A Missouri state lawmaker from South St. Louis County has asked the state's top legal officer and its independent auditor to investigate whether St. Louis County has diverted tax money that voters approved specifically for police funding. State Rep. Jim Murphy, a Republican who represents Missouri House District 94, alleges the county has used Proposition P revenue for purposes never promised to voters, even as county officials discussed police layoffs to help close a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall projected for 2026.
Murphy sent a letter to Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick asking them to investigate St. Louis County's use of revenue from the sales tax, according to STLtoday.com. Reporter Kelsey Landis, who covers the story for the paper, writes that Murphy claims the funds were used for things that were not what voters were promised, per his interview with the outlet. Proposition P, approved by county voters in April 2017, is a 0.5% public safety sales tax intended to fund police salary increases, body cameras, and two-officer vehicle patrols, according to St. Louis Call Newspapers.
How the Money Is Supposed to Be Split
Under St. Louis County Ordinance 26,578 and the state's statutory framework for Proposition P, collected proceeds follow a fixed formula: 37.5% goes directly to county government, while the remaining 62.5% is distributed among municipalities and unincorporated areas based on population, according to Sunset Hills municipal records. Proposition P funds can be used for public safety purposes, but Murphy's allegation centers on whether the county has stretched that definition beyond what voters were told nearly a decade ago.
The petition lands amid a larger fiscal standoff. St. Louis County officials discussed police layoffs as one option for filling the county's budget hole, per the STLtoday.com report, as the county projected a shortfall of millions of dollars for 2026. That crisis boiled over in December 2025, when the St. Louis County Council voted 6-1 to pass a 2026 budget that slashed $48 million from County Executive Sam Page's originally projected $81 million deficit, targeting vacant staff positions and public health funds, according to KSDK.
Page Pushes Back, Union Tries to Calm Officers
Page has said his office was sending Murphy all Proposition P reports and maintained the county would not allow police funding to be cut. But the county council, in Murphy's characterization, has shown a commitment to cutting the budget and defunding police, a claim that sits at the center of the dispute between the two sides of county government.
The St. Louis County Police Officers Association is trying to keep rank-and-file officers from panicking. The union has reported that police do not need to worry about layoffs, and association president Joe Percich wrote a letter to officers this week addressing Murphy's comments directly.
A fiscal analysis by the Show-Me Institute published in December 2025 warned that the county's projected $80 million structural deficit stemmed from flat sales tax revenue and broader economic headwinds, cautioning that trimming administrative waste alone would not resolve the shortfall. That independent assessment complicates any simple narrative about where the money went, suggesting the county's money troubles run deeper than any single spending decision.
State Officials Weigh In, Or Don't Yet
As of Thursday morning, the letter had not yet reached its intended recipient. Stephanie Whitaker, a spokesperson for the Missouri Attorney General, said the attorney general's office had not received the letter as of Thursday morning. The Missouri State Auditor's Office declined to comment. Hanaway took office as Missouri's 45th Attorney General in September 2025 following a gubernatorial appointment, while Fitzpatrick, elected in 2022, has served as the state's independent taxpayer watchdog since taking office in January 2023, a role that includes authority to audit political subdivisions and investigate allegations of public corruption or misuse of tax funds, according to the Missouri State Auditor's Office.
The timing of Murphy's letter is notable. It came one day after Page seated two new commissioners on the county police board without council confirmation, a move that deepened friction between the county executive and lawmakers over control of law enforcement oversight. Murphy is term-limited at the end of his current term, and his wife, Maryellen Murphy, is running for his House District 94 seat in the primary election, according to Call Newspapers.
A History of Boundaries Around Prop P Money
The question of what Proposition P money can and cannot pay for is not new. During the 2020 settlement of a police discrimination lawsuit brought by Lt. Keith Wildhaber for $10.25 million, Page explicitly pledged that Proposition P revenues would not be tapped to pay legal judgments, citing statutory limitations restricting the funds to operational public safety expenses, per Call Newspapers.
That pledge has since been tested by mounting legal liabilities against the county's police department. In April, a St. Louis County jury awarded retired police lieutenant Mike Reifschneider $6.2 million after finding county police leadership improperly withheld a promised promotion when he refused to retaliate against a Black colleague, as Hoodline previously reported. Whether such verdicts, and the county's broader budget pressures, have any bearing on Proposition P spending remains an open question that state investigators, if they take up Murphy's request, would need to sort out.
