So what does it do? It shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value. Here’s how it works: Congress appropriates funding for education; last year, it totaled nearly $80 billion. The department’s bureaucrats take in those billions, add strings and red tape, peel off a percentage to pay for themselves, and then send it down to state education agencies. Many of them do a version of the same and then send it to our schools. The schools must then pay first for administrators to manage all the requirements that have been added along the way. After all that, the money makes it to the classroom to help a student learn—maybe.

In other words, the Department of Education is functionally a middleman. And like most middlemen, it doesn’t add value. It merely adds cost and complexity.

DeVos concludes with a call to close the Department of Education. I encourage you to read her full piece. They are strong words coming from someone who once ran the agency.

The post Former Secretary of Education: “Shut Down the Department of Education” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report highlights the success of reforms in states like Florida and Texas, which reduced government headcount without sacrificing services. Key recommendations include hiring freezes, targeted evaluations, and using technology to eliminate redundant processes. “Automation has allowed states to do more with less, improving services while reducing the need for additional staff,” the report notes—insights Missouri could apply to areas like its Medicaid program.

Unlike across-the-board cuts, targeted workforce evaluations allow states to focus on performance and eliminate inefficiencies. The report stresses: “By focusing on core services and shedding nonessential roles, states can strengthen public trust and improve outcomes.”

For Missouri, adopting these strategies could mean smarter spending, better services, and a government that prioritizes taxpayers over bureaucracy. This isn’t just about cutting jobs—it’s about focusing resources where they matter most.

Along with the Institute’s Missouri’s Free-Market Policy Guide and the 2025 Blueprint, the FGA’s report is a must-read for policymakers who want to ensure Missouri’s government is smarter, not just bigger.

The post Pruning Missouri’s Bureaucracy: Lessons from FGA’s Report appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One of these reforms is a subject of contention right now in St. Louis. In the 1940s, the office of the City of St. Louis Personnel Director, in charge of hiring most city employees, was made almost entirely independent of elected officials. That was understandable at the time, as that was a period of significant political corruption in American cities.

Over time, though, a wise move to limit corruption has petrified—as so often happens in bureaucracies—into a position designed to protect the status quo. Between 1942 and 2021, only four people held the job. Yes, they may have been very good at it. But it was inevitable that they became protectors of the system and of the other people within the system, particularly other city employees who live in the same social and cultural circles. If they weren’t there to protect the status quo, why else would a retired personnel director be taking advantage of intricate knowledge of city charter rules to prevent the current mayor from getting her person into the position now?

Former Personnel Director Rick Frank, who held the job for 17 years before retiring in 2021, has reapplied for his old position. And the current director, Sonya Jenkins-Gray, on Nov. 15 granted his request to be placed on an eligible reemployment list, according to Frank and a copy of the letter he shared with the Post-Dispatch.

That, Frank said, means the mayor would have to at least interview him should the personnel director position open up. And she wouldn’t be able to pick an interim for the job while that list exists.

“If her intent were to put a provisional appointment in there, there’s a problem per the charter and the rules,” he said.

Remember that a major city employee union sued to prevent Mayor Jones from being able to select her chosen person for the position during a prior vacancy.

H.L. Mencken said that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” When people vote for change, the newly elected officials deserve the chance to institute that change, within reason. That includes putting the people they want into important positions. The voters can then judge those elected officials later at the ballot box.

Civil service rules preventing mass firings after every election are good, in that democracy functions better with such rules than without them. Rules that give local government personnel directors some independence from politics in hiring are also good.

However, when these rules ossify into a system where a former city employee applies for a job in a move that looks as if he is simply trying to obstruct the hiring decisions of the mayor, I’d say the rules have gone too far and need to be changed.

The post Civil Service Reforms Can Go Too Far appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The federal government has spent billions on internet expansion and hasn’t connected a single new home. California has increased its high-speed rail budget from $33 billion to $135 billion and still hasn’t laid down any track fifteen years after the program began. It’s insanity.

Another huge federal program with local implications that has failed miserably is the program to install thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the nation. $7.5 billion was appropriated toward this goal in 2021 as part of the bloated stimulus package, and by the end of 2023, zero chargers had been installed.

2024 has witnessed the installation of a few new chargers. As of this summer, the program is up to eight. All of this for something the private sector could provide. But if you leave it to the private sector, they might not install chargers exactly how the federal government wants them to, and that’s (apparently) the problem. The federal rules are so unnecessarily yet intentionally complex that they are the cause of the delays. As Reason magazine writes:

Why so little progress? Alexander Laska of the center-left Third Way think tank told Autoweek’s Jim Motavalli that the federal cash “comes with dozens of rules and requirements around everything from reliability to interoperability, to where stations can be located, to what certifications the workers installing the chargers need to have.”

Who cares what certifications the workers have as long as the chargers work? And who cares where they are located as long as they are located somewhere a car can get to? The federal government cares, of course, because the complexity of the rules is exactly what gives bureaucrats their power and allows officials to reward supporters.

EV charging mandates, subsidies, and regulations, are all unnecessary. Where there is a demand for chargers, the private sector will supply them. This is no more complex than the gas stations that have been filling up cars for over a hundred years. (Did you know that the first gas station in America was in St. Louis? I didn’t.)

$7.5 billion for eight EV chargers in three years. So typical.

The post Charging Nothing and Liking It appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For example, why do all food truck employees have to wear an ID badge with a passport-quality photo on it? Restaurant employees don’t have to do that. That regulation seems insane, and at least some members of the board of aldermen appear to agree. As a Riverfront Times (RIP) reporter described it:

Committee members were shocked. When it was time for questions, Ward 8 Alderwoman Cara Spencer began with this: “My first question is, are you — and then there’s an expletive — kidding me.”

Show-Me Institute analysts have been writing about food regulation issues for years. In fact, we may have done more videos on food trucks than any other topic. It’s a great topic for us because it perfectly encapsulates how entrenched interests (in this case, restaurants) and their allies in government have worked together to stop a popular new way of doing business.

But back to the city. I think one of the reasons why the aldermen were so surprised by the level of red tape food trucks deal with is that they didn’t intend for it to be this difficult. But when you read the current legislation, one thing jumps out at you. The current ordinance governing food trucks gives the street director, the parks director, and the license collector authority to institute further rules they deem necessary. Here is one example from the ordinance (section 5.M):

The Director of Streets shall formulate any additional rules and regulations necessary for the proper administration of this chapter. Rules and regulations shall be maintained in the office of the Director of Streets and shall be available for public inspection during ordinary business hours.

This isn’t a hypothetical issue. The question of how legislators grant authority to regulators to set law is the subject of a major supreme court case right now. President Eisenhower stated that engineers went far beyond his original intentions with the Interstate Highway System by including intra-city highways without his knowledge, as just one example of this problem.

It may sometimes be necessary for elected officials to trust regulators to set rules under wide authority. However, there is serious risk to this approach. The idea that regulators are setting these rules fairly outside of their own system of pressure, bias or favoritism is hard to believe.

I hope the city will address the overregulation of food trucks with this excellent, newly proposed bill. After, all, it’s probably time for us to make another video . . .

The post Why Exactly Do Food Truck Workers Need a Passport Photo? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Nuclear War
• Total Surrender
• Recommended State Department policy

The understanding of the joke is that whatever policy or ideas elected officials want to enact, it is the government employees—the bureaucrats—who have to carry it out. Too often, the bureaucrats carry it out in a manner that benefits them, not the elected officials or the public. (I care more about the latter.)

The City of St. Louis is experiencing a problem like that right now, with its efforts to combine its three 911 systems into one. Consolidating 911 centers should be one of the low-hanging fruits for service sharing among local governments. There are numerous examples of it benefitting communities in Missouri. Unfortunately, while many efforts have succeeded, a few have been stalled due to resistance from local bureaucrats.

The problems in St. Louis are all the more confusing because this effort is entirely within the same city government. In theory, it should be easier to implement service sharing in one government rather than sharing 911 services across different governments (which isn’t really that hard, either.) But, shockingly, the various city employee unions have thus far been able to stall the reform efforts. The mayor’s plans to consolidate and improve the 911 system have been blocked, thus far, by the unions representing the dispatchers who are currently within different departments. From the article:

One union represents police dispatchers, and another represents EMS and fire dispatchers. The unions have demanded bargaining over any dispatcher cross-training. Uncertainty about which union would represent a combined dispatcher position slowed attempts by Mayor Tishaura Jones and her former public safety director, Dan Isom, to allow dispatchers to handle all types of emergency calls.

The unions complained Jones and Isom’s plans for consolidation were made without consulting them and that the changes in job duties were clearly something that should be covered in contract negotiations. [emphasis mine]

Missouri attempted major public-sector union reforms a few years ago. While some reforms were passed into law, a lawsuit unfortunately led to the reforms being overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court.

St. Louis has public sector unions delaying improvements to a system that would improve the city’s currently terrible 911 system and spend tax dollars more efficiently. But hey, fiefdoms have to be protected, right?

FDR was right about public sector unions. They shouldn’t exist.

The post Looking For Bureaucratic Efficiencies in All the Wrong Places appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• The new Alderwoman for both areas, Tina Pihl (Ward 17) has been more hesitant to grant tax subsidies for projects in her ward. This is a beneficial policy change from her predecessor, and the new Alderwoman deserves credit for this.
• The quickest way to get tax subsidies in Ward 17 appears to be to agree to make a donation to the city’s new Affordable Housing Trust Fund. This is a terrible policy that reeks of impropriety. “You get your tax deal after my favorite fund gets its money,” is an awful way to run government, and Alderwoman Pihl deserves criticism for this.
• The St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) board has approved substantial increases in tax subsidies for certain projects in Ward 17 without approval from the Board of Alderman, and against the wishes of the alderwoman. The LCRA took a subsidy package that had been approved by the elected Board of Alderman, changed it significantly, and then approved the larger package of tax subsidies. The LCRA board is completely out of line here and seems to continue to function primarily as a shill for corporate welfare interests. Alderwoman Pihl is correct here in her request that the proposal should go back to the Board of Aldermen, as our game of policy tennis continues.
• Finally, there are complaints that the alderwoman is moving too slowly in approving various things for her ward and slowing development. Time is money for everyone but the government. The key part here is that some of these projects being held back are over minor issues, such as simple variances, that if the necessary legal conditions are met, should be able to be approved by city departments without the local Alderperson weighing in. From the article:

But for Lengyel — he isn’t seeking tax abatement for the three houses — it was never clear what she wanted. He still has never spoken to Pihl

If a project meets the zoning regulations for the area (or requires only modest variances), and the developer is not asking for any tax subsidies, then why shouldn’t city staff make the approval decision (presumably giving the go-ahead)? Why should the local alderman be involved in the process at all, except in rare instances? In most other Missouri cities, minor permitting issues do not involve elected officials at all. For zoning changes or variances, elected officials would usually just be involved at the end of the process, which makes everything move faster.

The delay in approvals for generally routine matters (which is bad) is being caused by a new alderwoman who wants to be more cautious about tax giveaways (which is good). But the real problem here is the tradition and assumption within the City of St. Louis’s government that a ward’s alderperson is entitled to approve or halt any project, no matter how large, small, unique, or routine the proposal may be. Many of these smaller projects should never go to the alderperson for approval in the first place, and eliminating this unnecessary step is a would benefit the City of St. Louis.

The post Broken Approval Process Slows Development appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the past few weeks, the newly elected Branson leadership team has dramatically altered city management in Branson. The city administrator, assistant city administrator, city attorney, finance director, and the head of planning & zoning (and several other city employees) have either resigned or been fired.

There is, not surprisingly, opposition to this in Branson. A former city official stated:

“Branson does not need this, gentlemen. You three were not elected to conduct business like this. . . . We’re not supposed to be tearing the city apart.”

According to Skains [a former alderman who just lost an election], remaining city staff are “terrified” of being fired at any moment.

I am not unsympathetic to people losing their jobs, but the reality is that if voters want real change in their cities and towns, replacing the part-time elected officials over time usually won’t get it done. Most Missouri cities are run by full-time bureaucrats who have significant power advantages over the part-time elected officials.

Leaders dealing with powerful and recalcitrant bureaucrats is a fight as old as history, but the dynamic at play in Missouri towns is heightened by the fact that the full-time employees simply have much more information at their disposal. It is hard for a part-time councilmember to stand up to a city attorney with years of experience and a law degree, no matter how right the councilmember may be.

I remember over a decade ago when the people of Ellisville were opposed to a tax-increment financing (TIF) plan and elected a new mayor who was opposed to the TIF. The new mayor did all he could, but the pro-TIF city administrator, city attorney, and other city staff answered to the pre-existing council majority that hired them, not the new mayor. They did all they could to frustrate the new mayor, up to and including impeaching him and removing him from office. (The new mayor was returned to office by a county judge who found the entire impeachment process invalid.) Eventually, after another election cycle, the anti-TIF forces won and ultimately stopped the TIF, but the fight was brutal.

But back to Branson. If the people of Branson want to see change and have voted for change, then change is what they should get. Perhaps they will get more change than they realized. In that case, Mencken’s line that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard,” may be proven true in Southwest Missouri. But when the citizens of a city or county want change, the interests of the voters should be the priority, not the employment status of city workers.

Change is hard, but when people see what their communities are doing—be it mask mandates, tax subsidies, or hospital privatizations—and demand accountability and new leadership, they deserve to have it.

The post To Make an Omelette in Branson, You Have to Break a Few Eggs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This new business, which has just opened in West St. Louis County and has already received millions of dollars in state and county tax subsidies, is all set to go with a plan to increase profits. Is it going to focus on customer service? Hiring a better sales team? Increasing business efficiency? Apparently not. It is going to focus right away on hiring lobbyists and getting the Missouri Legislature to pass a new, special state tax incentive program for its industry. From the article (emphasis added):

Gateway Studios in August hired Bardgett and four lobbyists from his firm. Kerr said the company is hoping to win support for an incentive program tailored to the music production industry. Pennsylvania has its own program for the industry, which helps draw production companies and acts to the state.

What Ludwig Von Mises said in 1944 in his famous book Bureaucracy is becoming reality in our state with tax subsides (emphasis again added):

Such executives did not care a whit for the company’s prosperity. They were accustomed to bureaucratic management and they accordingly altered the conduct of the corporation’s business. Why bother about bringing out better and cheaper products if one can rely on support on the part of the government? For them government contracts, more effective tariff protection, and other government favors were the main concern. And they paid for such privileges by contributions to party funds and government propaganda funds and by appointing people sympathetic to the authorities.

The tax subsidies this particular business has already received are bad enough. The idea that a special Missouri state tax incentive would be created to benefit one particular business in Missouri is appalling. There is no evidence that supports the idea that subsidy-focused economic development plans are successful, especially in a growing, thriving area like Chesterfield. Economic development officials and politicians cannot predict the future, and their choices are often based on political favoritism. Furthermore, chasing subsidies often leads businesses to make sub-optimal choices, such as locating in a less productive place to qualify for tax money, or focusing resources on lobbying instead of business improvement (the latter of which, unfortunately, does pay off far too often).

There has been progress made on some fronts in this fight, but creating a new incentive program just because an exciting and hip new business asks for it would be a terrible step backward.

The post A Truly Terrible Idea for West County appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Despite some attempts to aggressively put public properties back into private hands (which is the ostensible goal of a land bank), recent investigations of the Kansas City land bank have found an entity chock full of conflicts of interest, property hoarding, and operational failures. This may not come as a surprise to our longtime readers—Institute analysts have done extensive research on the failures of the St. Louis land bank. The St. Louis land bank accumulated and held numerous properties, often rejecting attempts by people to purchase them.

The supposed purpose of a land bank is to rapidly get property back into the ownership of private individuals. The leaders of Kansas City’s land bank made promises for programs to achieve that. But investigations by Kansas City-area reporters seem to indicate that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It is not in the interest of bureaucracy to actually solve the problem it is created to address. That puts the people who work there out of a job. The natural interest of bureaucracy is to expand its influence and power. You don’t do that by keeping your agency small and making it smaller by getting rid of the very thing you’re managing. This is an important insight from public choice economics.

So, to no one’s surprise, it seems the flaws that have permeated the St. Louis land bank have become embedded in the Kansas City land bank. Those flaws will almost certainly emerge in the St. Joseph land bank, which was unfortunately created a few years ago. Springfield city officials, who want a land bank, should keep these repeated failures in mind and reconsider whether a land bank is truly needed.

The post Land Bank History Unsurprisingly Repeats Itself appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missourians interested in getting a gas tax refund should start saving their receipts immediately. Then, sometime between July 1 and September 30 of 2022, those seeking a refund will need to use the Missouri Department of Revenue (DOR) website to start the refund claiming process. Each claim will require:

• The vehicle identification number of the vehicle into which the fuel was delivered;
• The date of the fuel sale;
• Names and addresses of the purchaser and seller;
• The number of gallons purchased; and
• The number of gallons purchased and charged Missouri fuel tax.

As of now, Missouri’s DOR hopes to have a new online system ready to allow taxpayers to file their refund claims electronically, but if it’s not ready, refund seekers will likely need to complete a slew of paper forms. Refund seekers who have their claims accepted should expect to receive their refund within 45 days. And while the claims will not initially require the submission of receipts, DOR may ask for them. In addition, the DOR stated receipts should be kept for three years for good measure.

Keep in mind that only the new 2.5 cent gas tax will be eligible for a refund. So, if for example, you purchase 100 gallons of fuel before next July, you would need to keep all your receipts until then (then another three years after), submit the required information in the prescribed three-month claim window, and then hopefully receive a check for $2.50 a month and a half later.

It remains to be seen how many Missourians will decide to take the state up on its offer, but the amount of effort required for such a meager return makes me skeptical many will follow through. Of course, if the state really wanted to make it easy for Missourians to claim refunds, it would have created an app to allow taxpayers to file claims immediately after purchase. But just like many mail-in rebate schemes, the program doesn’t seem designed to encourage people to actually claim the refund.

The post Missouri’s New Gas Tax Hassle appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So far, public education has been held basically harmless. Regardless of how or where they’re delivering education, school districts can use attendance numbers from either last year or the year before to calculate their state aid. But that won’t matter if there is less money to distribute. There aren’t many places to cut state spending other than public education. Teachers probably won’t get raises and class sizes will increase. There is likely to be an outcry.

One area where there could be a little give is reconsidering the concept of local control. Missouri has 520 public school districts. The average Missouri school district has just over 400 students. That’s a school, not a district. We have 64 districts that had 50 or fewer students in 2018–19. I know that communities feel strongly about their Eagles or their Tigers, but it’s really expensive to have so many separate bureaucracies.

According to the fiscal survey administered by the U.S. Department of Education every year, Missouri had over $360 million dollars in general administration spending in 2016–17 (latest year available). This includes expenditures for board of education and executive administration services and other school district administrative functions. At roughly $400 per student, Missouri is ranked 12th from the top when it comes to general administrative spending.

About half of Missouri’s general administrative spending was for salaries and the other half for benefits. Indeed, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) reported that in 2018–19, there were 281 district superintendents with salaries (before benefits) over $100,000 and 38 that were over $200,000.

This year, many Missouri students are learning from home in microschools or pandemic pods. Parents are picking up the cost of supplies and even paying tutors to manage online schooling. I think it’s time to start asking if we need to continue to spend over one-third of a billion dollars on bureaucracy, or if it’s time to rethink how we fund public education?

The post It’s Time to Rethink How We Fund Public Education appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Mercatus Center’s latest version of its State RegData project analyzes state-level regulations by running a program that counts the number of times the words and phrases “shall,” “must,” “may not,” “required,” and “prohibited” appear in each state’s regulations. These words usually translate to regulatory restrictions, as these phrases, when included in regulations, typically tell you what you can or cannot do.

These words appear 93,915 times in Missouri state regulations, which translates to roughly 93,915 regulatory commands in our state. That’s almost 94,000 times where the state is telling you what you can and cannot do!

As you can imagine, some of these 94,000 regulatory restrictions seem inconsequential, unnecessary, and even ridiculous. A retailer may not participate in the sales tax holiday unless more than 2 percent of its merchandise qualifies for the tax holiday. The dental board may not issue any temporary license to practice as a dental hygienist in Missouri, though many other licensed occupations allow temporary licenses. The possession or use of beer bongs is prohibited on some rivers in Missouri but not others. Is this really what the state needs to be regulating? These are just three of the 94,000 instances where Missouri controls the actions of its citizens. To make matters worse, this number only includes state-level regulations; regulatory restrictions can be placed at the county and municipal levels, too.

Regulations are more often than not just red tape that Missourians must fight through to live their lives, and 94,000 pieces of red tape sure is a lot to fight through! Missouri saw some regulatory reduction during the “No MO Red Tape” initiative, but generally bureaucrats are much quicker to add regulations than to take them away. Regulations compound to suffocate businesses and workers, controlling what they can do and taking their resources. Why is Missouri making it harder for Missourians to run businesses, earn a living, and live productive lives?

The post Missouri Tells You What to Do 94,000 Times appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One obstacle would have been difficult to predict. A two-car accident along the trolley’s route escalated into a shooting, and in the ensuing investigation police tape blocked the trolley’s path.

The other, longer-term problem involves not police tape but red tape, and should have been recognized and addressed long ago. The 2.2-mile vintage trolley line, which is supposed to transport passengers to and from the Delmar Loop, is only taking them halfway because of a dispute between the Trolley company and University City. According to Gregory Rose, U City’s city manager, the trolley enterprise hasn’t met the conditions required for the permit needed to operate there. U City will be off-limits to the trolley until (1) a $300,000 insurance bond is provided for cleanup efforts if the Trolley fails; and (2) a potentially dangerous electric pole along the route is removed. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the company has been aware of these issues for years. Which raises the question: Why weren’t these problems addressed earlier?

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, the Trolley has been plagued by construction delays and rising costs. It may even be responsible for the closure of numerous business, some of which had been in the Delmar Loop for decades.

Perhaps worst of all is that even if everything had gone smoothly for the trolley, there is little evidence that streetcars spur economic development. Considering the time and money that have been spent, and the revenue lost to local businesses during the construction, we’re long past the point of wondering whether the trolley was a worthwhile investment. The only question now is whether policymakers in St. Louis can learn from their mistakes.

The post Have You Got a Permit for that Trolley? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Under the provisions of this ordinance, property owners seeking to rent to tenants will have to fill out an annual application so that they may receive this license. Proponents argue that only those who don’t keep their property up will have to worry about the contents of this ordinance. Yet, this ordinance creates many negative incentives for landlords as well as another hoop for them to jump through in order to do business.

A major issue is the provision that the license can be revoked if an occupant of the property is convicted of one of the following: selling drugs, selling alcohol, gambling, or prostitution. This encourages landlords to discriminate under the auspices of some possible future illegal activity. Even if the landlords didn’t discriminate, forcing them to evict people on the basis of committing a misdemeanor in order to keep renting property is excessive.

Even if the final ordinance lacked this provision, creating more paperwork for landlords is no way to encourage more people to enter to market. For example, this ordinance could push out people who don’t plan to be full-time landlords, but might want to rent out their house for a few months. Would renters be better off with fewer landlords out there renting out property?

Licensing requirements should be reserved for a few select professions (e.g. doctors). By requiring licensing for more and more professions—like landlords—the government closes out that profession to many new entrants and reduces consumer choice. Licensing landlords will do exactly that. 

The post The Ever-Growing Bureaucracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A recent Columbia Daily Tribune article shed some light on the extent to which the administration in the UM system has grown to a quite complex and increasingly burdensome size. From the article:

“UM has a president; MU has a chancellor. UM has a vice president of academic affairs, MU has a provost in charge of academics. UM has a vice president of finance; MU has a budget director. UM has a vice president of research; MU has a vice chancellor of research. UM has a PR office as does MU.”

It is clear that there is significant overlap in duties, which adds to confusion in the system but, more importantly, accounts for unnecessary spending in a rapidly tightening budget. This example does not account for other administrations at state universities in Missouri, such as Northeast Missouri State and Truman State. If the UM system focused on cutting back on costly (not to mention superfluous) administrative expansion rather than chipping away at smaller expenditures such as the university press, they might find it easier to fit into a smaller budget in a much shorter time frame.

As I have said previously, less funding from the state government does not mean that educational quality at Missouri’s colleges and universities needs to suffer. Instead, universities should see it as an opportunity to address the bloated state of their administrations and to re-focus their goals as an educational community. Taking an ax to the beast that has become the oversized bureaucracy in the UM system may seem drastic. But it is far more effective in terms of budgetary savings than the wishy-washy goal of “focusing on strategic priorities” — a phrase that sounds as grossly bureaucratic as the board of administrators that produced it.

The post How Many Administrators Are Needed To Run One University System? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a recent audit, the city of O’Fallon discovered that the license office had undercharged residents for the sales tax due on their motor vehicles. Now, DOR has billed many residents for the difference in what they paid and what they should have paid in taxes. (Even three years later, the DOR may legally assess these taxes under Chapter 144 of the Missouri Revised Statutes.)

This case is an example of how inefficient government bureaucracy results in undue burdens on citizens.

To a family hit hard by the recession, several hundred dollars can be difficult to come up with on short notice. This isn’t a case of citizens paying their fair share; it’s a case where a relatively minor governmental mistake can have unexpected and burdensome consequences on individuals.

Sales tax rates in Missouri differ from municipality to municipality because the total is comprised of special, local, and state sales taxes. While there is a general state rate of 4.225 percent, each municipality may charge its own additional rate. On top of that, special taxing districts within a municipality may impose relatively small sales taxes for specific purposes, causing sales tax rates to differ block by block in some areas.

In this case, the multiple layers of taxing authorities did not properly communicate and failed to charge residents the correct amount.

It is unclear who exactly made the error, but it likely occurred because of outdated maps that did not reflect O’Fallon’s recent annexations. Many vehicle owners were charged sales tax rates for unincorporated St. Charles County, when, in fact, they lived within O’Fallon’s city limits. When they paid the sales tax on their vehicles, the licensing office apparently acted on incorrect information.

According to Tom Drabelle, O’Fallon’s Director of Public Relations:

“It is very possible some of the maps being used by the local office, maybe even the state, weren’t updated as they should have been with all the annexations that took place and the changes that occurred literally on the fly sometimes.”

Because of confusion at different levels of government, hundreds of Missouri taxpayers are forced to bear an immediate burden. For more information, please see the article on KSDK’s website.

The post The Undue Burden appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I thought of this movie when I read a blog post that tells the very personal story of an inspiring small business owner. Without government grants, tax credits, or artificial incentives of any kind, David “Cranky Dave” Wolk saved his money and built up, ex nihilo, his own business — a gathering place and venue for artists and their creations. Like the vigilante HVAC man, Cranky Dave filled a niche for artists and the community and apparently did at least well enough to keep the doors open. Now things are getting difficult for him as Saint Louis city chases after his unpaid earnings tax bill (when he says he had no earnings) and simultaneously cites him for not having a separate trash bin for his business (he says he was using the one for his residence, which is in the same building and that he upcycles much of the trash produced by his business, incorporating it into art and craft projects).

As if this one-two punch of local government interventions on his business weren’t enough, the Riverfront Times reports that he is also being pursued for back taxes at the state level. Cranky Dave wants to make things right with the law, but he didn’t even know that the things he’s being cited for were problems. Will Cranky Dave be devoured by government paperwork like Harry Tuttle literally was at the end of Brazil? Is there room for honest, hardworking small businessmen in the city of Saint Louis?

Of course, Cranky Dave’s blog tells his side of the story, and perhaps the people he’s dealing with at city hall would tell another. The RFT found in their inquiries nothing remarkably different from the picture that Cranky Dave painted. Be sure to check out their blog post for more details.

What makes a business work? What grows an economy? These are not easy questions, although lawmakers and thoughtful people have struggled for easy answers almost as far back as historical records go. One thing that most can agree on is that healthy businesses grow the economy and serve the community. Most can also agree that it takes dedication and drive on the part of an entrepreneur to make their business reach and stay in the black.

Cranky Dave’s struggle is only one example, but it’s representative of an important principle. Bold, entrepreneurial individuals and hardworking community folks are what put products in the hands of customers and serve the people around them. The more that lawmakers do to get in the way, even with simple-sounding things like “you need a separate, commercial trash bin,” the more strain it places on fragile new businesses. To encourage local community and business growth, this is one time that a hands-off government attitude would clearly benefit not only Cranky Dave or the folks who are helping to keep Cranky Yellow alive, but anyone else with a dream and the will to make it happen. We’re pretty far from the world depicted in the film Brazil, but it still wouldn’t hurt to make things easier on the very people who are trying to make a difference.

The post Cranky Yellow Quaffs Bitter Bureaucracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I recently highlighted how government can get in the way of a person and her pizza slice. A couple of Show-Me Daily commenters said that the food truck wasn’t banned from Edwardsville — its operators simply failed to apply for a permit.

According to a Riverfront Times article about the incident:

Reached for comment, Pi co-owner Chris Sommers forwarded us along to Fond owner and chef Amy Zupanci, who’d invited the pizza truck to park outside her restaurant. In return for her Welcome Wagon treatment, Zupanci received a call from the health department yesterday, and an in-person visit from an Edwardsville police captain.

“The Madison County Health Department says they don’t allow trucks of any kind to serve food,” Zupanci writes in an e-mail. “However, they also have a policy of no inspection necessary as long as you have a health certificate for ‘non-consecutive food events.’ This would include festivals, farmers’ markets, etc., which may happen once a week, but not back-to-back days.”

Reasoning that under that definition the Pi truck is an “event,” Zupanci inquired about a so-called Transient Merchant permit but hit a dead end: The health department directed her to the police department, which informed her that permits involving food must be approved by…the health department.

This doesn’t tell us that the truck is de jure banned, but it can be interpreted as a de facto bureaucratic ban if public officials refuse to award the certificate required to conduct business.

Enforcing food safety is the ostensible goal of requiring permits. Nobody’s arguing against food safety — I’m certainly not. I’ve contracted food poisoning before, and I felt like I was going to die. I wouldn’t wish food poisoning on anyone — not even on a Keynesian.

However, excessive permit requirements can create a barrier to entry in the market, and keeping a number of competitors out of the market may be the unstated goal of the regulation. My friend and colleague Josh Smith explains the negative effects of this in a comment on my previous blog post:

When a local government requires some level of oversight for vendors, can it be called a “ban”? Perhaps not. If it is the case, however, that the Pi truck is not allowed to sell food in Edwardsville without the approval (through a form, or some other process) of the government, this constitutes an infringement on the right of the Pi truck to sell and the Edwardsville pizza customers to buy.

Even if this layer of bureaucracy seems small, it’s often small changes that have unfortunate marginal effects on markets. What seems like a simple matter to some may be not worth it to others.

Reputation capital can serve as an alternative (and perhaps more reliable) means of signaling quality and safety than a certificate from a local health board — a certificate that likely doesn’t signal much of anything in the way of rigorous investigation of potential health hazards. Dan Klein at the Cato Institute has published a good piece on the subject, “How Trust Is Achieved in Free Markets.”

The post Which Is Government Protecting: Consumers From Food Poisoning, or Existing Businesses From Competition? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In July, the city of St. Louis’s Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) Board of Commissioners heard public testimony from six persons seeking to purchase property, and the board actually approved three of the sales! (Commissioners deferred action on one of the properties and offered a five-year “garden lease” on each of the other two parcels subject to public testimony.) Per its usual practice, the LRA sent buyers off with the encouragement that they “will receive a letter in the mail” enumerating their required next steps for taking title to the city-owned properties.

All other agenda items received their recommended actions.

The above may seem like nothing more than minutiae to persons unfamiliar with the problems associated with LRA ownership of formerly private lands, but for persons who live next door to any of the LRA’s thousands of parcels in the city or for taxpayers anywhere in the city, the above actions are of particular significance.

One person who testified this month seeking to purchase a vacant lot adjacent to her home spoke of how burglaries are “a constant problem,” and that she hoped the acquisition of the lot would allow her to better protect her property. Another potential purchaser expressed her desire to become a homeowner, only to be rebuffed by the commission with an admonishment that she “talk to the alderman,” demonstrate stronger financial abilities, and await further review by the commission at the next meeting. A husband and wife expressed their desire to purchase the lot adjacent to their home in order to provide space for room additions to accommodate their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. Two representatives from a church spoke about how the purchase of a fenced parking lot would greatly assist in the church’s programming and outreach.

Considered together, the myriad of motivations and the multitude of proposed uses for LRA-owned land parcels suggest to me that individuals, when free to conduct land transfers, make better decisions about land use than do any seemingly well-intentioned bureaucrats on an executive commission.

The LRA meets in the Board Room at St. Louis Development Corporation, 1015 Locust Street, Suite 1200, at 8:30 a.m. on the last Wednesday of each month.

The post Individuals Make Better Decisions About Land Use Than Do Government Commissions, So Why Won’t the LRA Sell? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.