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Hazelwood Gains Extra One Million Dollars From Cell Phone Companies
BY JEANETTE EBERLIN RIZZELLO
The Hazelwood City Council, at its meeting last week, clinched its rights to settlement of unpaid taxes by two major cellular telephone companies.
Final readings were given to two bills accepting settlement agreements with AT&T and Sprint Nextel and providing that a portion of the settlements be given to the St. Louis County Municipal League. The council had previously adopted an ordinance approving a settlement with Verizon.
The litigation and lawsuit situation between cell phone companies and municipalities in Missouri arose because for several years the cell phone companies had refused to pay taxes to municipalities. This changed when the Missouri Supreme Court nullified the statute that had favored the cell phone companies and now the municipalities are seeking back taxes.
The settlement agreement with AT&T allocates what is termed “total past tax consideration” of $488,956.44 to Hazelwood. In the agreement, Hazelwood granted $24,447 of this money to the St. Louis County Municipal League.
The agreement with Sprint Nextel is worded the same way and it grants $483,847.69 to the City of Hazelwood and the agreement also sends $24,192 to the county league.
Councilwoman Peg Lampert served as acting mayor protem at the meeting and in a discussion later she pointed out that a task force had been formed by the St. Louis County Municipal League and Hazelwood’s Director of Finance Donnie Burns will be a part of it.
When asked to explain the purpose of the task force, Burns said,”It’s purpose will be to review and insure that proper taxes are being paid under the law to municipalities. Also we will be asked to see if there are any problems in collection methods that are being used; it will be mostly with regard to cell phone companies’ revenues.”
She explained that the force will be composed of municipalities’ city managers, finance officers and some elected officials.
Lampert said, “These settlements are welcome and will allow the city of Hazelwood to make up some of the lost telecom revenues we have incurred. For the past two years cities have been seeking a fair settlement and equitable stable telecom revenue due to the large number of customers dropping land line service in favor of cell phones. Hazelwood relies heavily on sales tax and because of the staggering economy and other impacts like internet purchases and tax exempt items our revenue has taken a nosedive.”
Mayor T. R. Carr said “This settlement is the result of a lot of hard work by the staff and the members of the St. Louis County Municipal League.”
In other matters, the council honored five valued employees by giving them the “Employee of The Year” award. They are:
Ryan Counterman, Police Department
Randy Crump, Fire Department
Pam Reynolds, Parks and Recreation
Chris Thomas, City Hall
Daren Hamm, Maintenance Department.
In presenting the awards, Fire Chief Jim Matthies said, “We consider that all of our employees are excellent employees. But these are ‘the best of the best’.
“Those selected as Employee of the Year have consistency, dedication, loyalty and work ethics.”
They are nominatd by their piers, reviewed by a panel of supervisors and selected by a panel of employees at the end of the year, he explained.
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