Chesterfield looks forward to changes that would end what it calls an outdated and inequitable sales tax sharing system in St. Louis County, a city statement said today.

The St. Louis County Municipal League has organized a task force on local sales taxes. The statement said the city expects the group "to find a solution to the problems caused by an outdated distribution scheme."

The task force appears balanced between representatives of point-of-sale and municipalities in a pool. Point-of-sale municipalities generally have shopping centers and other businesses that generate significant sales tax revenue. They keep sales tax revenue generated within their boundaries less an amount they share with a pool of all other municipalities and the county's unincorporated area. The sharing affects a one-cent countywide sales tax and a one-fourth cent local option sales tax.

Officials hope the task force would broker an agreement among municipalities that they could give to the Legislature. Lawmakers set the rules for the current sharing system.

Chesterfield is in the pool because it incorporated after the 1977 system started. It loses more than half the sales tax money collected in the city to other members of the pool, the statement said. Last year, the city generated $11.4 million in revenue from the one-cent countywide sales tax -- keeping $5.4 million and providing $6 million to the pool.

The city is losing "more and more of the revenue necessary to fund the services we provide," Mayor Bruce Geiger said in the statement.

"Many cities in St. Louis County do not benefit directly form the economic development they generate, while other cities benefit without adding to or improving the overall fiscal health of the county," the statement said.

Geiger added, "Chesterfield has become a regional economic generator, providing jobs to thousands of residents throughout our region and serving a growing population of those who shop or pass through our community daily."

In 1977, lawmakers established the system of point-of-sale and pool municipalities and voters approved it. The Legislature changed the system to its current form in 1993. The late County Executive George "Buzz" Westfall in late 1992 proposed that point-of-sale cities share money with pool ones and the two types of cities compromised on the current plan.

Under the system, point-of-sale sales cities give revenue to the pool depending how much more money they receive for each resident than pool cities. In an unusual move, the sharing formula is logarithmic rather than arithmatic.

Municipalities got an option to add a one-fourth cent sales tax which is shared on a less severe basis. Later, lawmakers set a sharing system for a capital improvement sales tax that is different than the countywide local one.

The one-cent tax generated nearly $140.9 million last year.