CLAYTON — A proposal for a sales tax to fund early childhood education pitched by ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Council Chairwoman Lisa Clancy is prompting widespread questions about the advocacy effort that designed the proposal and how the revenue would be spent.
The measure would place a question on the Nov. 3 ballot asking ºüÀêÊÓƵ County voters if they want to collect a half-cent sales tax, which would raise about $85 million a year. The bill, introduced by Clancy last week, must survive a council vote Tuesday to advance to a final vote on the last day it can be placed on the ballot, Aug. 25.
Four Democrats who make up the council majority initially said they supported the bill. But in ensuing days, Clancy has faced mounting criticism about the process that created to the bill behind the scenes — and her eleventh-hour push to put it on the ballot.
Clancy says the emphasis on the process has been misplaced and that people should focus on the area’s urgent need for expanded early childhood education. She has called the plan an essential long-term economic development strategy that would help parents improve productivity, increase property values and improve children’s lives.
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Support on the council was slipping. Democrat Rita Heard Days, D-1st District, said Monday that upon reflection the bill was “clearly not what I signed on for†and that she may have too many questions to move forward. Clancy said Monday she planned to tweak the bill before the vote.
Both Days and Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, said in interviews the public needed a chance to hear what the proposal was about; Clancy said late Tuesday there was still time for a public hearing before Aug. 25. She said she was open to changes in the bill to get it on the ballot as “an opportunity on the table to invest in our region’s children.â€
Clancy initially would not say why she waited until the last possible day to introduce the plan, texting later that “we took the time we needed to get it ready.â€
Her chief antagonist on the council, Tim Fitch, R-3rd District, said it appeared that she waited until after the Democratic primary on Aug. 4 so it would not interfere with Clancy’s close ally Sam Page’s chances of retaining his seat as county executive. Clancy’s brother, Jon Clancy, managed Page’s campaign.
Clancy has said the sales tax proposal was two years in the crafting by a diverse coalition of community advocates. She not only worked with the lobbyists who framed the legislation, but she and council ally Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District, made financial donations to Ready By Five, the political action committee pushing it.
Clancy tweeted that she had no financial connection to backers, but shared their goal of expanding opportunities for children and families. “When I was approached by advocates to champion this and work it through Council I said yes.†She said some council members may ask, “Is this good enough to put before voters? I say yes.â€
State Rep. Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson, ripped Clancy for developing the legislation outside of the council where she could get “actual feedback from their communities†and for working with groups with “waaayyy too much access and influence on this administration and non profits from StL City.â€
Clancy said in an interview it was “a good way to get policy done because it means a strong connection to the community.â€
Proudie asked Clancy to clarify her dual role as advocate and council chair. Clancy responded that she had been a fan of the nonprofit WEPOWER, a nonprofit founded in 2018 by Charli Cooksey, a former elected ºüÀêÊÓƵ School Board member who had been integral to helping implement recommendations of the Ferguson Commission.
“When they started a focus on early childhood education, I showed up to some of the community meetings they had and asked, ‘how can I help?’†Clancy tweeted.
‘Mixed delivery system’
Early this year, the “Ready by Five†campaign, organized by WEPOWER, demanded the county devote $20 million in federal coronavirus relief money to stabilize early childhood education. In a meeting with Page advisers in May, Clancy and Dunaway were furious that Page’s advisers could not articulate any plan to do that.
Within days, $5 million had been set aside to support child care; that quickly grew to about $6 million.
Ready By Five did not initially plan to have Clancy introduce the ballot question through the council. They wanted to put it on the ballot with a petition drive but the pandemic made gathering signatures too difficult. That’s when they turned to Clancy.
Ready by Five’s suggested ballot language called for the tax money to be spent on improvements to any public school or early childhood care facility in the county. But it did not contain mandates to lower the cost of childcare nor increase the wages of child care workers as advocates said they intended.
The council’s version of the bill stripped mention of public schools. It mandated that revenue be used “exclusively to fund early childhood care and education programs for children 0-5 years,†to “fund improvements to early childhood care and education programs and facilities†and “build the County’s early childhood care and education workforce.â€
But it does not explain how it would do that.
The bill says no more than 25% of the revenue should be used for administration, and at least 20% should be used for long-term economic development projects including acquisition of land, installation of infrastructure for industrial or business parks, improvement of water and wastewater treatment capacity and extension of streets.
The remaining revenue may be used for marketing, providing grants and loans to companies for job training, equipment acquisition, site development and infrastructure, training programs to prepare workers for advanced technologies and high skill jobs and legal and accounting expenses.
Clancy said language in the bill was “heavily constrained†by the state statute, but that Ready By Five wanted to use the economic development statute as the basis for the proposition.
Gloria Nolan, of WEPOWER and Ready by Five campaign coordinator, said there was an effort afoot to bridge the gap between the campaign’s stated goals and the language in the bill.
â€We had to hand it over (to the council) and there were some revisions ... but the spirit of it is to raise the funds for early childhood education and make sure that we’re enhancing the system,†Nolan said. “It’s not going to be absolutely perfect down to the letter, but we want to come to a compromise.â€
Nolan said she specifically wants public schools included in the ballot language, but that the organizers are focused on a “mixed delivery system†that includes in-home providers and child care centers.
The pandemic has only heightened the urgency to improve access to child care for working families, said Ellicia Lanier, executive director of Urban Sprouts Child Development Center in University City who has been involved in crafting WEPOWER’s regional early childhood education plan.
Proudie said in an interview Monday that she was uncomfortable with the opaque process that led to the proposal and “tired of people fundraising off the backs of black and brown people.†Said she was concerned that backers of the tax were forming a nonprofit, still unnamed, to help advise board members on how to spend the money.
She said that’s not the way government is supposed to work. And she noted that neither Clancy’s bill nor the state law authorizing the tax give any authority to nonprofit advisers. She asked, “Who are these people?†and “What gives them the right?â€
‘Economic benefit’
Critics of the bill also point to a provision that would allow for projects outside of the county if there is “significant economic benefit†to the county.
The bill’s reliance on economic development language could be intended to avoid state rules on public spending for private or religious schools, said political consultant Ben Conover, vice president of programs for Hadley Township Democrats.
“I am surprised there wasn’t a focus on affordability and access,†Conover said.
Conover said he was also concerned about instituting a sales tax because even a small increase “can be the difference between a family paying for groceries or the bus one month. During a pandemic, it seems like a really strange way to fund this.â€
The involvement in crafting the bill from employees of nonprofit child care centers and the United Way, and the creation of an unnamed nonprofit with unknown benefactors to oversee the regional early education system also raises questions about the lobbying efforts, Conover said.
“It’s concerning that so many people involved in this initiative stand to benefit from this initiative,†he said.
The same nonprofit organizations are pushing for a property tax increase in ºüÀêÊÓƵ for early childhood education.
“Ready by Five is clearly a privatization effort,†said Matt Davis, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools parent whose children attended free preschools in the district. “I’m all for expanding preschool options in the city. They’ve been great, but they’ve been through the public schools. When public money goes to private education, you lose the level of transparency and accountability.â€
Davis counters the argument that the tax dollars would also fund child care for birth to age 3 that public schools don’t provide.
“The county bill is not for zero to 3 day care; they could never afford that on a sales tax,†Davis said.