To the editor:

County Executive Sam Page has announced the Kennedy Aquatic Center in South County will not open this summer and hours for the South County Government Center will be reduced. There is no reason to make these and other cuts. Ever since the County Council made necessary reductions to his proposed 2026 budget, Page has recklessly been making unnecessary cuts just to blame the council.

The cuts were made to Page’s inflated budget, not county services. Page always wants to spend much more money than there is. The County Council’s budget coordinator said the county would go bankrupt in two years if the council went with the Page spending. Budget deficits don’t just happen. They are the result of not matching spending to revenue, regardless of the amounts.

Page claims the repairs to the aquatic center would be $100,000 or more. That’s small change to what the county has been spending with its misplaced priorities. Some of the questionable county expenditures and bad decisions in recent years:

• $10 million was given to UMSL by the county last year to demolish buildings on their campus. This made no sense. The county has no responsibility whatsoever to the university.

• The county was shortchanged by $56 million with the Rams settlement. The city and county should have equally divided the $450 million portion left for them. But the city got $280 million and the county got $169 million. Sam Page approved the settlement.

• $520,000 was wasted on election costs for Proposition B last year. It would have allowed the council to remove county department directors. The proposal was trounced.

• $300,000 was spent a few years back for the campaign to pass Proposition M, the marijuana tax. It was likely an unlawful expenditure.

• $3.8 million annually toward the $110 million cost of the county’s subsidy for the St. Louis Cardinals’ stadium. (The team was essentially bought for $50 million and is now worth $2.5 billion.)

• $6 million a year toward the $240 million commitment to the downtown convention center expansion, the area’s biggest boondoggle.

• $170,000 a year for two part-time lawyers for the council despite the county counselor’s office having a staff of 38 with 28 lawyers. The office has long represented the council but council members wanted their own lawyers.

• Millions of dollars spent for the county auditor’s office, though there has not been a competent auditor since 2017.

• In 2024 it was disclosed the county overpaid dozens of employees more than $195,000 over eight years. Some no longer worked for the county.

St. Louis County has no shortage of revenue. What it lacks is competent public officials with the sense to spend public funds responsibly and for the betterment of county residents. When a new county executive comes into office next year, the Kennedy Aquatic Center should be put back in operation.

Tom Sullivan

University City