DESE’s newest version of APR, the state’s school and district evaluation method, shows no improvement in presenting information to parents. It’s something I’ve written about before, and I’m not the only one to notice how confusing these report cards can be. When the new report cards came out last week, there were quite a few articles pointing out how opaque and cryptic the information is.

KCUR’s article title is pretty self-explanatory: “Missouri Parents Just Got More School Data But They Might Need A Textbook To Figure It Out.”

The Kansas City Star editorial board wrote about the new report cards, saying: “Sadly, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education gets a D for its report this year — not because the results are good or bad, necessarily, but because the results are nearly indecipherable.”

When explaining how to read the report, the editorial board asks “Confused? Almost certainly. The system seems designed to befuddle even the most committed parents.”

Another Kansas City Star article shows that even districts are confused: “In fact, Kansas City Public Schools and Hickman Mills still don’t know if they scored well enough on the Annual Performance Report to regain full state accreditation.” The article also pointed out that “the new format comes with a guide, but it’s 77 pages long.”

KSHB wrote: “The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released its Annual Performance Report Thursday morning, though it may have left school districts with more questions than answers.”

St. Louis public radio had an article appropriately titled “Missouri Redesigned School Report Cards – And It’s A Lot To Digest.” One of the authors even posted a nine-step tutorial on her Twitter account explaining how to access the report page.

The new report cards shouldn’t leave this many people confused. The onslaught of disdain should cause DESE to rethink its design and build school report cards that are actually useful.  

The post Don’t Worry, We’re All Confused appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The conversation with [Southwest Airlines chief executive Gary] Kelly, which [Mayor Sly] James initially denied but Southwest confirmed, happened early in the week. James, through a spokeswoman, said the conversation was about cost sharing among airlines for a baggage handling system at the KCI terminal, a $20 million element in the project but a fraction of the overall cost.

I don’t know why the mayor would have initially denied speaking with an executive at Southwest. However, it is the sort of tactic that proponents of the new single terminal have been employing since the very beginning. Remember that proponents of the new terminal told us that there is no correlation between ticket prices and the fees airlines pay to fund airports. But Spirit and Allegiant Airlines have made it clear there is a connection.

Then we learned the price for the terminal was going way up. Cat Reid’s story on November 1 for KSHB indicated that this wasn’t a big deal for the airlines:

The director of the Kansas City Aviation Department, who has been meeting with airline executives across the country, said they have “no anxiety at all” about the $1.9 billion price tag on the new terminal.

But that wasn’t true. The airlines did have problems with the $1.9 billion price tag, and are asking to have their own consultants look at the price.

Fox 4 reported on November 15 that Mayor James said the price problem was specific to a dispute about paying for the new baggage handling system. But that wasn’t true, either. While there is a dispute regarding baggage fees, Steve Vockrodt reported on December 2 in the Star that, yes, the price itself was a point of contention.

Part of the reason why airline buy-in is so important is that Kansas Citians have been told all along that the airlines would be footing the bill without taxpayer funds. But this might not end up being the case—finance department representatives said they might use the general fund to cover initial costs. Now the city council is acting to make sure that those previous promises are honored.

Regardless of whether officials are misleading the public or simply do not know what they are doing, the airport project appears to be a mess. But civic leadership is willing to look the other way. Good public policy is unlikely to result from such an awful process.

The post What Is Going On with the KCI Project? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“There is still work to do because even one homicide is too many,” [Mayor] James said. “But I have faith in the collaborative and strategic approach of KC NoVa. This year’s data tells us that so far we are making great strides in the right direction.”

Fast forward to today—after years of a nation-leading spike in homicides (currently #5 in the nation with 108 in 2018 as of this writing)—and those same people seem to want to deny any affiliation with policing. The mayor, whose role as a member of the police board was highlighted in 2014, seems to shrug off any role in policing today. In a KCPT panel discussion about the 50th anniversary of the Kansas City Race Riots, moderator Nick Haines raises a question about minority hiring in the police department, “Mayor, you’re on the police commission.” James responds, “Yes . . . and…?” to laughs from the audience. (Starts at 35:32.)

In a more recent press conference, Mayor James complained bitterly about lack of gun control legislation and political ideology in the state legislature. But as a recent KSHB report on homicides made clear, there is no evidence that Jackson County, Missouri, has significantly more gun ownership than, say, Johnson County, Kansas, or that gun ownership in Kansas City has increased over the same time frame that homicides have spiked. It’s not the guns.

There is research, however, that indicates that increasing the number of police officers does reduce crime. KSHB’s Andy Alcock makes that point in his report, too. In fact, according to FBI statistics, Kansas City has fewer police officers per capita than all other cities with high homicide rates. What’s worse, since 2011, the number of uniformed police officers in Kansas City has declined.

As I laid out in a Kansas City Star guest column, no one in Missouri has more power over policing in Kansas City than the mayor’s office. What is lacking is not power, but will. And until Kansas City leaders get serious about adopting policies and policing methods that actually contribute to reductions in violent crime, we are figuratively whistling past an ever-growing graveyard.

The post Kansas City’s Unrelenting and Unaddressed Homicide Problem appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

KSHB TV, WDAF TV and The Kansas City Star reported on the matter. The latter quoted Kansas City’s Mayor James saying, “I’m not asking the state legislature to do anything other than leave us alone.” (This is usually the Mayor’s response unless he is looking for more money from state government, such as in tax credits or state funds.)

The Star reports,

And if the city imposes a new 1 cent sales tax for the Central Business District—part of a deal it struck last month with Power & Light District developer Cordish to help pay for parking garages—the cumulative rate would be 13.6 percent.

You don’t need to be an anti-tax ideologue to wonder if there is a point at which sales taxes are just too high.  Back in 2014, Steve Vockrodt of The Pitch asked, “City Hall rationalizes these incentive deals by saying they boost the local economy and expand the tax base. But if that’s true, then why do all these tax proposals keep coming up?” That was back when the sales tax at the Power & Light District topped out at 11.1 percent.

If Kansas City is undergoing revitalization—as city leaders claim—then why are we still raising taxes for the many to give tax breaks to the few? If this is success, it appears taxpayers can’t afford much more of it.

The post Should Five Percent Appear Too Small… appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In this last streetcar election in Kansas City, residents who lived within the boundaries of the TDD were required to follow these steps in order to have their vote counted:

• Obtain and complete the official ballot request form
• Obtain proof of voter registration;
• Return the ballot request and the proof of voter registration by May 23 at 5:00 p.m.

When the ballot itself was received,

• The ballot had to be completed and placed inside a white envelope;
• That white envelope had to be placed inside a blue envelope; and signed in the presence of a notary;
• That blue envelope had to be received by the Court by 5:00 pm on August 1.

To put things in perspective, civil rights groups sued the state of Missouri simply for requiring photo identification to vote. But when the law required voters to request ballots, provide proof of registration and seek out a notary, those same groups were silent.

At least one Kansas City voter tried to play by these Byzantine rules and had his ballot discarded. According to KSHB, John Toms mailed in his ballot 5 days in advance only to have the court claim it wasn’t received on time. There was no USPS post-mark on the rejected envelope.

Multiply these burdens to voters by the 230 TDDs in Missouri that together collect an annual average of $50 million in sales taxes alone and it is clear that this is something that needs more stringent taxpayer oversight. HB 1234 is a move in the right direction.

Click below to read the entire testimony

The post Taxing District Reform Testimony appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Right to Work, Show-Me Lead the Nightly News in KC appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kevin Koster, a member of the Airport Terminal Advisory Group empanelled by the mayor two years ago to consider the wisdom of a $1 billion new terminal, reacted on Twitter,

A single terminal would have had to be completely evac. TSA told KCI task force this was advantage of current design

Back in March 2014, The Kansas City Business Journal reported that a TSA official did exactly that [emphasis added]:

The post MCI and the Evacuation That Wasn’t appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 2002, residents of Kansas City were told that if they did not approve a measure to build a 130,000-square-foot addition to Bartle Hall the city would lose millions in convention business. The campaign featured statements from convention managers who said they may have to leave Kansas City. One mailer, available here, included two such statements:

“Ace Hardware will no longer be able to host conventions in Kansas City until the Convention Center is expanded . . .” —Ace Hardware Conventions Manager

Taxpayers did vote to expand Bartle Hall, but Ace Hardware’s convention never returned to Kansas City. A second quote in the mailer makes the same point:

“We understand that a 40,000 sq. foot ballroom is being considered—the city needs to solidify its plans and begin construction as soon as possible to continue meeting our needs. Our continued commitment to Kansas City depends on the City’s plans for expansion . . .” —Associate Executive Director, Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA)

A representative for VICA, also known as SkillsUSA, recently told Amy Hawley at KSHB that it left Kansas City last year because of insufficient “hotel space and convention space.” Building a convention hotel now will not meet its needs; the company won’t be back regardless of what the city does with a hotel.

In fact, the 2002 mailer starts off with a statement that is almost identical to the argument being made today:

Current bookings for future conventions is the best indicator of convention and tourism business in Kansas City five to ten years from now. Our future bookings are down dramatically and the reason is clear—without a new ballroom/general assembly meeting room, companies and organizations will continue to pass over Kansas City.

Replace “ballroom/general assembly meeting room” with “convention hotel” and nothing has changed in 13 years. The Bartle Hall expansion failed to be the boon that was hoped for. There is no real reason to expect that a new hotel will increase convention business in Kansas City, especially when it likely will make us one of the most expensive convention cities in the country.

The post It’s Groundhog Day for the KC Convention Center appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In January 2014, streetcar boosters floated downtown economic growth figures of $879 million. By March of that year, they reduced it to $791 million. That dropped further to $750 million in May. According to KCTV at the time [emphasis added]:

The mayor also said businesses are already investing $750 million in downtown, like with the new Marriott Hotel that’s set to be built just feet from the construction site. The mayor said it’s all thanks to the new streetcar.

A few months later, the number shot up to $900 million again, albeit with a caveat. Amy Hawley at KSHB reported:

The city has long said streetcars drive business. It attributes $900 million of new downtown business to the new streetcar line.

“We have about $900 million in projects in the downtown area right now since the starter line was first approved by the voters,” Chris Hernandez, the KCMO Director of Communications, said.

Those are very different standards. On the one hand the city wants to say the development happened because of the streetcar, on the other the city says the development happened after the streetcar. This is a classic logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc or “after therefore because of.” The city wants to claim everything that happened after the streetcar vote as happening because of the streetcar vote. We have pointed out that basic flaw for over a year here and here and here.

As of January 2015, the number is $1.24 billion, according to the Downtown Council. They put the number at $1.24 billion according to their “research.” But they seem to commit the same logical fallacy as the city [emphasis added]:

The past two years marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the renaissance of Downtown Kansas City as more than $1 billion dollars of new investment was announced or started construction since voters approved the new streetcar line.

If the economic development benefit of streetcars is so concrete, why can’t boosters agree on a number? The answer, of course, is that the numbers aren’t concrete. In fact, they’re often baseless.

The post Kansas City’s Shifting Development Claims appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Under the best circumstances, Burns & Mac officials claim they will create up to 2,000 jobs for only $40,000,000 in public taxpayer money. That is a cost of $20,000 for each job. That’s not bad by government standards; a study in Saint Louis found that Tax Increment Financing (TIF) created retail jobs at a cost of $370,000 each. Let”s hope the TIF is as successful as Burns & Mac claims, but experience suggests otherwise.

Soon we will write up an analysis of what Burns & Mac is asking for, and it isn’t as small a subsidy as they would like you to believe.

While the Show-Me Institute understands that businesses must seek the best deal they can, including public assistance if offered, we fault municipalities for being too eager to give away the shop. Burns & Mac is well connected. CEO Greg Graves is a former president of the Chamber of Commerce. Kansas City Mayor Sly James said the city was going to help the project months before Burns & Mac (publicly) asked for help. Those are the benefits of being a political crony.

But what’s worse about this whole ordeal is not Burns & Mac’s shameless rent-seeking, or promoting a public policy that has been proven unsuccessful, or that the earnings tax — which Graves said he is proud to pay — is being diverted to political cronies. No, the worst part is the response from Burns & Mac: “We are not requesting all the incentives that were available to us.”

In other words, “we could have taken more.” And certainly the City Council would have given more. Is that comforting to anyone?

The post Corporate Welfare Defense: ‘We Could Have Taken More’ appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James argued that hosting the convention is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he may be correct. Certainly, we all are proud of Kansas City and eager to show off on the 40th anniversary of the last time we hosted. Those are arguments for spending the money — they are not arguments for not telling taxpayers how the money is being spent. If the mayor is so confident about his choices, there is no reason to hide who is getting the money and for what. Furthermore, taxpayers ought to know what additional commitments the city is making to the convention committee. Remember, the $165,000 spent so far is just for the bid to host. Hosting itself will cost millions.

The city claims that the convention will have a large economic impact. We previously have written that those estimates are largely useless as they assume that without the convention there would be no economic activity — which is just silly. The city’s “fact sheet” suggests the economic impact to Kansas City would be similar to Tampa’s in 2012: $214 million. The city likely is getting that from a Tampa Tribune story in which they cited a University of Tampa analysis:

The total impact takes in $214 million in direct spending by the groups that put on the convention, including the Tampa Bay Host Committee, the City of Tampa, the convention’s Committee on Arrangements and corporate sponsors.

Note that in addition to ignoring any economic activity that would have happened without the convention, this impact includes spending from Tampa’s taxpayers.

Lastly, it was gratifying to read in their “fact sheet” that the city thinks we have sufficient hotel rooms and bus service to accommodate the convention, and that our airport has more than 50 direct flights. Let’s hope city officials remember this the next time they advocate committing public funds to convention hotels, streetcars, and new airport terminals.

The post Tell Taxpayers Where Their Money Is Going appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Phase one refers to the first phase of FDA approval in which a drug has been proven to be safe for human consumption, but not thoroughly tested for overall efficacy, appropriate doses or possible side effects – a process that could take years.

Not every investigational drug is effective, and it takes time for new drugs to complete the FDA trials. But for terminally ill patients, unfortunately, that’s time they do not have. HB 1685 stands for the proposition that terminally ill patients should have the opportunity to try all reasonable means to fight for their health and their lives.

I do realize there are FDA obstacles to the implementation of this reform. Missouri can institute a law that conflicts with the federal law, but the federal law will still take precedence. That doesn’t mean, however, that Missouri can’t change its law to anticipate movement at the federal level, whether those changes would come in the way of statutory revisions, waivers, or non-enforcement.

I think HB 1685 is a compassionate and reasonable response to a very real problem that American families and their loved ones face today. It’s time to talk about how we can give those families hope by making more treatment opportunities available where that’s possible; I’m glad Missouri is discussing it.

The post ‘Right To Try’ Bill Heard In Missouri House appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Show-Me Institute has repeatedly highlighted the harms of eminent domain. For example, the exercise of eminent domain power disproportionately affects the poor, destroying struggling neighborhoods. As one affected resident told me via e-mail, “You don’t destroy the neighborhood to make it safer.”

Additionally, while displaced residents are owed “fair market value” for their property, government often inadequately compensates property owners for their losses. This is especially pronounced in a time of depressed housing prices when, as eminent domain professional Rick Rayl observes, “Condemnees are penalized because they are forced to sell at a time when no reasonable seller would do so.”

Kansas City resident Ameena Powell protests the new police campus location. (Photo Credit: Michael Mahoney)

The police campus project appears to follow the usual patterns of driving out low-income residents for public investment. Ameena Powell, a property owner in the project area, told me via phone that the city provided three property appraisals ranging from $23,000 to $55,000. That is a $32,000 margin of error in a ZIP code where the annual per capita income is less than $20,000.

This $32,000 difference highlights the problems that arise when cities, not markets, price property for sale. While the city often adopts the highest of several appraisals, appraised values can vary wildly. Because appraisals determine the city’s offer, this may force some property owners to sell their property on the cheap following unusually low appraisals. Worst of all, the appraisals ignore personal reasons for valuing a property.

This might dramatically impact individuals’ lives. In the KSHB story, Teri Merriweather, a resident of the soon-to-be-demolished neighborhood, said that “some people still have mortgages, and what the city is offering isn’t enough or is just enough to pay off their mortgage . . . So they have nothing to go buy a new home with.”

The consolidation of police resources to save taxpayer dollars is a praiseworthy objective. However, alternative sites (or possibly even a one-block move, as some residents have suggested) deserved more consideration than the city granted.

The post Kansas City Eminent Domain Will Harm Residents appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A quick note to commentators and blog posters everywhere: It is not sufficient to say that Randal O’Toole is simply opposed to light rail, and as such this study should be discounted. You have to actually read the study and then document where you think he may be wrong. So far, after reading various blog comments and news articles, I have not seen anyone do the latter.

So here goes the media roundup, if you are interested — as I am sure you are. The Kansas City Star published a solid article on the study, and linked to the full document as well, so readers can judge the arguments on their own — which we appreciate. Randal O’Toole and Crosby Kemper appeared live on two radio shows yesterday. The podcast of the "Chris Stigall Show" on KCMO AM 710 is here, and we’ll provide a link to the "Shanin and Parks Show" interview on KMBZ AM 980 when we have it.

I can only find one streaming video online for the TV station interviews. The video of the NBC Action News report is embedded here. Two TV stations, Fox 4 and KMBC-9, only have the online text versions of their stories online. KCTV-5 also appeared at the press conference, but I can’t locate the story on their website. We appreciate the coverage from all of these stations!

We will link to additional stories about the study as they appear. We are pleased to be a part of the discussion about this issue in Kansas City. Our primary goal was to give the people of Kansas City additional information about the other options they have for mass transit. If they choose to pay the higher taxes that will be required to move ahead with light rail, that is entirely up to them.

The post Media Round-Up for Kansas City Light-Rail Release appeared first on Show-Me Institute.