Temporary Licenses for Out-of-state Workers

Posted on by Avery Frank

Recently, the Missouri Senate held a hearing on Senate Bill (SB) 817, which would modify some occupational licensing requirements in Missouri. Particularly, it would define how to apply licensing reciprocity when Missouri requires a license for an occupation but another state does not.

The Institute for Justice has identified nine occupations for which Missouri requires a license that are not subject to licensing in at least 15 states. For example, Missouri is one of 22 states that requires a license to work as a sign-language interpreter. Acquiring the license entails $442 in fees, 60 credit hours of education, and two exams. Under current statute, if a sign-language interpreter with three years or more of experience from a state that doesn’t require licensing moved to Missouri, they would have to spend the time and money to acquire a license before they could work here.

SB 817 would not waive licensing requirements for these sign-language interpreters, but it would provide access to a temporary license (if an individual has already worked for three years in the relevant field) while they satisfy Missouri licensing requirements.

Oversight bodies can still require that applicants take license-related exams and charge fees. The goal of this bill does not appear to be reducing licensing requirements, but allowing people who move to Missouri to work during the process of acquiring a license.

I think this bill would improve the status quo. However, I still do not think those who are experienced in their field need to waste time and resources fulfilling licensing requirements. SB 817 has language that says:

Upon expiration [of the temporary license], the individual shall be required to apply for a permanent license in accordance with the license requirements for the occupation . . .

SB 817 has some good qualities, as it makes it easier for people to work in our state. However, we are still left with the question of why Missouri imposes licensing requirements at all when other states do not. Moreover, if a person has three years of work experience in a field, why is Missouri requiring that they jump through additional hoops? Absent a showing of a real health or welfare concern, it looks as if Missouri is just protecting revenue streams to special interests. Shouldn’t lawmakers consider changing this bill to waive these extra bureaucratic hoops and encourage more people to come to work in Missouri?

Add Alabama to the List

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Add Alabama to the growing list of states that let parents take their state education dollars to the school of their choice. The list now includes Iowa, Arkansas, West Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Indiana, Utah, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Governor Kay Ivey vowed that giving every family in Alabama an education scholarship account (ESA) was her “number one legislative priority” and last week she made good on that commitment.

Next year, Alabama families making up to 250 percent of the federal poverty line ($78,000 for a family of four) will qualify to receive $7,000 in state dollars to customize their children’s education. By the 2027–28 school year, the scholarships will be available to every family in the state. Homeschoolers can receive up to $2,000. The money can be used for private school tuition or other educational expenses.

Like Missouri, Alabama’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have been poor for the last couple of decades. Like Missouri, Alabama has wide gaps in achievement between low-income and non-low-income students. Like Missouri, Alabama families whose children are struggling in their assigned public schools want (and need) an alternative. Alabama families now have that. What about Missouri families?

 

March 21 in St. Louis: The Insider’s Hour with Show-Me Institute

Posted on by Show-Me Institute Staff

What’s happening in Jefferson City?

Get the scoop on the expanding Missouri budget, transparency in healthcare pricing, and free-market policies at our Insider’s Hour!

Join us at one of two open discussions with Brenda Talent, David Stokes, and Elias Tsapelas from the Show-Me Institute.

Thursday, March 21

MAC West

1777 Des Peres Road

St. Louis, MO 63131

Doors open: 11:30 a.m.

Discussion and Q&A: 12-1:00 p.m.

Ticket Price: Sold out

The lunch event is at capacity. Tickets still remain for the evening event below. 

 

Thursday, March 21

Cafe Napoli

7754 Forsyth Boulevard

St. Louis, MO 63105

Doors open: 4:30 p.m.

Discussion and Q&A: 5-5:45 p.m.

Ticket Price: $15.00 (includes a beverage and light snacks)

Purchase Tickets Here

Speakers:

Brenda Talent

CEO

David Stokes

Director of Municipal Policy

Elias Tsapelas

Director of State Budget and Fiscal Policy

Getting Education Right with Mike McShane and Rick Hess

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

Susan Pendergrass speaks to Mike McShane and Rick Hess about their new book Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College.

In Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College, Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane argue that America has too long suffered from the absence of a robust, coherent, and principled conservative vision for educational improvement. The problem? The right has too narrowly focused on school choice, campus speech, and shrinking Washington’s footprint, while the left has sought to subsidize and supersize the status quo. The solution? An education system imbued with shared values, respectful of family ties, and equipped for the challenges of the 21st century.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Why Is This Still a Debate?

Posted on by Susan Pendergrass

My colleagues and friends, Mike McShane and Rick Hess, have co-authored a book on their conservative vision for public education. Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K-12, and College has lots of smart ideas and sensible prescriptions for how to better educate our children.

But one takeaway for me, as someone who has been in the field of education reform for decades, is that we need to stop apologizing and giving up ground because our work happens outside of the circled wagons of the education establishment. The fact is that partnering with parents instead of hiding things from them, giving parents access to the childcare setting of their choice instead of creating universal, government-managed pre-K programs, and letting parents decide where each of their children will attend school aren’t really reforms—they’re just common sense. And most people agree.

Take school choice, for example. It’s no longer a radical idea that must be wrangled with and heavily negotiated by state legislatures. Public opinion surveys repeatedly find that very few people are opposed to the idea, regardless of the type of program.

Teachers unions may have loud voices and large platforms, but that doesn’t mean that we have to set common sense aside. The idea that parents can be trusted should no longer be up for debate.

KC Stadium Debate, MetroLink Expansion, and MO Loses the Top Spot

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

David Stokes, Elias Tsapelas, and Patrick Tuohey join Zach Lawhorn to discuss:

– The stadium tax debate in Kansas City
– The MetroLink expansion plan advances in St. Louis
– How to make it easier to access virtual health care in Missouri, and more

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Use Taxes on the Ballot Again in Missouri

Posted on by David Stokes

Use taxes in Missouri are simply sales taxes on goods delivered to your home from out-of-state sellers. Local governments have been authorized to collect use taxes for a long time—predating the internet, even—but such taxes had not been widely adopted until the past two years. Collecting sales taxes on Sears catalog purchases used to be a lot of work for little revenue. The internet has changed that. The Supreme Court decision several years ago in the South Dakota v. Wayfair case, changes to state law in 2021, and, most obviously, the tremendous increase in e-commerce during the pandemic have all combined to greatly increase the need or desire (depending on your point of view) for governments to tax online sales.

For purposes of comparison, e-commerce now makes up over 15 percent of total sales in the United States. For municipalities around Missouri, 15 percent is a lot of sales not to tax. While many cities and counties have already adopted use taxes in recent years, there are many more proposing new use taxes on the April 2 ballot. The list includes Pleasant Hill, Centralia, Hallsville, Cool Valley, and the constant requesters in Raymore, Northwoods, and Velda City. (Feel free to notify me of others.)

It is a central tenet of tax policy that a tax base should be as broad as possible. The more expansive the tax base, the lower the rate that must be imposed to fund the functions of government. Raymore, for example, estimates it will receive $1.8 million per year from the proposed use tax. (It should be noted that Raymore has asked its citizens to approve a use tax in 2021 and 2022, both of which were rejected by voters. Raymore is a perfect example of why we need HB 2058 to pass, but I digress.)

Raymore has stated that it intends to use the use tax revenues for police, public works, highway maintenance, and park maintenance. Those are all reasonable uses, of course, but use taxes should not be approved simply to grow municipal government revenues. The use tax could be approved by voters to responsibly expand the tax base and equalize the competition between online and physical stores, but cities should also offset the increased taxes by lowering other, more harmful taxes. Imposing a use tax in a revenue-neutral manner is not a new idea. It is exactly how the Missouri Legislature addressed this issue with the state’s new use tax law in 2021.

The simplest way for these cities to offset the revenue increases from the use tax would be to lower city property taxes slightly. That would lead to a wider tax base, fairer competition between businesses, and lower tax rates for all taxpayers. Raymore’s property tax rate of 1.2447 per $100 of assessed value is very high compared to other cities that don’t have a fire department. (Raymore is served by an independent fire district.) Lowering that rate would be a good way to offset, at least in part, the new tax increases. Reducing the various municipal utility tax rates—especially for cities with already low property taxes—could also be a good exchange.

The imposition of a use tax in these cities could be a positive policy change. It could also be an easy way for politicians to just raise taxes one more time. By having city officials pledge to enact offsetting revenue reductions, these Missouri municipalities can reap the public benefits while curtailing the tax impact on residents and businesses. That is a plan that I think most taxpayers and voters could support. Without such a commitment, though, the use tax is just another tax increase.

In Peaceful Village, the Voters Vote Next Month

Posted on by David Stokes

Peaceful Village is a small, nicely named municipality in Jefferson County, just south of St. Louis. I don’t know if it has a theme song, but it should, and we all know what it should be. And, yes, there are almost certainly (mountain) lions that have slept near Peaceful Village.

On April 2, the residents are voting on disincorporating the city. This disincorporation proposal is a clear example of the Anna Karenina Principle at work. This is the rare example where the municipality’s zoning codes are less strict than the county’s codes. Some residents of the area want to disincorporate the city because they are opposed to a treatment center being built in the village. Building the center is legal under the village’s rules but would be illegal (from a zoning perspective) under the county rules. This is a twist on a zoning fight that you don’t see every day.

It is also worth noting the strange circumstances under which the village came into existence in 2008:

In 2007, the Missouri Legislature had passed a controversial law, supported by former Speaker of the House Rod Jetton, to help a wealthy donor create his own village. The donor wanted to bypass building and zoning regulations in southwest Missouri. The short-sighted law was repealed a year later, but dozens of landowners across the state had already tried to take advantage of it.

There is a part of this fight where I side with the municipality. According to some village leaders, the village is allowing the building of some treatment centers after the county has prevented their construction elsewhere. I am not in a position to verify that claim, but I personally think it should be easier for charities to build treatment and charitable shelters in Missouri.

But in the bigger picture, would Missouri benefit from having fewer small municipalities like Peaceful Village? Probably, but not necessarily in each instance. The worst abuses at the local government level in Missouri are found in the special taxing districts like TDDs and CIDs. Yes, we are awash in bad municipal policies in Missouri, but those policies are  found in large, medium, and small municipalities.

In recent years, we have had municipalities in Missouri disincorporate because of corruption, flooding, and, perhaps most commonly, just a general malaise about the community. I don’t know where Peaceful Village fits in on that list. To paraphrase Tolstoy, every unhappy village is unhappy in its own way.

I am glad the people of the village are voting on disincorporation. If the village isn’t meeting the needs of its residents in a manner that justifies the taxes it charges (which I think are comparatively low), then it deserves to go away. That will be up to the residents and voters, as it should be.

The Ads in Favor of the New Royals/Chiefs Sales Tax Are Misleading

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

On February 29, I sent the following email to the general managers of four television stations in Kansas City:

On or around Tuesday, February 27, your television station began airing a 30-second ad for The Committee to Keep The Chiefs and Royals in Jackson County. As you know, the Federal Communications Commission “expects broadcasters to be responsible to the community they serve and act with reasonable care to ensure that advertisements aired on their stations are not false or misleading.” Since the referenced ad contains statements that are misleading and in a substantial way misinform your viewers about what is at stake in the April 2 election, I am writing to ask that you pull the ad from the air.

    • At around the 11 second mark, the narrator urges viewers to, “Vote yes on question 1 that keeps the Chiefs and Royals in Jackson County.” As you know, the ordinance on which Jackson County voters are being asked to vote does not compel either team to remain in the county.  The language of the ordinance, available online here, merely states that a new sales tax is contingent upon several factors, a new lease being among them.  As you also know, there is no new lease agreement as of this writing.
    • At about the 22 second mark, the ad states that the measure includes, “no new taxes.” This is also demonstrably untrue. The voters of Jackson County are being asked to vote on the measure exactly because it is a new tax. The 2006 measure approved by voters, available online here, contains no language regarding an extension. The measure voters are being asked to approve in this election, available online here, clearly distinguishes in section 2 the difference between the current levy and “the new levy.”

I appreciate that a 30-second spot cannot be an exhaustive discussion of the matter at hand. But the claim that the vote imposes no new taxes is incorrect. Were there no such vote, the current tax would expire on September 30, 2031. Also, the current tax was for different things than the new, longer time-frame tax. The Committee to Keep The Chiefs and Royals in Jackson County could state that the new tax is the same amount as the current tax, but the claim that there is no new taxes intentionally leaves the impression that nothing will change. In fact, voters are agreeing to a new and different tax, and for a much longer period of time.

The Committee is perfectly able, given their resources, to make any number of arguments in the few weeks of the campaign. I do not doubt that they will. But your station should insist that their paid media be clear and honest with your viewers. This ad is substantially misleading and should be pulled off the air.

Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to your decision.

I received a reply from only one of them, who wrote on March 2:

Thank you for your email.

 I appreciate you reaching out with your concern.

We have reviewed the ad and the advertiser’s substantiation for the factual statements.  Based on this information we will continue to run the ad.

The ad – and any contrary speech — is part of the open and robust political discourse upon which the First Amendment is based.

I asked to be provided with the advertiser’s substantiation of its statements, but have not yet received it. We will share that with you if and when we receive it.

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