The Hadley Township community in Saint Louis County is another example of the devastation that Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and eminent domain abuse in Missouri can cause. Residents have been stuck in a state of uncertainly for years now as the city and various developers have planned to buy and/or take their homes for commercial development. That uncertainty has had a devastating impact on the neighborhood as some residents let their properties deteriorate (understandable in the situation) while others tried valiantly to maintain their homes and the historically African-American neighborhood they love. The Show-Me Institute sat down with residents to discuss the situation in Hadley Township in this series of videos.
Show-Me Experience
We were pleased to have Sufyan Katariwala as an intern at the Show-Me Institute this summer. He proved to be a hard worker and a real asset. Here’s Sufyan explaining why it was a good experience for him and can be for you too!
For more information on Show-Me Institute internships, click here.
No, Not That Galbraith
Hello Show-Me Daily readers. I am Kacie Galbraith, research assistant and the newest addition to the Show-Me Institute team. No relation to the economist James Galbraith (nor to his late economist father, John Kenneth), although no econ college professor could resist asking whether I was part of the family. Originally from the Garden State, I completed college and a master’s degree in New York before moving to Saint Louis, where I obtained firsthand local government experience working for the City of University City.
Due to my background and interest in economics (B.A. at New York University) and public administration (M.P.A. – Syracuse University), Missouri state and local policy issues are important to me. I believe the people who are affected by the outcomes should make the decisions, and that those decisions should be economically viable. James Galbraith certainly would disagree with me when I say that extensive government regulation is not the answer to many problems that arise in society (go free markets, go!).
As a newbie here, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite Show-Me Daily blog posts:
1. He Cannot Be Serious — about a college instructor who believes he should receive unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, he would benefit more if he reconsidered his chosen career path in a field with too many competitors and not enough positions available.
2. Stadium Subsidy Surprise — a classic example of a sports stadium that is not earning enough money to be self-sufficient, which means taxpayers to the rescue. Why should we fund activities whose benefits to the local economy do not outweigh their costs?
3. If You Need a Subsidy in Chesterfield, Where Don’t You Need One? — tax credits, tax subsidies, tax giveaways — whatever you call it, it is usually an abuse of taxpayer dollars. It is simply a way to disguise government spending to make it appear somewhat more palatable.
MNEA, Where Do The Dues Go?
Why do teachers join a union or a teachers’ association? When I was working on my bachelor’s degree in education, I recall several professors encouraging me to join because of the protection offered in the event of a lawsuit. The same thing happened after I accepted my first job. At that point, other teachers encouraged me to join. It seems many teachers, like me, join a union out of fear that there is an imminent danger of being sued. What these teachers may not realize is their money is not simply purchasing lawsuit insurance; they are supporting a highly active political organization.
Earlier this month, the Education Intelligence Agency released the 2012-13 budget for the Missouri National Education Association (MNEA). The organization expects to raise more than $7.4 million from dues that teachers pay.
Personnel costs consumer the bulk of MNEA’s budget, 66 percent. The executive director’s salary alone is $165,000 and benefits are $144,000.
MNEA also collects $180 in dues from members for the national NEA; nearly $5 million in total was collected from Missouri teachers. The NEA donates this money to a number of organizations. You can peruse a complete list of the organizations the NEA supported in 2010-11 according to their financial disclosure report here.
MNEA members may want to know their dues are going to support many liberal and progressive causes, including $125,000 to Health Care for America Now! — a national coalition that works to “promote, defend, implement and improve the Affordable Care Act.”
Whatever the reason for joining, it is not likely the average member knows where his or her membership dues are going or the types of organizations they are supporting. There are certainly better ways of getting liability coverage than doling out money to finance causes you may not support.
We Need A Moratorium On Municipal Development Moratoriums
The city of Frontenac, in Saint Louis County, has enacted a moratorium on new developments within a commercial area of the city. Officials in Ellisville, also in Saint Louis County, are considering enacting a similar moratorium for a prime area of land near the controversial (to say the least) proposed Tax Increment Financing (TIF). Is this an appropriate use of municipal powers? No, it is not.
In Frontenac’s case, it is my understanding that one business is now being prevented from going forward with a move and expansion even though the area has always been zoned commercial. I do not believe it is proper for a government to tell a commercial enterprise that it cannot develop its own property — which is entirely within a commercial area.
In Ellisville, it seems strange that they are trying to block development of a parcel when, according to their pro-TIF arguments, economic development is so important to the city. I have no idea why they are proposing this. My guess is that someone has had the temerity to try to develop the land in a manner that does not fit with the grand TIF plan. Oh, the horror!
The enemy in these cases, as usual, is municipal planning. The rights of property owners to develop their property (especially when it complies with existing zoning regulation) should far outweigh the desire for a municipal plan put together by planners and lawyers who have no idea how to grow an economy. The history of government planning is not a good one.
Kansas City Makes Streetcar Tax Proposal Another Mail-In Affair
While Clay Chastain’s light rail proposal likely will not be on the ballot in November, voters in Kansas City will have a rail plan to consider before winter officially arrives. Early last week, the city’s newly created streetcar development district board decided to hold a vote by mail in the next few months to determine whether a tax will be levied in the district to fund the trolley. That the vote is being conducted by mail-in ballot almost certainly assures the passage of the tax; the vote that created the district was conducted by mail as well, and passed with almost 70 percent of the vote with an effective turnout of less than 8 percent. (To be precise, 460 voters out of 5,900.)
That the city will re-use the means of voting most favorable to moving the proposal ahead is no surprise. The city has been foursquare behind the trolley proposal even after losing its bid for federal funding for the project. (Not that federal funding would have been a good reason to go forward with it.) And despite the funding gap for the starter line, there have already been discussions about adding southern and eastern extensions to this hitherto non-existent trolley. To be sure, business owners in the newly created trolley district will not be the last ox gored in the city’s quest for streetcars. This looks like a vanity project that will raise taxes in a city that is well above average in municipal taxation already. And the project will probably grow even larger from here.
The trolley voting period will likely conclude Dec. 11. Whether the result will be a Christmas surprise or a lump of coal depends on your perspective.
Show-Me Spend-O-Meter
The Show-Me Institute last week launched a video introducing one of the newest features on our website (www.showmeinstitute.org): the Spend-O-Meter. The Spend-o-Meter takes the state’s budget for the current fiscal year (which began in July) and breaks it down so that as the year progresses, the amount that the state “spent” increases by the same amount every second.
Now, does the state really spend $766.53 per second ($24,173,327,268 fiscal year 2013 budget divided by 31,536,000 seconds in a year)? Not exactly. It is not like the state is literally writing a check every second of every day for the entire year for $766.53 and the state does not always spend all the money it is appropriated. However, the Spend-o-Meter does give a good illustration of the scale of the state’s spending. Just think about it, by the time someone finishes reading this post, the state will have, in effect, spent close to $46,000.
Now ask yourself, do you think you are getting your money’s worth? If not, the Show-Me Institute has discussed a couple of ways the state could save money. Check them out and check out the Spend-o-Meter as well.
What’s the Spend-o-Meter?
What’s the Spend-O-Meter? Michael Rathbone explains!
Kansas City Adds Single Measure To November Ballot
It has been a busy week for public officials in Kansas City. Yesterday, the Kansas City Council added one new item to this November’s ballot —a proposal that would raise the mandatory retirement age for municipal judges — but nixed three proposals that were of a more ambitious nature. The proposals that were axed?
- A proposed $100 annual tax on billboards to help the city “deal with billboard blight.” Similar to an earlier idea that would have enacted a 2 percent tax on the revenues companies collected for outdoor signs, the $100 iteration was ultimately scuttled over concerns that the revenue generated would not actually fix the problem of billboards that, among other things, were blank “too long,” which could be as little as three months. Pretty sure “blank billboards” do not exactly rise to the level of pressing municipal issues in Kansas City. Apparently, given the functional and funding problems presented to the council in the proposal, city officials seemed to agree.
- A proposal from a group called the “Peace Planters” which would have blocked any financial involvement by the city with manufacturers that produce nuclear weapons components. Curtailing municipal handouts is certainly good policy — after all, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and other tax incentives are long-overdue for reform — but to prevent only one type of business on ideological grounds from going to the trough seems like just another way of picking winners and losers. Better to reform how all incentives are meted out than selectively change one minor aspect of a fundamentally bad policy.
- Yet another proposal from eternal light rail advocate Clay Chastain to build a light rail system in Kansas City. Although Chastain’s promise to “go away” after years of activism if the council put his proposal on the ballot certainly had its allure, the council declined to take him up on the offer.
