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Session 1781 May 8, 2000 Mr. Wagner moved approval. Mr. Sharpe seconded the motion. Mr. Lieberman was concerned about the decrease in revenue from Natural Gas and St. Louis County Sales Tax and the Sales Taxes for Capital Improvement. The gas decrease is understandable because of our mild winter. The $260,000 decrease in the revenue coming from sales tax, both regular and capital improvement, really bothers him. This is a problem and he does not believe that the City has a legitimate and proper explanation from the County as to the reason of this decrease. We are in the middle of a bursting economy and he realizes that Internet sales are going on all over the place, but in the meanwhile, the City and the entire County has been enjoying a robust economy, with increased revenues from retail outlets which means sales taxes. Those sales taxes should have been much closer to our predictions. He believes that we should be looking very closely at an audit of that system with St. Louis County. It is an expensive feature, but is well worth it when you are talking about this kind of a decrease that may or may not be proper. He believes that other cities, in the sales tax pool, are in the same boat. There is wonderment that there could be this kind of decrease in the economy that we are having. He strongly suggests that we ask the St. Louis County Municipal League to support an audit of the sales tax pool system to at least see whether or not these figures are accurate. Mayor Adams stated that questions about the sales tax should probably be directed to the State. The State has projected lower sales tax revenue statewide. Mr. Lieberman stated that they do not control the pool. Mayor Adams said that maybe true, but they do control how much money is coming in and how much is going out. Mr. Ollendofff agrees with Mr. Lieberman's suggestion to ask the St. Louis County Municipal League to study the sales tax problem to discover the reasons for this slow down. Mr. Schoomer echoes Mr. Lieberman's concern. Mr. Schoomer would like to see some worse case studies on the City's financial position. We are facing a loss of direct pool sales to e-commerce. We are losing revenue from properties being removed from the tax rolls for tax exempt purposes. We are facing the possible loss of sales use tax due to federal limitations on e-commerce sales entirely. We are also facing the loss of utility and franchise sales taxes from deregulation. We have to be very cautious in our spending and in our planning in the immediate future. He is not encouraged with what he is seeing and believes it deserves more study. Mr. Wagner also echoes his colleague's concerns, stating that another area to be watchful of was the Census. If we are significantly undercounted in the Census, that will make everything even worse next year.