A St Louis city board gave final approval Friday to a $1bn financing package for a new football stadium intended to convince the St Louis Rams to stay in town.

The decision, which includes a $150m commitment from the city, is the latest saga in a debate over using public money to subsidize sports stadiums. At a public meeting convened by the NFL in October, a group of activists disrupted the breezy affair, arguing that a new stadium is the last thing St Louis should spend money on. The city recently overtook Detroit as the murder capital of the US, with the highest homicide total per capita in the nation.

The deal approved Friday by the St Louis Board of Aldermen aims to keep the St Louis Rams in town by subsidizing an open-air stadium on the Mississippi river. The effort was spurred by the team’s owner, E Stanley Kroenke, who earlier this year announced plans to construct a nearly $2bn stadium close to downtown Los Angeles, one of the nation’s largest markets, and move the Rams out of St Louis.

The St Louis proposal has also drawn the ire of St Louis comptroller Darlene Green, who called the deal “fiscally irresponsible”.

Green, who’s tasked as a watchdog over city taxes and voted against the financing package in a committee hearing on Wednesday, criticized the financing package by saying that it fails to deliver enough revenue to cover “anticipated future debt service payments”.

“Building a new stadium promises to create new jobs and boost minority participation in its construction, all of which I support,” Green said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the financing agreement for the new stadium is not fiscally responsible for taxpayers.”

Nationally, proposals to infuse public money into new stadiums have come under fire for delivering questionable benefits in return for a substantial expenditure. The rapid influx of new stadiums in recent years has been criticized by President Barack Obama, whose administration proposed in the budget this year to rein in the use of tax-exempt bonds issued for sports facilities.

Studies have suggested cities wouldn’t be financially devastated by the loss of a professional sports teams. Critics say public funds would be better spent on infrastructure or education – and the decision by St Louis officials to throw their support behind a second publicly subsidized stadium for the Rams in two decades comes amid a particularly precarious time for the city of 300,000.

Stadium proponents, however, won over some board members who initially opposed the deal. Alderman Antonio French previously suggested he would attempt to block funding but eventually threw his support behind the deal after a minority workforce participation provision was added. On Friday, he said the city won’t spend “a dime” unless the NFL and a team owner are willing to commit funds.

“There’s no version of this in which the city of St Louis is spending a billion dollars on anything,” French said, adding in a remark that stung critics of the financing package: “We’re broke.”

Without a deal, the city’s obligation for the Edward Jones dome would otherwise expire in the coming years, allowing those funds to be used elsewhere.

According to the current financing proposal, the city would commit to pay increasing annual amounts from $4.5m to $9m – virtually an extension of its current obligation to the bond payments for the Edward Jones Dome. An estimated $10m has already been spent on designing the project.

The vote cemented the city’s commitment to the project, but its fate with the NFL is far from conclusive. On Thursday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell warned officials with the St Louis stadium task force – created and appointed by Missouri governor Jay Nixon to craft the project – that the league has no intention of providing $300m toward construction, as currently envisioned. The NFL, he said, only provides a maximum of $200m for a stadium development.

“We think that it is vital that the Aldermen and others in state and local government working on the St Louis stadium proposal understand these key facts about the NFL’s stadium financing program,” Goodell wrote. The task force need the support of at least 24 team owners to win approval for the project, which is expected to be face stiff competition alongside proposals to build stadiums in the California cities of Carson and Inglewood, where Kroenke wants to relocate the Rams.

Prior to the vote, Alderwoman Cara Spencer said that, despite the estimated construction jobs that would be created as a result of the stadium, she couldn’t back the deal.

“I”m going to have to stand up here in support of [the city] comptroller’s very clear warnings of the financial pitfalls in this project,” Spencer, who opposed the deal, said. “This is a 15% subsidy to a $100bn industry, the NFL; to a team owner who has a net personal worth of $6.3bn.”

Early on, the meeting came to a halt as a group of singing protesters broke out in a stadium-themed carol. The aldermanic president nearly ordered officers to clear the packed gallery, before the room eventually quieted down.

Alderwoman Sharon Tyus said the deal for a new stadium is worse than what St Louis negotiated on the Edward Jones Dome, the publicly-subsidized facility the Rams have played at since 1995.

“My people don’t understand how we are able to give money to a billionaire but you cannot tear down [blighted] buildings,” Tyus said.

Tension among aldermanic board members also boiled over last week amid a controversy over allegations of corruption. Alderwoman Megan Green alleged that relatives were bribed for her support of the financing package. St Louis police chief Sam Dotson said he interviewed Green and later said her claim was unfounded. Green said in an email she was never interviewed.

The NFL’s deadline for stadium proposals is 30 December. Submissions by team owner’s to relocate their teams will follow in early January, with a final decision expected later in the month.