Editorial
Gross’ attention on City needs to be redirected to State
where we elected him to serve
The headline says it all. The State of Missouri is broke. They have chosen to slash tens of millions from critical health care programs for the working poor. They can’t seem to scrape together enough money to fully fund the school foundation formula. They don’t have the money we need to fix our roads and bridges in a timely manner.
So with that stellar record behind them, the Missouri State Senate approved a bill sponsored by State Senator Chuck Gross to tell the City of St. Charles how it could spend its share of taxes from the casino. Given the terrible financial condition of the State of Missouri, you wouldn’t think they would be going around giving out advice on how to run anything.
We suspect that the motivation of the State Senator might be his rumored race for Mayor of St. Charles in 2007. He wants to be able to criticize the current Mayor for using too much gaming money for ongoing expenses. We don’t disagree. But Senator Gross appears to be abusing the legislative process to further his own political ambitions when he limits legislation to only the City of St. Charles. Gross would be better off spending his time trying to solve the State of Missouri’s myriad problems.
Senator Gross also (perhaps inadvertently) tied the hands of some Council members who had been working to offer relief on trash bills or further reduce the utility tax. The City Council was already lessening the amount of gaming going to recurring expenses, having imposed a salary freeze this year and reducing the amount the Administration had originally asked for from gaming revenues to balance the General Fund. If most gaming money is now mandated to be spent for capital items, then Senator Gross just crippled the efforts to reduce these other fees.
The Senator will claim that his bill will reduce property taxes. Don’t hold your breath. It is based on more money coming in for gaming than the City gets now. Increased competition from Harrah’s and a new casino planned for Lemay will most likely eat into the market share now enjoyed by Ameristar. Without an increase, there is no tax cut.
Meanwhile the St. Charles School District (like Francis Howell did last year) will probably come back wanting a tax increase because they aren’t getting their fair share of the gaming money being collected by the State of Missouri. The largest portion of our local property tax bills (over 60%) goes to schools. If Senator Gross wants to help reduce local property taxes, he could start by fully funding our local school districts.
