ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Like many of my readers, I live in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County and work for a company that is based in the city of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. It used to be — pre-pandemic — that I’d slog to work on Interstate 64, fighting the morning commute, and then repeat the grueling practice on the way home. Sometimes I’d stagger my start time to miss the worst parts of rush hour.

Occasionally, but not often, I’d work from home.

Every year, when tax time came, I’d fill out that extra line on the form indicating that I worked in the city and owed the 1 percent earnings tax that people who live and/or work in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ have to pay. The tax has never bothered me. At least a third of it goes to the police and fire departments — the first responders who keep me safe, whether I’m working or enjoying the zoo, Forest Park or a ballgame. I never applied for a refund for the handful of days that I worked from home.

The pandemic changed everything.

For two years, I worked almost exclusively from home. Then, in the past couple of years, I settled into a hybrid system. I go downtown a couple of days a week, sometimes more, depending on where I need to be for interviews or news events. Recently, the company made my hybrid working easier, providing me a laptop that I can dock at home or downtown to connect to the company’s servers.

I suspect that most companies in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, and in other cities in the country, are adapting to this new reality of the working world, where employees appreciate flexibility.

So how is the Legislature trying to save me money? During the pandemic, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½â€™ collector of revenue, Gregory F.X. Daly, stopped issuing refunds, figuring the world had changed. With most companies forced by the government into remote work, it didn’t seem reasonable to flush away the city’s revenue from refunds.

Legally, it was probably a specious argument. Six plaintiffs filed a lawsuit seeking refunds. A judge ruled in their favor. One of their attorneys was Bevis Schock, a libertarian who is pretty smart about constitutional issues. He’s the reason the city doesn’t have red-light cameras anymore. I wouldn’t bet against him. The city has appealed the lawsuit, but while that appeal is pending, the Republicans who run the Legislature figured why not pass a law making refunds for remote work more explicit in the law?

This would, if I applied for a refund, save me money.

But it would also blast a massive hole in the city’s budget. The city reported nearly $219 million in net earnings tax collections last fiscal year, according to a recent analysis. Losing a significant portion of that money would raise serious questions.

You think the city has a hard time keeping up its police force these days? This legislation would literally defund the police, and it would have a devastating effect on the city. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones pointed out those facts in a simple post on the social media site X on Wednesday:

“ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ City’s earnings tax helps fund critical services like our first responders,â€� Jones pointed out. “As we continue to reduce crime in our city, it’s disheartening to see the state legislature attempting to defund our police.â€�

It’s fair to argue whether the city might be better off without an earnings tax. But what to replace it with? How to maintain police and firefighters, not to mention parks, roads and other services? Those are questions that can’t be put off for another day.

A Legislature that cared about ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, the largest economic engine in the state, would engage in legitimate discussions with local leaders about how to make the city stronger — and not just “pick, pick, pickâ€� on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, as Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, D-ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, aptly characterized the bill.

In the same week House Republicans passed a bill that could defund the city’s police, the same lawmakers passed a bill that would try to take control of the police department from the city and give it to the state. Republicans wrongly argue that city leaders don’t care about battling crime. So their solution is to gut the police department, and take it over at the same time?

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but not much of what happens in Jefferson City these days does.