urbanSTL

Here are the Wellston and Uplands Park stories from the 10pm newscast. Hijinks ensue

KSDK - Confrontation at Wellston City Hall: Public & media locked out

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/387747 ... -City-Hall

KSDK - Uplands Park without police force

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/387762 ... lice-force

I tried to figure that out a couple years ago and figured, if in the pool, the city would gain $3-4 Million (The Ikea may turn the tables on that, who knows). Also the city's general sales tax is more than the county allows a muni to have (1.625% v 1% iirc) so there would be something to do there. I'd figure the city must enter the pool since it would be a new muni from the county's perspective. Who knows, it needs to be sorted out, discussed, decided. I'll try to run the numbers again soon.

Don't forget though that city property would be paying the county property tax which would generate about $24M (53 cents per $100 assessed, $4.6B in assessed value) at the current county levy. I would hope the levy would go down.

jem79c wrote:Has anyone done the math on what the sales tax landscape would look like if the City re-entered?

Would the City gain from being in the pool? (and what would that mean for north county...)

Would the City lose revenue from being in the pool?

Would the City have to enter the pool at all? (IIRC, the law says something to the effect that NEW munis must enter the pool... or is it newly incorporated munis, in which case the City might not qualify...)

Would the City reentering prompt sales tax reform City/County wide? (and will it be for better or worse)

I know the sales tax situation in the City/County gets complicated and confusing quick, but not doing the math upfront could lead to very serious disaster.

In my opinion, the sales tax issue alone is enough to prevent the County from accepting the City as a new municipality. The City would enter as a pool municipality, taking away millions of dollars of sales tax revenue from the pool. Every single pool muni would oppose this, and, again imo, there is not enough political will or leadership in the region to overcome even this relatively minor issue. If you think there is opposition to re-entry now, just tell the municipalities that they instantly stand to lose revenue if the City re-enters.

A close look at the numbers is required to make a good estimate on how the city would factor in the pool. Of no doubt is that the city would be making a big contribution to the county's property tax levy, though that doesn't go to munis in the way sales taxes do.

Yes, very tough to answer. The future is uncertain. I think we can better deal with current and future challenges when we're on the same team and in the pool together. If the city is sucking money out then people outside the city will take more interest in the city gov't working better and its economy being stronger, instead of pretending it's somewhere else. If over time the city becomes stronger and a net payer into the pool, it'll be in a stronger position to influence county affairs. As more towns fail maybe there will be more pressure to consolidate with each other or be annexed into the city due to the city being a muni 6 times bigger than the 2nd largest in the county.

Hard to predict the future, I just know how we're set up now hasn't worked very well and stymies efforts to tackle problems.

It would be interesting to set how all the munis fair int he pool. I know U City is a net taker something like $2m a year. I wouldn't interpret being a net taker as being an unhealthy muni. Often it's probably a reflection in a munis opportunity/choice to build big sale tax generating businesses.

Thanks. I confused though. I remember a PD article about the sales tax pool reform that the mayor of Fenton was pushing said that U City was a net gainer of about $2M, but that doc shows U City is about even. I may be reading it wrong.

roger wyoming II wrote:^ I'm just not confident we'll be above 300K in 2020. Or the county above 1 million.

^ I agree.... St. Louis City will likely dip into the 290k range by 2020. I think a lot of people are naive about the state of much of the city. We definitely have some prosperous, up and coming areas of the city, but we have twice as many areas that are going into a complete nose dive and I have seen little concern among city leadership to reverse population trends. Now there is a effort to make St. Louis an immigration magnet, but I'm also skeptical how that will work by 2020. Something like that seems like it would take a generation to build enough momentum to reverse population trends. I think many people have to come to grips with the fact that St. Louis slept for a generation and the inaction of the baby boomers has not been kind to our urban core. I see the seeds of change being planted, but we are essentially doing what San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, and Chicago did in that window between the late 60s and mid 80s when cities were at their worst. It will take St. Louis a generation of very progressive action to be as healthy as those cities are today and we will still have serious problems.

roger wyoming II wrote:Certainly the pool issue could be worked out as part of re-entry. For one, there is pressure within the county right now to change the structure.

I could easily see future language that could state that "any community entering into Saint Louis County with a population exceeding 200,000 and sharing boundaries with at least two of the following cities: Riverview Gardens, University City and Shrewsbury shall not participate in the pool for a period of twenty years or unless existing participating cities are otherwise made whole.

I wouldn't be so sure that this would be an easy fix. Most, if not all, munis desperately cling to the sales tax revenue they receive in the current limited revenue sharing system. In this latest round of tantrums, the only thing a majority of munis agreed upon was that they wanted to contribute less sales tax revenue to unincorporated St. Louis County. Outside of that issue, only Chesterfield and Fenton had any serious desire to change the system. Pretty much everyone else was wary to touch it.

Basically, there wouldn't be a single muni in the County that would be happy about the City re-entering the County. The pool cities and unincorporated areas would oppose it, because the City would pull money out of the pot. The point of sale cities would also oppose it, as the formula for determining the percentage of revenue they contribute to the pool is based on the amount of revenue they generate in excess of the countywide average. Because the City would pull down the countywide average, point of sale cities would be forced to contribute more to the pool, out of which they cannot draw.

Additionally, and I'm only partly joking, Chesterfield, Fenton, and Maryland Heights would try to secede from St. Louis County if the City were allowed in as a new point of sale city. More seriously, they would bring St. Louis County to court over it.

I found my analysis on page 15 of the thread.

quincunx wrote:To answer my own question:
City General sales tax revenue FY11 Est = $45.12M
General sales tax rate = 1.375%
45.12/1.375 = $32.8M contributed to the pool. (not to say that the County's 1% tax replaces the City's 1.375%. Not sure how that would play out)

The Beacon article says pool cities get $115 per capita
115 * 319,294 = $36.7M

City nets $3.9M, which is better per capita than U City at least. I'd figure the $115 per person would come down a bit since the City would be a net taker from the pool. At $110 it'd be a $2.3M net gain.

Redoing this for 2010 since that's the year on the doc cited in jem79c's post.

City General sales tax revenue FY10 Est = $45.53M
General sales tax rate = 1.375%
45.53/1.375 = $33.11M contributed to the pool. (not to say that the County's 1% tax replaces the City's 1.375%. Not sure how that would play out)

Pool $86.93M + City 33.11 = $120.04M
Per capita 120.04/(726,366 + 319,294) = $114.8 per
City gets 319,294*114.8 = $36.65M
Net gain for City 36.65-33.11 = $3.54M

Can someone double check my math and method?

So is support for reentry from county munis unlikely due to this as DannyJ speculates?

JuanHamez wrote:City reunification with the county is the least we can do to help get attention to our region. Because the city can't annex the surrounding population, St. Louis has largely fallen out of the national discussion. Crazy things start happening when we are a large respectable metro region but the 58th largest "city." For instance, Memphis is now claiming that they are the largest city on the mississippi, which I suppose is true by that measure. For similar reasons, we get passed over when potential transplants think about moving; when companies think about expanding; and when national retailers think about opening a location (I'm looking at you Ikea)

Funny thing is, I heard a similar argument last year in a much smaller place. In Paducah, Kentucky, a local group of politicians, business owners, and citizens advocated consolidation with McCracken County. Paducah has about 25,000 people (down from a peak of almost 40,000 in 1960) in a county of 67,000 residents. The combined city-county would have followed the example set by Lexington in the 1970s and Louisville in the previous decade, and it would've become the third largest municipality in Kentucky. Proponents claimed the larger city working as one would not only save costs, it would make it easier to attract businesses. I don't know if that's the case, but considering that Paducah experienced flight to outlying areas over the last 40 years without significant growth, it seemed like a great idea to me. Unfortunately it went down by a 2-1 margin in the November 2012 election. (And all the people want there is a Target or maybe a Macy's. I should also point out that when I think Missourians are stubborn and exceedingly resistant to change, I think of Kentucky, and Missouri doesn't seem so bad after all.)

Anyway, I am all for city-county consolidation here in St. Louis, but I think we have a long way to go. Also, I think the city's population may dip slightly below 300,000 before it stabilizes. A lot of people- even in the mayor's office- were blindsided when the city lost almost 30,000 people (in a decade when many expected growth for the first time in 60 years). There are positives, especially considering the growth in and near downtown and the Central Corridor, but I'm not as optimistic about south St. Louis, which seems to have many neighborhoods treading water like Dutchtown and Carondelet. Crime- or at least the perception of it- seems to be holding some neighborhoods back even as adjacent areas thrive. The revenue picture here might change significantly if the much-rumored Midtown retail development takes off, but it has to be slow growth otherwise. Even if Macy's didn't make much money downtown, it's still going to hurt the city when it's gone.

I also think the city needs much more in the way of government reform to get its own house in order. And while I could go on about that topic indefinitely, I could make the same charge against the county, especially when I see 90 municipalities fighting over relatively static sales tax dollars, and two outlet malls about to open in one community when no fewer than a half dozen malls in the county have either struggled or closed altogether. While I think the city and county are cooperating in meaningful ways such as the economic development council merger, I'm skeptical about certain municipalities' willingness to play along with the city (especially those that generate the most sales tax revenue). They don't even play all that well with their neighbors- look at the competition among northwest county suburbs (Hazelwood, St. Ann, Bridgeton, Maryland Heights, etc.) for proof.

The problem with reorganizing the sales tax distribution (with or without city reentry) is that SOMEONE (ie. a major stakeholding group) will lose - you can't give some entity more without taking away from some other entity.

Entity umbrellas being: Unincorp/StL County, Rich West County, Poor North County, and the City

^I really wish we could focus and say what reentry is and isn't and get some answers on what really has to be combined or taken over and what are just choices. I don't think the court circuits would have to be combined. I think any take-over of maintenance of a city road by the county would be by choice (Does a county ordinance or its charter force it to?) Same goes for parks, though as with some roads it may be a good idea.

I am certain reentry won't change the crime stats. The SLMPD has to cover more people who commit crimes at a lower rate than the current city rates. I suppose that could play out via a merger of the SLMPD and the County PD or if the SLMPD is contracted by some munis as happens already from one muni to another or from the county PD. The city could keep its health dept; a city in the county can have one if it's >80k people, though I think it would be a good idea to combine them which may help the health stats.

This in turn changes how others define the city, county and the state. St. Louis has fallen currently to the 53rd in US population. By comparison Kansas City is 35th, but because it is a part of the county, the Kansas City region ranks 29th. If St Louis was a part of the county, the St. Louis region would rank 18th. These numbers are approximate based on which study one reads and when the studies were completed. This would create a better perception of the City, on paper at least to those unfamiliar with the history of the region.

No, reentry won't change the city's population rank. KC being 35th has nothing to do with it being in a county (in is a part of 4 I think). What's different is that it could more easily annex. St Louis City can only add area via a BoF process. Reentry results in St Louis County going from the 41st most populous county to the 28th. Anyone doing some analysis or ranking of counties would see a difference. Anyone comparing cities would not.

Here's a better article by Rep. Lacy Clay from 2011

St Louis American - Time for city to re-enter county

It was clear then, and it is even more obvious today, that the City of St. Louis should re-enter St. Louis County as the largest independent municipality.

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting a city-county merger.

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columni ... 03286.html