Healthcare supply is needlessly limited by regulations that often protect incumbent providers at the expense of patients.

The Solution

Enact free-market reforms to increase the availability of care across the state while also working to lower healthcare prices.

Key Facts

• Missouri needlessly restricts many medical professionals’ scopes of practice and has complex licensing requirements that reduce healthcare access.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, Missouri was a national leader in waiving laws and regulations that placed unnecessary limits on healthcare access.

Remove Unnecessary Barriers

“Scope of practice” defines what medical professionals can do in a state, given their training. More treatment options for patients means more competition among providers, which is good for consumers in terms of service and price. This is especially true and important in rural areas where doctors may not always be available or nearby. While Missouri has made some incremental progress on broadening the scope of practice for nurses in recent years, the state still has more restrictive laws than most of the country.

“Telemedicine” is the provision of medical care over the telephone and the internet. For the sake of public health and because many patients felt more comfortable staying at home during the pandemic, Missouri temporarily loosened the regulations that govern who could see a physician online and under what circumstances. Despite the recent expansion of Missouri’s telemedicine laws to include audio-only technologies, there is still work to be done to safely expand telemedicine.

“Licensure” is the manner in which the state regulates certain professions. Unfortunately, licensure can often act as a barrier to entry, especially for qualified healthcare providers from other states. While Missouri’s passage of universal license reciprocity in 2020 was a step in the right direction, the state’s licensing laws are still unnecessarily limiting the number of qualified and willing providers who could otherwise be treating Missouri patients.

Repeal Certificate of Need

Missouri’s Certificate of Need law restricts healthcare competition by requiring many healthcare providers to get state approval before entering new markets or expanding services offered in existing facilities. This restriction hampers market newcomers and puts upward pressure on healthcare prices by restricting supply.

Retake a Top Spot

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Missouri quickly became a national leader in expanding healthcare access. Governor Parson waived numerous laws and regulations regarding scope of practice, license reciprocity, telemedicine, and even Certificate of Need requirements. But in the years since, the waivers were allowed to expire, and Missouri’s legislature has taken minimal action to address the issue.

Missouri’s laws and regulations that specify what the state’s providers are allowed to do and where they can practice play a key role in the recruitment of new state residents and workers. Greater freedom for providers makes job opportunities in a state more desirable for prospective employees. If Missouri’s elected officials are serious about addressing the state’s healthcare access issues, making healthcare employment in Missouri more competitive is required.

Policy Recommendations

• Remove the unnecessary barriers to healthcare access that were previously waived during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as expanded providers’ scope of practice.
• Remove the statutory delays to reciprocity licensure and create additional pathways for licensed healthcare providers in other states to treat patients in Missouri.
• Repeal Missouri’s Certificate of Need laws.

The post Free-Market Healthcare Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kehoe committed to reducing Missouri’s income tax, which is welcome. Missouri needs to be more competitive with the states around us who are also working to attract families and businesses—including those already living and working in Missouri.

But he also introduced a budget larger than previous years, and detailed a number of places where he wanted to increase spending. Those increases included a number of items regarding public safety, such as $10 million for the Blue Shield Program, $2.5 million to support the sheriff’s retirement system, a new crime lab in Cape Girardeau, and boosting spending on the Blue Scholarship Program for law enforcement basic training.

Kehoe indicated he wanted $10 million to support childcare providers, $15 million in additional funding for career and technical centers in addition to $5 million more on an annual basis for their operational costs, $800,000 in funding for Future Farmers of America, and $55 million in new bonding for state fair facilities.

Regarding education, Kehoe indicated he wanted to spend $200 million more for the education foundation formula, $370 million to fully fund school transportation, $33 million for teachers’ salaries, and $30 million in grants for rural schools.

He also asked for an additional $10 million to be spent to support Veterans Homes.

The tab comes to $53.4 billion, $450 million more than the previous year. He did not mention any cuts to spending. But he did commit to ending the state’s income tax, “once and for all.”

All the programs the governor wants to support may be good and worthwhile. But it doesn’t take an experienced budget analyst to see the problem: one cannot continually increase spending while promising to zero-out an income stream that accounts for almost 60 percent of the state’s general revenue according to the state’s Office of Administration (see page 25).

Missouri’s financial position is all the more difficult because Kehoe’s predecessor, Mike Parson, spent money like a blue state progressive.

Reducing Missouri’s income tax to zero is necessary because of the economic benefits that will accrue. But if the effort is to be successful, Missouri needs to reduce spending. A lot.

I do not envy the incoming governor and those tasked with cutting spending—but there is no other way forward.

The post Missouri’s Tough Road Ahead appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Elections and inaugurations are a time for reflection and a recommitment to principles. As Missouri prepares for the new administration of Mike Kehoe, it’s worthwhile to consider the performance of his predecessors—especially on issues relating to fiscal management of taxpayer resources.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian-minded think tank based in Washington, DC, rates the fiscal performance of governors. The good news is that Governor Mike Parson is not the worst governor in the United States, but he’s the worst one who claims to care about limited government.

Cato has issued its report every two years since 1992. The report methodology, available online here, issues a letter grade based on each governor’s success at restraining spending and tax increases. Parson earned a D grade in 2024. Author Chris Edwards wrote, “Parson has been a tax reformer, but he has dropped the ball on spending control. The general fund budget has jumped from $10.5 billion in 2022 to an expected $15.6 billion in 2025, a 49 percent increase in just three years.”

The D grade placed Parson 40th of the 48 governors rated. Florida governor Ron DeSantis was ranked 19th and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin came in 15th. Parson was closer to Minnesota governor and recent vice-presidential caudate Tim Walz, who came in last. Of Missouri’s neighbors, governors of Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas each earned an A grade, ranking 1st, 2nd and 4th respectively. Even Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker and California’s Gavin Newsom outperformed Parson, placing 32nd and 35th respectively.

If one uses Republican party identification to denote a preference for small government and low taxes—and that is arguable these days—Parson’s 40th-place ranking stands out even more. It made him the worst-scoring Republican in the nation. And 2024’s score is not a fluke; Parson scored a D in 2022 and a C in 2020.

Parson doesn’t just compare poorly to other current governors; he scored poorly compared to past Missouri governors. Parson’s letter grades surpass only those of Mel Carnahan (scoring D, D and F) and Robert Holden (F). Parson even seems to score worse than Jay Nixon, whose scores were B, C, D, and D. (If you’re wondering, Matt Blunt was the best scoring governor since 1992, earning Missouri’s only A in 2006 and a B in 2008.)

Note that the report’s methodology changed for the 2008 report but has remained the same since. Previous iterations relied on many more variables, but the outcomes are unlikely to have been much different.

Missouri’s total spending has practically doubled in the last five years, including not just the general fund, but other dedicated state funds and federal money. That total spending jumped from $27 billion in 2019 after Parson’s first year in office to a little more than $50 billion for 2025. It now costs three times as much to run Missouri as it did in the Carnahan and Holden administrations!

Parson’s profligacy stems from the decisions he’s made since the federal government’s COVID relief funds flooded Missouri’s budget with billions of dollars in one-time cash. States were given considerable discretion on how to use much of the relief funding, not to mention the state tax dollars the federal cash freed up for other uses. Unfortunately, Parson, with the help of Missouri’s General Assembly, fell victim to the allure of so-called free money.

Today, Missouri’s budget is littered with what were once temporary initiatives that never ended and now receive permanent funding. Or, perhaps worse, formerly federal obligations that are now borne by state taxpayers.

Key among these includes Parson’s decision to use state funds to maintain the higher childcare subsidies the federal government subsidized during the COVID pandemic, now costing state taxpayers at least $70 million annually. Parson also failed to meaningfully manage Medicaid spending. Missouri’s lackadaisical approach to checking program recipient eligibility, after the federal government lifted its COVID-era ban on the practice, has likely cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars thus far.

In addition, Parson increased state employee pay by 7.5% plus an additional 3.2% cost of living increase last year. These raises were paid for with a temporary influx of state funds, but because the increased pay was not made commensurate with employee reductions, the higher salaries will require new permanent funding sources and will increase the obligations of the already underfunded state pension system.

Governor-elect Kehoe has a difficult job ahead of him administering government and working to attract more families and employers to the Show-Me State. Unfortunately, his predecessor has done him—and the people of Missouri—a great disservice by failing to properly manage taxpayer funds.

The post Missouri Must Do Better at Controlling Spending appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report advocates for a substantial reduction in federal spending, emphasizing the elimination of programs that are redundant or fall within state jurisdiction. The goal of this new approach is to alleviate the economic burdens imposed by excessive federal regulations and expenditures.

Missouri needs to conduct a similar exercise. The state’s budget has expanded significantly, with general revenue spending increasing nearly 50% over the past three years. As my colleague Elias Tsapelas has pointed out, this led to a “D” grade for Governor Mike Parson in the Cato Institute’s Fiscal Policy Report Card, indicating a pressing need for more disciplined fiscal management.

These reports serve as critical reminders of the importance of efficient government operations. We need a leaner government that prioritizes essential functions and empowers states to manage their affairs more effectively.

The post Does Missouri Need a DOGE? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Although over 21,000 families signed up, the program had problems from the beginning. First, it took the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) a full year to figure out how to implement the program. How that impacts the federal regulations is unclear, but families had only a short window after that to spend the money. Families had problems finding what they needed and, ultimately, the program was not as impactful as it might have been.

According to the DESE budget requests, in fiscal year (FY) 2024, $25 million was appropriated to the program, but none was spent. In FY 2025, the other $25 million was appropriated, but just $13,875,123 was spent. It’s too late to spend the money, so what happens to the $36,124,877 that went unspent? Technically, it needs to be returned to the federal government.

What a shame. At the same time, the legislature has created another scholarship program, MO Scholars, aimed at low-income students and students with disabilities, but hasn’t appropriated any money to fund it. The MO Scholars program has structure, scholarship-granting organizations, and thousands of scholarship recipients. Thousands more students across the state would probably love to participate in this program if it were funded.

The logic of helping disadvantaged students find their best educational option is there. The structure of the program is there. Why not the funding?

The post The Scholarship That Wasn’t appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to the report, “Parson has been a tax reformer, but he has dropped the ball on spending control.” To Parson’s credit, he’s signed multiple bills into law that have cut Missouri’s individual income tax rate. When Parson entered office, the rate was 5.9%, and next year the governor has already announced that it will be dropping again to 4.7%. This will mark the 5th time the rate has been lowered since 2018.

Working against Gov. Parson is his support of the state’s gas tax hike in 2021. During the debate about the gas tax hike, I wrote frequently about my concerns with the bill. I am generally supportive of user fees and gas taxes, but the 2021 bill had a lot of problems. After multiple attempts to convince Missouri voters to raise the gas tax, our elected officials decided they could do it without public support.

At the time, I questioned whether the move violated the state’s constitution. The Hancock Amendment purportedly prevents Missouri’s general assembly from raising taxes without a public vote. But the bill sidestepped the amendment with a convoluted rebate scheme and implementation over several years.

Nevertheless, the biggest mark against Gov. Parson by Cato was the state’s out of control spending, which is another topic I’ve been writing about for several years. Missouri’s budget has grown tremendously under the current governor’s watch, in both size and scope. For several years, it was easy to attribute much of the increase to the federal influx of COVID-19 relief money, but that money is drying up, and Missouri’s expected general revenue (where our state income and sales taxes go) spending is still up nearly 50% from just three years ago.

Though it shouldn’t need to be said, this cycle of perpetual spending increases is unsustainable. Not only is our government spending outpacing inflation, but it’s also outpacing our neighboring states. Gov. Parson’s grade was tied for the worst among Missouri and its bordering states (Kentucky also got a “D”), with the governors of Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas receiving exemplary “A” grades.

It should be unacceptable that the Show-Me State lags our neighbors, let alone much of the country, in the stewardship of state tax dollars. Going into 2025, Missouri will have a new governor, and a new chance to improve its fiscal policy grade. Let’s hope our elected officials  take advantage of the opportunity.

The post Missouri Nearly Fails Cato’s Test appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I’m skeptical, and you should be too.

This is a claim that cities and states like because it makes their leaders look financially responsible. But it’s often just a result of bookkeeping sleight of hand. Governor Mike Parson made the same claim in January, and it wasn’t true then, either.

The accounting trick consists of merely looking at the cash you have on hand and not considering your long term-debts. Truth in Accounting (TIA), the indefatigable men and women who pore through annual reports, issued its State of the Cities report in February 2024. St. Louis ranked 64th in financial health out of the top 75 cities examined. The authors wrote:

St. Louis’ financial condition appeared to improve due in part to increased tax collections and federal COVID relief funds. Despite the good news, it still had a Taxpayer Burden™ of $11,100, earning it a “D” grade from Truth in Accounting. But the improvement is deceiving, because the city used outdated pension data.

On pages 150 and 151 of the report, available online here, TIA lists St. Louis’s assets and liabilities. The report must use 2022 data because St. Louis is not a stickler about releasing its financial data in a timely manner. Despite being in the red, St. Louis’s cash-basis accounting allows it to consider the money it has on hand without considering its long-term debts. It’s akin to getting a cash advance on your credit card and pretending you’re richer as a result.

If the comptroller wants to make such claims, she should release a complete and to-date copy of the city’s books. Until then, I am going to assume that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The good news is that we here at the Show-Me Institute, and the fine folks at Truth In Accounting, are dedicated to making sure people understand the truth about city and state finances.

The post Be Skeptical of Claims St. Louis is Running A Surplus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Governor Parson said that Missouri would “do everything we can” to keep the teams in Missouri.

This is dangerous. The reason state and municipal leaders welcomed a truce in the economic Border War was not because of the damage it inflicted on others—it was because of the damage it inflicted on their own cities and states. When signing the 2019 truce, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly noted:

In the past decade, folks in Kansas and Missouri had to watch and wonder why economic development forces in each state spent huge sums — together, some $330 million — to pull businesses a few miles across the border, and only to create an illusion of success with practically no economic gain.

Parson agreed, saying, “Sometimes common sense does prevail. Because you don’t have to be a scientist to figure out [the Border War] was a bad deal for both states.”

Just because Governor Kelly is violating her own executive order does not mean it is in anyone else’s benefit to re-arm and ride to the sounds of guns.

The only ones who benefit from such skirmishes are the corporations that pit the two states and their various municipalities against each other. A prime example was Applebee’s, which crossed State Line Road repeatedly, adding no economic benefit to either side, but racking up sweet taxpayer-funded incentives for itself each time.

All that Kansas did the other day was provide the Chiefs and Royals leverage to play the states against each other—potentially increasing the costs to taxpayers in both states. Should the Missouri side present a package that is competitive, the teams will very likely go back to Kansas and ask it to increase its offer. This is how negotiations work. Will Kansas, now that it has gotten its developers, municipal leaders, and residents excited by the prospect of hosting the two teams, be able to say no? Or will it sweeten the deal, just a little bit, to meet this “once in a lifetime” opportunity?

Anyone can see how this quickly becomes a race to the bottom.

Many Kansans are happy to have Jackson County foot the bill—and the hassle—of dealing with the Hunts and the Shermans. Conversely, there are plenty of Missourians who wouldn’t be bothered if Kansas decided to pick up the tab—and the bond risk—of hosting those teams and all their demands of taxpayers. But responding in kind to Governor Kelly’s gambit is not good for Missouri.

The only way to grow an economy is for government at all levels to be good at the basics. Maintain your infrastructure, keep the public safe, protect property rights, and do so as effectively and efficiently as possible. Missouri leaders ought to keep that in mind.

The post The Border War Is Bad Because It Hurts Us appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Open Letter to Governors Parson and Kelly Regarding Stadium Subsidies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

David Rosman provided a typical example of this criticism in an editorial for the Columbia Missourian: “Conservative religious leaders and politicians see public education as inferior to private, charter and religious education, but there is no proof supporting that belief.” Rosman then goes on to support his claim by arguing that we do not have an effective way of comparing public and private schools academically, noting that public schools have to accept all students, and pointing out that public school students have won more Scripps National Spelling Bee titles.

It is not clear that Rosman’s examples actually support his claim, but the bigger problem is the claim itself. He says proponents of school choice support the cause because they think public schools are inferior, particularly in the area of academics. Yet academics is just one of the many reasons families support having school choice options.

While I’ve never met a parent who has chosen a charter school or a private school because they believe it will help their child win the Scripps spelling bee, I have met many parents who chose a charter or private school because their children felt bullied in their assigned public school or because they did not feel their children’s needs were being met. I have met parents who have chosen an arts school for their children and some who have chosen a STEM school. And, yes, I have met many parents, from nearly every faith tradition, who have chosen a religious school for their children.

When advocates argue for school choice, it is not because we think all private schools are inherently better than all public schools. Quite the contrary. There are many excellent public schools and many private schools where I would never send my own children. This is not a public versus non-public issue. It is a choice versus no-choice issue. It is a freedom versus control issue.

Proponents of school choice believe parents should be able to direct the upbringing of their children. They also believe that parents should be allowed to choose the type of school that best meets the needs of their children and aligns with the goals of their family.

In short, school choice supporters see assigning students to schools as inferior to a system that allows people to choose from a myriad of educational options.

The post Choice versus No School Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For months, I’ve been expressing concerns about this budget. After years of record-breaking spending growth, the well of exorbitant federal funds will soon be drying up, and state tax revenues are expected to decline or remain stagnant. Not to be deterred, in January, Governor Parson laid out his plan that recommended more of the same, including spending more than the state expects to bring in. Over the next few months, the House of Representatives worked to pare that plan back, ultimately finding some (but not enough) savings.

Over the past month, the Senate had been working on its version of the budget, but to no avail. Due to an apparent combination of time constraints and chamber dysfunction, the spending plan didn’t see the Senate floor until the day before Missouri’s constitution requires it be passed. The result of this delay was a budget that almost no one had seen in advance, yet still had to be approved by both legislative chambers over a matter of hours. All this had to happen without anyone making any changes.

The problems with this process should be obvious. Instead of each chamber having its own version of the budget to compare against the governor’s, and a conference committee process to reconcile differences, the compromises were made outside of the public eye. Instead of taxpayers being able to see how each chamber prioritizes spending, the lack of conference meant that there was no avenue for input from citizens on the final product. And instead of lawmakers having several days, if not weeks, to examine the proposed budget and suggest amendments, they were stuck with a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

Unsurprisingly, the approved budget looks like it leaves much to be desired. As Missouri’s legislators are fond of saying, passing the budget is the general assembly’s sole constitutional responsibility. Given the gravity of the assignment, it’s incredibly disheartening that the process played out the way it did. Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue unpacking the spending decisions of our elected officials. At this point, what’s clear is that Missouri desperately needs more budget transparency, and what happened this year should never be allowed to happen again.

The post No Way to Budget appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To be fair, if the House budget becomes law, it will be Missouri’s first budget in more than a decade that is smaller than the previous year’s budget. Not only is the House budget smaller than last year’s, it’s also approximately $2 billion smaller than what Governor Parson recommended for next year, which represents a small step in the right direction.

It should be noted that the budget process will now move to the Missouri Senate—the chamber more accepting of higher spending in recent years. It’s therefore still too early to tell if the state’s streak of record-breaking budgets is coming to an end.

The recent budget negotiations in Jefferson City also served as a reminder of how much things have changed for Missouri financially over the past several years.

• Missouri’s total budget has nearly doubled since Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, growing from a little more than $27 billion to $53 billion this year (FY 2024).
• General Revenues (mostly state income and sales tax collections) have increased by significantly less, going from approximately $10 billion to more than $13 billion over the same period.
• The biggest driver of budget growth has been the temporary influx of federal funds associated with the federal COVID-19 pandemic relief and infrastructure packages.
• The federal share of Missouri’s budget has grown from around 30% to closer to 50%.
• While Missouri (much like the rest of the country) has dealt with record-breaking inflation in recent years, state spending growth has outstripped the increase in prices, and has even grown faster than the state’s population and economy.
• Going into next year, the state will lose access to the billions of temporary federal dollars, all while state general revenues are expected to remain relatively flat or decline.

Keep in mind that the extraordinary state spending growth in recent years occurred even though Missouri’s constitution includes a balanced budget requirement—the requirement does not apply to federal funds.

There are myriad reasons to think the road ahead will be a tough one, and cutting spending will be a mandatory part of the equation. That’s why I’m happy lawmakers in the House took the measures they did to start turning the tide on state spending, even though I wish they’d gone further. I’m also looking forward to the Senate debating its spending plan in the coming weeks, with the hopes that members of the Senate also share the House’s view that spending should be reined in.

But with so many important spending decisions left to be made, and such dark clouds ahead in Missouri’s financial future, state taxpayers should join me in waiting until the budget makes it across the finish line before considering whether to celebrate any savings.

The post Harsh Budgeting Truths appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As my colleague Patrick Tuohey recently wrote, the rosy budgetary picture painted by Governor Parson during his final State of the State address was, at best, misleading. Missouri’s budget has nearly doubled over the past five years, and the governor’s more than $50 billion recommended spending plan for next year requires dipping into cash reserves to make ends meet.

In other words, it will be up to Missouri’s General Assembly to begin turning the tide on government spending, which will likely be easier said than done for several reasons.

First, the federal government is winding down its COVID-19 and infrastructure spending. This means that unless Missouri begins scaling back the services that have been propped up with federal cash, state taxpayers can expect to soon be on the hook for a higher level of government services than they were just a few short years ago. While the reduced federal funding will impact some parts of state government more than others, the Medicaid program is sure to need hundreds of millions of new state tax dollars.

Second, state tax revenues aren’t expected to grow at the rate they have in recent years. Fortunately, higher revenue collections over the past few years allowed Missouri to accumulate significant cash reserves, but some of those reserves have already been spent and the governor’s budget recommends spending more. There should be no expectation that Missouri’s tax revenue growth or remaining cash reserves will be able to fill the budgetary hole the federal government leaves behind, let alone cover the inflationary cost increases required to continue funding the state’s other spending priorities.

Given the harsh budgetary realities Missouri is facing, it’s especially troubling that Governor Parson and the general assembly are reportedly considering expanding the state government’s role even further. For example, Governor Parson is recommending funding—in a budget that relies on one-time cash reserves to maintain balance—childcare and teacher pay programs that will likely become new long-term spending obligations.

In a perfect world, Missouri taxpayers wouldn’t have to ask their elected officials to be good stewards of the state’s finances. Policymakers would prepare for rainy days and take future spending obligations into account when they craft the yearly budget, ensuring the state’s revenues and spending are on sustainable trajectories. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be happening right now. For now, Missourians are going to be left hoping that something changes between now and the end of the legislative session.

The post Missouri Needs Better Stewards appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A society grows great when old men and women plant trees . . . the shade of which they will never know or sit in.

I think this can be applied to our education system. We need great men and women to plant trees, yes. However, we also need great men and women to tend to them and help them grow. There are a few examples nationwide of this exact scenario happening—particularly in states such as Iowa, Florida, Arkansas, and Tennessee. To help our students flourish through school choice and educational reform, there needs to be a governor with a plan and a commitment to planting trees and cultivating our next generation.

Governor Huckabee Sanders proposed an ambitious education reform plan to the state legislature. Arkansas’ LEARNS ACT pairs teacher salary increases with curriculum protection and the establishment of a universal school voucher program. Passing this bill took a lot of hard work and a lot of horse-trading, but a determined governor was able to get it done.

Governor Reynolds proposed a plan to make “no child limited by their income or zip code” in Iowa. It was a priority of her administration. She sought to educate the public on her proposal and garner support. The end result was a victory for Reynolds—Iowa’s education savings accounts will be expanded to all students statewide. The governor proposed the bill, and she also continued to make it a priority for the state all the way to her final signature.

Governor Lee has gone to bat for his proposed expansion of Tennessee’s statewide school choice program, which would create opportunities for students to attend the school that best suits their needs. He was recently berated at an address advocating for major change to Tennessee’s educational status quo. Nevertheless, the governor has made it his priority to move this legislation across the finish line. Governor Lee has decided that the battle is worth it.

While no guarantee of success, it seems that the trend for getting major education reform passed is a determined governor who is willing to put his or her weight behind school choice. The question is whether we have such a governor.

The post State of the State: Leading with Intentionality for School Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This year’s proposals focus on raising the minimum salary that teachers can be paid. There are several bills in each legislative chamber (see links here, here, and here), but they all take a similar shape. They raise the minimum salary that districts can pay new teachers from $25,000 to $38,000 (some go higher), then raise the minimum higher over several years. To help school districts afford the increase, the bills create a state fund that districts can request reimbursement to pay 70% of the increased salaries. The legislature has already been appropriating this higher minimum salary for teachers via the budget for several years—these bills would enshrine this change into statute, but also increase salaries even more down the road.

As my colleagues have written previously, the discussion surrounding raising Missouri’s “minimum” teacher salary is somewhat misleading. School districts set teacher salaries, not the state— but the state does set a floor for pay that districts must remain above. You often hear people claim that Missouri has one of the lowest teachers’ pay “minimums” in the country, but that is not an accurate representation of how much teachers are actually being paid, as my colleague James Shuls has outlined. For example, the average teacher salary in the district I live in, Affton, is more than $62,000 per year.

My biggest concern is not with the idea of the state raising minimum teacher pay, but the way the proposals go about doing it, and the perverse incentives they would enshrine into state law. By offering to permanently subsidize teacher pay for some school districts, especially at a time when the state’s budgetary outlook is so uncertain, Missouri will begin sending state dollars to cover what have previously been almost entirely local decisions.

The primary way the state funds schools is through what’s called the foundation formula. Though the formula may not be perfect, it offers an equitable method to distribute state funds, adjusted by a variety of agreed-upon criteria. The proposals that our policymakers are now considering seek to create an outside-the-formula funding source for a specific purpose (minimum teacher salaries). The problem is that these funds would not be distributed in an equitable way. If enacted, these proposals will represent a significant redistribution of state funds to school districts whose voters have chosen not to raise their taxes sufficiently to pay their teachers more.

Since state fiscal year 2023 when Missouri began piloting this approach, it’s become clear that many school districts would jump at the chance of additional state funding. Governor Parson’s budget recommendation shows that approximately 65% of the state’s school districts have already taken advantage of the state salary grants. It’s not unrealistic to assume that if this program is made permanent, more districts will begin participating. Of course, it makes sense, because once the state begins offering subsidies for teacher salaries, why wouldn’t districts take advantage? Or, perhaps more importantly, why would districts ever choose to raise salaries with their own money if the state would pay for them instead?

None of this is to say that the way Missouri funds its schools is ideal, or that teachers shouldn’t be paid more. But whatever the general assembly decides to do, it’s important that policymakers think through the unintended consequences. Incentives matter—Missouri’s voters and school districts have demonstrated as much, and it’s time our policymakers started acting like it. There’s no getting around the fact that the proposal to raise minimum teacher pay, as currently drafted, is a bad idea for Missouri.

The post The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Teacher Pay Plan appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

– Key takeaways from Governor Parson’s State of the State address
– Does Missouri have a budget surplus?
– A “source of income” ordinance passes in KC
– What’s moving in Jefferson City, and more

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

LINKS:
Patrick Tuohey’s blog: showmeinstitute.org/blog/budget-and…budget-surplus/

David Stokes Testimony on Source of Income Rules: showmeinstitute.org/publication/mun…es-for-rentals/

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

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Earlier in the year, Rudi Keller wrote in the Missouri Independent:

Missouri will enter the new fiscal year Saturday in its best financial shape ever. But there are unmistakable signs that the massive surplus, now approaching $8 billion, has likely peaked.

Really? Is Missouri actually running a huge surplus? Are we taking in more than we owe?

No, no we are not.

In Truth in Accounting’s  (TIA) “Financial State of the States 2023,” Missouri ranked 25th. TIA gave Missouri a “C” grade and concluded: “Missouri would need $700 from each of its taxpayers to pay all of its outstanding bills.” Of particular concern to TIA was Missouri’s highest-ever unfunded debt to the Missouri State Employees’ Plan.

The reason for the disparity is due to how states account for debt. In cash-basis accounting, states merely account for the money they have on hand without considering their debts. If you and I were to budget like this, we’d count loans as income, ignore debt, and put off expenses until next year in order to claim a huge surplus now.

If you think that sounds criminal, you’re not alone. The IRS does not permit businesses with gross receipts exceeding $29 million for three years to use cash-basis accounting—but city and state governments may do so. As a result, according to the International Monetary Fund, “Governments have been tempted to exploit this weakness by deferring cash disbursements or bringing forward cash receipts as a means of artificially inflating their financial balance.” This is exactly what is happening in Missouri.

Governor Parson isn’t alone, sadly. Mayors and governors of both parties and all ideological stripes do the same thing. And journalists on deadline often repeat the claim without checking it. If such claims seem too good to be true, they probably are.

The post No, Missouri Is Not Running a Budget Surplus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Several days later I received a reply by, of all things, email! Thankfully, the Governor’s office sent just what I wanted: the statistics and sources behind its claims. I must note that the original graphic was updated after I sent the Sunshine request (e.g., the word “low” was removed from “Low Cost of Doing Business”). Also, while each of the office’s claims does correspond to a study, index, or ranking in the real world, your mileage may vary regarding their persuasiveness.

Some citations used by the governor are very subjective. Several of the statistics, such as “On-the-Job Training” and “Apprenticeships” were from Missouri Government agencies, which doesn’t strike me as the most unbiased source of information. The document I received also—somewhat—answers my question from the last post and clarifies the statistic as “New Apprenticeships,” but the website’s graphic remains unchanged in that regard.

In some cases, the claim is ambiguous; the second-place ranking for state-level veteran benefits is based on the number of distinct benefits offered but does not consider that one benefit may be much more or less valuable than another. Again, a very subjective ranking.

And even when the statistics could be represented more favorably for the governor, they remain misleading. The “Fourth for Personal Income Tax” is certainly not measuring the lowest or highest personal income tax rates. There are eight states with no income tax (nine if you include New Hampshire), and Missouri isn’t one of them. It turns out that the governor’s office was relying on a report that ranks governors, not states. The “personal income tax” metric is derived not only by the level of income tax, but how much it has changed over each governor’s term—the governor can thank his special session last October for getting him so highly ranked on this metric.

I do appreciate that the governor’s office didn’t drag its feet with my request and provided sources for each of the claims, but I shouldn’t have had to submit a Sunshine request in the first place. It should be standard practice for the government to include sources for the claims in the documents they produce and, more to the point, practice transparency without hiding behind a fax machine. Thankfully, there are organizations like the Show-Me Institute that employ summer interns who can hold our government accountable.

*pats self on back*

If you are interested in checking out the sources yourself, click here to see the .pdf file I received from the governor’s office.

The post Just the Fax, Ma’am: Dubious “Rankings” Press Release Emphasizes Importance of Transparency (part 2) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Unsurprisingly, this document found its way onto my desk with a request that I—a Policy Intern of two months—was basically bred for: fact checking. And fact check I did.

My first challenge was that the governor’s office didn’t “show its work” by citing sources for its claims. A Google search allowed me to infer where some of the rankings came from, but others were harder to verify.

Indeed, I found several online sources that issued rankings that were similar but not identical to the governor’s claims.  Here, for example, Missouri is listed as sixth in cost of living, not third. Some were further off the mark; here not only is Missouri not number two for “low cost of doing business,” we’re not even on the list. And with some claims, I was completely lost. What does it even mean to be “third for apprenticeships?” Is it referring to the number of current apprenticeships? Completed apprenticeships? Apprenticeship applicants? What organization even collects that data?

After consulting longtime staff members here at the Institute, I learned a Sunshine request was probably my best way forward. Sunshine requests legally require Missouri government employees and officials to provide the requested information, provided that they actually have it. Send a request to the correct official—requests tend to bounce around like a customer service call—and if all goes well they will send back the correct records. In some cases, however, you’ll be told that the information does not exist or that there will be a charge for the collection of the information you requested.

So, I typed up a Sunshine request and went to the Governor’s website in search of a contact email to send my letter to. Instead of an email, I saw only this at the bottom of the page:

It’s 2023. Where is the email address? After browsing the website to some length, I concluded that if an email contact point existed for Sunshine law purposes, it was very well hidden. And without an email address, I had to fax it.

Dear reader: if you’re under the age of 35 there’s a good chance you have never had to send a fax before and may not even know what a fax machine is. In short, think of text messaging, but with printers.

While awaiting a response, I pondered the situation. If the Sunshine law didn’t exist, I would have been hunting snipes in my quest for the truth. Yet I felt disheartened by the need to use a Sunshine request. Not every Missourian knows how to do a Sunshine request, or even that they exist—I certainly didn’t before my time at the Institute. It is good practice in any field to cite your sources. Are governments exempt from that expectation? Citizens of Missouri value government transparency and accountability and our governor should respect that value: Show-Me your work.

Several days after I sent the fax, I received a reply. Part two of this blog discusses the response I received from the governor’s office.

The post Just the Fax, Ma’am: Dubious “Rankings” Press Release Emphasizes Importance of Transparency (part 1) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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