ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A well-known crime-fighting tool is on the chopping block in St. Louis County.
County Executive Sam Page suggested the county scrap the ShotSpotter program to save money as the county council faces a budget hole of nearly $26 million.
Page's proposal raised questions about whether the audio sensors that detect gunfire are worth their $718,000 annual price tag. We took that question to the county's top prosecutor to ask if he sees value in the surveillance devices.
"I definitely do," St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell said in a statement via a spokesman. "It's another tool law enforcement needs to combat the increase in gun violence."
Evonna Harris, another St. Louis resident whose mother lives in the county, agreed with Bell.
"That doesn't seem like something to take away at this moment, especially with so much crime going on and so many people getting killed," she said. "If that's something that's going to help somebody find out who killed their daughter, help somebody find out who hurt them and give people relief, then that's not something that should be taken away."
The resistance to spending cuts demonstrates the difficult path toward balancing a budget that remains out of whack.
"When you've got a $25 million budget deficit, every million counts," St. Louis County Budget Director Paul Kreidler said. "'A million here, a million there,' adds up. And so we've really got to have those conversations about whether the investment in a technology or a program or a service is giving us the benefit to justify continuing it."
He predicted that the county government would start to enter crisis mode in the near term if legislators don't find a fix soon.
"We've had a mismatch between revenues and spending going back 15 years," he said. "We've got about two to three years of operations until something has to change. We've got to identify additional revenue."
In a letter to members of the County Council, Page's budget plan cited "inflationary pressures" as the reason why he would raise county property tax rates an additional 3.9 cents (per $100 of assessed value) over the 2023 tax rate, which he said would cost an estimated "$22 for the average home."
Don't expect the higher tax bill to put a smile on voters' faces though, at least according to one homeowner in St. Ann.
"Property taxes, everybody hates them," Dalton Mertens said. "I don't know of anybody that likes property taxes. They're kind of a necessary evil."
He'd like to see the county freeze those tax hikes for seniors and protect them from the higher costs.
"I know a lot of seniors that are stuck on fixed income," he said. "They're retired. They only make so much. And with all the inflation that's going on, it's getting hard enough for them to live as it is."
The last time County Council members considered a property tax freeze for seniors, they rejected it on party lines, with four Democrats expressing concerns about giving tax relief to millionaires.
The new proposal, which is scheduled for consideration on Tuesday night, would only freeze property taxes for seniors 67 and older who live in homes valued at $550,000 or less.
According to the St. Louis County Assessor's office, that would mean roughly nine in 10 homes across the county would fall into the right price range. A spokesman for the assessor's office says they don't track demographic information about the age of homeowners, so they could not say with certainty how many of those homes could be impacted in a tax freeze.
Harris said the relief for seniors was a nice gesture but hoped to see elected officials craft a budget that shows sensitivity to the struggles of people in the earlier or middle stages of their careers.
"Just affording housing at this moment is very hard for anybody, really," she said. "A lot of people are moving back in with their parents because of how hard everything is."
"It is already hard for everyone out here," Harris said. "I know so many people that are struggling to keep up with the rising prices of everything gas, rent, everything."