Saint Louis County Misses an Opportunity

Posted on by David Stokes

The Saint Louis County Council has voted to keep its property tax rate the same, rather than lowering it in response to property assessment increases. The story is here in the Post-Dispatch and here on KMOX (via Combest). While Saint Louis County government deserves great credit for keeping its base tax rates low for a number of years now, I believe it would have sent a strong message to taxpayers and other government entities if the council had voted to lower the tax rate, even just slightly. That message would simply have been that the county would follow the spirit of the Hancock Amendment, even if the letter of the law did not require a rollback. So, now the single largest governing body in the State of Missouri, outside of state government itself, has chosen not to roll back its rates. This is unfortunate.

Come to think of it, I wonder whether the state itself rolled back its property tax rates. I would guess not, because they set a rate based on statewide reassessment, not individual counties. And with elected assessors doing the assessin’ in most of Missouri, the increases were undoubtedly far less than in Saint Louis County, with its 22 percent average increase.

I should be clear that the Saint Louis County average is probably more accurate than the elected assessor’s work, but it still needs to be reacted to with a rollback.

St. George Police Officer in Trouble … St. George???

Posted on by David Stokes

This post is not about the specific incident that has landed a St. George police officer in trouble. It is not that I don’t care about the incident, just that it is outside of our mission and research areas at the Show-Me Institute. That aside, many people who read the story in the Post-Dispatch or saw it on the news are probably wondering where the hell St. George is. If you live in South St. Louis County, you know — as it is a pretty famous speed trap.

St. George has a population of 1,288. While very small, there are many smaller municipalities in the county. The city itself is funded in three primary ways: property taxes (very low) on residences, a share of sales tax money from the county sales tax pool, and speeding tickets. The speeding tickets are the real rub, as they are what allow the city’s property taxes to be so low, thereby removing any incentive for the citizens of St. George to disincorporate.

There are a number of cities in St. Louis County that are able to exist financially largely through speeding tickets. Rock Hill is probably the most well-known example, but St. George is right at the top of the list. The fact that Missouri is the national leader in fixing (or "amending," in legalese) tickets is part of the story — the fines go up, but the points and insurance don’t, so nobody really complains that much when they get a b.s. ticket in Rock Hill or St. George, or wherever.

The state passed a good law a few years back limiting the total amount that a city could get from tickets as a portion of its total budget. Perhaps that limit should be lowered further, and as property taxes go up in the affected tiny municipalities, people might get serious about consolidation or disincorporation. For now, though, just be careful when driving on McKnight/Rock Hill Rd. As the officer says, the limit is 7 mph over, or 10 on holidays.

Two Major Meetings On Property Taxes

Posted on by David Stokes

Tonight, Clay County has scheduled a public meeting to discuss setting its tax rates for 2007. As we have discussed here and here, they might have to reinstitute a property tax because of a court ruling. I have no idea what their final decision will be, but I look forward to reading about it tomorrow in the Star.

In a related event, Saint Louis County Residents For Property Tax Relief Now (or StLCRFPTRN, for short) intends to appear at tomorrow night’s County Council meeting to again demand a reduction in the county property tax rate. Although not legally required to roll back its tax rate, because it is so far below the authorized cap, St. Louis County lowered its rate under similar circumstances in 2005 and should do so again. I commend the activists within StLCRFPTRN for their dedication — although they should strongly consider shortening their name, along with demanding a rollback.

Both meetings should be interesting, if you are into this sort of thing — which I, for better or worse, am.

Midwifery in Missouri Continues to Attract Attention

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

The fine folks over at the Missouri Political News Service have alerted us that my op-ed from last month, "Missourians Should Be Allowed to Use Midwives," has been getting a large number of hits on their site today, all arriving from Mothering: Natural Family Living. Sure enough, the piece is currently linked as one of the top news items on that magazine’s front page.

Although I didn’t report it on this blog at the time, I was happy to see that advocates of midwifery filed an appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court late last month, asking for the midwife provision of HB 818 to be reinstated:

Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, who added the midwifery provision to the bill, defended his inclusion of the provision.

“Health insurance is about access to health care, nothing else. And allowing the public access to additional providers fits right in (to health insurance issues). I thought it was a perfect fit,” he said when reached by phone Friday afternoon.

“I think it’s crazy that we’re the only place in the world that makes (midwifery) a felony,” Loudon said. “We should be giving pregnant women every comfort and option they desire, rather than let the doctors and the politicians dictate their options.”

Whether the appeal effort succeeds or not, there’s no question that midwives should be allowed to practice if expectant mothers prefer to use their services. Statistics show that midwives are a safe option for most women, it’s true, but even more than that, it’s an issue of personal freedom and choice. As I wrote in my op-ed:

One fact that’s often overlooked in the debate about the safety of midwifery is that it’s already legal for just about anybody to deliver a baby in Missouri. You can have your neighbor or your mail carrier or your pizza guy deliver your baby without legal repercussion. It’s only when you seek out someone with relevant experience and pay her to perform a delivery that it becomes against the law. Any system that penalizes training and competency just because money is involved needs to be altered.

Clay County Keeps Trying To Do The Right Thing

Posted on by David Stokes

The three members of the Clay County Commission are fast becoming my favorite local elected officials in Missouri. (Doesn’t everyone have a favorite local board? Does this make me strange?) A judge nullified the county’s attempt to fund county government solely through sales taxes, but the commissioners are trying to figure out the best way to comply with the court decision and still keep taxes as low as possible for the people of Clay County.

As I said when I wrote about this earlier, I have no idea whether the court decision was the right one or not. What I want to commend the Clay County board for is its efforts to set the property tax rate at a level that will satisfy the court ruling regarding road funding — but no higher. And, in my opinion, of all the things local government could be spending money on, infrastructure is about the most important right now. They are not using this as an excuse just to raise taxes and grow government, as I think many local officials might do.

Webster Groves Defeats Kirkwood In Tax-Cut Turkey Bowl!

Posted on by David Stokes

Wow, the Kirkwood School Board has given the full-out brushoff to hometown state Senator Mike Gibbons by passing a measly 4-cent-per-dollar cut in its property tax rate after a reassessment season that saw a 22-percent increase in assessments within the district. It could have been worse, I guess — they could have followed the lead of Ladue schools and not cut it at all — but still, this is going to lead to significant tax increases for the people of the district. The 4 cents only represents a 1 percent cut in the rate, so the average Kirkwood homeowner will see a 21-percent tax increase for the schools.

Over there across Berry Road, the Webster Groves School District did a great job for its taxpayers by rolling its rates back by 65 cents per dollar. Now, WG was basically at its cap, so most of this was required, but as we have said before, a rate cut is a rate cut and everyone who does it deserves credit. I think Senator Gibbons might be rooting for the Statesmen over the Pioneers next Thanksgiving.

Finally, the areawide St. Louis Community College District rolled its rates back by more than 2 cents per dollar (about 10 percent) in response to reassessment as well. That is good news for taxpayers throughout the St. Louis area, and I commend them for the rollback.

Be a Show-Me Institute Intern!

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

Today, we’re announcing our spring 2008 internship program. From the release:

Interns at the Show-Me Institute Internship are involved in virtually all aspects of the institute’s operations, working closely with senior staff on a wide variety of projects. Show-Me Institute interns develop an in-depth understanding of how a think tank works, including editing and publishing, event planning, and occasional travel around the state.

Recent interns have also had articles published in newspapers throughout the state, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Springfield News-Leader, the Kansas City Daily Record, the St. Louis American, and the St. Louis Business Journal.

But don’t take our word for it — here’s a testimonial from one of our spring 2007 interns, Steve Bernstetter:

Seriously, these guys do great work, are really nice people, and are spearheading a movement with great promise for affecting positive change. Whether you’re a naive young grad student like myself, looking to change the world for the better, or a grizzled cynical veteran of the politics game simply looking for a breath of fresh political air, you’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity.

If you’re a college student, be sure to apply! If you’re not a college student, pass along the word to someone who is.

Messenger Gets the Message on Eminent Domain

Posted on by David Stokes

Cato Institute scholar and former Show-Me Institute editor Tim Lee e-mailed to make sure we linked to this excellent column about eminent domain in the Springfield News-Leader. Ron Calzone, who is leading eminent domain reform efforts in Missouri, met with the hardest working man in the Ozarks, Tony Messenger, to discuss his work and the issue. Enjoy.

Hey, Verizon Customers: Your Bill Is Going Up …

Posted on by David Stokes

And probably everybody else’s cell phone bills will be going up too, if this settlement trend in the lawsuit over cellular phone taxes continues. We have covered this before here on the blog, and, to repeat, I have always thought that it passes the common-sense test for phone taxes to apply to cell phones, too. I hope and pray that municipalities respond to the (likely) upcoming cellular tax windfall by lowering utility tax rates across the board for their citizens, but I might as well ask for cherry pies to be delivered to my house when they pick up the trash each week.

There is a great line in the article quoted by the above-linked Post-Dispatch blog entry that really sums up well the attitude that many people (but not all) in local government, and government in general, hold toward business — as well as demonstrating their fundamental misunderstanding of economics (emphasis added):

"When they put it on the bill it looks like a sales tax and gives people the impression that it’s some sort of tax on them," said Tim Fischesser, executive director of the St. Louis County Municipal League. "And that’s not the case."

He suggested that companies include the utility tax in their overall cost of business "just like their corporate or income taxes or the golden parachutes" they give executives.

Now, I know Tim Fischesser and he is a very nice guy who does a great job running the municipal league. However, that statement is beyond silly. The idea that ANY BUSINESS IN THE WORLD is just going to accept higher taxes and fees, and eat them, is crazy. That is not how the machine operates — and not just because they are more interested in extravagant executive pay and perks than they are in serving customers.

Business costs are figured into the price of services offered to the public, and when government increases those costs, prices go up. Competition (which there is plenty of in the cell phone industry) lowers costs as much as possible, but a government-mandated charge or tax is always going to be passed along to consumers in some form or another.

A final note: Income and corporate taxes are ALSO calculated into the price offered to the public.

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