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 from 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.