Yet another round of St. Louis County service reductions was announced on March 24, including the cancellation of the annual JB Blast fireworks event held at Jefferson Barracks Park.
The event, which has previously been called South County’s “biggest Fourth of July celebration,” costs the county approximately $50,000, per St. Louis County Executive Sam Page. Page says that’s $50,000 the county does not currently have.
Later that day, at the County Council’s regularly scheduled meeting, Council members stated that after sponsorships revenue from the event, the cost was $2,600 — a much smaller number than Page had previously told the public.
“It’s expensive to buy fireworks, to hire bands, to rent porta-potties, to buy food for the volunteers,” Page told the media. “I wish I had better news to share today, maybe soon … Until then, we’ll be talking about more service reductions, we’ll be talking about events that we can’t have this year, like the JB Blast, and we’ll be looking at furloughs later in the summer.”
It was also announced that beginning this week, the three remaining county government offices will be closed to the public every Friday. This includes the South Satellite Location, 4544 Lemay Ferry Road, as well as the main office in Clayton and the North Satellite Location in St. Ann. The county previously announced the closure of the West County Government Center due to budget cuts.
“This will allow our Department of Revenue staff to try and address the backlog of work, the senior property tax applications and the property tax refunds,” Page said, emphasizing that 24 positions and $2 million were cut from the department. “The RECA (Radiation Exposure Compensation Act) program, senior property tax applications and property tax refunds — they’re all up in the air because of the council budget cuts.”
An additional budget-related service reduction affecting South County includes the closure of the Kennedy Aquatic Center. Announced in February, repairs to the 50-year-old pool would exceed $100,000. It is unclear what will happen to the Kennedy Aquatic Center, regarding how long it will be shuttered and if it will ever reopen, though it should be noted that the rest of the Kennedy Recreation Complex will remain in operation with none of its hours changed.
Cuts to services across the county are due to the budget that the County Council passed in December, in which millions were cut from the budget that Page had originally proposed. Page’s budget, however, included a $81 million deficit; he proposed using the NFL Rams relocation settlement funds to “bridge the gap for a year” before putting an Internet sales tax, also known as a use tax, on the ballot for voters to decide on. Although the council has not approved the use of the Rams’ money, it voted 6-1 on March 17 to place a use tax on the Aug. 4 ballot. If passed, this could garner the county between $45 million and $75 million.
“If we want to prosper as a county, if we want to continue to be the economic engine of the region and of the state, if our residents want to continue to receive good services — the police department, the Department of Revenue, the Department of Health and our county parks, which are second to none — then we need a new source of revenue in St. Louis County,” Page said.