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ST. LOUIS — Mayor Tishaura O. Jones on Monday announced the formation of a special committee that will study ways the city can diversify its revenues amid threats to its $200 million-per-year earnings tax.

Jones said a recent court decision exempting nonresident remote workers from the earnings tax will affect the city’s budget in coming years. And she said the city cannot ignore threats from the state Legislature, where GOP lawmakers have said they want to eliminate the tax entirely.

“This is something we have to pay attention to,� Jones said.

The announcement marked Jones’ inauguration into something of a mayoral tradition. St. Louis chief executives have been defending the 1% earnings tax — levied on the income of anyone who lives in the city, works in the city, or runs a business in the city — since its inception in the 1940s.

Two of the last three occupants of City Hall’s Room 200 said they would try and replace the tax and the 30% or so of general revenue it provides annually. Rafts of new taxes and fees were floated. But neither effort made it very far.

But Jones brushed that off Monday. She said the new committee would be looking at the long-term viability of all revenue, not just the money gleaned from the earnings tax.

She promised a report within six months.

David Stokes, the municipal policy director at the libertarian Show-Me Institute and an earnings tax critic, cheered the mayor’s announcement. He said he hoped it would be a first step toward phasing out the income tax, which he and others have long cast as an obstacle to attracting people and businesses to the city.

“It’s just bad fiscal policy,� he said.

A better St. Louis, he said, would rely more on property taxes , though that could require some .

Aldermanic President Megan Green, who has defended the earnings tax, also welcomed the announcement. She said all of the city’s taxes could use a review: Many of them were enacted by different leaders in different times, when the city had different needs. And there are a lot of sales taxes, something that troubles leaders because they fall hardest on the poor.

“How can we structure our taxes so they’re less regressive?� she asked.

Jeff Rainford, who was chief of staff to Mayor Francis Slay the last time the city made a major study of the issue, said Jones is doing the right thing:

The city’s tax base has declined over the years. People and major employers have left.

The city needs to do more to attract new residents and businesses and make government more efficient without reducing services, Rainford wrote in a text message.

“It won’t be easy,� he said. “But, this is a good place to start.�

The mayor’s committee, officially christened the Long-Term Revenue Advisory Council, will have 12 members. Half will be city officials appointed from the budget office, the Board of Aldermen and the offices of the mayor, comptroller, treasurer and collector of revenue.

The other spots are reserved for one citizen and one representative each from the business community, a local financial institution, a local community development organization, the city’s financial adviser and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.