ST. LOUIS — City leaders are homing in on a plan to spend their $250 million share of the NFL Rams settlement — mostly by keeping it in the bank.
Aldermen are set to hold a hearing next month to learn about setting up a kind of municipal endowment, where some or all of the cash would be invested to generate recurring returns that could then be spent on various city needs.
The idea has been informally discussed in business, government and media circles for more than a year as the region has debated how to best put the cash to work.
But at a recent meeting, Aldermanic President Megan Green said she saw a consensus growing at the board and described an endowment as a way to get at a broad swath of the priorities aldermen have accumulated through public engagement efforts this fall.
The money likely won’t cover them all: People want a safer city, better roads, more affordable child care, modern water infrastructure and a revitalized downtown, among many other things.
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“So the question becomes,†Green said, “how do we take the money that we have and leverage it to produce further revenue in the long term?â€
Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said she’s thinking along the same lines.
“I’m trying to think of ways that we can invest the bulk of it and live off the interest and invest that into projects,†she said on Thursday.
The money could provide evergreen cash to repair roads and bridges, boost development projects or provide grants to community organizations, she said.
“I believe that the possibilities are endless,†she said.
A city-controlled endowment would be somewhat of a novelty. Usually, such funds are the province of private charities and higher education.
But governments attempting to maximize windfalls are nothing new:
Texas, after its settlement with the “Big Tobacco†companies in the 1990s, created permanent trusts to invest and distribute income to rural hospital districts and colleges doing cancer research.
Texas and other mineral-rich states like Wyoming and Alaska set up funds to invest revenue from mining taxes and have for decades used returns to pay for things like education, economic development and direct cash payments to residents.
It’s a guiding principle for some St. Louis leaders as they consider an endowment for the Rams money.
“The whole idea is to be sustainable,†said Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard, of the West End neighborhood.
The money in the endowment could be used to spur development on the impoverished north side or the long-neglected riverfront, she said.
Aldermen Tom Oldenburg, of St. Louis Hills, said he’d also like to see it finance redevelopment in struggling areas and potentially help more people buy homes in the city.
Green, the aldermanic president, warned Friday that her staff is still in the early stages of investigating such plans.
She said they will spend part of the board’s four-week winter break reaching out to experts to learn more about how an endowment could operate.
Leaders will need to think through how the money would be invested, who would be in charge of investing and how much additional money they could expect to get back from the markets annually and over the long term.
And socking money away isn’t the only idea floating around City Hall or the city.
Clark Hubbard said while the tonier southwestern parts of her district talk a lot about investing the money, she gets calls for more immediate help to the north.
“I go there,†she said, “and I hear, ‘I want my street paved, and I want my trash picked up.’â€
Kroenke's Cash: Jim Gallagher and David Nicklaus say St. Louis and St. Louis County should spend the Rams lawsuit settlement on programs with long-term impact and avoid using it to plug short-term budget holes.
