JEFFERSON CITY — Local governments are resisting an effort by some state lawmakers to end their ability to levy a local sales tax on groceries.
City officials from around the state and lobbyists representing local governments came to a Senate committee hearing Monday at the Capitol. They made a case against slashing local sales taxes on groceries, warning of potential cuts to essential services like police, emergency responders and street maintenance.
“This would devastate our community,†said Jonathan Douglass, city manager for Sikeston, a city of about 16,000.
Douglass said that the estimated $2.3 million annual impact on Sikeston would equate to cutting the city’s entire street and parks maintenance staffs and a quarter of the city’s police force.
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In Florissant, about $4.4 million of the city’s $38 million budget comes from the sales tax on food items, said Patrick Mulcahy, the city’s director of economic development.
City of St. Louis officials estimated that local sales tax on groceries brought in close to $19 million in its last fiscal year.
Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican who is running for Congress, is sponsoring the measure heard by the Senate Economic Development committee. Under the , any local sales tax on groceries would be phased out over a four-year period. State sales tax on groceries would end this year.
Coleman asked the Senate committee to discount testimony by lobbyists representing municipal governments.
“You’re going to hear from a number of elected bureaucrats who are using state dollars or tax dollars to pay lobbyists to fight against returning money to Missourians’ pockets,†she told the committee. “We’re funding the budget for that representation on the backs of necessities like eggs and meat and grocery items for the poorest of our citizens.â€
Jacque Bardgett, a lobbyist representing St. Louis, Creve Coeur, Town and Country, Ballwin, Ellisville and Independence, said the municipalities were concerned about a loss of funding for vital services without a plan to replace the revenue.
But Christine Woody, food security policy manager at Empower Missouri, an anti-poverty advocacy organization, said that more than 30 states do not assess sales tax on groceries and have managed to balance their budgets.
Coleman this year is among several lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — sponsoring proposals to exempt groceries from sales tax.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat running for governor, is also sponsoring legislation that would exempt groceries from state sales starting in 2026 and slowly phase out local taxes.
Getting rid of the 1.225% state sales tax on groceries would largely apply to funds that go toward public schools and charter schools. A small portion of the tax goes to the conservation and natural resources departments.
According to a nonpartisan of Coleman’s legislation, exempting groceries from this state sales tax would cut about $170 million from schools, $21 million from the conversation department and $17 million from the natural resources department every year.
The proposals come against the backdrop of a possible revamp to education funding in Missouri. This month, the Senate passed a large education package that would expand the state’s school voucher program, which can be used for private school tuition, and also increases public school funding and teacher salaries.
Coleman’s legislation is .