As in most St. Louis County municipalities, Brentwood, Maplewood and Richmond Heights will receive less from the distribution from the recently passed Proposition P (for police and public safety), than the cities contribute to the program through an increased sales tax.
St. Louis County voters on April 4 approved Proposition P, a half-cent sales tax going to county police. The earliest the sales tax could begin is October 1, but could be later, depending on when St. Louis County files the necessary paper work with the Missouri Department of Revenue.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the amounts each city will generate and receive through the program (below), crediting the St. Louis County Municipal League. The current tax rates for each city were supplied by the city administrators.
Brentwood
- Amount generated $3,029,504
- Amount received $403,172
- Difference -$2,626,332
- Current sales tax rate is 8.61, and higher in some districts
Maplewood
- Amount generated $1,567,110
- Amount received $402,721
- Difference -$1,164,389
- Current sales tax rate is 8.613 percent
Richmond Heights
- Amount generated $2,455,938
- Amount received $430,600
- Difference -$2,025,338
- Current sales tax rate is 8.612 percent
The proposition passed by a smaller amount in Brentwood (60 percent), Maplewood (57 percent) and Richmond Heights (53 percent) than in the county as a whole (63 percent).
Yet another reason why I voted against this regressive tax. Sales tax is theft from the poor to benefit the well-off.
Fire districts are the most corrupt public entities in existence. Taxpayers bend over to give them any new tax increase they want fearing their ambulance service will be adversely impacted all the while the union sympathizers that govern them pocket the money. Monarch, Metro West etc. all have Taj Mahalesque fire stations with front line firefighters making $100k per year. Their governing boards are answerable to no one and are populated by union sympathizers.
Correct.
This is why when St. Louis county asks you for money you say NO!!!
I wonder if there’s anyway to get some participatory budgeting going on with the Prop P funds. Sounds like St. Louis County was sold a racket otherwise!
Prop P is nothing more than a giant slush fund that the voters have no control over. I support good policing. However there are limits to just how much taxes people on fixed incomes can afford to pay. When are the voters going to realize that people’s pockets are only so deep!
Not till it’s way too late. Whenever someone from the government like Stenger (and in this case the chief of County Police!, who has no business soliciting tax money that could benefit him personally along with his dept.) comes to you with their hand out for something labelled “Public Safety” or “for the kids”, you can bet that someone is going to get paid, and someone is going to get screwed. There’s a percentage of voters who refuse to believe that guys like Stenger would actually take them for a ride in order to pile up favors in a quest for higher political office. If you think I’m wrong, look back about 5 years at the way he telegraphed his plans to get Dooley’s job. You can see the political ambition oozing out of people like him, and experience tells us that when they’ve got the fever, taxpayer money is viewed as a means to move up the ladder.
The fact that the contributing towns would receive less than they put in was well publicized before the election. Over half of the funds go to the St Louis County police department, the department of corrections and I believe, also the prosecutor’s department. The remainder is dispersed to the towns based on population rather than dollars contributed. That is intended to help out the smaller towns that have little or no sales tax base.
Anybody who is surprised by this just didn’t do their research before voting for it. The Chesterfield government has been complaining about Prop P since it was proposed because they have one of the largest sales tax bases and wouldn’t get back their “fair share”.
I somehow doubt that any police department is going to refuse the money. While each town could have simply tried to raise their own sales tax, that would have met significant voter resistance and the merchants would complain that the higher tax was going to drive away business to towns that did not raise their taxes. At least this way the playing field is level.
While Prop P is far from perfect, it comes down to a matter of how much of the county you want to feel safe in when you’re driving through or visiting. Hopefully some of the funds will also go to making MetroLink safer in the county given it”s recent problems.
Well it looks like the majority of voters in these three cities may not have been fully apprised of the split of spoils from more tax on the workingman and workingwomen’s localgovernmental transactions. Would it were that this critical information was offered to voters prior to them voting, I imagine the outcome might have been different.
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