Rams to Make Missouri Millions?

Posted on by Joseph Miller

At a meeting of the House Government Oversight and Accountability Committee, the Missouri economic development director argued that the state could make millions off building the Rams a new stadium to replace the Edward Jones Dome, on which the state still owes $60 million. Unfortunately, the director’s numbers do not stand up to close scrutiny.

The crux of his argument is that taxes on growing NFL salaries (starting at $10 million in 2017 and growing at 3 percent thereafter) would help raise about $300 million. However, if we assume that the total income taxes from the Rams is $10 million a year growing at a rate of 3 percent, the actual present value of 30 years of state income taxes would be less than $200 million, assuming the recently passed tax cuts take effect. Even if the economic development director’s number is accurate, $300 million is still less than the total public cost of the stadium plan ($405 million).

The economic development director likely meant that the state, as in just the political entity of the state of Missouri, could make millions on a new stadium. But only half of the cost is the state’s, with the other half coming from the Saint Louis area. Saint Louis City has an earnings tax, but, even accounting for that income tax, revenue is most likely to remain between $250 and $300 million, well under the public cost of the stadium.

Stating that the stadium plan would fall short of recovering tax subsidies and fail to promote economic growth is not an anti-Rams position, it is the opinion of most economists. As one researcher put it:

There are absolutely no publicly subsidized stadiums and arenas that generate enough direct or indirect tax increases to balance the initial (and ongoing) public outlay. . . . In fact, some research suggests that sports stadiums actually decrease economic activity and tax revenue in areas where they are built. . . . However, strategically placed stadiums and arenas can sometimes ride existing redevelopment trends, but they are never the cause of these trends.

The state of Missouri and the city of Saint Louis should be honest with residents. If we use public dollars to keep the Rams, it will be about pride, not tax revenue or development.

Lawmakers Answering the Wrong Student Transfer Question

Posted on by James V. Shuls

As first appearing in Education News:

Politicians are notorious for answering the wrong question. When asked about legalizing drugs, they may ramble on about health care. When pushed on immigration, they’ll talk about jobs. Former presidential contender Mitt Romney once quipped to a reporter, “You get to ask the questions you like, I get to give the answers I like.” While the voting public may get annoyed when a lawmaker dodges a question, no real harm is done. It is a completely different matter, however, when lawmakers address the wrong question through legislation. Unfortunately, that is exactly what some Missouri legislators are doing in regards to the law that allows students to transfer from unaccredited school districts.

The primary question lawmakers are considering is, “How do we reduce the number of transfer students?” That, however, is not the question they need to address. Students are in schools that are failing to meet their academic needs, and they need quality options right now. The question lawmakers should be addressing is, “How do we make sure all students have access to quality schools?” These are two very different questions and require two very different legislative strategies.

If lawmakers want to make sure students have access to great schools and not simply “fix” the transfer program so that it does not burden the local public school districts, they need to pursue every opportunity to expand options for kids. That means they need to be unbiased about the type of school a student attends—traditional public, public charter, virtual, or private.

Right now, there are high-performing charter schools that want to serve students from unaccredited school districts. What’s more, many of these schools are miles closer than other traditional public schools to which students are currently transferring. Yet, current laws do not allow charter schools to take students from other districts. Artificial district boundaries are limiting options for students, and these boundaries should be erased. Missouri should allow public charter schools to enroll students across district boundaries.

The same goes for virtual schools. The beauty of a virtual school is that a student can be anywhere—in a hospital bed or at an Olympic training facility—while completing school work. With such flexibility, it is asinine to constrict the reach of a virtual school to the limits of a district’s boundaries.

Just as it makes no sense to draw arbitrary lines around charter or virtual schools, it is not necessary to draw demarcations between public and private schools. Public education is the idea that all students should have access to a quality education at public expense. Though public school districts have been the traditional way of delivering public education, the idea of public education and the district are not the same thing. Indeed, 20 states have created programs that utilize private schools to help deliver the idea of public education.

How do we make sure all students have access to quality schools? Lawmakers must stop dodging this question; failing to do so means denying students opportunities to a great education.

James V. Shuls is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a fellow at the Show-Me Institute.

Streetcars Have Lost . . . Washington, D.C.?

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

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Back in May 2014, at the groundbreaking of the 2.2-mile streetcar line, city leadership held up the streetcar projects in the Washington, D.C., area as examples for Kansas City. However, Arlington County, Virginia, has cancelled their streetcar line, and Washington, D.C., may follow suit.

Roll Call newspaper in Washington, D.C., wrote as much in their piece, “Survival of New D.C. Streetcar Now in Doubt.” Here’s the best part:

“I’m trying to prudently and responsibly prepare the service to be started. But if I can’t get to that point, I’m not going to be enchanted by some philosophy of transit that leads me to do something that doesn’t make sense,” [District of Columbia Department of Transportation Director Leif A.] Dormsjo told the Post.

“This project over 10 years was developed in an unprofessional, haphazard, contradictory and inconsistent manner,” he said.

If the transportation folks in and around Washington, D.C., are complaining about and even cancelling streetcars, why are leaders in Kansas City still onboard?

Kansas City’s Orwellian “Open Streets”

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

cycleinthestreetsThe Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department is hosting an “open streets festival” called Cycle in the City on Ward Parkway between Meyer and Gregory Blvds. on May 16. A community festival can be a good time, but is this a worthwhile use of funds when the department is cutting other important services?

What’s more, in order to have the open streets event, the streets will be closed, presumably so people can use them for anything other than what they were designed to handle: automobiles.

The Show-Me Institute obtained the details of the event’s $85,000 budget through a Sunshine Request. The event includes arts and crafts, bounce houses, and face painting ($7,000) and other “entertainment” that includes a DJ ($8,000). The two biggest line items are advertising ($13,000) and the event management fee ($25,000).

Kansas City government is facing  cuts in many places, including the Parks Department. In fact, the City of Fountains’ own Parks Department has cut funding for citywide fountain maintenance so much that it has had to rely on a private charity to help. (Many more fountains are maintained by the various home associations in which they are located.)

Parties in the park are fun; everyone loves face painting and bounce houses, but should they be a priority when Kansas City is in financial straights and cutting services and staff while raising fees and taxes?

Bill Addresses Government Union Transparency Gap

Posted on by John Wright

What is the difference between a government union, like the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the union representing folks at the brewery downtown?

In the Show-Me State, one big difference is that unions representing public workers, like teachers, police, and firefighters, are not required to be as transparent as traditional private-sector unions. Whereas your neighbor who works for a private business can look up his union’s financial filings and see how union executives use his dues, the dues-paying teacher down the block can be left in the dark about where his membership fees are going. This transparency gap is unfair for workers, but it should also alarm the public, which negotiates with government unions and pays for the services provided by union labor.

transparencySo why do private-sector unions share information about their finances with the public, while Missouri’s government unions do not?

Federal law requires most unions to make annual filings that disclose basic financial information, including assets, liabilities, and money spent on political activities. The federal government makes these filings publicly available and searchable online. This way, a member of the public, including a dues-paying worker, can see how their union spends money. However, federal labor law does not apply to unions representing state and local government employees.

Other states, such as Michigan, have enacted some financial transparency requirements for their government unions. These state laws ensure state and local government unions that fall through the cracks in federal law still have some basic standards of financial transparency. Unfortunately, Missouri lags behind.

Right now, the Missouri Legislature is taking up a government union accountability bill (SB 549) that aims to correct this disparity between private-sector unions and government unions. Among other things, the bill would require government unions to disclose their finances in an annual filing very similar to the LM filings that private-sector unions already make. These filings would allow workers and the public to see how government unions spend taxpayer-funded union dues.

Government unions should be at least as transparent as private-sector unions. Bringing government union transparency up to the same level as private-sector union transparency is simply common sense.

Missouri’s Fuel Taxes in Context

Posted on by Joseph Miller

On March 1, Iowa increased its fuel taxes by 10 cents per gallon. Other states, including Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Illinois, are considering following suit. The Missouri Legislature is currently entertaining multiple proposals for increasing the state gas tax, and just recently a new bill was introduced in the senate (SB 540) calling for a 6 cent increase over two years.

Why the push to raise the gas taxes? Missouri, like other states, depends on its fuel tax to fund its state highway system. In 2014, the state’s fuel taxes brought in approximately $489 million for the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). Furthermore, because 30 percent of fuel tax revenue goes to cities and counties, local governments also rely on fuel taxes for road improvements. In 2014, fuel taxes provided $179 million to local governments statewide.

However, given the amount MoDOT claims it needs to maintain the state highway system, current revenue may be insufficient. Missouri’s fuel tax has not increased since 1996. With Missourians buying less gas, and the costs of maintaining the state highway system growing all the time, MoDOT warns of a large budget shortfall by 2017. As fuel taxes allow people who benefit from the roads to pay for them, it is an attractive funding source for roads in Missouri and other states.

Fortunately for Missourians, any fuel tax increase would be from a low base. At 17 cents a gallon (both regular and diesel), Missouri has the fifth lowest regular fuel tax and fourth lowest diesel fuel tax in the nation. As of January 2015, the average national state fuel tax was 29.89 cents per gallon regular, 30.02 cents per gallon diesel. Missouri also has a low fuel tax compared to its neighbors:

mo_gastax

As the map above demonstrates, Missouri has a lower fuel tax than any neighboring state save Oklahoma, which substantially tolls its state roads. The size of Missouri’s state highway system adds to the problem. With more than 33,000 lane miles, Missouri has the nation’s seventh largest state highway system, the largest of its neighbors.

If SB 540 becomes law, MoDOT would see approximately $165 million additional dollars per year, which likely would stave off the implementation of the 325 Plan. It would also mean more revenue for cities and counties. For example, Saint Louis City could see almost $4 million more per year to spend on local roads from the passage of SB 540.

Missouri has comparatively low fuel taxes, and low taxes benefit residents. But a well-maintained highway system has benefits of its own. Missourians should consider whether preserving that system is worth paying a little more at the pump.

Are Charter Schools the School Transfer Fix?

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

When Stella Erondu moved to America from Nigeria in 1977, she was surprised to find the streets were not in fact paved with gold. Now the principal at North Side Community School, a charter school in North Saint Louis City, she feels that at least in education, they should be: “This is America. All over the world, people just beat themselves up to get here. . . . Then, you get here and children are stopped from growing.”

Erondu is referring to the lack of educational opportunity in the lowest performing school district in the state, Normandy Schools Collaborative. “If the public schools aren’t working, get alternative educational systems . . . or let them come to schools like mine so that we can take care of them,” she said.

The failing district is only five minutes from North Side, which earned a perfect score on the state’s annual progress report. Charters like Erondu’s have increasingly shown improvement, outperforming some traditional public schools. Yet, only children within Saint Louis City and Kansas City are allowed to attend Missouri’s charter schools.

Students should be allowed to cross school district boundaries and attend charter schools. There are several reasons why.

First and foremost, they offer the chance at a superior education. This is certainly true for North Side students, who come from an almost identical neighborhood as Normandy. Abandoned properties and condemned buildings line the streets. There is poverty. There is crime. But, at North Side, students are succeeding.

“They don’t know the names of their letters. They don’t know the sounds of their letters. They don’t know their shapes,” said kindergarten teacher Sonya Taylor of what she encounters in North Side students when they are just entering grade school.

But North Side has a strategy. “We have to start over, we have to start from age six months old . . . reading to them as if they were being read to in their younger ages,” said Erondu. From there, the school focuses intensely on communication arts and math. In 2014, 46 percent of North Side students were proficient in math, while only 21.5 percent of students at Barack Obama Elementary in Normandy were proficient—same population, different outcomes.

What’s more, charter schools actually want to educate these students. Last June, the Francis Howell School District refused to accept 350 students. Parents have had to resort to lawsuits in order for their children to return.

While it is true charter schools are able to open in unaccredited school districts like Normandy and Riverview Gardens, the student populations are much smaller than the Saint Louis and Kansas City districts. If students were able to cross district boundaries, charter schools may be more likely to open within these failing districts, as they could attract students from a larger community base.

Missouri should pave the way for educational opportunity by allowing students to cross district boundaries and attend charter schools. American streets may never be paved with gold, but that doesn’t mean roadblocks should stand between a child and a path to a quality education.

Brittany Wagner is a research assistant at the Show-Me Institute.

 

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