The city of Herculaneum in Jefferson County is showing how use taxes can be properly added into the municipal revenue mix. A use tax is simply a sales tax on goods you purchase online (or through catalogs) and have delivered to your home. Many cities and counties have added them in recent years as online shopping has grown. Voters often approve them, but sometimes they say “no, thank you.”

Supporters of use taxes say they level the playing field between online purchases and actual stores from a cost perspective, along with raising revenue for local services. That is true, and I have generally been supportive of use tax expansion in recent years. Broadening the sales tax base is a good thing.

However, I have also called for cities and counties to offset the increased revenues from use taxes with cuts to other taxes (at least partly). That approach gives you the benefits of expanding the tax base, equalizing competition between types of retailers, and some increased tax revenues without giving local governments a windfall in tax money. Unfortunately, most local governments have shared my enthusiasm for the first three parts, but not the last one.

But Herculaneum is doing it the right way. Herculaneum has included in the ballot language for its use tax vote on April 7 that, if the use tax is passed, the city will reduce property taxes by ten percent to partly offset the new revenue collections. Regular readers will know that I support making property taxes the foundation of local government revenue, but that doesn’t mean I want high property taxes. If Herculaneum can expand its sales tax base while lowering its property tax rate for everyone, that is a reasonable trade-off for taxpayers and residents.

The post Herculaneum Is Doing Use Taxes Right appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri’s property tax system works best when the assessments are accurate, the tax base is wide, and the rates are low. That combination will help grow Missouri’s economy for everyone while properly funding the necessary functions of local government. However, a radical change in the system is being put before voters in Webster, Christian, Lawrence, and Dade counties in April. These four counties will vote on whether to prohibit any property tax increases due to reassessments. Current law requires local governments to roll back tax rates as assessments increase, but we all know that taxes still go up, sometimes substantially.

At the Show-Me Institute, we support low taxes, and I am well-aware of how tempting this will be to voters. But using market valuations in reassessment to set tax levels is a good system. While our property tax system needs reforms, eliminating any and all tax increases from reassessments will make Missouri more dependent on other taxes that hurt our economy far more than property taxes do. Hate them as much as you wish, but property taxes indisputably harm economic growth less than other taxes do.

These property tax limitations would reduce the ability of school districts to fund themselves and would make them more dependent on state aid. Consider the following: school districts in St. Louis County regularly receive at least 80% of their funding from local sources, primarily property taxes, and some are over 90%. It is nowhere near that level in Southwest Missouri. Nixa school district in Christian County is only 54% locally funded, while Marshfield school district in Webster is only 46% locally funded. Even Springfield school district, the largest school district in Greene County, where no property taxes changes are proposed, is only 58% locally funded. These changes would make school districts in these counties more dependent on state aid, not less. Again, I’m aware that many voters may view that as a benefit, but it is anything but.

Numerous other harmful effects would come from diluting the market forces (in the form of assessments based on market values) that form the basis of property taxation. California provides us with an example of the harms of these types of property tax caps with its famous Proposition 13, passed in 1978, which dramatically limited increases in property assessments and taxes. Proposition 13 certainly had its intended effect of lowering property taxes for California homeowners. However, it also reduced mobility, significantly increased alternative taxes, limited homeownership opportunities, and caused substantial tax disparities for similar properties receiving similar services. These negative consequences are exactly what these four counties would experience over the long run.

There are also significant constitutional concerns with this legislation. Missouri Constitution Chapter X, Section 3 states that “taxes . . . shall be uniform upon the same class or subclass of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax.” So, consider the issue of the Logan-Rogersville R-VIII school district. This school district serves families in three counties. If voters approve these tax changes, the property tax system in one of those three counties would remain unchanged (Greene), while in the other two (Webster and Christian) it would be illegal to have a tax increase from reassessment. It would certainly seem unconstitutional for property owners within the same taxing district who own the same type of property (single-family homes) to face different tax and assessment systems for the same services.

We need property tax reform in Missouri, but this total limitation is too severe. If enacted, the property tax proposals before the voters in these four fast-growing counties would make the region’s overall tax system worse, not better. I hope voters will look past the easy appeal of a tax limit to think about the long-term harms.

The post The Wrong Way to Fix Property Taxes appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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 post In Peaceful Village, the Voters Vote Next Month appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Jefferson County Property Tax Freeze appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Taxing bodies that depend entirely on property taxes get crushed by the choices that cities make. Often, voters in those taxing bodies don’t live within the city that makes the decisions and cannot punish or reward elected officials with their votes. The most obvious example of this was in Shrewsbury, but it happens all over the place. With county TIF commissions, voters can hold elected officials responsible for the subsidy choices that they make.

Five counties currently have county TIF commissions: St. Louis, Clay, Cass, St. Charles, and Jefferson. Counties that use the county TIF commission mechanism have been more careful and judicious in the use of TIF than counties where municipalities dominate the decision-making process. This is particularly true in St. Charles and Jefferson counties, but even in St. Louis it has been better overall. St. Louis County thankfully rejected the odious Maryland Heights proposal, but it has also approved other bad subsidies (e.g., the Chesterfield TIF). Clay County and Cass County are fairly new to this list, so it remains to be seen if they will be better or not.

The exact statutory language is in RSMO: 99.820.3(1). Personally, I think that Greene, Platte, Franklin, Boone, and Camden counties should be the next five added to this list. Earlier this year in Osage Beach (Camden County), I testified at a hearing where all 6 members of the TIF Commission from the city instituted a TIF over the objections of the representatives from the county and school district. That is how TIF works, and it is terrible.

The post TIF Decisions Should Be Made at the County, Not City, Level appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For some background, Festus and Crystal City—two adjoining cities in Jefferson County—are planning to sell their shared municipal sewer system. That, by itself, is a good thing they deserve credit for. However, the cities never went out for open bids on the project. They negotiated behind the scenes with only one other entity, the Jefferson County Public Sewer District (JCPSD), on the sale. They went public in June with the proposal and have entered into a formal arrangement to continue negotiations with the JCPSD. (Nobody has finalized anything yet, to be clear.)

JCPSD is offering $5 million for the system. While that may be a fair price and while JCPSD seems fully capable of running the sewer system for the community, how do the cities know if it is the best deal if they don’t accept other bids?

I filed a sunshine request with Festus last month for public records regarding the potential sale. I asked for the available records. I received the response last week. The city’s response is utterly worthless. There is nothing in it beyond copies of prior ordinances authorizing the sewer system, recent bills authorizing the city to negotiate with JCPSD, and copies of public notices. There is not one e-mail in the response, which means either no city officials or employees ever sent an e-mail on this topic over the past year—or they are claiming every e-mail is privileged. When we asked why there were no e-mails in the response, this is what they wrote me:

The City has reviewed the records within its custody which would be responsive to the requests. In response to those requests, we have provided those records which are responsive and which are open under the Missouri Sunshine Law. As noted in the City’s letter responding to the requests, certain records of the City were withheld as closed records, pursuant to Section 610.021, RSMo (1), (2), (12), and (17).

In fact, total secrecy was demanded by JCPSD and the two cities right from the beginning, despite the fact that openness, not secrecy, would have likely led to more bids and a better deal for the cities and taxpayers. Here is section eleven from the initial letter from the JCPSD to the cities dated November 17, 2022, but not made public until much later:

Without the prior written approval of the other parties, unless otherwise required by law, neither the JMUC, District, nor Cities will disclose the existence of this letter or any information concerning the transactions contemplated in this letter, to any third party, other than such party’s attorney, accountant, or professional advisor who needs to know such information to perform his or her duties in connection with this letter or intend or the transactions contemplated by this letter and who shall first agree to the confidentiality of this letter.

This has been anything but an open and transparent process. The public hearings on this matter were held shortly after the proposal was first announced, and the two city councils voted to approve the memorandum of understanding with JCPSD the exact same night as the public hearings. (Officials voting the same night is always a red flag that a public hearing is a dog-and-pony show.) The cities took no other bids or proposals, despite being well aware other entities would like to bid on the sewer systems. Now they are hiding behind legal exemptions to not share any records on the deliberations and discussions of the sale.

Festus and Crystal City selling their sewer system to a larger organization, public or private, with more resources is a great idea. Going about it all in this manner, however, is terrible government. It may be legal, but it is wrong.

The post An Airing of Grievances about Sewer Sales in Festus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Much has been written about the newly signed HB 349. For those who don’t know, HB 349 creates scholarships for families to use for their children’s education. The scholarships will be funded from taxpayer donations, and in exchange donors will get a credit on their state taxes. The scholarship funds can go toward private school tuition, books, tutoring, or other education-related costs. (The program basically works as a kind of Education Savings Account.) Legislators are realizing that education may need to be different for each student, and this program will give parents the resources to pursue the best education for their children in whatever unique form that might take.

But this opportunity is only available to Missouri citizens in cities with more than 30,000 people. Eligible students (low-income students and those with disabilities) in the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, as well as the areas around Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia will be able to benefit from this program. Not so for families living anywhere else in Missouri. Some critics argued in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that “if the program was good for the state, it should apply to the entire state,” The implication being that since the program wasn’t adopted for every city, there must be something wrong with it.

But it’s not a bad program. There’s just more work to be done convincing other areas (especially rural communities) of the benefits of school choice. The Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program is good for the state, and it should apply to the entire state. All of Missouri’s families, urban and rural, should be given the opportunity to pursue the best education for their children.

The post HB 349 Creates Opportunity (For Some) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are a number of questions surrounding this proposal, and how to fund the Zoo in general. This blog is not the place to exhaustively consider all of them. But there are two essential points that should be at the core of any discussion of the Zoo’s funding future.

First: Should shoppers across the four counties and the city—rich and poor alike—pay for a zoo they may never visit or directly benefit from? Sales taxes are easy to collect, and they can generate significant revenue, but that doesn’t mean they are an economically sound or fair way to fund the zoo. Is it fair to tax someone buying wine in Defiance or Augusta in order to support a zoo miles away in Saint Louis City, that they may never patronize? Moreover, should those in the Zoo-Museum district—working poor included—be taxed twice for the zoo?

One might object that many of the zoo’s visitors come from outside the Zoo-Museum District, often from Saint Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin counties, so they should help pay for this regional amenity. I wholeheartedly agree that those who visit the zoo should pay for it. But a sales tax across those counties would tax far more people who don’t visit the zoo than people who do. As a percentage of total annual visitors, residents from the three above-mentioned counties only comprise 13% of the zoo’s attendance. Now, one could argue that since some people in the Zoo-Museum District pay property taxes for the zoo and never visit, others in the region can make that sacrifice, too. While this reasoning might appeal to those already paying the zoo tax, exporting bad policy doesn’t make it any better.

Secondly: Can the Saint Louis region stomach any more sales tax increases? In many parts of the city and county, sales tax rates are close to 11%, and there is an almost never-ending list of public projects asking for sales tax hikes. In Saint Louis City, a MetroLink expansion proposal includes a 0.5% sales tax hike; in Saint Louis County, Proposition P includes a 0.5% hike for public safety. At what point will the sales tax capacity of the Saint Louis region be exhausted, leaving no room for other projects and initiatives?

It’s important that the zoo has the funds necessary to keep its property and infrastructure in good repair, and no doubt feeding elephants isn’t cheap. But that doesn’t mean just any funding mechanism is appropriate to keep the zoo running. Leaders and policymakers in the region should carefully consider the funding options before them, and not be too hasty to dismiss options like user fees as an appropriate path toward a sustainable funding future.

The post How Should Saint Louis Fund Its Zoo? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

1.       Offer TIF in order to attract a business into your municipality and grow, or

2.       Say no to subsidizing a business, watch a neighboring municipality say yes, and then suffer as your economic growth is shifted into a neighboring city

This race to the bottom among neighboring communities has created an environment where municipalities feel obliged to hand over corporate subsidies, but the grass is looking greener around St. Louis.

In the past, even if a county government determined that a TIF development might be damaging to the region, an individual municipality within the county could easily override the veto with a two-thirds vote, essentially leaving the county voiceless on developments that impacted it.  Under the new law, if a municipality chooses to override, it will only be allowed to use tax incentives to finance the costs of demolition and clearing land.  Starting in August, affected counties will be able to significantly limit funds going toward developments that aren’t in the wider region’s best interest. 

TIF was originally developed to assist areas that were struggling economically—areas that would otherwise have difficulty attracting investment.  Sadly, this has not been the trend in recent years.  With the threat of big businesses relocating to tax-friendly municipalities, TIF has instead been used to attract well-connected businesses to areas where development might well have occurred without any subsidies.  The new TIF law will not restrict development subsidies unless the overarching county determines that a project will be damaging to the region as a whole.  It’s a much healthier approach to decision making than pitting one municipality against another. 

TIF reform has been discussed for many years at the Show-Me Institute, and the new law  is a win for Missouri’s economic well-being.  There are other reforms that should be discussed, such as applying checks and balances to the rest of Missouri (the override limitation only pertains to Saint Louis, Saint Charles, and  Jefferson counties), but limiting the powers that municipalities abuse to the detriment of their counties is a step in the right direction.

The post Progress on TIF Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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Why the need for entrance fees or higher taxes? The district’s institutions, like the zoo, art museum, and history museum, face mounting expenses. For example, just from 2011 to 2014, the art museum’s operating losses grew from $20.2 million to $25.5 million. The zoo’s expenses have also been rising steadily. Add to that ambitious plans for capital improvements (like a gondola over Interstate 64/US 40), and the desire for more revenue is understandable.

The Zoo Museum District depends heavily on property tax revenue. The district’s museums receive the vast majority of their support via property taxes. The zoo, even with private supporters and charges for services, still relies on tax revenue for almost 40 percent of its budget. That property tax, (8 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value in Saint Louis City and County) is maxed out.

Supporters of reform want to broaden the district’s revenue base. They argue it is unfair that Saint Louis City and County taxpayers bear the entire burden of supporting these institutions. Only an estimated 39 percent of zoo visitors come from Saint Louis City and County. Twelve percent are from Saint Charles and Jefferson County, and 37 percent are visiting from outside the Saint Louis area altogether. Mr. Uchitelle’s proposal to make zoo and museum goers pay some sort of entrance fee would allow visitors to jointly invest in these destinations. After all, admission fees are the norm at other popular institutions in Saint Louis, like the Cardinals (obviously), the Botanical Garden, and even the Jewel Box. In other cities, zoos (including the country’s most visited) and museums charge entrance fees without losing their appeal.

Still, to many the idea that zoo or museum improvements should be paid by those who use them is an anathema. They argue that residents at large, regardless of whether they enjoy or approve of the institutions, should have to ensure zoo visitors always get free admission. And because some residents of Saint Charles County and Jefferson County use the zoo, the “fair” method of increasing revenue would be to charge all the residents of Saint Charles and Jefferson County.

There is nothing wrong with putting the question on the ballot in neighboring counties, but convincing residents in Saint Charles and Jefferson County to pay for a luxury hotel and gondolas in Saint Louis City via local property taxes is going to be a hard a sell, “fairness” aside. If the zoo really needs more money for large-scale improvements, perhaps they should take the idea of fairness to its logical conclusion and raise the money from people who actually visit, wherever they might come from. 

The post Zoos, Taxes, and Admissions Charges appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to a report issued by MDNR, upgrading the state’s wastewater treatment plants to meet strict federal standards will cost between $430 million on the low end and $1.2 billion on the high end. However, most municipalities did not set high enough utility fees to cover the cost of regular improvement projects when regulation was more lenient. With the cost of needed upgrades now looming, localities will be forced to find more funds, which means wastewater utility rates, or other forms of local taxation, are likely to increase statewide in the near future.

Conforming to higher water quality standards in the most economical manner possible has pushed many municipalities across the nation and in Missouri to privatize their water utilities. Cities usually receive an upfront payment for leasing these systems, and while the private owners often raise rates, the increase is usually less than what the public utilities planned to do absent of privatization.

The city of Arnold in Jefferson County is considering just such a privatization plan partially in response to these types of costs. We have written before how this deal can benefit Arnold financially, and should it succeed, the privatization plan could become a model for other municipalities as they decide how to deal with increasing regulatory burdens for water treatment.

The post Cost of Compliance to Rise for Missouri Wastewater Treatment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you follow the work of the Show-Me Institute, you are aware (assuming you agree with us) how badly our state needs Tax Increment Financing (TIF) reform. TIF is severely damaging our state. It weakens the tax base, empowers government planners, encourages crony capitalism, encourages eminent domain abuse,  favors certain types of businesses over others, damages governments that depend on property taxes and have limited say in the decision (i.e., school districts), and all this for something that, in the end, does not succeed in growing the economy. But other than all that, TIF is great.

There are some important pieces of TIF reform legislation in Jefferson City right now. One of the better pieces is Missouri Senate Bill 774. The bill has passed out of the Senate and is now before the House. The most important thing the bill would do is further restrict how TIF dollars are spent in cases where local municipalities in Saint Louis, Saint Charles, and Jefferson counties override a county TIF commission’s decision against a TIF proposal. According to current law, the three above counties have county TIF commissions that make the choice on TIF, but cities have the ability to easily override the county TIF commission’s rejection. Small cities overriding the county TIF commission happens frequently in Saint Louis and Saint Charles counties (not so much yet in Jefferson County). The counties have tried to exercise discipline on TIF use, but small cities keep overriding their choice (Ellisville [initially], Shrewsbury, Saint Charles, etc.) and harming the larger community. Those new limits that SB 774 would enact are needed and would greatly benefit those counties.

The other good thing in the bill is that it adds Boone County to the list of the prior three where these tighter TIF rules would apply. There are great groups fighting corporate welfare in Boone County, and adding Boone to this list of counties is terrific.

Missouri needs TIF reform for all the reasons listed above and several more. Here’s hoping that the legislature will make this extremely important policy change for our state.

The post ‘Tis Time For TIF Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Pevely, a small (but not tiny) town in Jefferson County, is having trouble on a number of fronts. It cannot pay for its employees’ health insurance, it cut fluoride from its water to save money, and it is staring down the barrel of a substantial judgment against it from a lawsuit. I am confident the troubles run even deeper.

Many small cities in Missouri, and especially in Saint Louis County, are having trouble providing a base level of services. For most of these situations, the county is better suited to provide local services in a cost-effective manner. Generally, this can be accomplished without raising overall county costs much, due to transferable taxes such as utility taxes, business licenses, state road funds, court fees, etc. (I am defining a transferable tax or fee as one where the tax is not layered. The city gets it if it is incorporated, and the county gets it if it is not.) This is especially true in Saint Louis County, where the sales tax pool comes into play.

Jefferson County has a solid county government system and it should take over services within the community of Pevely. Hopefully, Pevely can become another example of successful disincorporation in Missouri.

The post Pevely Should Disincorporate appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Second, it appears that the state’s business franchise tax will be eliminated. This was a key part of the legislature’s “Fix the Six” agenda, and the governor has indicated that he will sign the legislation phasing out the tax. This is a tax change that will benefit all businesses in the state (at least all large enough to qualify to pay it) — not just those chosen for special tax treatment.

So far this week, we have serious movement on lower taxes, reduced government intrusions, fewer government officials, and municipal disincorporation. Although all of those things may not come through, I’d say this has been a great week.

The post More Progress in Fight for Less Government in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

David Stokes, a Show-Me Institute policy analyst, makes recommendations for provisions that should be included in the proposed Jefferson County charter.

• Restrict size of council
  1. The Law of 1/N states that the larger the size of the legislative body you have the greater the spending levels. While there are exceptions, this is a widely accepted rule of public choice economics.¹
  2. Five or seven councilmembers should be target for Jefferson County.
  3. Workload and salary should be considered when setting council size. Jefferson County has a much higher percentage of unincorporated population than other charter counties (74%).
  4. Some at-large districts may be considered, such as Jackson County, Kansas City or St. Louis City. Independently elected county officials (see below) are probably preferable to that.
• Maintain at least some other countywide elected officials
  1. The U-Shaped spending theory of Gersen and Berry states that local governments can have both too few and too many elected officials.² This is a very interesting new theory that I believe has a great deal of validity. In short, the levels of spending increase with too few non-legislative elected officials, decrease as the number of non-legislative elected officials increases, and then increases again as you have too many non-legislative elected officials. The reasoning for this is voter difficulty in properly assigning credit, or blame, in cases where there are a very small or very large number of elected officials.
  2. Prosecuting Attorney, Sheriff, Assessor, and Treasurer should be kept as elected positions. These officials either make policy decisions or serve as important checks on other offices.
  3. Public Administrator, Recorder of Deeds, Circuit Clerk and Collector of Revenue should be changed to appointed positions, with circuit judges having input on PA and CC. These offices generally perform duties as established and do not make policy decisions.
  4. County Clerk should follow the example of St. Charles and become the elected elections chief. It is imperative to have an elections official who does not answer to the other local officials and is independently responsible to the voters. (Or a board appointed by the governor, which is not recommended here.)
  5. Partisan elections should be kept (except for judges). In larger local governments, partisan elections allow voters a simple check on other officials.
• Restrict power of individual councilmembers
  1. No filibuster.
  2. Lack of authority to introduce spending bills is a dramatic but effective method to control spending. It is used in Saint Louis County, where all spending requests must come from the County Executive.
  3. Legislation should not be able to be killed in committee.
  4. Remember that when setting the requirement for the number of meetings each year, a council can always meet more often than needed, but not less than required. 48 meetings for Jackson and St. Louis Co., 24 for St. Charles. St. Louis City meets weekly, with exceptions. (Work sessions and committee meetings not included.) I recommend the St. Charles total.
  5. County Executive should have veto powers over bills, and council the authority to override veto.
  6. Council Chair should have enough power to effectively run council business, but not too much power to dominate, provided council size is kept small. Council Chair can also have a higher budget because of the higher work load.
  7. Bills passed over the objection of county boards (such as approving a zoning change rejected by the Planning Commission) should require a supermajority for passage, like a veto override.
• Restrict power of County Executive
  1. No authority to make any expenditure without council approval.
  2. County auditor should report to, and be appointed by, the council, not the executive.
  3. All department heads and commission appointments require council approval.
  4. Council must have sufficient staff to perform independent research and analysis in case of disagreements with the executive office.
  5. Department of Administration should direct most day-to-day county business, and their employees should be civil service.
  6. Council should have subpoena power to conduct investigations in extraordinary circumstances.
• Judiciary
  1. Jefferson County should consider going to non-partisan court plan system. This would not be done as part of a charter, so it can be left aside for now. Judges should also have at least a voice in selection of circuit clerk and public administrator.
• County employment
  1. A merit-based, civil service system shall be the basis of employment within Jefferson County. This must be clearly laid out in the charter.
  2. The civil service system should not include department heads, nor a base level of staff for the council, county executive and other elected officials.
• Intergovernmental Cooperation and Partnerships
  1. Nothing in the charter should prohibit or limit the rights of current and future elected officials to enter into these types of arrangements, including partnering with other governmental entities, cross-boundary taxing districts, government outsourcing, the use of public-private partnerships, and more.
• Eminent Domain
  1. Most of the laws regarding issues eminent domain takings are governed by state law, and will be whether a charter is adopted or not. However, this commission should consider putting a strict interpretation of the uses of eminent domain into the charter in order to limit its uses within Jefferson County as much as possible.
• Tax Incentives and Regulatory Controls
  1. Similar to eminent domain, the commission may wish to consider requiring supermajority votes on issues such as tax increment financing and other tax abatements.
  2. In a related issue, the commission may wish to consider putting strict limitations on future regulatory and planning actions that would affect the historic uses of property and Constitutional right of property owners. For example, planning ordinances that might conflict with agriculture uses could require a supermajority vote of the council.
  3. I realize these statements might conflict with the recommendations not to limit future officials in the previous section on government partnerships. However, eminent domain and land use laws strike at the heart of the freedom of the people of Jefferson County. Intergovernmental cooperation and public-private partnerships are merely methods of providing services. That is an important distinction.
• Government Transparency
  1. Bills should take at least two meeting to be passed, except in emergencies. If the new council meets weekly, it should be three meetings.
  2. Public comment period should be before all votes, including veto override attempts.
  3. Roll call votes should be required on every bill at final passage.
  4. Substitute legislation should not be allowed to be both adopted and finally passed during the same meeting.
  5. Bills passed more quickly due to emergency status should require unanimous passage.
  6. The Charter should require council meetings to be held at a time and place convenient for the public to attend, i.e. night.
  7. Exceeding the mandates of the Sunshine laws should be the goal, not merely compliance.

¹ Weingast, Shepsle, and Johnsen, “The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics,” Journal of Political Economy, 1981, vol. 89, no. 4.

² Berry and Gersen, “The Fiscal Consequences of Electoral Institutions,” University of Chicago, John M. Olin Law and Economics Working Paper no. 344, June 2007.

Related Links

The post General Guidelines for Charter Governments: Testimony Before the Jefferson County Charter Commission appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This will be played in some circles as a lack of regionalism in the community, with Kansas residents unwilling to support an institution on the Missouri side of the river. I don’t think it is a big deal, because Kansas residents support the zoo every time they attend by paying an admission fee.

This is a more complicated question in St. Louis, where residents of both St. Louis city and county pay a tax for the zoo, and everyone gets in for free. I think that residents of the surrounding counties should be given an option whether to tax themselves to support the zoo or instead have to pay an admission fee. But I don’t think certain people should pay a tax to support a free zoo so that everyone else can also enjoy it for free. (And, yes, I realize you pay for the parking lots, and the train, and the food and drink sales, and the children’s zoo, so you probably spend plenty of money when you attend no matter where you come from.)

I’d like to see St. Charles, Franklin, and Jefferson counties institute a property tax (in the long run, hopefully just a land tax) for support of the zoo. Then the rate could be lowered even further — and it is already a pretty low tax. I also think the other counties should get a representative on the governing board of the zoo if they opt in.

Again though, it’s perfectly fine with me if the residents of those counties choose not to tax themselves for the zoo. In that case, they should pay an admission fee — simple as that. I’d love to hear someone from a surrounding county argue that they should pay neither taxes nor an admission charge to come to the St. Louis Zoo. All aboard the free rider train!

The post Kansas City Zoo Tax for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Let’s start in Kansas City, where the city council appears set to establish new code requirements for doors. That’s right — doors. Apparently, the incentive we all have not to get robbed isn’t good enough in KC; now you’ll be subject to mandates to install special doors on new homes, which will raise the cost of housing in KC (although probably only marginally). At least they got rid of one bad part of the proposal:

[Councilwoman Cathy] Jolly brought the idea to the council in April, but encountered resistance from some council members who worried that some of the new code requirements would give a competitive advantage to an Overland Park company that specialized in a device to reinforce door frames.

Jolly insisted she was not trying to play favorites, and the latest version of the ordinance deleted language aimed at a particular device or specification.

I still think the reinforced door requirement is unnecessary, but at least the most “rent-seeking” aspect of the proposal was removed.

On to St. Louis. Before I criticize, I shall praise. There was an insanely obvious example of rent-seeking this month as the fire sprinkler industry attempted to get a county code passed that would require a comprehensive fire sprinkler system in every new home built in the county. I give both the sprinkler industry and the union credit for not even trying to deny the obvious benefits to them. The next item will get no such credit. The article features this quote from the president of the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri:

“The sprinkler industry has been basically advocating mandatory sprinklers in all new homes for probably 20 years and realized, ‘We can’t sell this to the general public, so let’s focus our efforts on convincing the fire service community,'” he said.

Mike Mahler, business manager for the 500 members of Sprinkler Fitters Local 268, conceded [the] point but said that did not mean residential sprinklers were not a good idea.

“We got the ball rolling on this because this is a great product,” Mahler said. “We educated the fire marshals: Here’s what sprinklers can do, here’s how they can save lives. And the fire marshals carried the ball from that point on.”

I commend the St. Louis County Council for removing this requirement from the new building code. Mandatory sprinklers are not needed for safety in the county and were properly taken out of the bill.

But on the other hand, the council seems set to approve a new licensing requirement for residential HVAC workers in St. Louis County. The city of St. Louis just passed the same requirement in April. Jefferson County is supposedly going to consider it later this year. Wherever it passes, it’s bad. This type of licensing requirement is a totally unnecessary handout to current HVAC contractors who want to push current and future competitors out of their way. It is “rent-seeking” at its worst. I testified against the bill yesterday at a committee hearing. At least two of the councilmembers asked some terrific questions of the public works director, and appear set to vote against it — although it will still probably pass. One of them summed up the real reasons behind the move in the a Post-Dispatch article about the licensing proposal:

“There is no evidence of a dangerous situation,” [Councilman Greg] Quinn said after the committee meeting. The licensing “was not generated by the public. It was generated by the industry to protect itself from competitors and increase profit,” he said.

To sum up, the makers or installers of doors, fire sprinklers, and heating and air conditioning units have all sought protective measures from local government. The same thing happens all the time at the national level, and it is one of the most depressing aspects of democracy.

The post Trade Codes and Rent Seeking Are Hot in Missouri Tonight appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I can’t imagine most people would have any objection — I certainly don’t — to the government monitoring the water quality and safety rules of truly public pools. But the government also defines “public” to include apartment buildings, private clubs, and more. In St. Louis County:

As of Wednesday, 248 pools had not been approved to open for summer, although many were awaiting final inspections this week. The county expects that some of those pools will remain closed, particularly at apartment complexes.

Assuming that most of these apartment complexes with pools are somewhat large complexes, we can reasonably say that thousands of people in St. Louis will now be denied the use of a pool this summer — and millions of dollars will be spent across the country on pool improvements — because of drain issues that have killed an average of one person per year across the entire nation. I am certain I sound like a jerk, but this immediately brings a classic Onion article to mind.

The Post-Dispatch article points out that Jefferson County does not have any pool inspectors. I think this is supposed to be a criticism of good ol’ JeffCo, but something important is lacking from the article — any evidence at all that there are problems with the pools in Jefferson County! Instead, believe it or not, the people of the county seem to be doing a perfectly good job of maintaining their own pools even without the threat of inspections to close them down.

Without a county, state or federal ordinance on sanitation, public pool owners in Jefferson County can make their own rules.

“We don’t care if we get checked or not. We keep a clean pool,” said Beverly Sweet, the superintendent of the Crystal City public pool. She said the water is tested several times a day and that chlorine tablets are automatically fed into the pool, which opens Saturday.

I’ll end with quoting the famous playwright David Mamet about how people (the vast majority, at least) tend do the right thing and work things out even if the government is not there to compel them:

But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?

I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From experience. I referred to my own—take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.

The director, generally, does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority—that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeavor.

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

Enjoy the pool this summer. Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

The post Rules Too Cool for the Pools appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Should we expect another fight over this unnecessary, anti-competitive, and simply appalling use of government to restrict competition? Well, given that one of the people who led the fight against this same effort in 2000 — and who was partly successful in that effort — is now a cosigner on the letter requesting the expansion of licensing authority in the county, I don’t have much hope.

My initial post on this HVAC licensing issue last month has all the links you need to find media stories on this subject. I once again recommend the Riverfront Times story from 2000. I basically feel like a boxer who is still standing, but has been hit so many times that he can’t respond. (And, yes, I have boxed and know what it’s like to be hit really hard in the face.) These proposals are coming, they are a perversion of capitalism, and they will raise costs for St. Louis consumers, yet there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it from happening. The capacity to fight back that existed in 2000 just does not appear to be extant right now (as I am sure the licensing proponents are well aware).

The post The Attack of the Rent-Seeking HVAC Contractors Has Begun! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.