Special Meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment – August 18, 2025
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Special Meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment – August 18, 2025
Note: The transcript provided for this summary states the meeting date as Wednesday, August 13, 2025, but the system timestamp indicates the meeting date is August 18, 2025. This summary uses the system-required date of August 18, 2025. No agenda or minutes were available for this meeting.
The Board of Estimate and Apportionment (Mayor Spencer, Controller Barringer, and President Green) convened a special meeting to approve two items: a bundled request for contracts and leases from various city departments (including amendments to MOUs and a tornado-related housing unit transfer), and the establishment of a Recovery Office with a budget and personnel schedule. Both items were passed unanimously.
Consent Calendar
- Item 1: Approval of contracts and leases from various city departments as listed in Exhibit A, including amendments to MOUs for Union Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church and the Urban League of St. Louis, and a CDA contract to facilitate the turnover of housing units for victims of the tornado. Adopted unanimously (3-0).
Discussion Items
- Item 2: Request from the Mayor’s office to approve the attached budget and personnel schedule for the Recovery Office within the Mayor’s office. The Mayor thanked the Board, the Budget Department, Controller Barringer, and President Green for their collaborative work over the preceding days. Controller Barringer noted that some of her suggestions were incorporated, and she expressed support for the office. President Green highlighted the need for a dedicated long‑term recovery effort. All speakers expressed appreciation for the work already done by Recovery Chief Julian Nix and volunteer Jim Hill. The item was approved unanimously (3-0).
Key Outcomes
- Both action items were approved unanimously (3-0).
- The Recovery Office was officially established to support long‑term recovery efforts from the tornado.
- No additional items were discussed; the meeting was adjourned.
Meeting Transcript
With that, I'd like to call the special meeting of the Board of Estimate apportionment for Wednesday, August 13th, 2025 to order. Ms. Davis, would you please call the roll? Mayor Spencer. Present. Controller Barringer. Present. President Green. Present. I'll approve it. Thank you, Ms. Davis. We have uh just two items uh presented for the first time today. The first is a request from the Comptroller's Office for an EA approval of contracts and leases from various city departments as listed in exhibit A. We have some amendments to some of the uh MOUs for Union Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, Urban League of St. Louis, and um uh a CDA contract that will allow us to do some turning over of housing units to make them available for um victims of the tornado. Um any discussion on uh item number one uh on the agenda. No discussion. I'll take a motion on item number one. I make a motion to adopt uh item number one. Second. Ms. Davis, would you please call the roll? Mayor Spencer. Aye. Controller Barringer. Aye. President Green. Aye. I'll approve. Okay, with that, um, we uh will move on to item number two. This is a request from the office of the mayor for approval of the attached budget and personnel schedule for the recovery office within the office of the mayor to support the recovery office staff. I have also included a letter here. Um I really want to thank uh members of the Board of EA for uh having this meeting, having some really thoughtful discussion, recognizing some concerns. Um I also want to thank the budget department um for working over the weekend and working over the last few days to make adjustments and make changes uh that we may need that we needed uh to get uh full fully vetting the concerns that we had. Um I want to say um, you know, um I'm really grateful for the leadership of of Julian Nix, who's heading up this recovery office, as well as Jim Hill, who's been volunteering uh in a major capacity, and all the folks that have been working on the tornado without this official uh designation. And not only that, the the department's uh comptroller Baringer, your office has been so incredibly uh supportive, and President Green, your office as well with staffing for everything from knocking doors to just be thinking through policies. Uh so while we're just now getting the uh recovery office uh uh situated, um, there has been just an enormous amount of work going into this uh prior to and leading up to that. Um and I want to thank the Board of ENA for having this uh discussion today. Um, with that, I will turn it over to discussion of item number two. Yeah, uh Madam Mayor, I'll just piggyback on everything you said. I think that um setting up the office of recovery really demonstrates to the public that the city is in this for the long haul, and that we recognize that we have to build our internal staffing and infrastructure to make sure that we can dedicate personnel to this for the long term, because we know that recovery is not going to unfortunately happen overnight. Um, and I'm really appreciative of the thoughtful conversations that have gone into figuring out exactly who needs to be in this and what positions we need, and um, and it gives me optimism for the recovery effort to know that we will have a dedicated office um to focus on this for the long term. So thank you and your staff for your uh work on this and the thoughtfulness, and and I'm excited to see this get stood up. Thank you, Madam President. Um I I I want to highlight, you know, too as well, Comptroller Barringer, your uh fiscal steadfastness and making sure that um we are uh being good shepherds of the taxpayer dollars and being cautious as we move through this. I know um, you know, uh we landed in a place that really incorporates some of your concerns, but also just making sure that we are uh being um excellent stewards of the taxpayer dollars in your office plays a vital role in making sure that we do that. Um and and um your voice um was very heard through this process. Um I want to thank you for your due diligence and having so many conversations over the last few days about it. Um thank you for uh being such a good uh steward of the taxpayers uh dollars.
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