The Missouri Supreme Court is reviewing a 2015 law that singled out St. Louis County’s ability to raise operating revenues.
SB 5, which became effective in August 2015, modifies the distribution of traffic fines and court costs collected by municipal courts.
“The state is seeking to impose a lower cap on St. Louis County municipalities so that they can only raise 12.5% of their annual operating revenues through minor traffic fines while the limit is 20% for municipalities in other parts of the state,” said David Pittinsky, a lawyer for the city of Normandy in St. Louis County. "What is at stake is the ability of municipalities in St. Louis County to raise revenue for their operations that's on the same level as the other municipalities in the state."
The Supreme Court is revisiting the special law after having ruled four years ago that limiting ticketing revenue to 12.5% in St. Louis County was unconstitutional.
“We won the case in 2017 but the Supreme Court in 2019 in another case that didn't involve us established a new way of deciding what is an unconstitutional special law and the state says that, under the new way the Supreme Court decided in 2019, the law is no longer an unconstitutional special law,” Pittinsky told the St. Louis Record.
The 2015 law landed back in the high court after Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem reinstated the restriction in December 2020, according to media reports. Attorney General Eric Schmitt argues that without the 12.5% cap, black and brown residents are disproportionately impacted by the fines and fees.
But Pittinsky disagrees.
“Even though they say it's black and brown, there are white people in the municipalities in St. Louis county as well,” he said. “They say that the legislation was passed to rectify wrongs that have been done just in the municipalities of St. Louis county in taxation by citation.”
Pittinsky maintains that the 12.5% limit remains an unconstitutional special law.
“The question is whether, under the new test, the statute still is unconstitutional,” he said. “The reason we are involved in this is because when the court decided the new test, they did not say the new test was going to apply only prospectively to new issues. If they had said that, this case never would have come up again.”
The city of Normandy, where Pittinsky is an attorney, is among the St. Louis municipalities that are appealing Judge Beetem’s decision to overrule the injunction that limits St. Louis County’s ability to raise operating revenues through citations to 12.5%.
“The test is what's called a rational basis test and, under that test, you have to have a reasonably conceivable set of facts that provide a rational basis with a classification in the statute,” Pittinsky said. “We say that the statute doesn't meet that test.”