Some people would like to raise the sales tax in City of St. Louis for early childhood education (ECE) in the City. Again. Don’t be fooled. Again.
Unlike in Boliver, where there is a $3 Million expansion underway for their ECE center on the public schools campus, this sales tax campaign is not for St. Louis Public Schools ECE. Again. It’s not for free ECE. Again.
Instead, it’s another sketchy way to publicly fund charter schools, church day care, for profit child care, and a jobs creator for the nonprofit industrial complex. A lot of staffing positions with important titles will be created using the bloated bureaucracy role model of City’s Mental Health Board.
Like MHB, which manages the current ECE tax fund called Community Children’s Services Fund, that pays for ECE consultants, not ECE, the new tax would be managed by another mayoral appointed board independent from the City of St. Louis, unaccountable to the Board of Alders, or anyone else really.
Read the proposal here, not just the ballot language, read the whole thing.
Note that Stephen Westbrooks, Mayor Cara Spencer’s new director of St. Louis Development Corporation, City corporate welfare umbrella agency, and a charter school supporter, is one of the ballot issue petitioners.
Note that the proposed sales tax is enabled by 67.547 RSMO and is a county sales tax, not a municipal sales tax. That’s because Best Start for Kids also wants a tax in St. Louis County. I don’t have any idea how the campaign it’s going in the County. I do know that when MAGA eventually bankrupts St. Louis City, sells off assets, forces annexation of City into County, the folks running this scam will still be well funded.
Best Start for Kids campaign makes a lot of promises not backed up with the petition they are circulating. Again. It’s not about funding free ECE at public schools.
“Increase wages and benefits for early educators” and “Improve quality of care” are just campaign sales pitches. There is no guarantee that will happen. AND there is no sunset provision so that later down the road voters could decide to end the experiment and start over.
Best Start for Kids filed with Missouri Ethics Commission last August as a ballot issue campaign committee for November 3rd, 2026, election in the City.
A lot of preachers think their churches are getting a piece of the pie but most of the money is coming from school privatizers.
The committee filed Limited Activity for August and October 2025 reports but then received $10,000 on November 10th from Robert Fox. He is the husband of Maxine Clark, founder of Build A Bear (a corporate welfare recipient) and queen mother of school privatization in St. Louis based at her Delmar Divine development.
Fox’s contribution appeared in the January 2026 Report with others including:
$5,000 (11/17/2025) Tony Thompson, Kwame Building Group CEO, St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioner, and charter school supporter
$5,000 (12/02/2025) Laura Horwitz, JF Roblee Foundation and Board member for WePower, the main proponent for Best Start for Kids sales tax hike campaign
$1,000 (12/07/2025) Hank Webber, former Vice Chancellor for Washington University, charter school advocate, and Board member of Maxine Clark’s Delmar Divine
Starting in January, Best Starts for Kids started receiving donations requiring “48 Hour Report of Contribution Received Over $5000” and which will not appear on a quarterly Report until April. These contributions include:
$8,000 (01/21/2026) Anne Miller, education consultant, a charter school founder (North Side Community School)
$50,000 (01/30/2026) Missouri Action for Kids, same address as Kids Win Missouri (which receives public funding)
$25,000 (02/03/2026) Elizabeth Mannen Berges, Mannen Financial Group, and Jim Berges, former President of Emerson Electric. Berges Family Foundation supports the Opportunity Trust, St. Louis Police Foundation, Greater St. Louis, and charter schools.
$10,000 (02/10/2026) Child Care Aware of Missouri, a child care referral nonprofit and member of Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Missouri
$17,500 (03/05/2026) + $30,000 (03/12/2026) + $12,000 (03/20/2026) WePower, school privatization nonprofit, driving force behind the previous Proposition R for a St. Louis sales tax to fund early childhood education consultants, the fund managed by St. Louis Mental Health Board.
In 2020, The City’s Board of Alders passed an ordinance to send voters a tax hike to fund ECE. The BOA vote was 25-0 with two absent and one vacancy.
Unfortunately, it did not really fund ECE as in subsidizing costs to parents. It was money for training and marketing consultants and creating a large staff to award grants.
Like Alders, not many bothered to read the proposal. It was approved 56.26% (72,745) to 43.74% (56,554).
Proponents of the previous ballot issue like to say the issue drove voters to the polls but it was a Presidential and statewide office and ballot issues election. 6,170 fewer ballots were cast for Proposition R than the total votes cast for US President in that 66% turnout election.
Deputy Treasurer for Best Start for Kids is Mike Pridmore, who serves as treasurer or deputy treasurer for numerous campaign accounts including Mayor Spencer, City and State ballot issues, and political action committees (legal money laundries in Missouri).
There was previously a Best Starts for Kids, STL committee, not run by Pridmore, for a 2024 St. Louis County Charter Amendment to increase sales tax by for early childhood education. That ballot measure did not end up on the ballot.
Board President Megan Green and Alders Pam Boyd, Shameem Clark-Hubbard, Tom Oldenburg, and Daniela Velázquez have endorsed the ballot issue.
Board President Green unsuccessfully tried to organize a charter school before she was an Alder.
Saida Cornejo-Zuniga worked briefly as Legislative Assistant to Alder Velázquez before taking a position at WePower.
Rodney Hubbard, Alder Clark-Hubbard’s husband, is a lobbyist for Steven R. Carroll & Associates, which is lobbyist for St. Louis Public Schools, tho Hubbard is not registered to represent that client.
During the 2024-2025 session of the Board of Alders, Alder Clark-Hubbard sponsored Board Bill 7 for a second sales tax ballot issue, an additional one-half of one percent to go to the Mental Health Board’s Early Childhood Education Fund.
Board Bill 7 was very oddly assigned to the Transportation and Commerce Committee.
The St. Louis City Board of Education unanimously opposed the measure, saying the bill “directs taxpayer dollars to non-public entities with no oversight or accountability measures in place.”
Debate was cut off an hour into the hearing and Board Bill 7 advanced no further.
The major proponent for that bill was WePower, which seemed to be complaining that their previous tax hike that they wrote and won was flawed, basically the same argument this time.
We’ll talk later about how irresponsible it is for anyone to propose a new sales tax in Missouri as MAGA General Assmbly and Governor pushes to eliminate income tax and replace with sales taxes.
The Great State of St. Louis 