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SS/SCS/SB 5 - This act modifies the law commonly referred to as "Macks Creek Law". This act removes all references to county as a political subdivision subject to the terms of this section. This act reduces the threshold at which a city, town, or village must send excess revenues from traffic violations to the Director of the Department of Revenue ("Director") to be distributed annually to the schools of the county in the same manner other penalty proceeds are distributed from 30% to 20% beginning January 1, 2016, or the first day of the fiscal year immediately following for any municipality with a fiscal year start date other than January first. This act further reduces the threshold to 10% beginning January 1, 2017, or the first day of the fiscal year immediately following for any municipality with a fiscal year start date other than January first, except any fourth class city or village not within a first class county or charter county as defined on December 31, 2012 shall remain at 20%. This act also prohibits any municipality located in St. Louis County that participates in the sales tax pool under current law from receiving any amount of moneys to which the municipality would otherwise be entitled to the extent that the municipality receives more than proscribed percentage of its annual general operating revenue from traffic violations. Any excess amount of such sales tax revenue shall remain in the sales tax pool to be distributed to municipalities not prohibited from receiving the funds under this section. This act also requires that all revenue above five percent of a municipalities annual general operating revenue from fines, bond forfeitures and court costs for traffic violations occurring on the interstate highway system that would have otherwise been included in annual general operating revenue shall be sent to the Director for distribution to schools within the county in the same manner that all penalty proceeds are distributed. This act requires all cities, towns, and villages to submit an addendum with their annual financial report to the State Auditor with an accounting of total revenues from fines, bond forfeitures, and court costs for traffic violations and the percent of annual general operating revenue from traffic violations. This act also requires the State Auditor to notify any city, town, or village required to remit excess revenues to the Director that excess revenues must be remitted to the Director within sixty days and shall notify the Director of the same. This act also defines "annual general operating revenue" to be revenue that can be used to pay any bill or obligation of a city, town, or village, including certain taxes, but does not include revenue designated for a specific purpose, including expenditures for technological assistance in collecting, storing, and disseminating criminal history record information and facilitating criminal identification activities. This act adds bond forfeitures as a form of revenue in the calculation for the percentage of annual general operating revenue made up by traffic fines and court costs. If any city, town, or village is found to fail to send excess revenues to the Director, this act requires that any amount of moneys to which the city, town, or village is entitled to receive from local sales tax distributions must be turned over to the Director for distribution to schools within the county in the same manner that all penalty proceeds are distributed to the extent the municipality failed to remit excess revenues. If any city, town, or village is found to fail to send excess revenues to the Director, this act also requires an election automatically be held upon the question of disincorporation for such city, town, or village. The Director is required to notify the election authorities and the county governing body in which the city, town, or village is located of the election. The county governing body is required to give notice of the election for eight consecutive weeks prior to the election by publication. Upon the affirmative vote of sixty percent of those persons voting on the question, the county governing body is required to disincorporate the city, town, or village. This act is contains provisions similar to SB 50 (2015) and SB 141 (2013). MICHELA BIRK
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