BRENTWOOD, Mo. – The City of Brentwood is sitting on a million dollars of your money and is unsure what to do with it. It’s had those funds for nearly a year.
St. Louis County sent the tax money to Brentwood by mistake. It came from the state, with instructions for the county to distribute to municipalities. However, Brentwood officials realized something was wrong when they received about $7 million from St. Louis County.
The city alerted St. Louis County and returned $5.7 million of the tax money on its own.
Now, it still has about $1.2 million left and doesn’t know who is supposed to have it.
“I’m concerned. I was concerned a year ago when it happened and I brought it up during our budget meetings this past year,” St. Louis County Councilman Mark Harder said. “I never got a straight answer from anybody in the administration as to where the money went and why the mistake was made and what’s being done to fix the mistake. Everybody seems to be very quiet right now. The last I heard, it was $1.2 million and they can’t decide who owns it—whether it’s Brentwood or St. Louis County.”
FOX 2 reached out to County Executive Sam Page’s office. Spokesman Doug Moore sent us the following statement:
Last year, the county council approved new software to help with the redistribution of sales tax. As you may know, the state collects the tax, then sends it to the county, which is responsible for distribution to all the municipalities in St. Louis County. St. Louis County’s Office of Administration is working closely with the city of Brentwood to get the remainder of the overpayment resolved.
A representative for the city of Brentwood also issued a statement:
Upon realizing the anomalies in the distribution of the countywide 1% sales tax in 2022 and notifying the county of the miscalculations that had been made, the city of Brentwood promptly and voluntarily remitted $5.7 million to the county. The city is ready, willing, and able to pay any additional amount which may be appropriate, if any, once an accurate accounting can be determined.
Councilman Harder said it’s a bad situation all the way around.
“The county, as well as the city of Brentwood, has bills to pay, so this money needs to go where it’s supposed to go to pay the bills for the services that our residents expect,” he said.
