CLAYTON — The ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Council approved $14 million in budget cuts Tuesday after County Executive Sam Page warned councilmembers they will stall a new senior property tax break, lead to layoffs and reduce services.
But Republican Councilman Mark Harder of Ballwin called Page’s warnings “fear-mongering†on Tuesday.
“Looking at some of these threats, it is clear that Page is playing games with the people of ºüÀêÊÓƵ County,†Harder said.
The cuts are modest, Harder said, amounting to about 2% of the overall budget. Yet they begin to reverse a trend of overspending that would deplete the county’s savings within the next few years, he said.
People are also reading…
Page disagreed.
"With this level of cuts, we simply cannot do everything we are doing now," Page said in a statement. "We are in this together and I look forward to working with the council to find sustainable, new revenue streams."
Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, a Democrat from Maplewood, was the only councilmember to vote against the cuts. She said they’re short-sighted when their exact impact remains unclear.
“We have not taken the time to put human faces on these cuts or to consider how those cuts will affect our communities,†Clancy said.
Administrative cuts will mean a hold on enacting the details of a senior property tax break, Page wrote in a letter to the council last week. And the County Executive’s office will likely halt work on federal pandemic relief spending.
Council Chair Shalonda Webb, a Democrat from unincorporated North County, said there’s no reason for plans to be put on hold.
“It’s disingenuous at minimum,†Webb said.
Page’s administration and department heads will now have to figure out how to make the cuts. There are two options, said county budget Director Paul Kreidler:
Each department can break down the cuts by line item — identifying specific positions, programs or projects to cut. They would have to do this by January 1.
But many staffers will be gone for the holidays, and it wouldn’t give departments much time to make thoughtful decisions, Kreidler said.
The other option would be to put a placeholder in department budgets and then make the cuts “as we figure out what we’re going to do,†Kreidler said.
“That would give us a little more time to figure out how we want to accomplish the reductions,†he said.
Page may sign the budget bills, but his signature is not required for them to become law, Kreidler said.
The council considered what departments actually spend in a year when deciding what the cuts would be, said Republican Councilman Dennis Hancock of Fenton. The cuts won't make the impact Page says they will, Hancock said.
“To say that we are proposing to cut spending is factually incorrect,†Hancock said. “We just aren’t increasing it as much as the county executive wants us to.â€
The county budget office had already calculated potential end-of-year savings into the projected budget deficit, Kreidler said. That means the cuts will have an impact.
“If you’re cutting appropriations significant enough to fix our problem, then services will be cut and services will be eliminated,†he said.
The little-known public administrator’s office handles the affairs of some of society’s most neglected people. The $105,000 cut, or 10%, will force it to take fewer cases and serve fewer people, said Public Administrator Timothy Weaks.
“Ten percent in my small department is huge and it will seriously hinder our ability to do our jobs,†Weaks said.Â
The County Executive outlined the possible effects of the cuts in his letter last week:
- A $2.1 million cut to public works affects road work, including clearing snow, and it could also reduce the county’s ability to clear dumping in vacant lots and to maintain abandoned homes.
- A $570,000 cut to the County Counselor’s office would mean a smaller team to work on legal issues surrounding those problem properties.
- A $905,000 cut in the revenue department means eliminating employees who work on vacant properties.
- The revenue department might have to stop mailing out tax bills, a service that costs more than $577,000 annually. Residents would have to find their bills online or request them by phone.
- In the public health department, an $8.2 million cut will impact services.
- In the county administration department, a $1.6 million cut could affect cybersecurity initiatives.
- Parks projects could be delayed because of an $800,000 cut.
Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said his staff would continue to do their work despite a $772,000 cut to his office.
The council also rejected Page’s proposal to increase property taxes. Page recommended increasing property taxes by about 4 cents per $100 in assessed value. For the average home in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, worth about $299,000 in market value or $56,700 in assessed value, the annual tax bill would have gone up by about $22.