Safe & Sound Bridge Program Still Stalled

Posted on by David Stokes

MoDOT has been planning for some time to use an innovative public-private partnership program to repair 802 of the worst bridges in the state. It took a couple of legislative acts in order to get the program authorized, and now it appears the weak economy is threatening the entire project. David Catanese of KY3 in Springfield is always interested in transportation issues, and he has an informative report here on the Program is facing. In short, it sounds as if the contractor and MoDOT are having trouble reaching an agreement on the price because of rising interest rates and commodity prices.

The recent Reason Foundation report that ranked Missouri’s transportation system 13th in the nation still ranks us low (40th) for the quality of our bridges. Needless to say, it is imperative that the Safe & Sound program get moving to address this problem. I hope it happens via partnership with the private sector. It is going to have to get done somehow, though, and if that means using the transitional design-bid-build system paid for by bonds, then unfortunately, it may have to be done that way. (Assuming MoDOT has any bonding authority left.)

This situation really isn’t anybody’s fault. It’s well-known that commodity prices have increased, and credit market problems have been documented a time or two. So here’s hoping that the project gets going soon, to benefit all of us. I know MoDOT is doing all it can to move public-private partnerships forward, but I guess right now we just have to wait and hope it works.

The Harm of Occupational Licensing

Posted on by David Stokes

I grant you that this AP story in the Post-Dispatch is a rather extreme example. I further grant that of all occupations requiring a license, I agree that doctors need them the most. All that being said, the referenced story of institutional racism is a good example of the problems that can occur when you empower current practitioners of an occupation to decide who else gets to make a living in that occupation. For a more recent example of the abuses that can occur when businesses and unions decide to keep competition out under the guise of “safety,” you only need to go back a few years to the mechanical code disputes in St. Louis County.

Most of all, though, this story gives me a nice segue to my recent op-ed about the consideration of contractor licensing in St. Joseph. The piece was carried by the St. Joseph News-Press last week, which we greatly appreciate — but they didn’t put in online, so you’ll just have to trust me on that. …

Ohio’s Successful Austism Scholarship Program Is Good for Districts, Too

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Edspresso links to this article about Ohio’s Autism Scholarship Program. The program has been growing since Ohio instituted it in 2003, and now more than 1,000 autistic students use the scholarships to attend private schools and receive specialized therapies.

Ohio’s program is a win-win situation. Of course, the autistic students benefit from the scholarships, but their public school districts have a lot to gain as well. Without the scholarship program, districts would be expected to educate all the disabled students who live within their boundaries. It might be reasonable to ask districts to accommodate mild to moderate disabilities; autism, though, can be another story.

Children with severe cases of autism may struggle to communicate or need constant help with daily tasks. If teachers don’t have experience with this complex condition, it’ll be a challenge for them to get an autistic child through the school day, let alone provide specialized instruction. Some districts recognize this problem and pay private school tuition for autistic students, but a statewide scholarship program is more equitable. Otherwise, a district with an unusually high number of autistic students is burdened with all their tuition bills, while a comparable district with no autistic students needn’t contribute anything.

The General Assembly considered a proposal for an autism scholarship program in Missouri this past year. The public relations campaign in favor of it concentrated on how it would help the children. I’d just like to point out that it would help districts too. In particular, small rural districts that don’t have the resources to treat autism would be free to focus on other students.

Reason Ranks Our Roads

Posted on by David Stokes

MoDOT is trumpeting — and deservedly so — the new state highway rankings released by the Reason Foundation in their annual report on such. Missouri has improved to 13th in the country in overall highway quality, up from 28th as recently as 2004. Missourinet has the story here (link via Combest). Missouri should rightly be proud of the improvements throughout the state led by MoDOT.

The Show-Me Institute is proud of the work we have done with Reason on the subject of transportation. Yesterday, I was part of a panel at the Missouri Public Transit Association’s annual conference, talking about alternative ways of funding public transit. Tolling, competitive contracting, private investment, and public-private partnerships are the wave of the future in meeting our transportation needs for highways, bridges, and transit. Slowly but surely, I think people are beginning to embrace that change.

Momentary Pause

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

Hi, all:

Cynthia and I have been writing about education and voting issues nearly daily for the past few months — and we wanted to let you know that we’ll be taking a break.

We’ve reached a time-intensive point in our research. We do intend to pick up here again as soon as possible, to write more about the same. And, of course, about the conclusions that we come to after mulling over 524 superintendent contracts and hundreds of school election results.

Thank you for your comments, emails and readership. We’ve learned a lot from your responses.

— Audrey and Cynthia

P.S.: Even though we won’t be posting regularly for a while, we’re still interested in your comments, questions, or input. Feel free to email Cynthia or myself any time.

Show-Me Road Trip

Posted on by Dave Roland

I have recently returned from a two-week road trip through the rural parts of our state, where I was out meeting people at county fairs and talking to them about how free-market policies could create greater opportunities for prosperity in their communities.

One of the most common issues that I discussed was that of school choice. While many of the people I spoke to felt that their local public schools were doing the best they could, almost everyone I spoke to agreed that parents ought to have the opportunity to send their children to the best available schools — including public schools in nearby communities, or local private schools. Most also instinctively recognized that improving the education of their young people could help to attract more and better-paying jobs to their communities. The people I spoke to made it resoundingly clear that education is definitely an issue that is important to folks in rural Missouri.

In the midst of my trip, I had the pleasure of stopping in Kansas City to attend a celebration of Milton Friedman’s life and career. For those who don’t know, Friedman was a Nobel laureate who proposed school choice as the best solution for providing publicly funded education. In honor of his birthday, organizations across the nation hosted a total of 50 events to promote and celebrate his ideas. Here in Missouri, the Show-Me Institute co-hosted an event with the Kansas City Public Library at which Kevin Chavous, a nationally respected attorney and school choice advocate, discussed the importance of education reform in America. Nearly 100 people attended, and it was absolutely exhilarating to see so many people come out in support of improving educational opportunities for the children of this state.

I highly recommend that you check out the library’s video of this event, as well as Chavous’ recent book!

Voices of the People

Posted on by Dave Roland

The Springfield News-Leader ran an op-ed this week written by one of the aldermen for the city of Ozark, in which he attempted to characterize (or, perhaps, caricature) those individuals and groups who are demanding an end to eminent domain abuse as radical activists “promoting their own personal agendas hoping to cost taxpayers thousands.”

Reading the comments at the bottom of the page has been the highlight of my day.

Battling the Budget Backlash

Posted on by Patrick Eckelkamp

Any time people actively discuss the Missouri budget, I get excited. When it happens to be the editorial board of the biggest newspaper in Missouri and the governor himself — well, it just doesn’t get any better than that. In an article yesterday (link via Combest) Gov. Matt Blunt responded to the Post-Dispatch‘s recent editorial criticizing his handling of the Missouri budget. While I’ve accepted the fact that both camps are probably manipulating some numbers to make their case, the article still makes for an interesting read. I encourage everyone to check out the linked article and make the decision for themselves.

I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that the governor probably has a better understanding of the state budget than the Post-Dispatch editorial board does. To me, it appears that he does an excellent job of explaining the budget and what the numbers actually mean. Particularly, he is right to point out that using 2001 as a base year to explain K–12 education funding is extremely misleading. As most Missourians are aware, former Gov. Bob Holden had just come into office in 2001 — which has nothing to do with current funding for education. Gov. Blunt goes on to explain that since he came in to office, K-12 education funding has actually increased by 17.2 percent.

In this editorial war of words, the Post-Dispatch fired the first shot — but the governor stood his ground and fired right back, explaining the state budget in-depth and providing a level of analysis that the Post-Dispatch was lacking. In my humble opinion, I think Gov. Blunt deserves some credit for what he has been able to do with the the state budget during the past four years. Some people may not agree with me, but, hey — that’s all right. At least people are talking about the budget.

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