A spokesperson for St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said Page would sign off on the 2024 budget bills Wednesday. The move comes a day after the County Council passed the budget with some $14 million in cuts. But how those cuts will affect county government will most likely not be known until after the fiscal year starts Jan. 1

Page had proposed a $1.025 billion budget that included raising property taxes back to 2022 levels to close a $47 million annual deficit while largely keeping existing service levels intact.

Ahead of what ended up being a 6-1 vote in favor of the cuts, Page outlined what he said were initial proposed cuts based on the amended budget, including the suspension of non-public safety projects getting funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, and putting implementation of the county’s senior property tax freeze on hold because the county will need to find revenue to fund the creation and administration of the program. Other cuts could lead to having to stop mailing county tax bills and potentially trimming staff assigned to snow removal.

Councilman Mark Harder attacked Page’s response as “fear mongering,” saying that the council’s cuts to the county’s General Fund amounts to a 1.5% reduction. "We can not keep kicking this down the road because we are out of the road,” Harder, a Republican candidate for the Missouri State Senate in 2024 wrote on social media Tuesday. “St. Louis County will run out of reserves by 2025. After which, drastic cuts, layoffs and the permanent end of some county functions will be required.”

A Page spokesperson said Wednesday that no concrete next steps were yet in place to address how department budgets would change, but that with the holiday season and related time off for County department heads, it was unrealistic to expect that to happen before the end of the year. 

“The Council did its job. We took the first step on the path toward fiscal responsibility. The next step is up to the County Executive. Hopefully he takes his job seriously and starts looking at how to make county government more efficient instead of randomly cutting programs that impact county citizens,” Councilman Dennis Hancock told Spectrum News Wednesday.

“I’m fine with the administration taking all the time they need to get it right,” he said.