Film Tax Credits: The Campy-est Zombie Movie You Ever Did See

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Are you a fan of director George Romero's Living Dead work? Then let me pitch you a movie.

The scene: Jefferson City, at the state capitol. Government officials want to give taxpayer money to wealthy business interests so that they'll produce movies in the Show-Me state, even though they know it's a waste of funds. And then there's the twist! Imagine that this proposal kept dying, and then kept coming back year after year after year…

In other words, it's a zombie movie.

Scary, right? Well…

Missouri's film tax incentive program expired in 2013, but there are signs that film tax credits are coming back to life in the Show Me State. . . . HB 1645 has been introduced which would reinstate the film tax incentive program in Missouri. Under the bill, companies could get a credit of 20 percent for qualifying expenses, both in and out of the state. They would be able to get an additional 5 percent credit if at least 50 percent of the project were filmed in Missouri.

Our stance on economic development tax credits is pretty well-known; we would rather have market forces decide what a good investment is rather than have the government act as a sugar daddy for special interests. That rule of thumb for tax credits generally holds true for film tax credits, as well. Instead of paying for goodies for George Clooney, government should focus on, well, governing. Maintaining infrastructure. Protecting the public. Providing a stable and low-tax climate.

Also, not producing movies. Did I mention government shouldn't be producing movies? Good.

I appreciate that getting into the movie business sounds fun, but if Missouri policymakers want to act like directors, they should do it with their own money, not yours. Film tax credits are wasteful, and rather than be resurrected, they should stay dead in Missouri. Taxpayers don't need another terrible remake of this bad policy.

 

Kansas City’s Tech Inertia

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

In the State of the City speech in late March, Mayor Sly James outlined his vision for an innovation economy and boasted of the region’s “tech momentum,”

This new notoriety (from Google Fiber) and all the press and tweets that went with it gave us a new way to tell the Kansas City story, Tech entrepreneurs discovered that Kansas City was a great place to start up. They moved here just to plug in to Google Fiber and gigabit connectivity.

Well, maybe not. Google Fiber came to the Kansas City area in 2011, the same year Mayor James took office. Prior to that, information jobs in the region, according to the U.S. Census, had been sliding downward. The number of these jobs slipped from 52,000 in 2008 to 39,000 in 2011, a loss of one-quarter. Since then, the numbers through 2013 are pretty flat.

We don’t need to rely solely on Census data. The Show-Me Institute’s Joe Miller recently reviewed a study by the San Diego Economic Development Corporation that ranked cities based on the health of their tech scenes. Miller concluded that the tech industry in Saint Louis is “not a large player nationally, nor is it a terribly significant driver of,” the economy. The outlook for Kansas City is even worse. Of the country’s 50 largest metros, Kansas City ranked 34th, behind peer cities St. Louis (28th) and Oklahoma City (24th) but ahead of Louisville (39th).

Kansas City ranked even lower (42nd) for tech talent, a measure based on tech employee retention rates, percent of population with computer or math degrees, and the number of computer science degrees being awarded. The Mayor recognized as much in his remarks,

Our tech companies need more trained help—people who can manage the flow of information and data, write code, fix equipment and implement creative ideas. And lots of people in our city need jobs, or better-paying jobs to support their families.

While more recent Census data may show an uptick in information jobs and employers in the Kansas City region, for all the spending and talk of momentum and people moving to Kansas City “just to plug in,” the data suggest otherwise. 

Are Charter Schools Improving Integration in Saint Louis?

Posted on by James V. Shuls

Saint Louis Public School district (SLPS) made news this week when it announced that it was suing the Missouri Board of Education for $42 million in desegregation sales tax money. Officials in the district believe this money was improperly given to public charter schools in Saint Louis. The district contends desegregation money is exclusively for the district and should not follow the student to the school of their choice.

Some history is important here.  The District was first sued for maintaining an illegally segregated school district in 1972. An initial settlement to that case was reached in 1983 and created a voluntary inter-district transfer program that allowed African-American students in the district to transfer to districts in the county and white students from the county to transfer into the city if they so chose. Desegregation efforts in the district were largely supported by state aid. This changed in 1999, when a desegregation sales tax was passed to replace state funding.  SLPS is suing over these tax dollars.

I am not a lawyer, so I cannot evaluate the claims made by SLPS officials.  I can, however, examine what has happened in terms of integration. Have charter schools helped or hurt efforts to desegregate public schools St. Louis?

In 1991, 20.9 percent of all students in Saint Louis public schools were non-minority. That percentage has decreased steadily. In 1999, when the sales tax was passed, the first charter schools opened in Saint Louis. Charter schools are public schools and are financed by public dollars, but they are not operated by the district. In 2008, charter schools became their own local education agencies (LEAs). In essence, they became something like their own school districts at this point, though they are all located within the boundaries of the St. Louis Public School District and are open and free to all students in St. Louis.

Below, I highlight the percentage of non-minority students in Saint Louis public schools. The green line shows the percentage in all Saint Louis public schools, including public charter schools. The percentage was in decline for about 20 years, but has recently taken an upturn.   This upturn was caused by an increase in non-minority students in public charter schools.

Some might suggest that public charter schools are pulling white students away from the district because the district has continued to lose white students. The available data tracks district or school enrollment as a whole; without data on the individual student level, I cannot answer that question conclusively. We can see, however, that the large increase of non-minority students in charter schools far outpaces the decline of white students in the district post 2008. In other words, charter schools seem to be attracting white students who were not previously enrolled in the district.

The data here may not be able to answer the legal question regarding the desegregation sales tax, but they do suggest charter schools are actually helping, not hurting efforts to integrate public schools in the city of Saint Louis.

 

Shake-Up at KC Aviation Department

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

After first announcing that Kansas City’s Aviation Department Director Mark VanLoh was being “replaced,” The Kansas City Star reissued their story to say that he was retiring. This is surprising given that City officials may soon put before voters a billion-dollar proposal to build a new terminal. Suggesting that VanLoh was getting in the way of the plan, the story ended,

City officials have talked recently about trying to hold that election either in August or November of this year, and they said it was important to have airport leadership that the public trusts.

So in order to restore trust in the Aviation Department, city leaders have undertaken a nationwide search for a qualified and well-trusted airport administrator who will come in, clean house, and present to voters a new and more thoroughly considered airport plan. Right?

No. The Aviation Department will be led by Pat Klein, who, according to his LinkedIn page, has been a city employee for 20 years, but with no apparent experience leading an aviation department. According to that same Star piece, Klein will present to the Council and voters the same airport plan that VanLoh and Mayor James have been pushing.

If city leaders want to restore public trust in them and their policy proposals, they need to do more than merely swap out department heads.

Group of Mizzou Graduate Students Attempting to Unionize

Posted on by John Wright

A troubled Mizzou faces another challenge this week; a group of graduate students voted to unionize all of the grad students at Mizzou. The University has said it will not recognize the election, viewing the process as more of an informal “straw poll.” While this election may not be valid, the question of whether grad students can unionize will ultimately come down to whether or not these students are employees.

There are cases for both sides. Graduate students are Mizzou students working toward a post-graduate degree, such as a Master’s or PhD. Many graduate students also receive a stipend so they can focus on their scholarly duties. In addition, many grad students assist the university in teaching undergraduate students. If grad students are employees, this stipend is pay for the teaching assistance they provide.

If grad students successfully redefine themselves as employees, then they can unionize and collectively bargain. Through collective bargaining and the threat of collectively withholding labor, grad students might be able to force the university to pay them a larger stipend. If their effort is successful, this will be the first time that graduate students at a public university in Missouri have unionized.

Successful grad student unionization could turn out to be another headache for a university that’s already laying people off to cope with declining enrollment. This could affect everyone; Mizzou is a government institution, and taxpayers ultimately foot the bill.

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