Thompson's First 100 Days In Office

Governor Jay Nixon appointed Mavis T. Thompson, Esq. as License Collector for the City of St. Louis on October 11, 2013. Ms. Thompson has hit the ground running, taking immediate steps that ultimately will ensure that the Office will continue to provide the kind of services required in a world-class city such as St. Louis. In the First 100 Days in office, Ms. Thompson and her Administration have made community outreach and public input a high priority. Within weeks of assuming her duties she convened the first in a series of briefings on the Affordable Care Act and its impact on Small Business. Additionally, she has attended more than 30 community events and meetings to explain the business license process. Ms. Thompson and her Administration have advanced a proactive agenda focused on four key areas, while streamlining the licensing process;generating revenue and staying abreast of the urgent and emerging issues that impact businesses.

Top Four Priorities of First 100 Days

1.  Keep businesses in the City
2. Attract new businesses into City by streamlining the license process
3. Improve communications with other City offices that impact the license process
4. Bring rogue businesses into compliance with the City's license requirement

Major Accomplishments with in the First 100 Days

Public Briefings: Launched an effort to assist business leaders' awareness of the current issues of the day by convening regular briefings related to business topics. Ms. Thompson convened the first briefing on the impact of the Affordable Health Care Act on Small Business.

Employee Development: Implemented cross training of office employees to ensure that each is knowledgeable of the processes of the entire office. This will ensure that services are provided in a timely and efficient manner and that customer wait times are decreased.

Office Accessibility: Developed Multi-lingual informational literature to accommodate the evolving demographics of the City.

Office Resources: Recycled labels/documents/envelopes, previously used by the office to generate budget savings and to reduce the carbon footprint of the License Collector's office.

Problem Solving on Urgent and Emerging Issues

New Initiatives:Conducting an extensive analysis of every office department to increase efficiency and effectiveness;to improve customer service and generate budget savings. Ms. Thompson has appointed a Compliance Team who will focus on making every department more efficient by conducting a day- to- day review of office policies, procedures and practices. Additionally, the License Collector's office is reviewing a backlog of applications for business licenses to determine the reason(s) for its pending status. Furthermore, Ms. Thompson has designed a decal for businesses to display indicating current compliance status.

Public Awareness of Office Services: Increased public awareness of the services of the License Collectors' office and its requirements by meeting with business owners;business associations;elected officials and attending community meetings.

Business Closure Policy: Developed a comprehensive closure policy to close businesses that fail to comply with the City's licensing requirement.

Resolution of pending litigation: Ms. Thompson and her Administration in collaboration with the City Counselor's Office, has resolved by settlement, pending litigation regarding delinquent business taxes owed.

Collaborative efforts: Engaging in cooperative effort with the Collector of Revenue, the Police Department and the Building Division to establish a joint task force to bring into compliance rogue businesses that operate without a business license. Ms. Thompson is also working with Special Business Districts (SBD) to bring businesses that fail to comply with the requirements of the SBD into compliance.

Documents

• Thompson's First 100 Days In Office Report