St. Louis Legislation & Rules Committee certifies three bills for engrossment, holds off on major recovery-fund bill after verification errors

Chair Velasquez called the St. Louis City Legislation and Rules Committee to order on June 22 and led the panel through an engrossment session that checked whether recent floor amendments and ENA (mayoral/administration) changes were correctly incorporated into board bills.

Madam Clerk and staff walked the committee through the engrossed copies and the redline exhibit for each bill. For board bill 10 the clerk confirmed a single floor amendment (introduced by Alderwoman Clark Hubbard) had been incorporated and that legal and the financial analyst had reviewed dates, figures and cross‑references. After members raised page‑numbering and formatting concerns, the committee voted to direct the clerk to make the corrections; the motion passed on a roll call with five ayes. "Once that change is made, that bill will be engrossed," the chair said after the roll call.

The committee conducted a similar review of board bill 28. Staff flagged a floor amendment that set an ordinance effective date of Nov. 1, 2026, and members asked the clerk to fix section numbering and a misspelling on page one before engrossment. The clerk confirmed the fiscal note and exhibits were attached to the engrossed copy and agreed to make the formatting revisions.

A lengthier review focused on board bill 1, a budget bill with dozens of line‑item changes and ENA adjustments. Director Paul Payne joined the meeting to reconcile the ENA summary with the board bill exhibits. Payne and staff explained several types of adjustments: salary and position additions, offsets between personal services and contractual services, transfers into a special IT fund, and targeted restorations of cuts the budget committee had earlier recommended. For example, Payne said the forestry division’s apparent increase in salaries was offset by a reduction in contractual services; the net bottom line for that division did not change. The committee verified most ENA items but identified five amendments that needed closer checking because ENA’s changes had not been reflected in the packet available to members.

When the committee examined board bill 22 — a large package that includes recovery‑fund provisions and multiple new reporting requirements — members found significant discrepancies between the redline floor amendments and the engrossed copy. Several provisions added on the floor were not incorporated into the version provided to the committee, section numbering and the placement of a newly inserted section 8 appeared displaced into the middle of section 7, and one paragraph in a fund section referred to two different fund names ("downtown revitalization fund" vs. "downtown neighborhood plan implementation fund"). Chair Velasquez and members requested that staff verify the correct fund name with the amendment sponsor and reconcile the exhibits.

Members also noted that Amendment 2 — language requiring the recovery office to develop and report proposed metrics and to post quarterly and annual reports on the city website — was absent from the engrossed copy as circulated. Half of Amendment 15 likewise did not appear in the version before the committee, and other floor insertions added Friday had not been merged into the packet. Because the committee could not certify that the engrossed copy of board bill 22 matched the board’s floor actions, members declined to engross it.

The committee’s final procedural action was to certify (contingent on corrections) the engrossment of board bills 1, 10 and 28 and to hold board bill 22 until staff reconcile the ENA summary, redline edits, exhibits and the engrossed draft. Committee staff were instructed to confirm section numbering, reinstate omitted text where appropriate, and circulate corrected engrossed copies for verification before the committee reconvenes on the item.

The meeting concluded after members moved and seconded adjournment.