A Tax for Kids That Might Not All Reach Kids
Supporters of Proposition B are asking St. Louis voters to approve a sales tax increase that would raise an estimated $22.4 million for early childhood education. But there’s a wrinkle that could quietly redirect a big chunk of that money somewhere else entirely: the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
City Counselor Michael Garvin warns that, at best, the measure would bring in closer to $16.8 million for its intended purpose — because roughly one-quarter of the new revenue could be claimed by police under the state law that put city police under a state-appointed Board of Police Commissioners last year.
How Police Funding Law Could Reach Into Prop B
That state law requires the city to set aside an escalating share of its general revenue for police, reaching 25 percent in 2028. And what exactly counts as “general revenue” has already been the subject of bitter courtroom fights between the Police Board and the city — including a trial before St. Louis Circuit Judge Joan Moriarty last June. Moriarty ruled that the city did not have to hand over 25 percent of its reserves or Rams settlement funds, only the “current income of the fiscal year in question.”
Garvin believes a sales tax increase would fall squarely into that category. He has no position on Prop B itself, he says, but after months immersed in the police funding law as the city fights to overturn it, he considers the conclusion unavoidable: “There is no doubt that the Police Board will demand a portion of the tax revenue that will be generated if voters approve the Early Childhood Education Fund measure.”
He points to a 1955 Missouri Supreme Court precedent involving Kansas City, which was forced to turn over revenue it had tried to earmark for something else. The court reasoned that if a city could simply label general revenue as “special use” money, it could starve its state-controlled police department “into utter ineffectiveness.” Garvin says that precedent is very much on point here.
The Campaign Says the Money Is Locked Down
Prop B’s backers push back firmly. Brad Ketcher, an attorney for Best Start for Kids STL, says the measure “expressly establishes a special trust fund dedicated to early childhood education and prohibits transferring those funds for other purposes.” Even if the revenue were counted in the police funding calculation, he argues, that would not automatically authorize diverting the money to police — and the campaign is prepared to defend those protections in court.
Chuck Hatfield, a Stinson LLP attorney who has handled high-profile fights over Missouri legislation, agrees. In a statement provided by the campaign, he said Prop B “was deliberately structured to establish a special trust fund, not a tax levied for general city purposes,” and that courts should honor voters’ decision to dedicate the money to early childhood education.
The campaign adds that if the police funding calculation does create an additional obligation, the city would have to satisfy it from other revenue — not from the Prop B fund. “These funds are intended for early childhood education, and we will pursue every available legal avenue to ensure they are used for that purpose,” the campaign said.
So voters face two competing legal readings of the same measure. One side says the trust fund structure protects every dollar for kids. The other says state police funding law could still claim a quarter of it — leaving the city to make up the difference from elsewhere, or the courts to sort it out.
Either way, the fight over Prop B’s dollars may not end at the ballot box.
