The request to amend the zoning map was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission in May. The request was submitted in order to accommodate the development of a new subdivision, the Highlands at Busch Wildlife. The bill is revised from an earlier proposal called Tall Tree. The Tall Tree zoning amendment request, which was denied by the Planning and Zoning Commission in June 2023, was a 556-lot proposal on about 355 acres. The new development is for only 120 lots, cutting down the number of homes in the development by over 75% while reducing acreage by around 60% compared to the original proposal.

The St. Charles County Council chambers were filled with disapproval from St. Charles residents and nearby O’Fallon neighbors. Residents expressed concerns about negative environmental impacts (see the Missouri Department of Conservation’s comments on p. 42–43 of the amendment request) and increased traffic along state highway DD. Nonetheless, the bill passed by a vote of 5–2. Interestingly, the councilman of District 3—the district where the Highlands at Busch Wildlife will be built—voted in favor of the bill. Following the bill’s passage, a portion of the dissenting public in attendance left the room, and some even shouted their displeasure at the council while doing so. It is not uncommon for current residents of a community to be opposed to new development in their area. However, is this new development really something the citizens of St. Charles and the surrounding communities should be so upset about?

A 2018 paper titled Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability from NYU’s Furman Center addresses many of the concerns commonly expressed by residents about new development. The paper discusses how development­—at any price point—can help improve overall housing affordability. Furthermore, development can also increase productivity and signal that the given community is a place where people want to live. This does not necessarily suggest that development should always happen anytime or anyplace. However, restricting housing supply is associated with numerous problems including increased racial segregation, decreased mobility, and slower economic growth.

While some St. Charles citizens may be dismayed by the passage of Bill No. 5300, hopefully the benefits of increased housing supply will become more evident over time. Who knows—maybe other communities around the state will even look to St. Charles as an example of how allowing the market supply of housing to move more freely can help meet the needs of their community.

The post St. Charles County Council Approves Zoning Change for New Housing Development appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

MDC director Sara Parker Pauley said in the statement that, in the past 20 years, permit prices have remained stagnant despite costs for goods and services drastically increasing.

“In early 2003, the price of a resident firearms deer permit was $17 and the cost of a gallon of unleaded gas was $1.42,” said Pauley. “Jump ahead two decades to May 2023 when the cost of a resident firearms deer permit is still $17 while the cost of a gallon of gas is about $3.30. That cost increase really adds up considering MDC purchased nearly 908,000 gallons of gas in 2022 to run vehicles and equipment.”

Pauley added that, on average, most resident hunting and fishing permit prices would be adjusted by roughly $1. [Emphasis mine]

That seems like a pretty reasonable fee for the service provided by the state, which facilitates (among other things) fish hatcheries and shooting ranges. And the concept of a fee is consistent with my general principle that the folks who enjoy a government service should be the ones to pay for it, like a gas tax for building and maintaining roads.

But it’s also worth keeping in mind that conservation in Missouri also receives funding from a dedicated sales tax. The fact that hunting and fishing permitting costs haven’t risen in two decades is probably less a testament to MDC fiscal management and more a result of the department more or less swimming in money.

The MDC has so much money, in fact, that there was even talk on the floor of the Senate this year of abolishing the fees entirely in light of the department’s budgetary largesse. (As expected of most things in the Senate, nothing came of that conversation, but it did waste about 15 minutes of floor time. So there’s that.)

My stance on hunting regulations was probably best captured in my 2016 letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Keep government out of the way of deer hunters,” wherein I extolled the importance of sportsmen (and women) in controlling wild animal populations and ensuring barriers to their entry into that market, like fees, were as low as possible. Fortunately, Missouri’s permit costs are not extravagant and promise not to become extravagant in the future if recent reports are to be believed. But it’s probably a good idea for legislators to reexamine how the MDC is funded in general—with either a fee or a sales tax, but maybe not both.

The post Hunting and Fishing Fees May Be Going up in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

At one elementary school in Kansas, kids in kindergarten through fourth grade split time between their classrooms, a greenhouse, and a small farm right on school grounds. As a charter school, Walton Rural Life Center is able to replace traditional curriculums with a project-based program that focuses on agriculture. Students at Walton have chores and sell plants they grow and eggs from chickens they raise to supplement what they learn in the classroom.

I am thankful that my niece and nephew are able to attend Walton and I know how much the community cherishes the school, but I wonder why students in Missouri do not have access to similar opportunities. The article about the Columbia project mentions that the idea for a magnet-type nature school fizzled out because of a lack of state funding a few years ago. But using the charter school model could help solve that. A charter school, as in the case of Walton, would be eligible for additional federal funds to help defray starting costs.

With the flexibility and innovation that comes with charter schools, communities in Missouri could have customized schools that meet the needs and interest of their students instead of settling for programs that last just a few days. Whether it is project-based learning or a college-prep academy, charter schools can provide new opportunities to students in all parts of the state.

The post Charter Schools Offer Flexibility appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In fact, the Missouri Department of Conservation announced last week that hunters had eclipsed the mark set in 2011 for deer harvested during the annual youth hunting season — over 19,000 deer, and a more-than three-fold increase above the state’s first youth hunt, instituted in 2001. Growing awareness of the hunt has no doubt increased participation in it over the years, but permit fees imposed by the state could easily have tamped down the season’s growth, if the costs were fixed high enough. Fortunately, Missouri’s hunting permit costs are generally quite low — and that’s a fact the Department of Conservation readily promotes on its website.

Low permit cost is another reason Missouri is a great place to hunt. Missouri’s $17 Resident Firearms Any-Deer Permit is a bargain compared to the average of $46.63 for equivalent privileges in surrounding states. Missouri charges only $8.50 for a resident any-deer permit for kids under age 16. Resident youths pay just $3.50 for antlerless-deer permits.

Missouri has kept the state-imposed costs of joining the hunt relatively minimal, and it’s reasonable to believe that participation in the youth hunt has risen at least partially because the barriers to engaging in it are so low.

Shouldn’t the state apply this lesson to other areas of policy? The lower the fees and taxes, the more likely it is that you’ll get more of an activity — here, hunting, but the idea applies elsewhere, too. Imagine: What would happen to Missouri’s economy from the perspectives of growth and competitiveness if the state got rid of its taxes on corporations and pass-through income?

Kansas opened the season for economic innovations earlier this year by dumping its tax on pass-throughs and reducing its income tax, but there’s no telling which state in the region is going to take down the big, long-term economic prizes in this highly competitive tax environment. Suffice to say, Missouri should join that hunt, and very, very soon.

The post What Missouri Could Learn From Its Deer Hunters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Nixon said that he had offered assistance to [Saint Louis County Executive Charlie] Dooley. In particular, the governor mentioned Lone Elk Park, which is adjacent to Castlewood State Park. Nixon said such a state-county operation there would save money.

Lone Elk Park is adjacent to Castlewood State Park and a previous article states that the county was considering transferring Lone Elk Park to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The governor claims that a shared management operation would save money. I haven’t seen any data to support this claim, but IF it is true, then the idea can be viewed as having some merit.

However, it seems odd that in this article, the topic of privatization was barely mentioned, except in this brief statement:

[Saint Louis County Chief Operating Officer Garry] Earls initially said that some of the parks, including Lone Elk, could be sold. However, Dooley dismissed that possibility at a special budget meeting Tuesday night.

Prudence would suggest that the county not dismiss privatization (or ANY potential solution) out of hand. Shouldn’t the county consider privatization as a possible course of action before sharing park management with the state? If there ARE obstacles to privatization, what are they? The only obstacle I could find is in this piece of information from the Southeast Missourian:

Officials said deed restrictions and covenants would prohibit the sale of most of the parks to private individuals.

However, Lone Elk Park does NOT have a deed restriction on its sale so the above restriction would not be applicable. Are there any other reasons the county would not consider privatization of Lone Elk Park?

As David mentioned in his post, the Reason Foundation has done a good analysis of park privatization, and the conservancy model of non-profit, public-private partnerships operating a park has been tried successfully in Tower Grove Park. County officials have not given a reason why following the Tower Grove example would be a bad idea, and unless there is a deterioration of Tower Grove’s situation, shouldn’t Saint Louis County investigate privatization of Lone Elk Park if a private operator can be found to manage it?

The post Public Parks Problem, Part 2 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“I don’t think it’s up to those guys to make that decision,” said Walter Crawford, executive director of the World Bird Sanctuary, which borders Lone Elk Park. “That park belongs to you and me.”

If it is not up to county officials to determine how to raise and spend tax dollars, whose job is it? Not surprisingly, the hipster urbanists are all a-twitter:

Parks represent a community’s shared aspirations and values. Our St. Louis County Park system is a national treasure.

No, it isn’t. It is a wonderful local park system, but “national treasure” is a fair bit of hyperbole.

I think the real opportunity is for cities to take over some of the parks that are within their borders. Many of the parks in question were county parks before these cities, such as Wildwood, incorporated. County government officials are correct to propose changing that model now. Residents in the newly-formed cities gain the benefits of the local park without the marginal tax burden. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch explains further:

The possible transfers: Lone Elk Park to the Missouri Department of Conservation; Greensfelder to the city of Wildwood; George Winter to Fenton; and Bon Oak to Dellwood.

Officials said that they had not yet contacted the state or municipalities to discuss that prospect.

However, Wildwood Mayor Tim Woerther said on Tuesday that he would be open to the idea of taking over the 1,734-acre Greensfelder.

“We would certainly be receptive,” he said. “But obviously, the devil is in the details.”

I commend Mayor Woerther for his openness to the idea. I would add Tilles Park in Ladue to the list; perhaps the cities of Ladue, Brentwood, and Rock Hill could take over the park in a cost-sharing arrangement. (Tilles is in Ladue, but on the border of Brentwood and Rock Hill, and residents of all three cities use the park extensively.)

Another possibility for some of these parks is to deed them to neighboring subdivisions as common ground. This is an option for the smaller, neighborhood parks on the list, such as Mathilda-Welmering. Maybe they would be well-maintained in that situation and maybe they wouldn’t, but the choice, and cost, would be up to the local residents who use the park. 

And, not surprisingly to regular readers, I think privatization should be considered for some of these parks. The Reason Foundation has covered the issue of park privatization at length. The conservancy model of non-profit public-private partnerships operating a park has been used successfully in some Saint Louis city parks, such as Tower Grove Park. Private supporters also have played a role in the success of some destination parks in the area, including Forest Park and Faust Park. (Nextstl.com has good detail on this in its story.)

The privatization model will, in my opinion, work better for destination parks. But, I think Lone Elk is such a destination park, and because it is one of the parks without a deed restriction on its sale, I hope the county gives that option strong consideration if a private operator can be found to manage it.

I don’t agree with every idea that the county executive proposes here, but I don’t think he deserves the criticism from all sides that he is receiving. Some of these cuts are tough choices that have to be made. I believe that the government is too large and too costly at every level. So, my axiom to that rule is that I don’t criticize elected officials — of either party — when they propose budget cuts, especially in tough economic times. (I think the closest I came to breaking that principle was in defense of Parents As Teachers. But, I only argued against its elimination; I supported cutting its budget.)  

If cities can take control of some of these parks, if privatization (including non-profit control) can be applied to the facilities where it may be best suited, if the more obvious cuts and changes can be applied (like closing minimally-used pools and expensive community centers), then I believe these changes can be implemented and, in the end, most St. Louisans would barely notice.

The post Where Will Nannies And Chimney Sweeps Sing Songs And Fly Kites If St. Louis County Closes Parks? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Political Fix blog initially titled its article “Missouri state agencies fact check blogger,” later changing it to “Credit check: State agencies dispute Show-Me Institute figures.” Both titles misrepresent the truth. The numbers that I reported were produced by Missouri government agencies, not by the Show-Me Institute or myself. The data in the “Show Me: The Spending” web tool comes directly from the Missouri Accountability Portal, which contains information reported and distributed by the state of Missouri.

I spoke with Lorna Domke, outreach and education chief for the Missouri Department of Conservation, who checked with her accounting office and discovered that funds had been misallocated. In an email, she provided the following clarification to me:

Our contracting services for our Permits sales system (“POS system”) should have been through an object code #2496, “other business services.” That category should have had $1.789 million put in it instead of in the object code #2487, “credit card fees.”

Her numbers check out. I isolated these numbers in the Show-Me: The Spending web tool, and then I exported the relevant data to Excel to combine into the following graph. In 2009, the department’s expenditures on credit card fees increased by about $1.7 million and its expenditures on “other business services” decreased by the same amount.

According to her email, the correct FY09 credit card fees total should have been $31,616 and the correct FY08 credit card fees should have been $32,439.

I also asked Ms. Damke if she could define this category for me, because some of our blog readers raised questions about which types of fees it might contain. In the email, she provided the following clarification:

“Expenditures for the fees incurred when accepting payment by credit card.”

Credit card companies will charge the vendor (our Nature Shops in our case ) a fee of a few% of purchase plus 20 or 30 cents per transaction for each purchase, depending on the agreement. So our credit card fees are only for paying the credit card company for being able to accept credit cards for payments. They do not include any interest, late fees, etc.<just the regular fees for accepting credit cards.

At the Show-Me Institute, we’re glad to see that the Department of Conservation admitted that it made a mistake in coding its expenditures. It would be nice if they could get it right the first time. It would also be nice if other departments would also check their numbers. As reported on the Political Fix blog:

Department of Public Safety officials said the figure is misleading, and does not represent late payments from the department.

The Department of Public Safety should check with its own accounting office, because that’s the origin of the numbers that I reported.

The post Missouri State Agencies Fact-Check Themselves appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The yellow line represents the Department of Transportation, which has historically spent far more on recognition awards than the other government agencies. The orange line represents the Department of Conservation, which replaced MoDOT for the top spot in 2009. Between 2000 and 2009, Missouri’s government agencies spent a combined total of $3,866,129.40 on recognition rewards.

The largest expenditure to a single vendor for recognition awards occurred in the Department of Public Safety in 2008, which explains the big spike in the dark blue line during that year. Adjusted for inflation, this department spent $110,270 with On Time Marketing Corp. The second largest expenditure occurred in the Department of Transportation in 2001 — it spent $107,627 with Kay-Cee Enterprises, Inc.

According to the Department of Transportation’s “Personnel Policy Manual,” each employee is eligible to receive as much as $2,000 in recognition awards per calendar year. The policy document also states that employees may receive additional recognition awards from non-MoDOT sources, so it is possible for a person to be awarded even more than this.

• Aren’t there better uses for taxpayer money than roll-up blankets, windshield screens, and shirt/cap combos for bureaucrats?
• If the highest-performing MoDOT employees receive paid time off as a recognition award, doesn’t it follow that the lowest-performing employees remain at work?
• Isn’t Missouri looking for items to cut out of its budget? Wouldn’t it be more responsible to cut recognition awards before it cuts funding for education or for emergency communication?

I discovered this information via the Show-Me Institute’s new web tool, “Show-Me: The Spending.” Yesterday, Charis Fischer used this web tool to discover that travel expenditures for the governor’s office skyrocketed between 2008 and 2009, and I discovered that government agencies in Missouri spent more than $2 million on credit card fees in 2009 alone. I invite our blog readers to play with the tool and see whether they can uncover additional examples of wasteful spending by Missouri’s government agencies.

The post Government Agencies in Missouri Spent $3,866,129.40 on Recognition Awards Over the Last Decade appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As if enough taxpayer money weren’t already going toward banks!

The expenditure for all of Missouri’s government agencies combined increased from $381,553.98 in 2008 to $2,047,457.28 in 2009, which represents an increase of 436.61 percent.

The breakdown between agencies is particularly puzzling. In 2009, the Department of Conservation in Missouri paid $1,818,208 in credit card fees. This represents an increase of 1,141.25 percent from 2008’s expenditure. It dwarfs the amount of credit card fees that the secretary of the state’s office and the Department of Natural Resources paid, which was $183,894 and $30,854, respectively. The amount paid in credit card fees by the other agencies combined was $14,501, which is nevertheless $14,501 too much.

Total of Spending on Credit Card Fees by Agency (in 1,000s)

When I look at the trend of this information over time, I am speechless. What is going on here?

Trend of Spending on Credit Card Fees by Agency (in 1,000s)

I discovered a similarly disturbing trend when I looked at the amount of Late Payment Penalty Charges by government agency. The public safety department spent $17,494.22 in 2009, which represents an increase of 43,168 percent over the previous year! The total for all Missouri government agencies in this category increased from $327,432.60 to $17,940,490 during this period, which is an increase of 5,379 percent.

Total Spending on Late Payment Penalty Charges by Agency (in 1,000s)

In my opinion, this is the quintessential example of government waste and fiscal irresponsibility. The amount of money that the government spends on things like credit card fees and late payment penalty charges should be zero. This figure doesn’t include the amount of products and services that these government agencies purchased. It also doesn’t include the amount of interest that they were charged. This number consists solely of the extra fees that were incurred on government credit cards. Can any of our blog readers explain the dramatic increase in either of these numbers? I’m really interested to know.

I discovered this information while playing with the Show-Me Institute’s recently-launched web tool, “Show-Me: The Spending.” I encourage our blog readers to play with the site and see what else they can uncover related to Missouri’s government spending.

The post Government Agencies in Missouri Spent $2,047,457.28 on Credit Card Fees and $17,940.49 on Late Payment Penalty Charges During 2009 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As is evident from the far-reaching historical backdrop of this case, government regulation of fishing has a very long history. The economics of fishing permits are fairly cut and dried: This is an application of the tragedy of the commons. When a number of individuals have a right to consume from a public region — i.e., fishing on a river or other waterway — each one of them is individually incentivized to get as much as possible as quickly as possible, especially when it is their livelihood rather than their recreation. On the other hand, in cases where there is only a single owner, there is much less reason to worry about others “getting theirs first,” and the owner can economize with an eye on maintaining the future value of the property. The problem with a single concern having access is the same as the problem with any monopoly: higher prices and less service, with none of the benefits of competition. One solution to the tragedy of the commons is some form of social arrangement, with social stigma or other punishment for “cheating.” These sorts of arrangements have been studied at length by Elinor Ostrom, and she recently won a Nobel Prize in economics for her work.

A far more common solution, though not necessarily more efficient or desirable, is a government regulation of “the commons,” such as by requiring fishing licenses. If regulators can accurately determine the impact of each additional fishermen extracting each additional fish, they can set a price on licenses such that the most efficient outcome will be reached. This level of prescience is less likely than what actually happens in practice: License fees are set too low, in which case you still get overfishing, or they are set too high, in which case not enough fish are extracted to maximize value over time. I don’t know which case is more likely, but I strongly suspect the former is more common.

For what it’s worth, the state of Missouri sells recreational fishing licenses in unlimited quantities, and they are quite affordable — a daily pass is cheaper than a movie. Although I’m sure it’s a nice revenue stream for the Missouri Department of Conservation, I seriously question whether this is a proper area for government involvement in people’s lives.

The post The Scales of Justice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Maybe you’ve never fished before, and you’re not sure if it’s right for you. Or perhaps you fished when you were a kid but never have time any more. You just want one day when you can take the family out to the lake and enjoy nature together. Free Fishing Days are your chance to sample the action without having to invest in a fishing permit.

They can put it that way because people are so nostalgic about fishing. Imagine if they wrote a similar press release for the sales tax holiday: “Maybe you haven’t bought a box of pencils in a long time, or you want to look for notebooks with your family. Perhaps you just want a day to wander around Office Max and enjoy the printer cartridges. The sales tax holiday is your opportunity to have fun with stationary supplies without investing in the sales tax.”

How crazy is it that you need a license to fish? I can understand needing a license to do people’s nails at the mall (just kidding, I actually can’t understand that either) but to fish? Some license requirements are ostensibly in place to protect whomever you interact with on the job. That reasoning doesn’t work for fishing. People get their fishing license and then they go kill fish. And fishing is a quiet, sedentary activity that doesn’t pose risks to other people. I guess if they litter the ground with broken hooks that would be a problem, but paying a fee doesn’t prevent that, and we already have laws against littering anyway.

The fishing license is just a tax, like a sales tax on fishing. It funds some good programs at the Department of Conservation. To me it seems strange to tax some nature activities like fishing, and not others, like looking at a beautiful sunset. (I know, there’s no way to tax that.) I would prefer the Department of Conservation get its revenue from general taxes and not all these little arbitrary licenses and fees and hoops people have to jump through.

And just as I’m opposed to sales tax holidays, I think the state should reconsider the free fishing days. If your tax is worthwhile, leave it in place and leave it alone. Don’t divert resources from their most efficient uses. Fishing is part of the economy too!

The post Red Fish, Blue Fish appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to an article printed earlier this month in the Riverfront Times, the Missouri Department of Conservation unanimously approved a proposal that would allow hunters to use high-caliber air-powered rifles (not unlike the weapon used by a certain antagonist) at the start of regular-weapon deer season on November 15.

These weapons (which must be powered by compressed air or a hand pump with a minimum of a .40 caliber) came at the request of a small group of enthusiastic hunters whose logic led one member of the regulatory committee to comment on the nature of the weapons:

"These firearms are not Daisy air rifles. They are high-powered,
large-caliber, generally very expensive firearms that carry the
foot-pounds of energy necessary to take down large game."

Although I realize that any extension of firearm legalization is likely to lead to an outcry from someone, I feel that anyone who wants to use an expensive (retail prices for the rifles start at around $500), short-range (about a quarter of that of a traditional rifle) and slow-loading weapon to make their hunting experience more difficult can go right ahead. After all, who are we to stop the Missouri Outdoorsman from making his hunt as difficult as that faced by Lewis & Clark?

Just as long as we keep them away from certain people.

The post I Drink Your Milkshake appeared first on Show-Me Institute.