Missouri education package establishes long-time priorities, stomping smaller bills

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
June 3, 2024

During Missouri’s 2024 legislative session, 338 bills addressing education were filed: a mix of proposals to change curriculum, increase funding, boost oversight and others.

The House appeared poised to expedite more K-12 legislation by forming a Special Committee on Education Reform in addition to its usual Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.

Chair of the existing education committee Rep. Brad Pollitt, a Republican from Sedalia, told The Independent that the beginning of session was “hot and heavy” for his bill dubbed open enrollment.

The bill, which sought to allow students to enroll in neighboring school districts that opt in to the program, passed the House for the fourth year in a row.

But soon, it was “radio silence,” as he describes it, for his bill.

Pollitt’s bill, like many others, died behind closed doors as lawmakers negotiated what would become just two education bills signed into law this year.

The vehicle

One of the themes among the few hundred bills filed on education was the expansion of tax-credit scholarships for private schools, a program called MOScholars in Missouri.

MOScholars allows taxpayers to donate up to half of their tax burden to scholarship-distributing nonprofits and get a refund come tax time. The nonprofits, who report to the State Treasurer’s Office, give the money to private schools they partner with. Currently, the program is only in the state’s most populated areas.

Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Republican from Manchester, proposed to open MOScholars statewide and allow wealthier families to qualify for the scholarships. He also sought to raise the cap on tax credits for the program.

When his bill made it to the Senate floor, Democrats held a lengthy filibuster, and negotiations began. The closed-door deal brought the originally 12-page bill to over 150 pages.

Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, was a key negotiator for Senate Democrats. She told The Independent that large education changes in Missouri seem to require an omnibus bill, and her job was about balancing policies her caucus favored with changes others demanded.

“I think as a result of this law, what our schools are capable of and the support we are giving our teachers will hopefully be better as a result of some of the changes we’ve made,” she said.

Her priority was changing the formula that funds public schools. A provision added in negotiations will change a multiplier in the formula to slowly switch from funding based on just attendance to splitting between attendance and enrollment. A study commissioned by the state’s education department last year recommended an enrollment-based funding model.

The change to 50% attendance and 50% enrollment is estimated to bring an additional $47 million annually to public education, according to the fiscal note.

“​​I am sure there were great bills that tackled smaller problems,” Arthur said. “But in terms of really trying to address some of the major issues, these were the right provisions to do that.”

Priorities

Pollitt was part of the negotiations, too. Although he has spent years refining his open-enrollment legislation, he knew it wouldn’t make it onto Koenig’s bill. He said his bill “wasn’t a priority on either side of the aisle.”

“The side of the aisle that I’m on wanted educational choice that was more extensive than open enrollment, and the other side of the aisle didn’t want any school choice necessarily,” he said.

He said Senate Democrats could stomach the expansion of MOScholars, since it was already available in Democratic areas, but wouldn’t sit down for a new program in their areas like he was proposing. Arthur confirmed this to be true, adding that the new law’s expansion of charter schools into Boone County was unfavorable but was a long-time priority for Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden — a Republican from Columbia who has announced his retirement from state politics.

When the House was ready to debate Koenig’s bill on the floor (now loaded with the caucuses’ priorities), movement on other K-12 education bills stopped. Some of the bills didn’t move because they were completely incorporated into the larger education package, but others lacked support.

​​“In order to move that big bill, there was a lot of political capital spent on that,” Sen. Jill Carter, a Granby Republican, told The Independent.

She attempted to place her educational priority onto the bill after Senate leaders had completed negotiations and distributed the thick stacks of the legislation.

Her bill sought to remove school accreditation authority from the state’s education department by allowing school districts to use nationally recognized accrediting agencies instead. It also proposed replacing the Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP test, with a summative assessment “that meets federal requirements.”

The legislation received bipartisan support in committee and passed unanimously, but the committee’s vote was never reported on the Senate floor — a step required to come up for debate.

When she attempted to add it as an amendment to Koenig’s bill post-negotiations, she was advised against unbalancing the education package.

Sen. Curtis Trent, a Springfield Republican, told her the bill was “highly negotiated.” He had filed a bill that also sought to change the way school accreditation is done in Missouri, though his approach focused on performance and growth scores. His proposal would focus more on standardized testing, whereas Carter’s had a decentralized approach.

“This is a highly crafted, highly balanced, fine-tuned piece of legislation,” Trent said on the Senate floor. “Inserting it like this in the 11th hour… risks derailing this very important piece of legislation in a way that I don’t believe is fair to the underlying bill sponsor and everyone involved in the process.”

He indicated that he had an amendment to Carter’s legislation, and she withdrew her bill.

Arthur said she didn’t see enough support behind Carter’s bill, so it wasn’t likely to pass.

Both Carter and Pollitt are planning to refile their legislation.

Arthur, who has termed out of the Senate, said she recommends watching how new laws affect education before passing more large changes.

“(Koenig’s bill) is a major education omnibus bill, and it contains a lot of provisions that can shape and reshape education in Missouri,” she said. “I would recommend that the legislature let those things get fully implemented and see how they’re working before moving forward with anything else as substantial.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Legislative interns help Missouri school districts claim over $1 million in federal funds

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
May 21, 2024

In March, the phone in state Rep. Deb Lavender’s office in Jefferson City started ringing constantly, but the calls weren’t for her.

They were for her interns, Santino Bono and Alanna Nguyen.

The interns, along with Dylan Powers Cody, who was interning for state Rep. Peter Merideth, had spent months cross-checking spreadsheets to pinpoint school districts who had not yet claimed pandemic-era federal funds for homeless students.

Those federal dollars are part of the American Rescue Plan and must be budgeted by September. A large part of the interns’ project was calling districts to notify them that they had money that could expire if they didn’t act quickly.

The office got so many calls back from schools about the interns’ project that Lavender’s legislative assistant needed to create a voicemail folder just for them.

So far, they helped districts claim $1.15 million in funds in four months that can be used for a range of services for homeless students — from buying washers and dryers to temporary hotel stays and transit cards.

“We had multiple school districts call back and say, ‘We have twenty grand in the bank that we can use to help homeless students? No one really told us,’” Bono said in an interview with The Independent.

Most of the districts the interns reached had no idea they had funding available, Nguyen said.

“Then, they wanted more information on it,” she said. “Once they got the information on it, they were able to kind of kickstart it up and get things moving along.”

Bono expected the internship might be more menial, including the “intern trope of having to get coffee for people,” he said.

“To know that I could have potentially a much bigger impact on actual students, as a student myself, I’m really proud of that,” Bono said.

Missouri received an infusion of $9.6 million in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for students experiencing homelessness, and schools were able to start using it in 2022.

But many of those schools had never received federal dollars to support homeless students before.

Tera Bock, director of homeless education for Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the agency alerted school districts to the funding but that several challenges emerged.

“It is not funding that most districts are used to having, so they usually are supporting their students experiencing homelessness without any funding specific to that,” she said. “The extra funding creates the need for a shift in mindset as far as what they provide for those students.”

School districts have until the end of September to budget the remaining $6.1 million or lose out on it. 

Most schools received a few thousands dollars in federal aid for homeless students. The largest allocation, based on its homeless student population, went to St. Louis City which received $850,000.

The funding is best used for one-time costs, Bock said, like a vehicle to transport students with housing insecurity or to meet emergency needs.

“The district should really consider how they can use it in a way that is not going to create a financial burden in the future whenever they don’t have the funds anymore,” Bock said.

She said rural districts with a smaller population of students experiencing homelessness are the most likely to struggle to spend the money.

Bock has been in her role for a couple months, and the position was vacant briefly.

Part of her job is to contact each district’s homeless liaison, a position every district is federally required to have. But sometimes, the liaisons have multiple positions in schools, and Bock doesn’t hear back from them.

“Especially in the districts where they don’t typically see a large population of homeless students, they get multiple roles, and it just gets lost in the shuffle,” she said.

“We don’t have very many (districts) here in Missouri where that person is completely designated as their entire job for the most part,” she said. “They are wearing lots of different hats.”

Bock said she sends “lots of communication,” so “they should be aware” of the funds but wonders if liaisons are properly connected to district administration to get the money budgeted.

With more communication and activities planned, Bock is not concerned about being able to get more money claimed by districts.

“This is definitely a big piece of what I’m working on right now,” she said. “And our sights are set on Sept. 30.” 

Bock said the interns were “super helpful” in the process.

“There has been good communication whenever they need some backup information to support questions that are coming up,” she said. “So they’ve been great to work with.”

The interns are hopeful schools will continue allocating the funds.

“There’s still a lot to be done by September and session’s ending,” Bono said. “I’m going off to law school. I can’t keep calling school districts. So we’re just hoping that more awareness can be given to school districts to kind of get them to keep working towards this.”

Lavender said the funds might look modest in terms of the state’s overall budget but the impact on students is large. In Webster Groves, she said, the schools “got another $8,000 that I don’t think they knew was sitting there.”

Lavender’s legislative assistant Dustin Bax chimed in: “And $8,000 of backpacks, non-perishable foods, fuel cards — that goes a long way.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

House sends bill to governor renewing taxes critical to funding Missouri Medicaid

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
May 15, 2024

A set of medical provider taxes that fund a large portion of Missouri’s Medicaid program won quick approval Wednesday in the House, two weeks after it took 41 hours for the bill to pass in the state Senate.

The controversies that stalled the bill in the Senate received scant attention during Wednesday’s debate, except for being cited as an example of what to avoid in the future. The bill taxes hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes and ambulance services to raise about $1.3 billion for Medicaid services and leverage nearly $3 billion in federal matching funds for the $17 billion program.

“This shouldn’t be used as a hostage in a terrorist negotiation,” said House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat.

The renewal bill extends the taxes for five years, one of the longest sunsets since the tax was first enacted in 1991. Since then, the levies have been renewed 17 times, most recently for three years in 2021 during a special session.

For the second time, renewal of the taxes became enmeshed in the debates over abortion and whether Planned Parenthood can receive reimbursements for services covered by Medicaid. Members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus tried, and failed, to delay action on the provider taxes until a bill targeting Planned Parenthood was signed by Gov. Mike Parson and a proposal making it harder to pass a constitutional amendment is finished and set for a vote later this year.

Parson did sign the Planned Parenthood bill, but almost a week after the filibuster ended. And the record set by the Freedom Caucus, by holding the Senate floor for 41 hours, has been surpassed by Democrats this week as they block a vote on the constitutional majority changes.

As he asked for support, House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, a Carthage Republican, said the bill’s importance to financing Medicaid was the only issue to concern members.

The taxes, he said, “have become an integral part” of the Medicaid program and renewal “is very critical” to balancing the $51.7 billion budget passed last week 

The debate and 136-16 vote took about five minutes. Quade said there was no controversy in the House on the bill. 

“Most of us…  absolutely, desperately want this passed today,” she said.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Key lawmakers say Missouri budget talks close to completion as deadline approaches

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
May 8, 2024

The most difficult Missouri budget process in years entered the final 48 hours before the constitutional deadline for spending bills with no final agreement on how much the state should spend in the coming year.

Missouri House Republicans, who hold an overwhelming majority in the lower chamber, caucused behind closed doors Wednesday afternoon for about 30 minutes for a progress report from Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith. When he emerged, he said there are still several points of contention with the state Senate that need to be resolved.

“We are moving in a good direction,” said Smith, a Republican from Carthage running for state treasurer. “My priorities are the balanced budget, the bottom line, those types of things, and  as long as we can work within those parameters, working towards a solution, I think we’re in a good place right now.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough said the remaining differences were over the wording of restrictive provisions, some of which set maximum rates for services such as child care and others that are more general, including a provision penalizing cities that enact immigration sanctuary policies.

Hough, a Springfield Republican running for lieutenant governor, said he still expects to meet the 6 p.m. Friday deadline for spending bills.

“I don’t know what the timeframe is or I would tell you, but I think we’re gonna be in really good shape,” Hough said. “We’ll be in really good shape getting to the numbers that we all want to be at, like within the (consensus revenue estimate) and a healthy cash balance to carryover for next year.”

Throughout Wednesday, there was anticipation that the Senate budget debate was at hand. The Senate convened at 9:30 a.m., then quickly recessed until 2 p.m. with Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin saying the debate would commence “if the budget is ready.”

It was not ready when the chamber reconvened. After several hours of work on other bills, and another recess, the Senate adjourned for the night without action on any spending bill.

The chamber is scheduled to return at 9 a.m. At that time, there will be 33 hours left to complete spending bills.

This week’s negotiations began with significant differences between the House and Senate on how much to spend overall, whether to dip into the massive state surplus for ongoing programs and which of more than 300 earmarked items will make the final plan.

The House-passed budget spends $50.8 billion, including $14.9 billion in general revenue. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $53 billion spending package, with $15.7 billion in general revenue. In the budget proposed in January, Gov. Mike Parson called for $52.7 billion in spending, with $15 billion coming from general revenue.

If the regular process was being followed, the full Senate would have already debated the budget and this week would be the time for final negotiations in a formal bipartisan conference committee with members from both chambers.

Instead, the rapidly approaching deadline means Smith and Hough have been negotiating behind closed doors, keeping Republican leadership informed but leaving House Democrats complaining they have been frozen out.

Democrats have been told nothing about the negotiations between Hough and Smith, said state State Rep. Peter Merideth of St. Louis, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. 

“This is just one more step in what has been the least transparent budget process in my time here,” said Merideth, who joined the House in 2017.

Democrats complained during committee work that Smith delivered his plan late, with little time to go over the details before being forced to vote. Republicans knew going into the session that the budget would have to navigate through the political ambitions of key players and the stall tactics of the Senate Freedom Caucus, Merideth said.

“We’ve known from the time we were elected what the deadline was,” Merideth said. “They’ve known from the beginning how to get it there. And again, Republicans have failed to do that.”

The deadline, a week before the end of the session, has been in place since 1988. Only once, in 1997, have lawmakers missed that deadline and been forced to complete the budget in a special session.

This year, the deadline is looming despite efforts that began in December to prevent last-minute votes. House appropriations subcommittees began meeting Dec. 5. But instead of sending its proposals to the Senate before spring break in mid-March, the House completed its initial votes on April 3, almost a week later than it did so last year.

Factional warfare in the state Senate, including a 41-hour filibuster last week, means the Senate has yet to vote on any spending bills except one that provides $2.2 million to support a National Guard deployment to the Texas-Mexico border.

Hough has been responsive to House Democrats, Merideth said, but the lack of participation in budget talks means they will be forced to choose between voting for the bills to help meet the constitutional deadline or voting against them because of uncertainty about what is included.

“We’re all aware that we’re likely to have to vote on something that we don’t know the details of,” Merideth said. “And that’s not good government and I think any one of us would be justified in a no vote.”

Hough said the process isn’t very different from previous years, lacking only the formality of a conference committee.

“Essentially, we’ve been conferencing right since last week,” Hough said. “We just didn’t go through the show of a formal ‘let’s all sit down and show you this’ conference on all these differences.”

 A key point for Smith has been to set ongoing general revenue spending at or below expected revenue for the coming year. After more than two years of double-digit growth in revenues, receipts slowed last year.

Growth continued, but at the reduced rate of 2.7% in the year that ended June 30.

The consensus when the year began was that revenues would decline slightly in the current fiscal year and remain essentially flat the following year. 

Growth so far has defied that estimate, with revenues growing at 2.7% through April 30. If that rate is sustained until June 30, it would add about $500 million in unexpected revenue to the state’s coffers and again in the following year.

Despite slower growth, the surplus of all funds available to lawmakers has not declined considerably in the past year. The state had $6.4 billion on hand on April 30, down from $7.8 billion at the end of the 2023 fiscal year. That does not include $1.4 billion set aside for construction on Interstate 70 or $300 million in a fund for major construction at the state Capitol Building.

One way Smith got the House budget total for ongoing spending below the estimated revenue is by designating $807 million in the operating budget as one-time expenditures. The list includes big items, like $373.5 million for improvements on Interstate 44 and $100 million for low-traffic rural roads, as well as small ones, like $18,395 for operational expenses of the Agriculture Business Development Division in the Department of Agriculture.

Smith also designated the 2% boost his budget included for higher education institutions and about $14 million for public school transportation costs as one-time spending. That is a signal that the money may not be included in the following year’s budget.

“Sustainability is the name of the game for me this year,” Smith said. “We need to have a balanced budget and by that I mean we need to balance our expenditures, our ongoing expenditures within the revenue estimates.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Bills making it harder to amend state constitution proceed in Missouri House

by Anna Spoerre, Missouri Independent
April 3, 2024

Two bills seeking to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process advanced through the Missouri House this week. 

On Wednesday, legislation sponsored by Republican state Rep. John Black of Marshfield was approved on a 106-49 vote. The only Republican to vote against the measure was House Majority Leader Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit. 

Earlier in the week, a House committee approved a different version of the bill sponsored by state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman that the Senate passed last month. 

If either version is approved by both chambers, the question would go on the statewide ballot in either August or November.

Citizen-led initiative petitions currently require signatures from 8% of voters in five of the state’s eight congressional districts. To pass once on the ballot, a statewide vote of 50% plus one is required — a simple majority vote.

Both the House and Senate versions make the process harder, but in very different ways. 

The House joint resolution would:

The Senate joint resolution would: 

‘This is about reproductive freedom’

Last May, House Speaker Dean Plocher, a Republican from Des Peres, said his party anticipated an initiative petition to legalize abortionwould be brought forward and would pass. 

Since then, acampaign to legalize abortion to the point of fetal viability in Missouri has raised millions of dollars, most recently bringing in internationally-known model and Webster Groves native Karlie Kloss to campaign on their behalf.

Republicans in support of changing the initiative petition process have said their motivation is more wide-reaching than abortion and pre-dates the 2023 session, anti-abortion groups have been some of the main champions of the legislation.

But the bulk of Wednesday’s conversation centered on the most recent citizen-led amendment to pass.

In 2022, Missourians legalized recreational marijuana with53% of voters in favor of the amendment.

In that election, Black said, 15 counties carried the “yes” vote, arguing that urban voters “basically imposed their will on the rest of the state.”

Republicans in favor of changing the initiative petition process have repeatedly pointed to the length of the state constitution, which includes 134 amendments, as a reason for reform. 

State Rep. Robert Sauls, a Democrat from Independence, countered that only 19 of the amendments came from initiative petitions. The rest came from the General Assembly. 

“This idea that the constitution has gotten out of control, well look in the mirror,” Sauls said. “We’re the reason that it has. Not these 19 amendments that the people have put on.”

An analysis by The Independent found that under the concurrent majority standard, as few as 23% of voters could defeat a ballot measure. This was done by looking at the majority in the four districts with the fewest number of voters in 2020 and 2022.

“You want a minority to be able to block a majority,” said state Rep. Joe Adams, a Democrat from University City. “That is shameful.”

State Rep. Doug Richey, a Republican from Excelsior Springs, said with a simple majority, it’s possible for those leading initiative petition efforts to “ignore” congressional districts and still succeed. 

“That is a significant move to value the voices of people in the state of Missouri no matter where they happen to live,” Richey said. “No matter what their perspective is.” 

Reference to the current abortion initiative petition wasn’t raised until late in the debate by state Rep. Patty Lewis, a Democrat from Kansas City. 

“This is about reproductive freedom,” Lewis said. “And it’s about taking away our vote to restore reproductive freedom in the state of Missouri.”

In approving Black’s legislation on Wednesday, the House made little mention of the “ballot candy” written into the resolution. 

The ballot candy, which refers to provisions added to ballot measures in order to win over voters, has become a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats. In the proposed initiative petition bills, language has been included that would ask voters if they want to define legal voters as citizens of the US who live in Missouri and are registered to vote and whether they want to prohibit foreign entities from sponsoring initiative petitions.

Democrats argue the inclusion of the ballot candy is an attempt by Republicans to mislead voters and distract from the effort to weaken the initiative petition process. In the Senate, a 21-hour filibuster ended with Republicans agreeing to remove the ballot candy in exchange for Democrats allowing the bill to come up for a vote. 

The House restored the ballot candy at Coleman’s request, setting up a potential showdown in the Senate if the bill makes its way back to that chamber. 

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Missouri House again votes to cut corporate income taxes

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
March 27, 2024

The Missouri House sent a bill repealing the corporate income tax to the Senate on a party-line vote Wednesday, with Republicans saying it will boost economic growth and Democrats calling it a business giveaway.

The bill sponsored by state Rep. Travis Smith of Dora would cut the tax rate, currently 4%, to 3% on Jan. 1 and make another one percentage point cut each year until the tax is eliminated in 2028.

“When you reduce the corporate income tax you are helping workers more than anything else because the corporation is not going to be paying those taxes,” Smith said. “They’re putting it back in improving their facilities and paying wages.”

The corporate income tax is paid by larger companies with many stockholders. A fiscal note for the bill estimates it would reduce state revenues by at least $884 million when fully implemented. The state collected $13.2 billion in general revenue in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The bill passed on a 100-50 vote with Republicans voting for it and Democrats opposed. 

“We are one of the lowest corporate income tax states in the nation,” said state Rep. Joe Adams, a University City Democrat.

Legally, Adams noted, corporations are people with many of the same rights as humans.

“As people they should pay part of the freight for the operation of the government of this state,” Adams said.

Missouri’s corporate income tax for decades was 5%. In 1993, in a bill that increased revenue to pay for education needs, the tax was boosted to 6.25%. The rate was cut to 4% in 2018.

This is the second year in a row that the House has voted to cut the corporate tax. Last year, the House voted to cut the rate in half but the Senate did not go along. A similar bill is awaiting debate on the Senate. 

Lawmakers in the past 18 months have cut the top rate on income taxes and excluded Social Security and other retirement income from the state income tax. Those cuts, when fully in effect, will reduce annual revenue by more than $1 billion.

The state is sitting on one of its biggest surpluses in history, with about $6.4 billion on hand on Feb. 29. Revenues for the year, however, are lagging 1.45% behind collections for the previous fiscal year.

To soften the impact of repealing the tax, the bill also bars corporations holding state tax credits from claiming them against corporate tax liability in years after the rate is cut to zero. Smith said he received information from the Department of Revenue that there are $600 million to $700 million in outstanding tax credits that could be claimed by corporations.

“It just means no new tax credits will be given out and they will not renew the existing tax credits,” Smith said.

The fiscal note for the bill, however, reports that tax credit redemptions applied to corporate income taxes totaled $89.7 million in the most recent fiscal year and that redemptions would shift to other taxes if the corporate tax is repealed.

“Many of the state tax credits are allowed to be sold, transferred and assigned and it is assumed corporations would continue that practice,” the fiscal note states.

The corporate tax rate isn’t a priority for businesses, said Rep. Kemp Strickler, a Democrat from Lee’s Summit. Corporations want well-educated workers and access to materials and services, Strickler said.

“Is this a good return on investment?” Strickler asked. “Is that really helping or  is this just a giveaway?”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Missouri House to hold public hearing on governor’s $52.7 billion budget proposal

by Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
March 13, 2024

The first – and perhaps only – chance for the public to tell Missouri House members what they think of Gov. Mike Parson’s $52.7 billion budget proposal will be Thursday.

The timing is upsetting Democrats on the House Budget Committee, who said public input should have occurred weeks ago. Scheduling one hearing on all 17 spending bills for the day before lawmakers take a week-long spring break doesn’t allow for adequate deliberation, they argue.

“Because we are so far along in the process, for anything to change in the budget because of public testimony would be highly unusual,” said Rep. Deb Lavender, a Manchester Democrat who began pushing for hearings at the end of January.

At the hearing, Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith will reveal how he wants to change Parson’s spending plan. Votes on the budget will be held the week of March 25 with floor debate tentatively scheduled for the following week.

Smith defended the timing of the hearing. He’s heard from advocacy groups, other lawmakers and individuals in one-on-one meetings and will allow for more testimony after spring break if the Thursday hearing isn’t enough time for everyone who wants to speak, he said.

“If we had an objection or concern raised in my office about the opportunity to testify publicly, and the short notice about that, I would be open to making more time for that,” Smith said.

Parson’s budget includes raises for teachers, a 3% increase for higher education budget and childcare and funding to study improvements on Interstate 44. He’s also asking for a 3.2% pay raise for state workers, $1.5 billion in federal funds for broadband expansion and $314.7 million for new construction on college campuses.

The state is in a strong financial position. While the record surplus that has built up over the past three years is down from its peak of $8 billion, the treasury is holding $4.6 billion in surplus general revenue, with another $2 billion in funds that can be spent like general revenue. 

Surplus general revenue, under House rules, is off limits for budget committee members who want to push new or increased spending items. And Smith, who in past years has cut large sums from Parson’s spending plan, said he will do so again in his proposals coming tomorrow.

“I’m going to be looking to limit as much spending as I can and the management of general revenue certainly will be a part of the committee substitute process,” Smith said.

Smith has frustrated Democratic spending proposals in past years because they must cut in one place of the budget to increase spending on another line.

“I have no reason to think he hasn’t continued to excel at his skills to lock all of the money behind doors I don’t have access to,” Lavender said.

The timing of Thursday’s budget hearing isn’t unusual compared to past years, but it does represent a failure of an ambitious plan to move the budget along earlier in the year. House appropriations subcommittees began looking at department requests in December, with a stated goal of holding votes in the full House this week.

With factional fights tying up the Senate, timing could become critical. Lawmakers must pass spending bills through both chambers no later than May 10. Last year, the budget was finished only on the final day allowed by the constitution.

Members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of six conservative Republican senators, have vowed to debate the budget line-by-line on the Senate floor.

“That’s why they wanted to (finish earlier in the House) because everybody knows that there is a real risk that this has a problem in the Senate this year,” said state Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat. “And we may find ourselves in a special session for the budget.”

Smith, however, said he’s confident that the potential embarrassment of missing the constitutional deadline will help move the budget in the Senate.

“Everyone on all sides of the warring factions within the Missouri Senate agree broadly that we should finish the budget on time, that that’s our one responsibility,” Smith said “That’s my impression.So, I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to get things together well enough to pass the budget on time.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough said he will be rushed but will get a budget to the Senate floor in time to hold the debate if it proves lengthy.

“With the House taking the amount of time that they’ve taken,” Hough said, “it puts us in a little bit of a jam on the Senate. So we’ve got to work a little more feverishly than I would really like to once we get their bills.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.

Missouri House and Senate OK two plans making it harder for voters to amend the state constitution

by Meg Cunningham, The Beacon
February 22, 2024

The Republican-controlled Missouri House and Senate advanced two different proposals Thursday that would make it harder for voters to change the state constitution using a constitutional amendment.

The Senate passed a bill on a party-line vote that would dramaticallycrank up the difficulty of passing a constitutional amendment proposed by voters using an initiative petition process. The resolution would require a statewide majority — that’s already the rule — but also require majority support from five of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. That bill now awaits action from the House. 

Meanwhile, the House passed a bill backed by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft that would add restrictions onto the signature gathering process for initiative petitions. That bill is now in the Senate for consideration. 

Both moves come as the effort to place a constitutional amendment allowing abortions in Missouri ramps up. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group spearheading the effort, says it’s raised more than $3 million since launching the campaign. 

At least 13 states could vote on constitutional amendments regarding abortion in 2024. Ohio saw a similar effort unfold last year: Lawmakers there placed a question on an August 2023 ballot that asked voters to raise the voting threshold required for a constitutional amendment. Voters rejected that proposal and went on to pass a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution. 

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that the effort to raise the threshold was “100% about … abortion,” though he later walked his statement back and said the effort was about any effort looking to amend the Ohio Constitution. 

Senate backs tougher standard for passing constitutional amendments

Missouri has two ways to amend its state constitution. Legislators can propose a change subject to a statewide vote. Or voters can collect signatures to put a change up for a statewide vote.

On Thursday, senators passed a resolution that would require more voter support for constitutional amendments. 

The approval came after an overnight filibuster from Senate Democrats. They were blocking a vote on a version of the bill that coupled popular ideas with the effort to raise the amount of voter support needed to pass an amendment, known as “ballot candy.” 

The resolution, sponsored by Republican Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman of Jefferson County, who recently announced a bid for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District, originally included language that would bar non-Missouri residents or U.S. citizens from voting on constitutional amendments, something that is already illegal under Missouri law. 

It would have also prohibited foreign governments from financially supporting initiative petition efforts and placed a ban on constitutional amendments allowing lobbyist gifts to lawmakers. 

“There absolutely is ballot candy in the substitute,” Coleman said on the floor. 

After the filibuster and debate, Lee’s Summit Republican Sen. Mike Cierpiot offered an amendment that removed the extra language from the resolution. 

“This amendment is taking out all the things that we’re calling ballot candy today and just going back to this straight underlying amendment,” he said.

The amendment passed 18-12, with support from moderate Republicans.

In a press conference Thursday, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat, predicted House Republicans will work to get the ballot-candy language added back into the resolution. 

“It’s also finally nice that they’re saying it out loud of what they’re trying to do,” she said. “To deceive voters and put language in there that they specifically call candy because they know its intent.” 

Missouri House passes its own measure to restrict processes on signature gathering for constitutional amendments

The House on Thursday finalized a measure that would place a number of restrictions on signature-gathering efforts for constitutional amendments.

The proposal, sponsored by Pleasant Hill Republican Rep. Mike Haffner, would require the pages that voters sign to support a constitutional amendment to be issued by the secretary of state’s office. The bill would also require signatures to be recorded in black or dark ink. 

Signature gatherers would also be required to be residents of Missouri or physically present in Missouri for at least 30 consecutive days before collecting signatures. It would also ban paying people based on how many signatures they collect.

Haffner’s bill would also give the secretary of state and attorney general power to assess whether initiative petition efforts comply with the Missouri Constitution. 

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican running for governor, backs the measure. 

“These changes to statute will establish safeguards and enhance clarity and transparency in the process making it more efficient for Missourians,” Ashcroft said in a press release Thursday, adding that he will work closely with the General Assembly to finalize the bill. 

The Senate proposal is SJR 74. The House bill is HB 1749. 

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Open enrollment legislation wins initial approval in Missouri House

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
January 30, 2024

A bill that would allow students to enroll in neighboring school districts won initial approval in the Missouri House for the fourth year in a row Tuesday on an 83-69 vote. 

It is the first bill to be debated by the full House this legislative session. It must be approved one more time by the House before it is sent to the Senate for consideration. 

Bill sponsor Rep. Brad Pollitt, a Republican from Sedalia, described the proposal as “minor compared to what others want to do.”

“The status quo says the bill goes too far. The reform side says it doesn’t go far enough,” he said in his introduction of the bill.

A nearly identical bill narrowly passed the House in a 85-68 vote last year, just three more than a constitutional majority of the chamber. New to the legislation this year is the creation of an online portal that would track the number of students who have applied to enroll in accepting districts.

If passed, the legislation would allow students to leave their local school to enroll in districts that opt into the open enrollment. Districts are not required to add staff or programs, such as special education, for the program.

Transportation would be parents’ responsibility, unless the child qualifies for free or reduced lunch or has transportation under an individualized education plan. The bill calls for a fund to pay for bussing these students.

Pollitt placed a 3% cap on the number of students who can leave a district annually under open enrollment. He proposed a 1% cap for districts with a high number of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, describing it as a compromise for the Senate. 

He removed the 1% cap upon advice from a caucus policy committee.

Some worry that, without that provision, open enrollment could lead to resegregation in some areas.

Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Columbia Democrat, complimented Pollitt but said the lack of “diversity protections” and other negatives “outweigh the positives.”

“One of the concerns is that it’s going to create a slow drain for several schools and districts,” she said.

Rep. Marlene Terry, a St. Louis Democrat, said the legislation would “destroy (her) school.”

“We do agree that parents should have choices, but what I keep hearing is a better environment or a better education,” she said. “Until you can tell me how you’re going to fix the environment and the education in the public school system to where my children stay, I’m going to continually be against this bill.”

Rep. Barbara Phifer, a Democrat from St. Louis, described open enrollment as a “patch on a big problem.” The problem, she said, is unequal funding of public schools.

“We pretend that there is no school choice, but we have made an economic decision here in the state of Missouri that those who are wealthy get better education than those who are not wealthy,” Phifer said. “We can argue about that, and we can actually change the way that we fund public education so that we have more equity.”

Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat, said school funding was a timely topic. Earlier in the day, he had discussed the formula that determines state funding of public schools in the budget committee.

He said the state funding has lagged behind inflation. Wealthy communities’ local funding has allowed schools to be better equipped, and those without deep pockets may lose students under open enrollment.

Rep. Stephanie Hein, a Springfield Democrat, attempted to amend the bill to raise the base teacher pay to $46k statewide by the 2027-28 school year. The bill title would also change to “elementary and secondary education.”

Her attempt to change the title failed on a 44-109 party-line vote after Pollitt said it opened the bill “to anything else to do with public education.”

Pollitt said he was in favor of increasing teacher salaries but wanted his bill to stand alone.

Last year, Pollitt’s bill died waiting to come to the floor of the Senate. He told The Independent Senate leaders attached his legislation to a bill about teacher recruitment and retention in an attempt to avoid a filibuster.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.