For most of the past 30 years, the race for St. Louis comptroller, the city’s chief financial officer, has been a sleepy affair.
But this year, incumbent Darlene Green faces a stiff challenge from Donna Baringer, a former state representative and St. Louis alderwoman.
Green is touting her experience, while Baringer says it’s time for a change.
By most measures, the City of St. Louis is in better financial shape than when Mayor Freeman Bosley elevated Green to comptroller in October 1995.
Its credit rating has improved from junk bond status to A ratings or above, making it less expensive for the city to borrow money and a more attractive place for investors. It’s sitting on a rainy day fund of more than $150 million — money that could come in handy with state and federal resources under attack.
And that is why voters in St. Louis need to stay the course, Green told attendees at a candidate forum in south St. Louis in late March.
“This is not a job with on-the-job training,” she said. “And I truly believe that, especially at such a time as this. This is about your tax dollars and protecting your tax dollars.”
Green said she has used her experience to save the city money in other ways. When two inspectors working for the city’s building division came under scrutiny for possible corruption, she immediately stopped any future payments to companies that were connected to the inspectors.
“When you don't understand payouts, or when you don't understand what your job is, then you could be paying willy-nilly,” she said in February during an appearance on Politically Speaking.
But 30 years is a long time in office, and Green’s challenger said some needs are falling through the cracks.
Some members of the Board of Aldermen only found out that the earnings tax had not been automatically deducted from their paychecks when they went to file for office, Baringer said. There were also problems withholding dues for the St. Louis Police Officers Association. And the comptroller’s office is still trying to work out the kinks of new financial management software.
“That's the kind of thing we can't afford to happen anymore,” she said. "It's all these little things that are happening.”
The office has a lot of moving parts, Baringer said, and is “understaffed and overworked.”
“I consider the position administrative, and it needs a leader,” Baringer told the crowd at that south St. Louis forum. “Showing up for work, making sure that you know all your employees, you take good care of your employees, you pay your employees well, and you have experts around you is key, and that's what a good leader does.”
Vacancies are not uncommon in city government — there are currently about 20 open positions in the comptroller’s office.
Baringer promised more transparency if elected, such as making the contracts voted on by the fiscal oversight body, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, publicly available before the meetings. She also wants to bring technology like electronic document signing to the office.
And while she does not have accounting experience, she said she learned her way around financial documents at City Hall and in Jefferson City.
Her message of change held some appeal to voters in March. Baringer narrowly won the primary, and a third candidate got about 8,000 votes.
The grind of campaigning
With just a few days left before the election, both women are out on the campaign trail. Most of Green’s appearances have been at neighborhood forums, with the occasional rally or fish fry. She’s relying on surrogates to knock on doors — like the members and employees of Service Employees International Union Local 1.
About a half-dozen gathered on March 22 at the union’s headquarters in Clifton Heights to get their marching orders from Rhiannon Druyea, the executive director of the Missouri-Kansas State Council.
The union can trust Green to make sure that the city signs contracts with responsible companies that will treat their workers well and pay them fairly, Druyea said.
“We need people who are going to stand up for workers,” she added.
SEIU organizer Mia King, an organizer, and James Butler, a 25-year member of the union, were assigned to voters in the Carondelet neighborhood, in the city’s 1st Ward.
Baringer beat Green in the south St. Louis enclave by about 500 votes, and the results of the canvass were mixed. A lot of people weren't home. Many who answered the door were firmly for Green. Others, like Clyde Ragland, were concerned about her long tenure in office.
“I’m open to hearing what you have to say,” he told King and Butler, “but when people are in the same leadership position for too long, things start to go bad almost universally.”
He told the two that it was good to know Green had the support of the union. Another voter, upon hearing that the union was backing Green, told King and Butler that they could probably count on her vote.
SEIU has always encouraged a vote for Green while it canvasses for other candidates, but it has been a long time since its members have had to knock on doors for Green specifically. Her most competitive race was in 1996, when she beat former Board of Aldermen President Jim Shrewsbury by 4,000 votes. She’s faced little to no opposition since.
King isn’t worried.
“[Green] was so close in the primary without running this kind of campaign,” she said. “That’s why we feel it is important that we do get out and have these conversations to push that over the top.”
While most of the local unions are backing a friendly incumbent in Green, Baringer has the support of Celeste Metcalf, the third candidate in the March primary.
“I am asking you to support Donna Baringer, as I am endorsing her,” Metcalf told a dozen or so of her supporters who gathered at the now-shuttered Rouge Bistro in Midtown for a meet-and-greet with Baringer on March 23. “We share similar objectives. We want to see this city grow. We want to see the city prosper. We want transparency. We both have integrity and honesty and objectivity at the core of what we do."
In a race as tight as the comptroller’s, every vote will count. And Metcalf’s exhortation was persuasive to a few attendees. One who cannot vote for Baringer because he lives in St. Louis County wrote her a check instead. Developer Kevin Bryant walked away from an encounter with Baringer about 90% persuaded to support her next week.
Bryant has millions' worth of development planned just north of the Central West End. Green, he said, is holding up the financing needed to complete the project. And while he has supported the incumbent in the past, “You have to say all right, I have to think about what’s best for the project and what’s best for the city.”
A spokesperson for Green said the comptroller is abiding by a long-standing policy not to put the full faith and credit of the city behind Tax Increment Financing notes issued to developers – something Bryant says he needs to complete the project.
The finances
Though Green had more cash on hand than Baringer throughout most of the election cycle, the challenger dominated in fundraising. Recent campaign finance reports showed Baringer took in about $130,000 between October and late March, while Green raised about $41,000 over the same period. A political action committee supporting Green brought in another $20,000.
The race has caught the attention of a new PAC, 71 Percent, that’s funded mostly by conservative Democrats and business leaders. The group has thrown its support behind Cara Spencer in the mayoral race and is targeting Green.
As often happens in St. Louis, race is coming into play. With Spencer heavily favored to win, a Baringer victory would mean the Board of Estimate and Apportionment would have three white members for the first time since the late 1980s.
“An all white E&A would not be representative of our city,” its third member, Board of Aldermen President Megan Green, said in a post on Facebook.
Early voting is already underway. Polls open at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
