What’s It Worth?

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Thanks go to Combest for linking to this silly news report about "price-gouging." The Missouri Attorney General’s office is warning us to watch out for it. Here’s a quote:

Several businesses including hotels, a gas station and a hardware store settled claims they charged customers more than market value for their goods and services following January’s ice storm.

What do they mean by "more than market value"? If some people are willing to sell and others are willing to buy at a price, then that is the market price. This reminds me of one of my first econ courses, in which I had to read Aristotle and other ancients, who thought goods had several different values: the price they sell for, how useful they are, their intrinsic goodness, etc. I guess defining value is an interesting philosophical question, but since philosophers haven’t solved it in a few thousand years, I doubt the Missouri Attorney General will make much progress before the next ice storm.

We don’t want state officials fixing the price of goods for us, especially in times of shortage like right after storms. That’s so former Soviet Union.

A Disappointing Article on Hazelwood

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Post-Dispatch usually publishes balanced articles about education issues, but this is really disturbing. The article reports on "white flight" from the Hazelwood School District and predicts the district’s decline, all because of the skin color of the students:

The problem is that whites are leaving the district in droves as blacks are moving into it. They are leaving despite schools that are meeting most state performance standards, despite that the blacks moving in are mostly middle- and upper-middle-class, and despite attempts by Clark-Jackson and other administrators to talk them into staying.

And historically in this region, when white flight has occurred, school districts have failed.

Well, there could be many factors at play here. The whites may be moving to districts that do better than Hazelwood on the state tests. It’s true that "white flight" has often preceded (or coincided with) districts’ declines, but if there’s any causal relationship it must have something to do with socioeconomic composition. The article states that the new residents are "mostly middle- and upper-middle-class," so why is this case of "white flight" a problem? Surely no one thinks white people improve school districts with some magical property of their skin color!

The aspect of this article that is most offensive is its labeling of nearly everyone quoted as black or white (in some cases even specifying whether one parent is black), as though people’s opinions about school district quality can only be understood in the context of their race.

The article is so fixated on race that it overlooks other reasons residents might want to leave. For example, it mentions as an aside that Hazelwood still doesn’t meet state standards in graduation rates and college entrance exam scores, two crucially important indicators of district performance. Maybe Hazelwood’s poor academics, rather than racial animosity, drive long-time residents away. The district should focus on improving instruction and graduating more students, instead of counting students by skin color.

City Manager on Hot Seat in Kansas City

Posted on by David Stokes

Did you know that Kansas City is one of the largest cities in the United States that has a city manager and makes use of the council-manager form of local government? (I did, but I get paid to know things like this.) The Kansas City Star is reporting that Mayor Funkhouser has chosen not to renew the contract of City Manager Wayne Cauthen. Now, I am not going to touch the politics of the situation. No, my role here is much, much more boring. I am going to use the controversy to segue into a discussion of city managers, which is known in media terms as a "hook," although successful "hooks" generally don’t involve heavy use of the term "city manager."

I searched but was unable to find a list of the largest cities in America that use a city manager. Kansas City has to be right at the top, though, making Mr. Cauthen sort of a star in the industry. Cincinnati is well-known for being a forerunner in this form of government, but most large cities, like St. Louis, still use the more well-known mayor-council form. The job of city manager is also notoriously unstable, as Mr. Cauthen is seeing right now.

38 cities in Missousi use the council-manager form of government, including my home of University City. The essential points of this system are that the elected mayor and city council leave the day-to-day operations of the city to the manager, usually someone with a background in government and degree in a related field like urban planning. The mayor and council then focus on the larger issues, and give final approval to those decisions of the manager that require legislation, such as contracts. One rule often held in council-manager cities is that it is improper for the elected officials to contact municipal employees directly — they must go through the city manager. Often, the single most important decision a council makes is whom to hire as city manager.

Approximately 150 Missouri cities use the closely related city administrator form of government. This form is used in cities such as Kirkwood, Arnold, St. Charles, Jefferson City, Chesterfield, and Raytown. In this form, the mayor and council appoint a professional city administrator to run the city, but the mayor and council retain more control of certain operations. In reality, the daily jobs of city managers and city administrators are very similar, but city managers rank higher on the occupational totem pole.

I have generally been very impressed by the people I have met who are city managers and administrators. In my opinion, the key to the job is not falling too much in love with government itself, and to recognize and accept the limits of what government can do. In most cities, the city manager or administrator is extremely powerful, because part-time elected officials just do not have the opportunity to know everything there is to know. This is, of course, sort of the point, but if the city manager or administrator falters, it may take awhile for the council to become aware of it. Something like that happened in Crestwood a few years back, if I recall correctly.

I have no idea what will happen to Mr. Cauthen in Kansas City. In the larger cities that use city managers, like KC, and have full-time mayors, it is no doubt imperative that they be able to work together. I would love to see some type of city manager system brought to St. Louis, but I might as well wish for Microsoft, Exxon, and the Bank of England to relocate here while I am at it, for all the good it will do.

Personal Property Taxes, Those Lexus Christmas Ads, and Free Tax Advice

Posted on by David Stokes

It is that time of year again when Lexus starts trumpeting its Christmas sales event. To those of you out there who are actually considering buying a car for Christmas, I must tell you that if you live in Missouri, DON’T. In fact, from a tax perspective, buying a car for Christmas is about the dumbest thing you can do.

The reason is simple — if you wait just one week to make the purchase in January, you can save a lot of money in personal property taxes. Now, Lexus knows this, which is why the sale is extended to January 2. Not all states have personal property taxes, so you Illinois readers can car shop on Christmas Eve all you want. But in Missouri, the law states that you pay personal property taxes on vehicles you own as of January 1.

So if you buy a car for Christmas in December of this year, the personal property taxes on the new purchase will be due December 31, 2008. If you merely wait until January 2, 2008, just one day after Mizzou beats Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, to buy the new car, you will not have to pay personal property taxes on the new car until December 31, 2009. The personal property taxes you pay at the end of 2008 will be for the car you are presumably trading in for the new Lexus. And that car being traded in will almost always have substantially less in taxes due on it, as personal property taxes are set by Blue Book value.

Here is some additional good advice if you are considering making some sort of purchase with an enormous red bow around it. And also, in assumed compliance with some regulatory law somewhere, I should probably tell you I am not a CPA.

More on the Internet Harassment Law

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Kansas City Star reports that the first people to be protected by the new law against internet harassment may be the Drews, the famliy that is alleged to have harassed Megan Meier before her suicide. Somebody out there started a blog claiming to be Lori Drew and describing her perspective on what happened. I’m not going give that blog any more attention by linking to it; suffice it to say, it stoops to the low level of what Megan encountered.

This incident illustrates how difficult the broad anti-harassment law will be to enforce. Anybody can start a blog claiming to be someone else, or post malicious comments about other people anywhere on the Internet (except for Show-Me Daily, because we don’t publish comments yet!). Some of that can be tracked, but it’s easy enough to go to a public library and set up a blog without paying anything or providing any personal information. The Internet is a big place, and it’s going to be hard for Dardenne Prairie officials (or anyone else) to police it.

Kansas City Counts on Gambling for Parking, Art, Self-Esteem

Posted on by David Stokes

Gambling revenue is to government what masturbation is to single 20-somethings — just a reliable thing to fall back on in case you can’t find a date one night or have trouble funding a parking garage. The Kansas City Star has an article on the latter here, which you will agree with me should be a nominee for "most boring headline ever."

I loathe the gambling industry. I know that is not very libertarian of me, but I never claimed to be a strict libertarian. Casinos (outside of Vegas) are the most depressing places on earth, next to refugee camps. I like gambling the old-fashioned way — the type that involves point spreads and neighborhood poker, and, until recently, was controlled by the mob. Call me sentimental.

The gaming industry likes to pay money to the government. I know that sounds weird, but they are to government what a dealer is to an addict. Government gets dependent on gaming, and then every time government needs more money, gaming gets to expand and kick back repay some of its new profits in taxes or fees. We have bills to remove Missouri’s loss limits filed every year, which is nothing more than a way for government to get more revenue to expend and waste.

What does this have to do with a parking garage?

The city could use general revenues or convention and tourism revenues, but Landes said both of those options would limit the city’s ability to provide other services. Landes and Budget Officer Troy Schulte also rejected any notion of a tax increase for the garage. Instead, they prefer to use gambling revenues.

Let’s just have the boats pay for it! Aren’t we smart! Saint Louis City and County are no different, expanding gaming as a quick and easy fix for a budget, with the typical government belief that everything government does is so important, it must be maintained perpetually. Eventually, though, it comes back to bite you.

 

 

Are There Really Townships in Missouri?

Posted on by David Stokes

Yes, there are, and one of them just lost a lawsuit for, among other reasons, not properly following the open records laws. The Joplin Globe has the full story, via JC. (That is not JC as in God, nor Watts, nor the hero from The Terminator, but Missouri’s own John Combest.)  I have to half-heartedly agree with the plaintiff in this one, although I sure as hell would not want to live next to a hog farm.  It does not seem fair that the zoning laws would be changed only after the hog farm began the process of starting up, and the fact that the township’s zoning board screwed up the public notifications is serious stuff.

However, I hope the zoning changes will apply in this area in future cases. I think most of my collegues here will disagree with me, but if the residents of a township, or county, want strict zoning to prevent operations like this, I think that is reasonable.

The subtext to this post is that 22 Missouri counties actually have a township form of government. I don’t think there is anything wrong with townships when they apply statewide, like Illinois, and have existed since statehood, but it is just crazy to have them selectively in the smallest counties of Missouri. The State Auditor’s office has audited township governments in Missouri and found significant problems with their financial reporting, record keeping, sunshine law violations, and more. I read this audit a few months ago for a paper I am working on, so needless to say, this Globe article did not surprise me. One county, Wright, actually got rid of townships a few years ago after experiencing many similar problems. I suspect that, in the future, many more of these 22 counties will do the same.

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