Kansas City Government Union Embezzlement Shows Need for Greater Transparency

Posted on by John Wright

The former head of an AFSCME local representing Kansas City corrections officers pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud scheme this week. Lowell Wreh, the former AFSCME executive, admitted to embezzling $7,642 in checks from the union's bank account to himself and others for his own benefit and personal use. This story is an example of why Missouri government workers deserve the same transparency from their union representation that private sector union workers have enjoyed since the 1950s.

In 1959 Congress passed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), a powerful set of protections for unionized workers and a much-needed check on the power of union executives. Among other things, the LMRDA required all private sector unions to disclose their finances annually in what are called “LM filings.”

The impact of the LMRDA was huge. Although it didn’t fix everything, workers and journalists were better able to discover instances of self-dealing by looking through LM filings. In many cases this meant a better, more responsive union. The lack of secrecy in union finances is still helping workers hold their union leadership accountable.

Unfortunately, the LMRDA does not apply to Missouri’s government unions. As a result, public sector workers have no easy way of finding out where their dues go, which hinders their ability to question the use of these funds. Self-dealing schemes like the kind this AFSCME executive took part in become harder to uncover when union finances are not transparent.

Our public sector workers deserve the same level of protection that private sector workers have enjoyed for decades. It’s time to close the gap between the public and private sectors. Government unions should be at least as transparent as their private sector counterparts.

Kansas City’s Secret Streetcar Plan

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

American Public Square hosted a panel discussion at the Kansas City Public Library on January 20, and I was privileged to be included. No new new ground was broken: streetcars remain very expensive investments that do not effectively or efficiently move people where they want to go; and they certainly do not themselves contribute to economic development.

What was remarkable about the discussion is what was not said. Specifically, the representative of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, funded with taxpayer dollars, refuses to share its plans for a streetcar expansion campaign. Below is a transcript of the segment in which I repeatedly ask if KCTRA will make it's presentations public. You can see it thanks to a short, low quality Periscope video here (transcript starts at 1:53). 

Patrick Tuohey (Show-Me Institute): Your organization has made presentations on next steps, correct?

Dave Johnson (KCRTA): We’re talking to all kinds of people about things that are possible, especially using the transportation development district.

SMI: Will you share those plans publicly?

KCRTA: We’re talking to people about the Main Street corridor. That shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

SMI: So the presentation you made the Downtown Council, will you share that?

KCRTA: That is a presentation that just talks about extending the streetcar to UMKC. That’s what I’m telling you right now. Theres no secret.

SMI: …So the answer is yes, you’ll share it with us?

KCRTA: It’s got a lot of boring financials.

SMI: I would love to see the boring financials.

KCRTA: It’s the same financials you voted on in the expansion plan in 2014.

SMI: Do you commit to sharing the presentation you made the Downtown Council public?

KCRTA: We’re a simple non-profit so we don’t have to share that information.

SMI: I’m not saying that you have to share it with the public, I’m asking. Will you share that plan publicly?

KCRTA: No.

The KCRTA is funded with taxpayer dollars. Regardless of whether they are subject to disclosure laws, the KCRTA should immediately share with the public how they have been spending public money and what presentations they have about next steps. If they do not, the Mayor and City Council should demand they do so, or withhold all future contributions. Good public policy requires nothing less than complete transparency.

 

Downtown Saint Louis Restaurants: Coming or Going?

Posted on by Joseph Miller

With the recent closure of a number of downtown establishments (the most recent being Mike Shannon’s), local media are considering Saint Louis’s restaurant scene, especially in the city’s central business district (CBD). Some local politicians and restaurateurs are pointing the finger at Ballpark Village, accusing it of taking business and putting the nail in the coffin of local bars and restaurants. The Post-Dispatch interviewed other restaurateurs who took a more circumspect tone, claiming restaurant industry growth is strong and blaming closures on changing tastes. But what do the data show?

In terms of the current state of restaurants downtown, it is hard to get enough information to move beyond anecdote. But if we analyze the latest census data for three zip codes containing downtown and west downtown (63101, 63102, and 63103), we can glean some knowledge about the state of downtown dining in the recent past and its trend over time. The data show that from 2000 to 2013, total full-service restaurants in the three zip codes above increased by 21 establishments (a 34% improvement). The added restaurants employed more people, too. In 2000, only 29 restaurants had more than 20 employees. By 2013, 52 did. So there were not only more restaurants, but they were larger.

Unfortunately, it was not all good news. The vast majority of restaurant additions were in the 63103 zip code, which not only contains West Downtown, but also much of Midtown, the SLU Campus, and Grand Center. If we just look at the heart of downtown and the area around Busch Stadium (63101 and 63102) there were barely any more full service restaurants in 2013 than there were in 2000:

Taking a look at the city as a whole, the zip codes containing just the downtown neighborhood performed poorly when compared to other parts of the central corridor as well as areas in the South Saint Louis City. Some areas of the city lost restaurants during the same period, but this only took place in depressed areas of North City.  

Looking at everything together, it seems clear that the city as a whole added restaurants from 2000 to 2013, but progress was spotty. Some areas were contracting, others were expanding, and still others were treading water. The situation may have changed in 2014 and 2015, but we will leave that to future analysis. Just looking at the latest available census data, the downtown neighborhood was in the treading-water category. 

Course Access for Missouri Students

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

A high-school diploma is widely considered to be the most fundamental requirement for admission to college or a chance at a good job. And so it should be—but what’s behind that diploma matters, too. Statistics from ACT show that only 30 percent of the class of 2015 scored "college ready" in all four tested subjects. Much of the problem appears to be a gap between the coursework these students complete to earn their high-school diplomas and the work required for their college classes. Here Missouri faces a problem that doesn’t afflict more densely populated states: we have many small, rural school districts that don’t have the means to offer advanced math and science courses for college-bound students—or cutting-edge career or technical education classes for students who want to enter the workforce immediately after graduating—especially if relatively few students are interested in taking them.

We can’t do a lot about our state’s geography, but neither can we accept limitations on the educational options available to students in smaller school districts. We need a way to bring advanced-level coursework to every Missouri student who wants it. An innovative program called course access offers a possible solution to this problem, and it’s the topic of an essay by the Show-Me Institute’s Brittany Wagner and Michael McShane. To find out more, click on the link below and read the essay.

 

Dodging the Stadium Bullet

Posted on by Rik W. Hafer

Think of those times when you ignored your parents’ warnings about some behavior (smoking, staying out too late, etc.) because, well, it came from your parents. But when the same admonitions came from someone else, you heeded their advice.  This is one of those times.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written at length about the now-failed Rams stadium deal.  (A recent post by Joseph Miller takes a look back at the whole ugly process.) The bottom line is that the proposed billion-dollar deal simply never made fiscal sense for the city or the state.  Keeping the Rams in Saint Louis would have been a winner’s curse.  Even so, until the last minute, ardent Rams supporters and many public officials dismissed this position: such arguments simply were against the public good.

So along comes Joe Nocera, a highly-regarded columnist for the New York Times.  Consider him one of the “other” adults in the room.  The title of his recent article says it all:  “In Losing the Rams, St. Louis Wins.”

The gist of Nocera’s argument aligns closely with the analysis and advice proposed in past Show-Me writings (and by others as well).  Here’s a small, though representative, sampling:

“But the economics underpinning the recent deal St. Louis and the State of Missouri tried to put together to keep the Rams would have been financially ruinous…[St. Louis] simply couldn’t afford to help finance the $1 billion stadium.”

“The contortions St. Louis and the State of Missouri put themselves through to keep the Rams would be comical if they weren’t so sad.”

And in response to a prominent St. Louis political leader’s post-announcement blog post that he now has “no real interest in the NFL,” Nocera intones “Better late than never.”

Next time public officials start a campaign to throw public money at a billionaire’s pet project in the name of the public good, just remember what Mr. Nocera said.

Rams Move Exposes Broken Policymaking Process in Saint Louis

Posted on by Joseph Miller

Think back to December, 2014, not long after the tragic events in Ferguson. Everyone had an opinion about what was wrong with the Saint Louis area, what could turn the city around, and where to invest. Who thought that our biggest problem was whether or not we had enough sports teams? Did anyone suggest that our first priority, both politically and fiscally, should be an improved NFL facility? Of course not. Still, any objective observer would have to conclude that the push to build a new stadium was the regional leadership’s main focus in 2015.

Consider what that focus, mostly from the Governor’s and Mayor’s offices, accomplished. The plan to spend some $400 million on another stadium in downtown Saint Louis faced significant opposition. Most state legislators were not in favor of state support for the plan. Both the city and county had ordinances requiring votes before public money could be used on a stadium, and the public’s support was anything but guaranteed. The Saint Louis City Board of Aldermen was divided.

But that didn’t stop the committed leadership. The governor and the RSA moved to unilaterally extend state support, cutting out the antagonistic legislature. The RSA sued the city and succeeded in getting the ordinance requiring a public vote struck down. When the county executive said they’d have a vote with or without an ordinance, the Governor’s stadium task force dropped Saint Louis County out of the funding scheme. After lengthy negotiations, the Saint Louis City Board of Aldermen signed off on the stadium financing plan.

The only obstacle stadium backers did not overcome was the resolve of Rams’ ownership to move the team, which was ultimately decisive. If Saint Louis’s regional leadership had had their way, taxpayers would be handing hundreds of millions of dollars to Stan Kroenke. The only thing that saved Saint Louis residents from making a terrible investment of public dollars were the votes of thirty NFL team owners.

The “accomplishments” of the stadium task force expose what’s broken in Saint Louis regional governance. Common-sense reforms, like simplifying the city’s business code, languish in the Board of Aldermen. The sewer system is so out of date that city streets have a habit of collapsing. Fire and police departments are so broke they are using duct tape to fix equipment. No one has answers for a continuing lack of safety throughout the metropolitan area. With these problems, there is little will to push through change, and there is never enough money.

But when the NFL might leave town, suddenly regional leaders found $400 million between the seat cushions for yet another big-bang development project. And the political will was there too, no matter how the public felt about it—and regardless of the sad history of similar projects in the city, and all the economic evidence saying it was a bad idea. That’s how the region’s policymaking process played out, with misplaced priorities and half-hearted respect for the democratic process. With that kind of leadership, is it any wonder Saint Louis has a lagging economy?

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts: How Parents Could Spend Funds

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

Recently, I wrote about a proposed law that could expand educational opportunities for students with disabilities. The Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program would allow parents who have children with disabilities to customize their child’s learning.

Five states have adopted ESA programs, and more than 7,000 students currently have access to ESAs in Arizona, Florida, and Mississippi. Similar to the programs in other states, Missouri’s program would allow parents to spend ESA funds on services like private school tuition, tutoring, online courses, textbooks, curriculum, and education therapies. The graphic above shows how parents wanting to customize a kindergarten year for a child with autism might choose to spend the ESA funds that would be available to them under the proposed program.

A parent might spend $150 on registration and application fees, $5,000 on a year’s worth of tuition, and $1,000 on therapies, namely behavioral interventions, or arts classes geared toward children with disabilities. In this case, that would leave $658 in the account. When the child graduated from high school, the $658 plus other accrued funds could be directed toward college or other post-secondary programs.

In our current public school system, parents must fight to access the educational services that fit their child’s needs. Organizations like Missouri Special Education Advocates and MPACT provide advocacy and parent training services that help children reach their full potential in the traditional public school system. An ESA program turns a system where parents must fight for a limited number of services into a child-centered system where services reflect a child’s unique abilities.

The Demolition Option in Kansas City

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey
Kansas City Policy Police Chief Darryl Forté has an idea. According to The Star, Forté has suggested “reallocating some money earmarked for hiring extra police officers toward demolishing abandoned properties in crime-ridden neighborhoods.” Large scale demolition is not a new or controversial idea. The same day the Star reported this, Bloomberg Business published a piece about other cities that are spending money to tear things down. In it, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he would spend $75 million to tear down 4,000 vacant houses. “Fixing what is broken in Baltimore requires that we address the sea of abandoned, dilapidated buildings that are infecting entire neighborhoods,” he said.
 
Back in Kansas City, Councilwoman Alissia Canady agrees,
 
“That is a great indication of [Forté’s] understanding of what the real underlying issues are with crime, and to the extent he can minimize the areas where criminals like to take over,” said Canady, who is chairwoman of the council’s Neighborhoods and Public Safety Committee. “Most of the violent crimes occur in these blighted areas.”
 
The blight isn’t due to absentee landlords, either. If you visit the website for the Kansas City Land Bank, you will see that the owner of the most blighted land in Kansas City is… Kansas City. The City does a poor job of maintaining the properties, from cutting the grass to removing trash and eventually tearing them down. As a result, the neighbors suffer the consequences of City neglect, which include not just crime and declining home values, but also health. City Manager Troy Schulte says, “the city had 875 dangerous buildings on its list and estimated it would take $10 million to eliminate them.” 

It would be a shame if this money came from the police department amidst a spike in Kansas City murders. Where else could we find the money?

  • Perhaps the city could sell the land it is considering using for the convention hotel. After all, that is city-owned land that is also blighted. And according to The Star, it’s worth $13 million. The Pitch says $4.5 million. Either way its a good start. And the city likely owns all sorts of valuable land that it is doing nothing with.
  • The city could halt its awful idea to spend $12 million in taxpayer funds to tear down and rebuild a grocery store within 3 miles of at least two other grocery stores.
  • Schulte is under order from the Council to find $18 million for the so-called Jazz District. Maybe tearing down “dangerous” buildings is more important.
  • We could stop the streetcar project altogether on the grounds that protecting the health and well-being of thousands of families on the east side is more important than a 2.2 mile streetcar to nowhere.

 

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