A LOCAL NONPROFIT overseen by civic leaders and business executives is working on a proposal to combine St. Louis city and county, a move that would create the 10th largest municipality in the country, according to people familiar with the process.

A series of recommendations, tentatively set to be unveiled by the Better Together organization early next year, may involve proposing a new type of municipality in Missouri. Such a proposal could appear on a ballot in the state as early as 2020, these people told McPherson.

Any concrete plan would face numerous procedural and political obstacles, such as deciding the future of the city’s earnings tax, before voters have a chance to weigh in. But if government leaders in the city and county back unification and win approval for it, their move would blow up local politics, potentially save millions of dollars in overlapping government costs, and reshape the region’s highly fragmented municipal and tax-district landscape, which started tearing apart when St. Louis city and county separated in the “Great Divorce” of 1876.

Work on the recommendations is being led by Better Together executives including Nancy Rice, the organization’s executive director, as well as a task force that Better Together formed in June 2017 to examine ways to improve the effectiveness of local government in St. Louis city and county. Better Together’s backers include financier Rex Sinquefield, a frequent donor to Missouri political campaigns and a longstanding critic of the earnings tax.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger have been kept informed about Better Together’s progress but have not reviewed any formal recommendations, one person involved in the process told McPherson.

“One of the goals is to make sure everyone in the region has a voice, and that there are solid processes in place for making the laws and holding leaders accountable,” this person said.

In a statement to McPherson, Rice said: “The Better Together Task Force has not yet finalized its report. We expect completion and public release in January 2019 and look forward to sharing the details of their proposal at that time. Over the past 18 months the task force has hosted seven public forums, held hundreds of stakeholder meetings and received more than 1,200 online surveys in an effort to gather community input.”

A spokesman for Krewson did not have any immediate comment. A spokesman for Stenger could not be reached.



Specifics starting to emerge

The task force’s recommendations are still being developed and could change, and significant work remains to be done prior to a formal announcement, sources told McPherson. But within the broad outlines of Better Together’s work, several distinct possibilities are emerging:

St. Louis city and county would unify in a process similar in certain respects to government consolidations that have taken place in other metropolitan areas such as Louisville, Ky. and Indianapolis, Ind. The combined population of the new St. Louis would be about 1.3 million; based on 2017 census figures this would rank the municipality 10th in the country, between Dallas (pop. 1,341,075) and San Jose, Calif. (pop. 1,035,317).

Key overlapping functions in the city and county would be combined, including the roles of mayor and county executive, the city’s Board of Aldermen and the County Council, and justice system functions such as the municipal courts and the police. It’s not yet clear how many members the combined legislative branch would have, and how wards or districts would be drawn.

Existing municipalities in St. Louis County would remain for the time being, meaning cities such as Florissant, University City and Webster Groves would continue to have their own mayors and city councils. School districts would be untouched. However, it’s possible that Better Together would recommend combining some of the more than 50 municipal police departments that now exist in the county.

A recommendation for addressing repayment of St. Louis City’s debt, including its outstanding pension obligations to police officers and other city workers, would most likely be a component of any formal announcement, according to one person involved in the process. This would be in line with Better Together’s previous insistence that the city, despite being perpetually strapped for cash, does not require a “bailout.”

Perhaps most controversially, the plan may need to be put to a statewide vote. This is because a new legal class of municipality — perhaps called a “metro” or something similar — might have to be created at the state level. With backers pitching a city-county merger to outstate voters in Republican-dominated Missouri as a way to save millions of tax dollars in Democrat-dominated St. Louis city and county, a statewide vote could be easier for Better Together’s allies to pass than a vote which would take place only in St. Louis city and county; some county voters in particular are expected to be skeptical about the benefits of a merger. What’s more, a statewide campaign would be more expensive to oppose than a local vote.

Sinquefield backed a successful effort in the Missouri legislature in 2010 that requires voters in St. Louis and Kansas City to reauthorize their cities’ earnings taxes every five years. He is also financing a study now underway which could recommend that Krewson’s administration lease St. Louis Lambert International Airport to a private operator.



Better Together says its previous research shows taxpayers in St. Louis city and county spend over $2.3 billion annually on various layers of government. The nonprofit says this is far higher on a per-capita basis than Louisville and Indianapolis, although some municipal leaders have disputed those figures.

Krewson and Stenger have been generally supportive of Better Together’s efforts. The pair publicly endorsed more city-county cooperation when Better Together formed its task force last year.





