Joe Miller of the Show-Me Institute joins The Big 550 KTRS to talk about the Metropolitan Taxi Commission.
Taxi Trouble
Show-Me Institute Policy Analyst Joseph Miller talks with St. Louis entrepreneur Ed Domain about Ed’s 2013 accident in a Harris cab and the response of the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC).
We also reached out to the MTC for their side of the story. Here’s what they told us:
Mr. Domain was in an accident in a Harris Cab. He suffered grievous injuries. As is his legal right, Mr. Domain used the judicial system to reach a financial settlement in the matter.
Harris is in good standing with the Commission. Its CCN was most recently renewed in June 2015.
The MTC inspects every taxi twice a year. As part of that inspection, each vehicle must produce a valid insurance card. In addition, the MTC requires all CCN holders to have valid and current Certificates of Insurance on file.
The MTC has completed an audit of all Cab companies for insurance. All are in compliance today.
Proposition 1 Raises Property Tax for Questionable Purposes
On August 4th, Saint Louis City residents will be asked to vote for a property tax increase (17 cents per 100 dollars of assessed valuation) to raise $180 million for various “improvement” projects around the city. The plan has had little publicity, and many have questioned both the need and appropriateness of the tax increase.
So where would the $180 million go? The short answer is that about two-thirds of the money would go to public safety departments (mostly fire), city-owned buildings and vehicles, and city streets. Most of the rest would go to preparing a site for the NGA, building demolition, and a “ward capital improvement fund.”
Beyond the broad categories, it is difficult to know exactly how the money would be spent. However, the city did outline a large capital improvement wish-list in 2014, much of which would likely be funded through this property tax increase.
With such a diverse set of projects, residents might want to ask a few questions to gauge this tax proposal’s appropriateness:
- The city already spends a significant amount on public safety, about $365 million in 2014 alone. That’s more than a thousand dollars per resident per year. And spending has not been falling; the city’s public safety spending increased more than 22% from 2008 to 2014. Do these departments really have a revenue problem, or are they not making good use of the money they have?
- Approximately $15 million would go to preparing an NGA site (listed creatively as “Economic Development” in most ballot rundowns). How much, if any, of that money will be spent buying back land that developer Paul McKee bought from the city and private owners (using state subsides) just a few years ago?
- What is the purpose of the ward improvement fund, especially when the city already has a ½ cent sales tax devoted to the same purpose? Who will decide how those funds are spent?
Perhaps there are satisfactory answers to all of these questions and the city truly needs higher tax levels to fund basic city services. However, given the city’s current level of spending and its push to spend tens of millions on yet another downtown stadium, the real problem may be where the money is already going.
Pew: Medicaid Taking “Growing Slice of States’ Dollars”
Last week we wrote about how Medicaid costs and enrollment have exploded under Obamacare, driving home yet again the need for reform in the program. But Medicaid was broken long before the Affordable Care Act became law, and the program has been eating into state budgets steadily over the years. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, state Medicaid spending as a percentage of state tax revenue grew in nearly every state in the country between 2000 and 2013. Worse still, our home state of Missouri ranked fourth overall in the growth of state revenue paid to support Medicaid, behind only Maine, California and Minnesota.
Missouri was one of only seven states that spent “more than one-fifth of their own-source revenue on Medicaid in 2013” at 22.3%, topped only by New York (which spent a whopping 27.2% of its state revenue on the program.)
Given this fiscal threat, Missouri should be especially sensitive to the cost of its broken Medicaid program. State dollars are the primary source of funding for lots of government programs, including primary and secondary education, and as the cost of the state-contribution to Medicaid mushrooms, so do the threats to other state priorities. It is time to reform Medicaid, not only for the patients it should be helping, but also for the others — including our kids — who will get squeezed if the state sits on its hands and does nothing.
Kansas City’s Property Tax Abatement Problem
Just the other day, an unsigned Kansas City Star editorial considered the near future for the new Kansas City Council:
Supporters of universal pre-kindergarten have discussed asking voters to endorse a property tax increase, within the Kansas City Public Schools boundaries, to finance programs designed to get young children off to a stronger start in life. James has made education one of his four main tenets when it comes to improving the city’s quality of life. But will the full council agree to back a tax increase that doesn’t flow into the city’s coffers and instead goes for someone else’s priority?
Never mind that this is the same Star that just asked the City to excuse it from paying $10 million in property tax to the school district. Now that it has been exempted, it wonders if the tax rate should be increased for others.
This would be humorous if it weren’t so sad. The Star is not alone; the city regularly abates property taxes in the name of economic development. In fact, whenever you hear about development in Kansas City, the chances are that the city offered the developer a subsidy of some sort.
As a result of these abatements, schools, libraries, the county and programs that support mental health services and the zoo are being denied funds. As of 2013 the Kansas City school district suffered a $470,000,000 gap between the assessed value of real estate and the value at which it is taxed.
That’s almost a half-billion dollars of land value that is going untaxed in the Kansas City school district alone. At the 2014 county property tax rate, that amounts to over $23 million each year in forgone revenue. As a result, the district doesn’t have money to pursue a universal pre-K program the Star thinks is so laudable.
City leaders who allow property owners to pay less than the full share of their tax may be the greatest obstacles to fully funded education. Are they really going to ask rank-and-file taxpayers to make up the difference?
Kansas City doesn’t need a higher property tax rate, it needs to make sure more people are paying their fair share.
Taxi Commission Meeting Falls Apart, Without Reforms
Despite the hopes of many, the July meeting of the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC), which regulates for-hire vehicles in Saint Louis City and County, ended without regulatory changes that would allow cheap ridesharing to enter the Saint Louis market.
However, the lack of results does not mean the meeting lacked drama. From start to finish, emotions were running high and irregular procedures were constant. Just some of the oddest moments:
- Commissioner Chris Sommers, who has been supportive of Uber, had not received any advanced copy of proposed changes to the taxicab code at the time the meeting started (although other commissioners and the mayor’s office apparently had. He had to ask for a copy on stage.
- Commissioners gave speeches to defend their actions and attack a perceived “PR campaign” out to smear the commission. One commissioner said he took the whole debate personally, and thought critics were implying the MTC was a bunch of “jamokes.”
- Following a non-statement from an Uber representative (who had not seen the proposed changes), the chair moved to cut off public comments after only about 25 minutes. This resulted in commotion from the audience. One audience member called the chairman a coward and others called on him to resign. The chair threatened, multiple times, to clear the room.
- A representative of the mayor’s office requested that the MTC not vote on rule changes (which we still have not seen), instead proposing new negotiations between Uber, the MTC, and regional political leadership. The chairman then put a stop to motions to vote on rule changes that day, over the objection of other commissioners. Commissioner Sommers also objected to voting that day, as he had had no time to read to proposed rule changes. The meeting abruptly ended to boos.
After a meeting like that, one has to ask, is Saint Louis best served by a commission that arbitrarily cuts off public debate and takes disagreement personally? By a commission that engages in offensive public infighting? By a commission whose leadership thinks the demand for ridesharing is “white privilege”? Is this commission going to be effective in writing, and enforcing, sensible ridesharing regulations?
Taxicab Commission Refuses to Respond to Sunshine Request
At yesterday’s meeting of the Saint Louis Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC), the commissioners began considering, but ultimately tabled, taxicab code revisions regarding ridesharing companies. We at the Show-Me Institute wanted to see those proposed changes, which were almost voted on.
Luckily, in Missouri, we have the Sunshine Law, which requires public bodies and public officials to disclose, among other things:
“…records, regardless of what form they are kept in, and to all meetings, regardless of the manner in which they are held.”
Our first step was to call the MTC, hoping that someone would simply send us the proposed changes. The MTC’s response: we have no such document. The MTC’s “custodian of records” claimed to have no knowledge of any proposed code changes.
To make matters clear, the document containing draft code changes certainly existed. A commissioner was given a draft at a public meeting, and even posted sections of the draft on the internet. Thus ignored, we sent an official sunshine request to the MTC, asking for any documents regarding the code changes, or if the custodian did not have the documents, contact information for the person who did. The MTC’s response to the message was a prompt: “We are not in possession of any records that match your request.”
The next day, we again called the MTC, asking how we could contact the Chair of the MTC, who almost certainly would have access to the document. Representatives at the MTC refused to divulge any contact information, and instead had us call the MTC attorney, who provided no information.
To make a long story short, MTC commissioners (who are members of the MTC), circulated a document that is almost surely subject to a sunshine request. But because they did not give the document to their custodian of records, and they instructed that custodian to not disclose contact information, the MTC does not have to divulge the information? That’s a neat trick, and, if legal, makes the Missouri Sunshine Law a joke. It is to suggest that government officials are immune from Sunshine requests, as long as they don’t give their documents or contact information to their custodian of documents. I’m not a lawyer, but I hope that this is not the case. As for the MTC, it’s disappointing that the organization refuses to be open with the public.
Show-Me Now! Simplifying College Transfers
Show-Me Institute Intern Michael Highsmith talks about difficulties in the process of transferring from one college to another. Competency Based Education may be the solution that saves students time and money.
Health Care Price Transparency Report: Missouri Gets an “F”
Last year the Show-Me Institute published a report that explored some of the reforms Missouri needed not only to make Medicaid better, but also to make health care in the state better for everyone. One prominent reform mentioned was price transparency in medicine. One of the big reasons that prices for health care have spiraled out of control over the years is that, generally, patients don’t see the price of their care and don’t have clear incentives to price shop. You wouldn’t buy a cell phone without investigating what the fair price for it would be, and yet that’s largely what we do when we purchase health care.
Without price competition, properly valuing medical services is next to impossible, and findings from the Department of Health and Human Services in 2013 reiterate the point.
For example, average inpatient charges for services a hospital may provide in connection with a joint replacement range from a low of $5,300 at a hospital in Ada, Okla., to a high of $223,000 at a hospital in Monterey Park, Calif.
Even within the same geographic area, hospital charges for similar services can vary significantly. For example, average inpatient hospital charges for services that may be provided to treat heart failure range from a low of $21,000 to a high of $46,000 in Denver, Colo., and from a low of $9,000 to a high of $51,000 in Jackson, Miss.
Price transparency in American medicine is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to state policy, and a new report card from the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (which focuses a great deal of attention to transparency issues) and Catalyst for Payment Reform hammers this point home yet again. The researchers found that there has been “little progress since last year and, in some cases, regression” at the state level on price transparency matters, and most states received an “F” grade overall on the matter. Missouri was one of those states. The report doesn’t say a great deal about Missouri’s lack of progress on transparency issues in its national report, altough it does note that “a gag clause ban was introduced in Missouri, but failed to pass in February 2014.” That bill, SB 847, also included a wide array of other welcome transparency measures; unfortunately, the bill never made it out of committee.
As the HHS data lays out, the vast divergence in pricing in health care is a serious problem that isn’t explained by quality differences, but by limited information and, in general, limited incentives to mitigate the cost of one’s health procedures. If the state really wants to bend the cost curve of care in the state, Missouri needs to do better in the arena of price transparency and ensure that the prices charged for delivering health care in the state are more accessible to health consumers.
