:

Police Retirement System

• Police officers are required to contribute 7% of their compensation to the Police System per State statute. The City is required to contribute the remaining amounts necessary to fund the Police System, determined in accordance with City ordinances. Upon leaving employment due to service retirement, death, or disability due to an accident in the actual performance of duty (prior to October 1, 2001, only if 100% disabled), the member’s contributions are refunded. Members whose employment terminates prior to retirement are entitled to a lump-sum distribution of their contribution plus interest thereon (p. 71, 2004 CAFR).

Firemen’s Retirement System

• Firefighters are required to contribute 8% of their compensation to the Firemen’s System, as mandated per State statute and adopted by City ordinance. The City is required to contribute the remaining amounts necessary to fund the Firemen’s System. Members of the Firemen’s System are entitled to a lump-sum distribution of the entire amount of their contribution without interest upon service retirement. Members whose employment terminates prior to retirement are entitled to a lump-sum distribution of their contribution, plus interest thereon (p. 69, 2004 CAFR).

Employees’ Retirement System

• Employer contribution rates are established annually by the board of trustees based on an actuarial study. Deductions from plan net assets are financed from plan additions. The board of trustees elected to require employer contributions at a rate of 10.31% of active member payroll effective July 2003. The City contributed 6% of active member payroll effective July 2003. Prior to July 1, 2003, the City contribution rate was 8.8% (p. 73, 2004 CAFR).

So, how does any of the above translate into the City’s General Fund spending? Consider the following two graphs, which illustrate General Fund expenditures for the Police Retirement System and the Firemen’s Retirement system (the CAFR does not break out a line item for the Employees’ Retirement System under General Government expenditures):

Police Retirement General Fund Constant (2009) Dollar Expenditures

Firemen's Retirement System General Fund Expenditures in Constant (2009) Dollars

From where I stand, I have great difficulty accepting that either of the above represents evidence of a “crisis.” Pensions are an excuse for Francis Slay to gut City Government of its capacity to serve our needs, not a cause of the budget problem. I know that I am a broken record on this matter, but if we recap the reality of our City’s pension obligations, we find:

1. Francis Slay increased the City’s pension obligations in 2000.
2. He did not fund his promises.
3. City employees sued to force the City to fund its pension systems.
4. The City lost the lawsuit.
5. Now, the City must pay.

I find it absurd that anyone in any position of power within our community finds it acceptable to sit, smile, and nod while Francis Slay traffics in lies. His commentaries over the years about “Supporting The Police” and “Employee Compensation” are just obscene, because he willfully distorts fiscal realities by using nominal dollar amounts when describing percentage increases instead of inflation-adjusted dollars. Frankly, we will never be able to have a calm and rational debate about where we are today in St. Louis City and where we must go as long as we allow Slay’s destructive tendencies to go unacknowledged.

Alderman Gregali’s proposal to illegally politicize the City’s professional Civil Service.

Unfortunately, my other commitments preclude me from attending the hearing. I will simply have to hope that the Aldermen who serve on the Public Employees Committee will exercise appropriate judgement in quashing Gregali’s ludicrous proposal. Call the Board of Aldermen at (314) 622-3287 to let them know that you want solutions to the budget problem before they start settling personal scores.

Below, please find my comprehensive trend analyses of the City’s General Fund component revenue streams. Data points represent actual tax receipts from Fiscal 1997 through Fiscal 2009 converted to constant (2009) dollars. The methodology is the same as for my TIF graph, and the data set is available here.

Figure one represents an overview whose trends are difficult to discern from a distance:

Figure One: General Fund Constant (2009) Dollar Revenue Trend Analysis, FY1997-FY2009

Let’s take a closer look at each revenue stream, starting with the earnings tax, here, in figure two:

Figure Two: Earnings Tax General Fund Revenues in Constant (2009) Dollars FY1997-FY2009

Earnings Tax

“A one percent tax levied against employee gross compensation and business net profits. The tax applies to all residents of the City of St. Louis regardless of where they work. It also applies to the earnings of non-residents who work within the city limits.” (S-42, FY10)

The above trend is clearly negative, with earnings tax revenues declining over the past decade.

Now, let’s consider sales, property, and payroll taxes in figure three:

Figure Three: Sales, Property, and Payroll Tax General Fund Revenues in Constant (2009) Dollars, FY1997-FY2009

Sales Tax

“A one and three-eighths percent tax levied on retail sales in the City of St. Louis. Sales tax is not levied on certain items, including motor fuels, prescription drugs, food purchased with food stamps, all sales by or to not for profit organizations and residential utility charges.” (S-44, FY10)

Property Tax

“A tax levied on the assessed value of all real and personal property.” (S-45, FY10)

Payroll Tax

“A tax of one-half of one percent of total compensation paid by a business to its employees for work performed in the City of St. Louis. Not-for-profit charitable or civic organizations are exempt from the payroll expense tax” (S-43, FY10)

Sales tax revenues, as evidenced by their inverse relationship to the number of active TIFs, are on a steady decline. Property tax revenues show a slight upward trend, while payroll taxes are on the decline.

Figure four offers a glimpse at the component parts of the “Convention and Tourism” share of the General Fund’s revenue stream:

Figure Four: Convention and Tourism Component General Fund Revenues, FY1997-FY2008

Flat is the only word that describes each of the above trends.

Figure five shows two clear declines, electricity and telephone, with a slight increase for natural gas franchise revenues:

Franchise Tax

“A tax on the gross receipts of utility companies operating within the city, including sales of electricity, natural gas, telephone services, water and steam, and on the gross receipts of the Airport.” (S-48, FY10)

Licenses, in figure six, illustrate the striking consequences of the Board of Aldermen’s anti-resident, corporate giveaway agenda:

Figure Six: License Component Revenues, FY1997-FY2008

Graduated Business License

“A flat rate tax on businesses based on the number of persons a business employs within the city limits. The tax rate ranges from $200 for employers with two or fewer employees to $37,500 for employers with more than five hundred employees.” (S-47, FY10)

GBL revenues are on the decline, while Sports and Amusement revenues (illustrated above in blue) show a steep decline from more than $8 million in Fiscal 2006 to less than $4 million in Fiscal 2007 as a consequence of the City’s giveaway to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Figure seven offers some troubling information:

Figure Seven: Intergovernmental Component General Fund Revenues, FY1997-FY2008

Gasoline Tax

“A per unit tax levied on the sale of motor fuel purchased statewide. The gasoline tax is levied by the state and remitted monthly to local jurisdictions based on the proportionate share of the total population.” (S-46, FY10)

Of intergovernmental revenue transfers to the City’s General Fund, only prisoner reimbursements from the State exhibit upward trends. All other intergovernmental revenues are either flat or somewhat negative.

Figure eight illustrates some growth and some opportunities for improvement.

Figure Eight: Departmental Component General Fund Revenues, FY1997-FY2008

General Fund revenues derived from building and occupancy permits show an upward trend, while departmental user fees are not where they should be. At present many of the City’s user fees do not meet the costs of service delivery, which means that other revenues must subsidize city services to businesses, for example, that the recipients can afford to pay.

I hope that the above graphs help to set the stage for understanding why the City faces unprecedented budget shortfalls: many, if not most, of the General Fund revenues exhibit a steady decline. So much for Francis Slay’s assertions that he is bolstering our tax base. Stay tuned tomorrow for a look at General Fund expenditures.