St. Louis, MO  (KTRS)  Data in a new study points to large annual costs and excessive municipal regulations in the St. Louis region.

This comes from the first of a series of reports released Monday by Better Together. In 2014, St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and the ninety municipal governments in St. Louis County spent $281,078,709 on general administration. Per capita, a resident of the St. Louis region paid $213.16 solely for general administration costs in 2014.

By way of comparison, Louisville-Jefferson County, which has 83 municipalities and a fully integrated regional government as of 2003, spent $95,913,714 on general administration in 2014. When spread over a population of 756,832, the cost of general administration cost per capita is $126.73, which is $86.43 or 41% less per capita than in the St. Louis region.

The full report is available online at www.bettertogetherstl.com.