As funding to pay St. Louis County police officers runs short, Missouri Rep. Jim Murphy (R-Oakville) has called for an investigation into the spending of Proposition P funds — funds that were intended for police and public safety when the sales tax passed in 2017.
Murphy’s statement came after County Executive Sam Page announced the possible layoff of 200 county police officers due to a funding shortfall, which Murphy highlighted in his statement as a symptom of “the county’s financial mismanagement.”
“I am calling on Attorney General Catherine Hanaway to immediately investigate whether Proposition P funds were legally transferred to other uses,” Murphy stated. “I am also calling on State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick to conduct an audit of St. Louis County’s spending practices and determine exactly where these taxpayer dollars went.”
Proposition P was approved by St. Louis County voters in April 2017, receiving 63% of the vote. $34 million of the annually generated revenue would be distributed to municipalities by population. According to officials at the time of the election, the remaining $46 million of annual revenue would be used to hire more county police officers, increase salaries of current county officers and provide equipment for them.
“The funds were intended to support police officer pay raises, increase staffing and expand the use of two-officer patrol cars,” Murphy stated. “Since 2017, however, St. Louis County has diverted a significant portion of Proposition P revenue to other county services. By failing to use these funds as voters were promised, the county has jeopardized public safety and betrayed the public trust.”
At a media briefing on Aug. 18, Page disagreed. Page says that the Proposition P funds were spent as intended: funding equipment, uniforms, police cars, body cameras and collective bargaining agreements to increase worker compensation.
“I’m proud of the way St. Louis County has used the Proposition P funds,” Page said. “We’ve kept the promise with the voters when they approved those funds in 2017 for public safety.”
Page says that, though he and Murphy may disagree on how the county police got into this crisis — whether it was a misappropriation of Proposition P funds or not — neither official wants to see police jobs cut. Page said that St. Louis County needs another $3.5 million in order to pay police officers this year.
“We can disagree on how we got here, and we can disagree on possible solutions,” Page said. “But the math is the math, and it’s the county’s responsibility to deal with the financial situation of the police budget.”
Officer salaries have taken center stage when discussing the county police budget, since 85% of the budget is attributed to personnel, according to Page. Page argued that county officers deserve to have pay raises next year, and he also raised concerns about the number of officers: he said there are approximately 800 officers employed now by the county and that, ideally, there would be approximately 900 employed.
Page expressed disappointment at county residents’ decision to vote down Proposition U — a local use tax on online, out-of-state purchases — in the Aug. 4 election. Revenue generated from that use tax could have gone toward county services like the police department.
“We’re going to need a new source of revenue,” Page said. “Either we need to get the use tax passed and we need to communicate to the residents of St. Louis County why that’s important, or we’re going to have to do the property taxes, which no one’s really excited about.”
At the Aug. 18 media briefing, Page announced that he would request the St. Louis County Council to release the use of the Rams settlement funds to pay for officer salaries through the end of the year. He is also requesting that the council not cut the county police budget for next year.
“We need to identify a sustainable revenue source for the police budget moving forward,” Page said. “In the meantime, I believe we should responsibly access and release funds from the NFL settlement as a bridge — a short-term solution — and give us more time to solve the structural problem in the budget, rather than making devastating cuts to public safety.”
He added, “(The NFL settlement fund) is where we’ve been going (for) supplemental appropriations all year. That’s where we went for supplemental appropriations last year. That’s what the residents of St. Louis County told us to do. We had our town halls and asked them what we should do with our NFL settlement fund, and they told us, ‘Fund the core services of county government.’ The biggest core service of county government is the police department.”
Page placed blame on the St. Louis County Council for the budget crisis, citing budget cuts that have led to the reduction of services at government offices, the closure of pools like the Kennedy Recreation Complex and the cancellation of the annual JB Blast show for the Fourth of July. The council cut millions from the budget that Page initially proposed — Page’s budget would have created an approximately $81 million deficit.
“The council cut it back to $40 million, roughly, out of budget, and we’re still working on it,” District 7 County Councilman Mark Harder said. “I’m glad you’re waking up to the budget crisis, but we’ve been dealing with it for a number of years.”
