Page 217 – Show-Me Institute

There’s a Bike Lane Around Here Somewhere

Posted on January 28, 2019January 13, 2026 by Kelvey Vander Hart

Do you need an example of the price we pay when we fail to look ahead? Look no further than Kansas City’s new parking protected bike lanes.

The three-mile route opened in August, running along Armour Boulevard in Midtown. Advocated for by groups such as BikeWalkKC, the $700,000 project was highly praised by both city officials and the media. However, the lack of foresight in planning these lanes quickly became evident.

Protected bike lanes, where bikers ride in between the curb and a row of parked cars, have the potential to help keep riders safer than they would be if they were in the main traffic lane, side-by-side with moving cars. According to a story from KSHB news, some residents have complained of extremely limited visibility when turning out of cross streets onto Armour Boulevard. But the same story noted that the Kansas City Police Department had not seen an increase in accidents along the road where the bike lanes were added, so cyclists and drivers seem to have been fortunate so far.

The onset of winter, however, has revealed another problem, as the lanes have been obstructed—first by large piles of leaves, and later by snow and ice, rendering them unsafe and almost unusable. Many bikers are using the popular neighborhood site Nextdoor to vent their frustration:

“I had to be in the middle of the street on Armour on my daily morning bike commute, which completely defeats the purpose of the bike lanes…Everyone seems to have a problem with these new bike lanes, myself included, and I’m a cyclist!”

The need to keep the new bike lanes cleared should hardly be a surprise. People continue to bike, whether to work or for fun, year-round – not just during the warm months. It takes only common sense to recognize that bike lanes, just like streets for motor vehicles, need maintenance and upkeep if they are to remain usable in bad weather. But as the picture above shows, there’s little evidence that bike lane got any attention after the snowfall earlier this month. (And yes, that snow-covered area just to the right of the row of cars really is the bike lane.)

No one wants to see cyclists put at risk, whether by motor-vehicle traffic or by treacherous bike paths. But spending over half a million dollars on a bike path—especially one that is rendered useless by bad weather—is hard to justify. According to a 2016 report from the League of American Bicyclists, only 0.4 percent of Kansas City commuters ride their bikes to work. I don’t know what fraction of those riders take this specific stretch of Armour Boulevard, but we aren’t talking about a large number of riders.

I hope that in the future, city leaders will think carefully about the benefits and costs, and the future obligations, that come with projects like the Armour Boulevard bike lanes.

Show-Me Institute Issues Brief Regarding “Pay to Stay”

Posted on January 23, 2019January 13, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

Recently the Columbia Missourian ran a story about jail bond bills—payments that defendants are required to make to cover their own incarceration in county jails. According to the story, only seven of Missouri’s 114 counties do not collect such funds. And a defendant who is unable to “pay to stay,” may be sentenced to longer jail terms with higher resulting board bills.

In effect, the counties are operating debtor’s prisons.

George Richey is one person who has had a run in with these board bills. According to the Missourian,

Of the $3,226 assessed to Richey in 2015, $3,150 is for board at $35 a day.

Almost 2 1/2 years later, Richey is still paying for that bill, with a balance of around $1,600 left as of May. That is, until he was hit with a new board bill in 2016 of an additional $2,275—the result of being jailed because he couldn’t fully pay the first bill.

Missouri is not alone in this practice. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, “as of 2015, at least 43 states authorize room and board fees and at least 35 states authorize medical fees to be charged to inmates in either state or county correctional facilities.”

Through his public defender, Richey filed suit against the state of Missouri seeking to end the practice, and Missouri’s Attorney General lent support to Richey’s effort, noting in an amicus brief filed with the Missouri Supreme Court, “De facto debtors’ prisons have no place in Missouri, and I am proud to stand up against a system that seeks to treat its poorer citizens as ATMs.”

Last week, the Show-Me Institute joined the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, the Fines & Fees Justice Center, the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and Fair and Just Prosecution in submitting an amicus curiae brief to the Missouri Supreme Court. The brief notes that the current system burdens both the individuals being fined as well as the courts, and that there are other, more effective ways to collect debt. The filing concludes:

Jail debt, when imposed on indigent individuals like Mr. Richey, is irrational, unjust, counterproductive, and likely unconstitutional. This Court should reverse the trial court’s denial of Mr. Richey’s motion to retax costs.

There are plenty of opportunities for criminal justice reform in Missouri, and we have written about many of them in the past. Often such reforms focus on how to maintain public safety while reducing costs to taxpayers. This effort, however, focuses on protecting the liberty of individuals from pernicious government. We hope the courts will agree.

State of the State Highlights Show-Me Research

Posted on January 23, 2019January 13, 2026 by Scott Tanner

In Governor Parson’s State of the State address last week, he touched on many topics that Show-Me Institute analysts have been writing about for years. A brief list of topics from the speech, accompanied by links to relevant writings from Show-Me Institute researchers, follows:

Workforce development wasn’t just mentioned in the speech—it was singled out as one of the two most important policy priorities moving forward. Patrick Ishmael has been out in front of this issue, writing on the importance of workforce development, particularly in the area of vocational training. Readers of this blog may also have seen posts by Emily Stahly on the potential for charter schools to help give Missouri a more skilled workforce, and by Abigail Burrola on how a focus on industry-recognized credentials could better prepare our high-school graduates for good jobs after graduation.
Infrastructure was the other issue designated as a top priority, particularly the pressing need to fund necessary repairs and improvements to Missouri’s highway system. Back in 2016, Joe Miller wrote a comprehensive paper on options for funding the Missouri Department of Transportation. More recently, Graham Renz and Patrick Tuohey have advocated for user fees as the best way to fund our state’s transportation needs, whether through a gas tax or some form of tolling.
The Governor noted the drain on the state’s finances caused by Missouri’s high incarceration rate and his desire to avoid building more prisons. Ways to help keep prison populations down include reform of laws governing mandatory minimum sentencing and efforts to help ex-offenders enter the workforce, as Patrick Tuohey has written.
The need to control the growth in the cost of the state’s Medicaid program was also discussed. Elias Tsapelas has not only written on this topic, but has also looked at measures being taken in other states to address the problem

Even topics mentioned only in passing during the speech have been covered by Show-Me Institute analysts, including telemedicine, tax credit reform, and educational challenges facing children with autism and other disabilities.

It’s encouraging to hear that so many long-overdue reforms may be on the docket during the current legislative session. As we watch to see if 2019 will bring important changes to Missouri policy, we’ll continue to research and advocate free-market solutions that will help move our state forward.

When Students Aren’t Proficient Readers, Education Savings Accounts Can Help

Posted on January 22, 2019January 13, 2026 by Abigail Burrola

For students just beginning elementary school, starting off on the wrong foot can have big consequences. Unfortunately, many Missouri students very quickly fall behind on basic but critical skills such as reading. In 2017, 38 percent of third-grade students scored at basic or below-basic proficiency in English Language Arts on the state’s standardized test, the Missouri Academic Performance (MAP) exam.

Pre-filed legislation in the Missouri Senate would mandate that public schools create an intervention plan for students in kindergarten through fourth grade not reading at grade level. The bill would have districts formulate programs for these interventions. While this could be a step in the right direction, there are better ways to address the problem.

One option would be implementing Reading Scholarship Accounts (RSAs). In 2018, Florida started offering RSAs, a type of education savings account (ESA). Florida’s RSA program awards scholarships of $500 to students in grades 3 through 5 who are not reading at grade level, according to the student’s state standardized test results. Students can put their scholarship toward curriculum, instructional materials, fees for reading and literacy programs, or part-time tutoring services. While families can choose from a list of different types of providers and services, teachers can also choose to tutor students. Teachers thus can earn extra income as students receive reading support. Florida’s model supports students’ academic needs, and Missouri could benefit from a similar approach.

RSAs are yet another example of how ESAs can help support the specialized needs of specific groups of students. If Missouri were to implement a similar policy and provide ESAs for its students reading below grade level, students and their parents could choose the type of academic support that works best for them, helping them stay on the right trajectory.

Patrick Tuohey discusses KC Airport on KCPT’s Ruckus

Posted on January 18, 2019December 16, 2025 by Patrick Tuohey

On January 18, Show-Me Institute Director of Municipal Policy Patrick Tuohey appeared on Kansas City Public Television’s Ruckus to discuss the new KCI terminal and other local issues.

Zoned

Posted on January 17, 2019January 13, 2026 by Susan Pendergrass

What if the choices we make for our health care were governed by the same rules that control the choices we make regarding the education of our children? How would we react to being told that our son or daughter couldn’t be treated by a specialist who practiced a few blocks away, on the other side of an arbitrary “health care district” line? A new video explores this scenario and highlights the absurdity of restricting educational options for children by sending them to schools based on where they live rather than what they need. Click above to see the video or find it on Twitter at #schoolchoice.

There Is Not a Teacher Retention Crisis in Missouri

Posted on January 16, 2019January 13, 2026 by James V. Shuls

I wasn’t able to attend the recent meeting for the Missouri State Board of Education, but from what I can gather from Twitter, an alleged teacher retention crisis was a major topic of conversation. In his report to the board, Paul Katnik, assistant commissioner in the Office of Educator Quality, cited some alarming figures. Board member Vic Lenz reportedly said it is going to take a collaborative effort among all stakeholders to address the issue of teacher recruitment and retention.

There certainly is a problem, but it isn’t what you may think. The problem is misunderstanding.

Katnik was relying on a DESE report to the Missouri General Assembly in December 2018. The report lists turnover figures which could easily be mistaken for statewide turnover numbers. Check out the table below.

In the report, DESE claims that the three-year teacher retention rate for teachers starting in 2015-16 was just 63.4%. This number drops to a shocking 34.6% for the five-year retention rate of teachers starting in 2014-15. To the casual observer, the takeaway is that only roughly a third of our teachers are staying in the profession. What’s worse, these numbers seem to be going down over time. In other words, teacher retention appears to be going from bad to worse.

But, that is not what this table is actually showing. The figures presented here are not retention in the field, but retention at the school/district level. In other words, if a teacher were to leave one district for another they would be counted as not being retained.

In this post, I use data provided by DESE to show the state retention rate of educators in Missouri. I limited the data to only individuals who appeared to be full-time employees in their start year.

In the figure below, I look at the cohort survival for new teachers beginning in 2000 and 2009. The teachers are tracked for nine years, all that was possible given the data. As you can see, retention rates for new teachers in 2000 and 2009 are almost identical. After nine years, nearly 45% are still in the education profession in Missouri. This is well-above DESE’s five-year estimate of retention.

These number more closely fit the percentage of teachers leaving the field in the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Attrition and Mobility study, which found roughly 7-8% of teachers leave the profession each year.

Looking at a shorter period of five years, I compare the retention rates for new teachers in 2000, 2009, and 2013 below. As this chart shows, the five-year cohort survival is getting better, not worse. For new teachers in 2013, over 65% were still in the profession after five years.

The numbers presented here are different than DESE’s numbers because we are measuring different things. They look at building level turnover. That is not the best way to measure a state’s health in teacher retention. We have over 500 school districts, and we should expect some movement of teachers among the districts. People move, their spouses get jobs elsewhere, and they seek higher pay or job advancement. For all sorts of reasons, teachers change schools. That is not an indictment of the field and does not require state intervention.

Before the State Board of Education begins a massive collaborative effort to address the non-issue of a fictitious teacher retention crisis, they should look at all the facts. Whether you look at new teachers starting in 2000, 2009, or 2013, sixty percent or more are still in the profession in the state after five years.

We do not have a statewide epidemic, but many individual school districts may have teacher retention problems. And, just as these problems are local, they will in most cases require local solutions, not broad statewide policies.

New Year, New Sales Taxes

Posted on January 14, 2019January 13, 2026 by Graham Renz

By now it shouldn’t surprise us. As we head into the new year, governments across Missouri are getting ready to collect more in sales taxes.

Over the past eight or so years, the number of distinct sales tax jurisdictions in Missouri has grown by more than 9 percent—a total of 199 new jurisdictions created. This growth is caused by several factors, but mostly by new and overlapping special taxing districts, such as ambulance districts, levee districts, and, most prominently, transportation development districts (TDDs) and community improvement districts (CIDs). These districts are formed to collect sales and other taxes to fund various improvements and services. Unfortunately, TDDs and CIDs usually just help pad developers’ bottom lines.

Source: Missouri Department of Revenue, Sales/Use Tax Rate Tables, numerous years.

As the figure above shows, with the increase in sales tax jurisdictions comes an increase in the average sales tax rate. This means that as more and more jurisdictions come on the scene, taxpayers cough up more and more money.

However, just because the average sales tax rate has been on the rise, it doesn’t necessarily mean all Missourians are paying more in sales taxes. As noted above, the driving force behind the rate increases has been the creation and overlapping of special taxing districts, which usually encompass relatively limited geographic areas. And although the TDDs and CIDs that are driving the rate growth are all over the state, about two-thirds are in the St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas, where much of the state’s population lives. So, overall, even if some Missourians are not significantly affected by the recent rate increases, many are.

Unfortunately, as things stand there is little taxpayers can do to curb the state’s sales tax rate growth. That’s because many if not most TDD and CID taxes can be established without the approval of the general public. These districts can be formed by property owners—often developers—meaning the taxpaying public has no say in whether the rate hikes become law. Real reform would have to come in the form of significant changes to the laws governing TDDs and CIDs. So, as the new year gets going and the legislature meets in Jefferson City, lawmakers keen on lowering (regressive) taxes should take some time to think about redesigning the laws that allow these districts to be established.

Kansas City and St. Louis Increasingly in Debt

Posted on January 10, 2019January 13, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

In June 2013, the Show-Me Institute published a paper comparing St. Louis and Kansas City’s expenses with six peer cities. One of the expenditures compared was debt service per capita. For Missouri’s two biggest cities, debt was high then and has only gotten higher since. In an upcoming paper by Show-Me Institute analyst Elias Tsapelas, we revisit those numbers. The chart below shows just the spending on debt.

Kansas City’s and St. Louis’s debt service per person were the highest of the cities we studied a few years ago and remain the highest today, despite some dramatic increases in debt in Louisville and Denver. Tulsa and Indianapolis actually reduced their per capita debt payments!

For Kansas City, debt service spending rose from $296.24 per person in 2011 to $322.90 in 2017. St. Louis’s numbers rose from $328.15 to $369.33 in the same time period. Long-time readers of this blog shouldn’t be surprised; we pointed this out almost two years ago when Kansas City and St. Louis ranked 101st and 112th out of 166 cities in a study of financial health by the California Policy Center. Nor should it surprise Kansas City’s leaders. As we wrote at the time,

The Mayor’s own Citizens Commission on Municipal Revenue 2012 report cites high debt as a problem and offers, “Because current debt levels are high compared to peer cities, the impact on the City’s credit rating from issuing additional and significant levels of debt must be of primary concern.”

As Kansas City approaches a mayoral election and St. Louis yet again ponders subsidizing a sports stadium for wealthy would-be owners, city leaders need to focus on long term financial sustainability and stop buying expensive municipal baubles on taxpayer credit.

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.