St. Louis County Council begins revisiting budget requests for federal dollars

Jan. 19—CLAYTON — The St. Louis County Council on Tuesday began revisiting more than $18 million in funding requests that it delayed last month during budget negotiations.

Facing a Dec. 31 deadline to approve the 2022 budget, a council majority last month stripped proposed new spending that relied on American Rescue Plan dollars, citing concerns that the county couldn't ensure the programs would comply with federal regulations. They pledged to approve most, if not all, of County Executive Sam Page's budget requests in January.

But during hearings Tuesday, Council Chair Rita Heard Days, D-1st District, and other council members raised concerns over a request from the Department of Public Health for $3.57 million and a request from County Counselor Beth Orwick for $240,000 to hire five new attorneys.

Days said she was reluctant to approve new funding requests without a plan to "sustain" them once the federal funding runs out.

Councilmen Tim Fitch, R-3rd District, Mark Harder, R-7th District, and Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, said they wanted to ensure that hiring additional staff attorneys would mean Orwick would use outside law firms less.

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And Councilwoman Shalonda Webb, D-4th District, said she would rather the council seek out a comprehensive plan for the American Rescue Plan funding before approving requests by individual departments.

"I cannot keep acting like this is a slush fund that we can just give and give and give," Webb said.

The council did, however, vote unanimously to approve spending $500,000 of the federal funds to continue contracting Deloitte, an auditing firm hired in 2020 to ensure federal aid spending meets U.S.Treasury regulations.

Of the health department's budget request, $2 million would be to fund contracts for clinicians and outreach workers focused on addressing health issues that are either considered comorbidities to COVID-19, such as diabetes and heart disease, or conditions that worsened during the pandemic, such as mental health and substance use disorders.

The American Rescue Plan funding would also include about $1 million for 13 new full-time positions that would help promote health education, violence prevention planning, and help enroll residents in Medicaid.

The services are meant to reach residents, most of them without insurance, who have delayed regular care at public health clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Faisal Khan, acting health director.

Khan said the full-time positions were earmarked to last only as long as there is funding. Once the pandemic ends, such services could be rolled back under regular care at public health clinics, he said.

"If we have to come to a place two or three years from now where we have to downsize, or consider other funding sources like grants, we will do that," Khan said.

The department would also use $100,000 in American Rescue Plan funds to provide free transportation for residents within about a 10-mile radius of the county's public health centers, and about $10,000 to pay for Narcan kits, which help treat opioid overdoses, that would be distributed for free.

Orwick has said her office of 35 employees is smaller than those of neighboring jurisdictions and needs more support to keep up with responsibilities including property tax appeals, lawsuits, contract negotiations, ordinance violations and preparing council legislation.

The office currently includes 30 attorneys, five administrative employees and two part-time retirees. Five of the attorneys were hired late last year after the council approved a request for the new positions.

Orwick said Tuesday that her office is "starting to see the benefits" of the recent hires.

Two new paralegals and an investigator would help free up time for attorneys by helping gather records and identify witnesses for each case, Orwick said.

The council also held a hearing with the Department of Information Technology, which requested about $1.26 million to make website upgrades meant to make it easier to process and track service requests from residents and county employees.

IT Director Chuck Henderson said the end goal was to automate about 65% of all "customer-facing services" done by the Department of Revenue, County Assessor, Division of Personnel and Division of Procurement.

The American Rescue Plan funding would pay for contracts for about 12 temporary employees including business analysts and web developers, Henderson said.

Virtual meetings

Tuesday was also the council's first virtual meeting since a COVID-19 surge led to record daily cases and hospitalizations. Days announced late last week that the council would meet by teleconference for at least three weeks to avoid gatherings in the council chambers in Clayton.

But Harder and Trakas on Tuesday said the council should have voted on the matter and called on Days to give the council a vote soon on whether to continue virtual meetings.

"It's up to this body to determine when and how we meet," Harder said.

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