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St. Louis committee advances 1% earnings-tax renewal to voters
Summary
The Budget and Public Employees Committee voted Nov. 19 to send Board Bill 100 to the full board with a due-pass recommendation; the bill would place a 1% earnings-tax renewal on the April 2026 ballot after a presentation showing the tax supplies roughly 38% of the city's general fund.
ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis City Budget and Public Employees Committee voted Nov. 19 to advance Board Bill 100, a proposal to place a 1% earnings-tax renewal before voters in April 2026, after hearing a presentation from the city's budget director on the levy's budgetary role.
Budget Director Paul Payne told the committee the city's recent general-fund budget totals about $607.4 million and that earnings-tax receipts are the largest single source in that fund. "The individual portion of the earnings tax totals just under 80% of the total earnings tax receipts," Payne said, describing the tax as a 1% individual levy on earnings and a 1% corporate levy on net business profits. He added the earnings tax has been reaffirmed by voters in prior cycles and that the next required renewal is due April 2026 under state statute.
Payne and the bill sponsor, Aldewoman Cox Antuit, framed the proposal as essential to maintaining city services. Payne warned that losing the earnings tax would create credit risk and could undermine financing assumptions for Tax Increment Financing projects and other bond-backed commitments that rely in part on earnings-tax revenue. In an illustration presented to the committee, Payne estimated the earnings tax would produce roughly $232.3 million in the current fiscal year and said replacing that revenue with property tax alone could require an illustrative 52.9% increase in the levy in his example.
"It's an individual tax of 1% of earnings of residents and nonresidents of the city for work done or performed in the city," Payne said during his presentation, distinguishing the earnings tax from broader definitions of income. Aldewoman Cox Antuit closed by saying, "A 1% earnings tax is better than a 50% increase in your property taxes," and asked members to give the bill favorable consideration so voters can decide.
Vice Chair Browning and other committee members pressed staff on what would be at risk if the tax were not renewed. Payne said that, without a dedicated replacement, core services including public safety, parks, street maintenance and other operations would face permanent funding losses. He also noted that much of the citywide property-tax burden goes to overlapping jurisdictions (for example, the school board and special districts), which limits the city's ability to offset the loss of earnings-tax revenue with higher property levies.
On a motion and second, the committee "banked" Board Bill 100 for committee business and then passed a due-pass recommendation by voice vote with no objections; the chair announced the bill had passed out of committee. The clerk reported there were no in-person sign-ups and no written testimony for the bill at the meeting.
The bill will proceed to further committee/board action and, if approved, would be placed on the April 2026 ballot as the statutory five-year reaffirmation required for the earnings tax.
