Rep. Justin Sparks, a Wildwood Republican, speaks in March 2023 during Missouri House debate (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).
As a new legislator in 2023, state Rep. Justin Sparks became the leading advocate for a proposal to create a child care facility serving employees of the St. Louis County Police Department.
A few months after lawmakers approved spending $6 million from federal COVID relief funds to create the center, Sparks took a job with the organization in charge of the project, the National Law Enforcement Foundation.
So far, the foundation, created in 2022, has used $3.7 million of the funding.
Sparks, a Republican from Wildwood who resigned form a job with the county police in 2022 to seek office, has recently faced some criticism over the earmark. There were no discussions prior to obtaining the appropriation about the possibility of a job, he said in an interview with The Independent.
“If it was true, it would be inappropriate, unethical, maybe even illegal,” Sparks said.
Instead, he said, he was approached because of his advocacy for the project and knowledge of the department.
“They knew I was going to be looking for work,” Sparks said. “And so they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re going to need somebody to help with the project. Would this be something you’d be interested in?’ I said, ‘of course, I need a job.’”
The National Law Enforcement Center did not respond to messages seeking comment on Sparks’ employment.
The new job is listed on his 2023 personal financial disclosure, filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, even though he says he received no pay that year.
“I received no compensation until 2024,” he said.
Sparks on Wednesday will attempt to do something that has not happened since 1996 — block the majority party’s nominee from winning election as speaker of the Missouri House. He is challenging state Rep. Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit, the Republican floor leader for the last two years, by launching attacks on Patterson’s fidelity to GOP priorities.
The campaign is raising Sparks’ statewide profile and putting his activities as a lawmaker under greater scrutiny. Obtaining the appropriation is one of his signature achievements, he said.
Sparks said critics of his campaign for speaker are trying to make people believe he was already in line for the job when the appropriation was added to the budget.
“Because it’s politics,” he said, “people can’t believe that you would do something without receiving compensation or some kind of benefit to yourself.”
The appropriation
In February 2023, Sparks sent an email to Joe Engler, chief of staff to House Budget Chairman Cody Smith, explaining what he wanted.
“I am asking for six million to be privately matched for a new child care program for St. Louis County Police employees,” Sparks wrote in the email obtained by The Independent through Missouri’s Sunshine Law. “These funds will provide for the purchase of an existing structure/facility and the first three years of service. The intent is for this to serve as a pilot program for statewide distribution after successful implementation.”
During budget deliberations in the Missouri House, the chairman holds the key position. After hearings on the governor’s recommendations, the chairman brings substitute bills to the committee, which are then debated and amended on their way to the floor.
Smith did not include Sparks’ request in his substitute for the bill that allocates funds to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which distributes child care funds. But Sparks found an ally, Republican state Rep. Bill Owen of Springfield, who asked for $3 million.
“What we’re doing here again is matching monies that are going to be forthcoming from the St Louis police officers foundation to help construct a child care center for first responders, and that’s the focus of it is for first responders,” Owen said during the March 2023 budget hearing.
The ranking Democrat on the committee at the time, state Rep. Peter Merideth of St. Louis, supported the amendment.
“If we find this model works better for them and maybe for other entities as well, we could keep funding this and not just with one-time money,” Merideth said.
The committee approved the $3 million amendment, using money from Missouri’s allocation of child care funding in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. The appropriation included a requirement for a 50% local match.
Another $3 million was added in the Senate, providing the full $6 million initially sought by Sparks. The money was reappropriated for this year’s budget, and $3.7 million has been spent so far.
Expanding the availability of child care has found bipartisan support in recent years. A study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found in 2021 that accessibility, quality and cost-related hurdles to child care force many Missouri parents out of the workforce or cause disruptions to their work, costing the state more than $1 billion annually.
An investigation in 2023 by The Independent and MuckRock found that about half of Missouri children live in locations classified as child care deserts, where there are more than three children ages 5 and under for every licensed child care slot.
And this year, for the third year in a row, supporters plan to push a bill providing tax credits to expand child care centers and encourage businesses to provide on-site child care. It has failed in the past two years due to opposition from members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus.
The email to Engler didn’t mention the National Law Enforcement Foundation, and Owen doesn’t remember Sparks stating that organization would be in charge of the project.
“Everything that I’m recalling right now, it was all about discussions with the St Louis Police Foundation,” Owen said.
The proposal made sense, Owen said, because it would support police officers, who often work unusual hours or longer-than-normal shifts.
“If you think about the people in that line of work, they never know when they’re going to get called in,” Owen said. “They don’t know when they might have to go way past their shift because of some issue that they are handling.”
Established in 2007, the St. Louis Police Foundation has a Board of Directors that includes leaders of the largest corporations in St. Louis. The foundation played no role in securing the appropriation, Michelle Craig, executive director of the St. Louis Police Foundation, said in an interview.
“We were not involved with the state appropriation portion of it,” she said.
Owen said he learned later in 2023 that Sparks had been hired by the National Law Enforcement Foundation. Sparks told him the foundation wanted to use Missouri appropriation as a model for other states and he was going to help in that effort.
If Sparks knew he could land a job if he obtained the appropriation “that would be a real conflict of interest,” Owen said. “And I would have told him that, but he never, at any point in time, said that. I don’t even think he ever even talked about them.”
The project
The appropriation language directed that the money was to be used “for start-up costs related to a new child care program…associated with a not-for-profit law enforcement organization…,” with geographic identifiers that placed it in St. Louis County.
Sparks said his role is overseeing the implementation of the project. He would not state the exact location of the space being renovated for the child care center, citing police security concerns.
“I go to all the meetings with St Louis County Police and help facilitate the different rules, stipulations and things from the law enforcement perspective,” Sparks said.
The National Law Enforcement Foundation has contracted with KinderCare, a national child care provider, to prepare the space and manage operations once it opens, he said.
“We will get the best employees and have a very secure facility that will be safe no matter what,” Sparks said. “It will be the safest childcare facility that you can ever imagine.”
The St. Louis Police Foundation was approached after the appropriation was secured to raise the matching funds, Craig said.
“We are involved in the project, and we’re excited about the project and our role in it, but it’s simply to help them close the private matching funding gap,” she said.
The project fits the foundation’s purpose, which is to provide support for the St. Louis county and city police departments, she said. The foundation tries to provide equipment, training and other support to help officers do their job that can’t be funded through the public budget.
“We provide certain protective equipment, technology, specialized training that’s not part of their curriculums,” Craig said. “We’ve bought dogs, we’ve bought horses, things that help the police officers police effectively, more efficiently and more safely.”
Now that he is working for the National Law Enforcement Foundation, Sparks said he will refrain from seeking new funding for its projects or voting on bills that include them.
“I will abstain,” he said, “from any votes or any activity regarding attempts to get any kind of financial benefit for the foundation.”
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