The St. Louis County Council just passed a bill to give $3.2 million in tax money to privately owned farms in the county. The intent may be noble—addressing a perceived lack of options for healthy food in the northern part of the county—but the policy is bad and the precedent it could set is even worse.
Somebody much smarter than I am is going to have to explain to me how sending this money to a private entity does not violate this section of Missouri’s constitution:
No county, city or other political corporation or subdivision of the state shall be authorized to lend its credit or grant public money or property to any private individual, association or corporation . . .
Stick with me here. This is county tax money being granted to a private business. Unless words no longer have meaning, this move by the council is legally dubious at best.
There has long been a fight about earmarks in the federal government. With earmarks, members of Congress can simply request that funding be added in for projects they wish, outside of the standard merit-based or competitive funds allocation process. This money for farms in north St. Louis County is an earmark, for all intents and purposes. Yes, it went through the legislative process, but it has not been subject to any of the other rules for how local governments spend money, such as competitive bidding.
Turning St. Louis County’s annual budget of more than a billion dollars into a grab bag of pet projects is the last thing we need for local government in Missouri. I hope the county executive vetoes this bill and I hope his veto is sustained.
