Advocates for a St. Louis County quarter-cent sales tax that would create an annual fund for children’s crisis and wellness programs are holding a press conference tomorrow to celebrate the go-ahead by the county election board to put the proposal on the November ballot.

If approved by voters, Proposition 1 would raise approximately $40 million a year to help fund child abuse, neglect, substance abuse and mental health prevention and support programs for youth. St. Louis County is one of the last Missouri counties in the region to approve such a sales tax.

Putting Kids First, a consortium of health and human services agencies in the region, is the backer of the proposition. The group undertook a summer-long petition drive to gain the needed 43,324 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot – the first county-wide ballot petition drive since the 1950s.

The group chose not to directly ask the St. Louis County Council to consider the tax hike. The council could have voted to put it on the ballot with a super majority. Volunteers with Putting Kids First turned in 58,738 petition signatures to the St. Louis County of Board of Elections, which then certified 43,976 of them.

The 9 a.m. press conference in Clayton’s Shaw Park will feature speakers from several non-profit social services agencies as well as adoptive and foster parents.

There’s good reason for the pre-election fanfare: Proposition 1 is sharing the ballot with two other proposed tax increases, and voters in a tough economy may wonder whether they’ve got the appetite for three.

The other proposed increases are a half-cent increase in the transit sales tax to raise about $80 million annually for operations of the Metro public transportation system and future expansion of MetroLink light-rail trains and a 1.85-cent use tax on out-of-state purchases, expected to raise about $30 million annually for emergency radio gear, park improvements, job programs, and local government services.