So here is my contribution to the effort. Just tell St. Louis’s Bi-State Development Agency (also known as Metro) “no” on its application for around $700 million in federal funds for the ludicrous Green Line (formerly known as the North-South Line) proposal. Like Nancy Reagan said to Arnold on Diff’rent Strokes, “Just say no.”

The new leadership in the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) has instituted major changes in how the DOT is going to make decisions. This doesn’t look good for the Green Line, as the St. Louis Business Journal wrote about this week. The new DOT guidelines state that, among many other things, the DOT isn’t funding projects for local political purposes or social justice reasons. The new DOT leadership is focused on moving people and goods, and actually moving people is one thing the Green Line isn’t going to do. Metro’s own estimates—which based on history are probably inflated—claim that the Green Line will have only 5,000 boardings (so, about 2,500 people) per day. That is for a billion-dollar project. That’s absurd.

Whether you call it the “Green Line” or the “North-South Route,” I call it an inevitable failure and a huge waste of tax dollars. Even if you support MetroLink, there is no reasonable argument for the Green Line project. The federal government ought to reject this plan and many other similar, though not quite as bad, applications from around the country.

You’re welcome, Elon.

The post Hey Elon, Here Are Some Cost Savings for You in St. Louis . . . appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Recording mileage via GPS tracking has some advantages over the odometer-reading method I described in yesterday’s post. For one thing, the GPS method would allow out-of-state miles to be excluded. Additionally, as some roads—such as urban freeways and interstates—are more expensive to build and maintain than typical roads, drivers could pay different rates for using different roads.

However, this type of mileage recording raises privacy concerns. How do these programs work in states that have tried it?

The longest-running and best-established program to date is in Oregon. Drivers who voluntarily participate in the OReGO program can pay a per-mile fee for driving and have any fuel taxes reimbursed. Drivers have several options of how to track those miles, such as paying for a block of miles in advance, odometer readings, or using GPS technology to record miles driven. If drivers choose the latter option, a third-party provider places a GPS-equipped plug-in device in their car, and the device uses vehicle data to determine in-state miles driven and fuel consumption. In order to protect drivers’ privacy, Oregon state law mandates that only the total weekly miles driven may be reported to the Department of Transportation. Personal data not delivered to the Department of Transportation is encrypted and destroyed on a set schedule, in accordance with Department of Transportation policy and OReGO program requirements laid down legislatively. This information cannot be sold or traded without the driver’s express consent.

Utah’s Road Usage Charge program operates similarly, although it is only for electric vehicle drivers. The program’s voluntary participants can pre-select their privacy settings, and a transponder run by a third-party service provider is installed in the vehicle. The third-party system sends monthly total miles driven to the Department of Transportation without disclosing additional data unless tied to a criminal investigation.

Several other states are exploring variants of these programs. Delaware and other east coast states are exploring mileage-based user fees in a series of pilots. California also conducted a road-usage charge pilot program, but legislators have not decided whether to continue the program.

It is also important to note what GPS technology does and does not do. GPS satellites do not necessarily track cars (or phones, etc.) that have receivers. It is the GPS receiver itself, whether in a cell phone or transponder, that tracks its own position in relation to a satellite. But unless the receiver is equipped with reporting capability, the device’s location is not shared with the satellite.

Protecting drivers’ privacy is a serious concern, and reporting of personal or location-specific data should only be allowed when explicitly agreed to by drivers. Further, while it offers the potential for the most accurate measuring of a driver’s miles logged, a GPS-based option must continue to be one of several options for reporting miles. In the next post, I’ll talk about a third method of pairing funding for road maintenance with miles driven.

The post Funding Roads by Miles Traveled—There’s an App for That appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Ignoring the debatable merits of the bill, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (President Obama’s stimulus package), required reporting on every project down to the subcontractor level and taxpayers were supposed to have near-real-time ability to see how funds were being spent. This act spurred many states to enact increased transparency measures. It is disappointing to learn that Missouri took a step backward at a time when much of the country was moving forward. The auditor noted, “When there’s inadequate documentation, you don’t know if there’s waste, fraud or abuse.”

Has Missouri learned from its mistakes? Some governmental bodies appear to be transparent, if not exercising fiscal restraint, with their emergency spending. The State Treasurer’s Office is publishing CARES Act state government relief fund spending down to the vendor and item purchased. St. Louis County and City both have websites publishing their emergency spending, showing when, where, and on what the money was spent. The county also publishes future committed spending. Close-fisted spending habits have led some to question their emergency priorities, but it’s the transparency portals that inform such questioning. Franklin and Jackson Counties plan to release spending details in the future. However, no other major county or city has yet published such coronavirus-specific spending.

Some state agencies have published the amount of federal money they received but did not specify how they spent or will spend it. A few identified potential categories of expenses—such as the Department of Higher Education, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Department of Transportation—but did not provide details.

Why aren’t all state agencies and political subdivisions willing to show how they are spending taxpayer funds? Shouldn’t agencies receiving relief funds, i.e., taxpayer money, want to demonstrate that the money is being put to good use? With today’s technology, they can make such data easily accessible, complete, and accurate. If a county or agency is unable to publish this information on its own, it can send the data to the state for publication.

Show-Me Institute analysts have called for government transparency since the first relief funds rolled in. While some appear to be acting transparently, not all are. Isn’t it time for the rest to catch up and show us the money?

The post Don’t Repeat Mistakes from the 2009 Stimulus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Several bills have been introduced in the Missouri legislature, and one has made it out of committee, to raise the gasoline tax anywhere between one and ten cents per gallon. For the largest tax hikes, the changes would be phased in until the limit is reached, while smaller ones would take effect immediately. One bill would index the tax to inflation to ensure the tax keeps up with the rest of the economy. Another bill would place a surcharge on petroleum imports, taxing the distributers rather than consumers directly.

Considering all the proposals, the more modest changes could raise about $144 million, while the biggest increase could raise over $400 million. Other than the amount of money raised, what are other differences between these bills?

Indexing the gas tax to inflation is a good way to reduce future transportation funding crunches. Further, for each bill that would raise the gas tax on drivers, 30% of the revenue would go to cities and counties while the remaining 70% would go to the Department of Transportation (MoDOT).

The proposal to place a surcharge on petroleum imports rather than on drivers themselves could especially benefit MoDOT, though at the expense of local governments. Due to the tax not being on consumers themselves, all of the money raised would go to MoDOT’s state road fund and none to county and local governments, which also rely on gas taxes for local road maintenance. This bill would also lower income taxes in an effort to be revenue neutral.

Policy implementation aside, this boils down to a simple point.

According to a Missouri House Task Force, Missouri’s transportation infrastructure is “deteriorating (65),” jeopardizing traveler safety and economic growth. Roads and bridges are a vital part of our state’s economy, transporting nearly $500 billion of goods annually. Those who use them should contribute to their upkeep, and the standard means of doing so has become inadequate, as the spate of bills to increase the gas tax attests.

The problem has to be dealt with, or the whole state – drivers and non-drivers alike – will lose out. Infrastructure is a key component of the state’s long-term economic health. Since it must be recapitalized, user fees are the fairest and most efficient way of doing it.

The post A Taxing Endeavor appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Trump’s budget, which would go into effect in October if Congress approves it, would eliminate the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, a nearly $500 million grant program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The streetcar expansion plan is reliant on federal support. According to a 4-page document put out by the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, $100 million of the $227 million expansion cost to expand the downtown streetcar line would be provided by the federal government through the Small Starts program. But that program is also facing a funding freeze:

The New Starts program, which helps fund local transportation projects costing over $300 million (a sister program, Small Starts, assists with projects under that threshold), would be frozen. New applications to the program, which currently has $2.3 billion to spend annually through 2020, would be outright rejected, limiting any new grants and placing the onus on local and state government to fund additional projects. [Emphasis added.]

This means the Kansas City request for streetcar money could be rejected outright. And that money is required for the extension to take place. According to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance,

The project will require federal grant funding, and the applicant and recipient would be the City just like with the starter line. If federal funds are secured, public involvement in the engineering and design is required.

The language from the court ruling allowing the new transportation development district (TDD) throws another wrench in streetcar advocates’ plans: no taxes or assessments can be collected from within the district until enough external funding—in this case federal funds—are available. The Trump administration has made the availability of federal funds highly unlikely. Congress could seek to continue federal New Starts funding, according to Rich Sampson of the Community Transportation Association of America, but it will be an uphill climb. And even if streetcar funding is provided by Congress, the administration may choose not to spend it.

Voters are being asked to take the risk of expanding the TDD and levying on themselves a special property tax assessment and a sales tax contingent on the Trump administration coughing up 40% of the total streetcar expansion cost. Laying aside the merits of the policy at hand, voters should be wary of approving something that is dependent on a funding source that may be little more than wishful thinking.

The post Can the Kansas City Streetcar Expansion Be Built Even If It Wins? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

the investments she favors may more quietly reflect conservative tenets like heavy highway spending, disregard for energy efficiency, and the denial of funds to transit and pedestrian projects in densely populated areas.

This should not be surprising, especially for streetcar proponents. But it should be alarming for them. As my former colleague Joe Miller wrote in 2014,

What streetcar advocates really have to fear is not the defunding of urban transit, but the defunding of streetcars in favor of other forms of transit. Past administrations favored transit projects that reduced congestion or improved mobility, so streetcars received few federal dollars. The Obama administration’s desire to use transit projects to create “livable communities” has made federal streetcar funding possible.

Mind you, overall Federal transit funding may not change much. But as Slate pointed out, the Obama Administration was an outlier on how the funding was spent:

Obama’s first transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, for example, was a major proponent of diverting DOT spending away from highways (many of which are boondoggles, the least of which costs many times as much as the hated streetcars) to other transportation and infrastructure projects. He supervised the creation of the TIGER grant program, which injected billions in federal money into local, multimodal projects, and was reauthorized repeatedly by Congress.

Recall that in 2013, TIGER funding provided $20 million toward the streetcar project in Kansas City. And according to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance (KCRTA), the proposed $227 million Main Street extension of the streetcar assumes up to $114 million in federal funding. Fourteen million of that is from designated regional funds (STP/CMAQ), which means other regional transportation projects would have to wait if streetcar expansion moves ahead. The remaining $100 million now may be pie-in-the-sky.

In July 2014, Mayor James campaigned for the first ill-fated streetcar extension line by saying, “We really have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here.” Considering the President-Elect’s Secretary choice, he may have been right. It remains to be seen if he and other streetcar supporters believed that rhetoric.

The post Will Streetcar Funding Dry Up? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Until 2004, Saint Louis City, and not MoDOT, controlled Gravois Road. The city declined to turn Gravois and other arterial roads over to the state in the 1950s, but by the early 2000s city leaders argued it was unfair that Saint Louis City was the only county that did not receive state support for non-interstate highways. Turning Gravois (along with five other highways) over to the state was billed as a matter of fairness and cost savings for the city.

But MoDOT doesn’t have significant resources to spend on Gravois. And what money it does have is usually restricted, by law, to highway improvements (meaning that bike lanes, public transit upgrades, and other street beautification are excluded). Furthermore, MoDOT has to consider congestion and roadway quality, not just the aesthetic appeal of areas along Gravois. After all, it is the state transportation department, not an urban development office. And as things stand, Gravois Road is one of the busiest non-interstate roads in Saint Louis, with poor pavement conditions along much of the roadway, as shown in the maps below. (AADT refers to average annual daily traffic in the map on the left; in the map on the right, IRI refers to the International Roughness Index, a measure of road quality.)

Instead of criticizing MoDOT for failing to spend money it does not have on slowing down a state highway, Saint Louis City should consider taking Gravois back from state control. That would give residents the freedom to transform the road as they see fit, if the city or citizens along Gravois are willing to pay for such improvements. It would also reduce MoDOT’s responsibilities, a useful precedent for a department in control of many highways (which it can’t afford to maintain) that would be local or county roads in other states. 

The post A Greater Gravois May Be a Local Gravois appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A recent release of Federal Highway Administration data only adds more support for this conclusion. As employment levels in Missouri increase, VMT on Missouri’s roads have begun a rapid increase, up almost 2.5% from May 2014 to May 2015. The increase has been even faster on Missouri’s major urban roads (2.8%):

 Of course, these trends could reverse themselves if the economy begins to struggle or some as-yet-unobserved shift to nonvehicular lifestyles occurs. However, trends over the last few years suggest that better times will mean more driving, an eventuality urban planners and Department of Transportation officials should prepare for. It would be unfortunate if the costs of an inefficient transportation system mean that Missouri cannot fully benefit from improving economic conditions.

The post With Improving Economy, Missourians Hit the Road appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To answer that question we need to make some assumptions. First, we need an estimate for miles driven. Using national driving data for 2014 from the U.S. Department of Transportation the average male aged 35-54 drove 18,858 miles. The average female in the same age group put 11,464 miles on the car. Adding two teenagers to our household increases mileage driven by 8,206 for a boy and 6,873 for a girl. All told, then, our average family of four put about 45,400 miles on their car(s). If we further assume that the cars driven by our family averaged 25 miles per gallon, our representative family bought 1,816 gallons of gas.

Now for the income effect. At the January 2014 price of $3.00 a gallon, our family would spend about $5,450 a year on gasoline. At the current price of $1.90 (and assuming they do not increase miles driven) their gas bill drops a whopping 37 percent to $3,450. If the average family of four in Missouri had an income of about $72,600 in 2014, an estimate based on updating the 2013 median family income figures from the U.S. Census, their $2,000 savings in gasoline expenditures is equivalent to a 2.75 percent increase in household income. Not a bad raise for our average Missouri family!

What brought about this unexpected windfall? Increased oil production in the United States has been one of the most significant developments leading to more competition in world oil markets. With OPEC’s control over oil prices curtailed, market forces have pushed oil prices and, therefore, gas prices down. Whether oil and gas prices remain at their current levels is unknown. What is clear, however, is that competition has once again benefited consumers.

The post Lower Gas Prices Produces Higher Spendable Income for Missourians appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The St. Louis Streetcar project, which did not receive a TIGER grant, has garnered less attention. The plan would have built a 6.9-mile streetcar system from downtown Saint Louis to the Central West End, at a cost of $270 million (likely a low estimate).

You may not have heard much about this project, because Metro never mentions adding streetcars in its Long-Range Transit Plan. Their long-term improvements are focused on expanding MetroLink or adding bus rapid transit, but not adding a streetcar network. Nor was the project part of East-West Gateway’s (the Saint Louis metropolitan planning agency) Regional Transportation Plan when it was released in 2011 (it was added in 2013). City leadership did not discuss the plan until it was suddenly to receive tens of millions of dollars from the ill-fated Amendment 7.

The downtown streetcar is primarily the creation of Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, an organization whose membership is mostly made up of corporate representatives and whose budget comes from property taxes collected from a Community Improvement District (CID) located downtown. They created the plan and lobbied the city to submit the TIGER grant application. Although the process used to create the streetcar plan did not come from city residents, the methods of payment would have. The proposed methods of payment included a Transportation Development District (with accompanying sales and property taxes), Tax Increment Financing, tax credits, and parking fees.

Those new taxes and fees would have been a hard sell for a transportation mode that shadows the MetroLink and does not provide rapid transit. However, Saint Louis residents should be upset that non-elected corporate representatives were promising residents’ local tax dollars in order to get a piece of residents’ federal tax dollars. This episode also should be a warning that local non-governmental organizations have the ability to push forward wasteful civic projects with taxpayer money.

The post Light Rail Never Sleeps: The Saint Louis Edition appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Streetcars once operated throughout Saint Louis, but the combined competition of car travel and more efficient buses made their operation uneconomical. As a tool of public transportation, or moving people around the city, streetcars are not optimal. Compared to buses, they are inflexible, require expensive infrastructure, and are relatively slow. However, local planners are attempting to bring these relics back to the streets of Saint Louis, starting with the Loop trolley and a plan for a streetcar downtown.

Planners do not propose that streetcars are primarily superior people movers. Instead, they claim that streetcars raise property values, promote economic development, and attract “choice” travelers.  Planners point to examples in Portland and other cities where streetcars supposedly attracted huge investment because they are a fixed infrastructure system upon which developers can depend. However, even the friendliest studies of streetcars state that large tax subsidies were integral to the development in places such as Portland, Seattle, and Kenosha. If streetcars do attract housing or retail development, it is likely because they are coupled with, or signal the arrival of, government largess. Those payouts will ultimately cost the taxpayer or reduce funds for other needed services.

Planners also claim that streetcars attract “choice users,” or those who could drive but choose transit if the level of service is high. These riders, according to streetcar advocates, will not ride buses, as they provide low-quality service. However, a U.S. Department of Transportation study found that the low opinion of buses versus other forms of transit stems largely from their image of serving low-income passengers and economically depressed areas. These opinions change when buses are re-branded and built to serve more affluent customers. Hence, it is more likely that trolleys through disadvantaged neighborhoods will lower residents’ opinions of streetcar service instead of transforming local neighborhoods.

In most American cities, including Saint Louis, buses carry the majority of travelers and the vast majority of low-income transit users. If Saint Louis plans to subsidize public transportation, it should aim to improve the system that provides the greatest public service. Building an expensive toy to attract affluent riders is a lower priority. With the Loop trolley in danger of losing its $22 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, it is time to revisit both the costs and benefits of streetcar service in Saint Louis.

The post The Streetcars Strike Back appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If approved, the guidelines would require even a pickup truck driver hauling a single cow to a local sale barn to have a federal medical card certified by a physician, to keep a detailed maintenance log book and possibly to have a commercial driver’s license.

The only major difference I can see between you taking your pet to a check-up and a farmer taking his cow to a sales barn is the farmer intends to sell the cow. Why is the government considering such stringent regulations? From the same article:

Federal regulators argue that because the grain or livestock that farmers are hauling could eventually end up across state lines, the farmer’s intent is interstate commerce and therefore, for uniformity, they should be subject to commercial transit regulations.

The federal government wants to bring agricultural transport into the category of commercial transportation on the odd chance that agricultural products will cross state lines. Yet history has demonstrated that agricultural transport works quite fine as is.

This is a case of government growth with no benefit to the citizens. Missouri would be better off without it.

The post South of the Border appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I like Barrel Bob. I am amused to learn that Barrel Bob has been assassinated and kidnapped, and that he has a girlfriend named Barrel Betty. I would not be surprised if Barrel Bob were more effective than distribution of pamphlets or public service announcements at promoting highway safety.

However, I have questions relating to the Highway Gardens. Why does the Department of Transportation own and operate them year-round? Is this an effective method of promoting highway safety with taxpayer funds? Could the money used to maintain the Highway Gardens be put to better alternative uses, such as fixing roads in Missouri?

The post Barrel Bob and Me appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Conservation and improved public health are great, but expanding transportation options isn’t necessarily so. Plans to overhaul roads and transportation access require a careful consideration not just of costs, but especially of consumer demand. Millions of dollars spent on public transportation projects — whether for buses, light rail, or cars — need to be seriously evaluated not just in terms of cost, but also in terms of projected use based on actual demand, not wishful thinking.

Many of the problems (beyond cost alone) with the Kansas City transportation project were already highlighted in a 2008 Show-Me Institute policy study. Chief among present problems, however, is that long-term public financing can be uncertain and unsustainable not only because of state-level budget concerns, but also because many transportation projects are heavily subsidized at the federal level.

From the article:

The federal government is taking other steps to encourage alternatives to the car.

The Department of Transportation is loosening the criteria for picking rail projects, which could benefit Kansas City as it pursues a commuter rail network and a downtown streetcar line.

And [Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood recently drew fire when he announced on his blog that the government would “discourage” transportation spending that negatively affects bicyclists and pedestrians.

“This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” LaHood wrote.

Relying exclusively on large public financing distributions may in fact distort the transportation options commuters actually want and would use. Most importantly, if citizens do demand alternative mass transit options, public financing needn’t be their only recourse.

The post Whose Benefits? Whose Costs? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

[A] federal grant […] could finally make a long-sought streetcar route a reality.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today a $293 million investment in transportation projects around the country, including $24 million for a two-mile trolley line that would run between Forest Park and the University City Loop. […]

Supporters of the Loop trolley have said it could cost between $45 million and $55 million, with private donations covering the portion not covered by public funds.

I think it’s laudable that a great deal of the trolley’s expenses will be paid for with private funds, but I’m still suspicious of anything that requires federal funds. If it’s such a great idea for everyone involved, why can’t all the money be raised from Loop merchants and other donations — or, if a government entity has to be involved, University City? Costs aside, I have a number of other reservations about the project.

Driving on Delmar between Skinker and Kingsland is already a nightmare, and I’m pretty sure a slow-moving trolley would make matters even worse. If the trolley only ran in the Loop itself, that wouldn’t be such a huge issue because people wishing to bypass the area already know how, but it will also be running up Delmar to DeBaliviere and from there to the art museum. Those are both pretty major thoroughfares, so the trolley could cause traffic to pile up, which will cut into any environmental benefit it might have.

Furthermore, this area is already overserved by rail. Anyone wishing to travel from Forest Park to the Loop can do so quite easily by hopping on the MetroLink, as the Loop Trolley Project’s own website shows.  Granted, MetroLink can’t drop you off every block, but the entire Loop is only about seven blocks long, which is hardly a long walk from one end to another.

Finally, if trolley riders aren’t brought to the area by other forms of mass transit, they will have to park and ride. The Loop has a large parking lot, which is often near capacity as it is, but I am not sure where people wishing to ride from Forest Park are supposed to park their cars. Without more parking capacity, I don’t see how the line can attract enough riders to make it worthwhile, but I don’t know where they will put more parking.

I don’t think any of these points show definitively that the Loop Trolley is a bad idea, but they are questions that should be addressed before we start lavishing tax dollars on the plan.

The post Saint Louis Streetcars Making a Comeback? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Trend of “Property Damage Settlements” by Government Agency (2009 Dollars)

The Office of Administration consistently spends $437,964.86 per year on average. The Department of Transportation’s trend of spending, however, is more volatile. It spent $77,637.71 on property damage settlements in 2007, $2,282,899.37 in 2008, and $6,500.00 in 2009. MoDOT made the largest single payment to a vendor in this category in 2008, in the amount of $1,920,556.60.

“Property Damage Settlements” for MoDOT in 2008

Why are these state agencies spending so much on property damage settlements? What property are they damaging, and why do Missouri taxpayers have to cough up $10,113,764.76 for it?

The post “I Didn’t Break It, I Was Just Testing Its Durability” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri’s 6th Congressional District, only two of whose 26 counties gave electoral majorities to President Obama, got more than $314 million last year from the federal economic stimulus program. […]

In Plattsburg, Mo., a $1 million stimulus grant is paired with a $4.3 million low-interest loan to help build a water treatment plant. “Those two things you can’t be upset about,” said City Manager D.J. Gehrt. “But it’s not as simple as getting $5.3 million and you can go out and start your project.”

The engineering plans were finished and submitted for review 13 months ago. But the reviews stalled while agencies pondered where the funding might flow. Further delays have come from setting up mechanisms to repay the debt incurred from the loan.

If all goes as planned, Mr. Gehrt said, the treatment plant will be completed in the summer of 2011, maybe a quicker timetable because of the stimulus money, but maybe not.

In the long run, he added, “it’s going to save the ratepayers in our service area a good amount of money.”

In St. Joseph, the stimulus program directed more than $31 million to recipients like the school district, Missouri Western State University, the Department of Transportation and Community Action Partnership.

Etc. No doubt some people are benefiting from the stimulus, but because government spending does not face a profit and loss test, there is no good way to determine which projects are worthwhile and which wasteful. The article also ignores all the things taxpayers and bond holders would have done with the money had it not been taxed away or loaned to the government — in other words, it only pays attention to the seen, but not to the unseen, effects of the spending. These recipients of stimulus funds would not have received the money to do what they’ve done, but that money would have been used instead to create something else, if it hadn’t been spent in the stimulus.

Furthermore, although the $314 million that the 6th district received may seem like a lot of money, it amounts to less per capita than the national average. During the last year, $334 billion in stimulus spending has been allocated with $119 billion going toward tax cuts and another $14 billion in individual benefits like additional unemployment insurance payments. That leaves $201 billion in spending projects awarded during the last year. According to Wikipedia, the population of Missouri’s 6th district is 621,690, and the estimated population of the United States is 308,705,000, which means that the district contains just barely more than 0.2 percent of the national population. Given that 0.2 percent of $201 billion is $402 million, the district falls under the national average for stimulus spending by $58 million dollars.

Maybe the 6th district’s underwhelming support for Obama during 2008 is in some way related to the underwhelming amount of stimulus funds it has received.

The post The Mismeasure of Stimulus 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.

JEFFERSON CITY — The requests weren’t for more money, but for a halt to additional budget cuts. On Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee began a series of public hearings to hear various government agency representatives plead for maintained funding from the state. With state tax revenues down, however, more cuts will likely be made.

“We’re looking at a billion dollar shortfall,” said Sen. Jim Lembke (R–Saint Louis), “and it’s going to be worse next year.”

About 30 people asked the committee on Monday to maintain funding for governmental programs that fall underneath the administrative umbrellas of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Department of Higher Education, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Corrections, and the Office of Administration. About 65 more are slated to testify on Tuesday, said Committee Director Dan Haug. Each person testifying is allowed three minutes to speak.

The public testimony is the first step in the state’s budgeting process, which will resume in full swing after the governor’s State of the State address in January.

Larry Hendren, testifying on behalf of the University of Missouri’s Alliance of Alumni, told the committee that although the university has frozen tuition and student fees, it is receiving $2 million from the federal government to balance its operating budget, and has restructured retirement benefits — neither of which are sustainable budget fixes.

But, with a predicted 6- or 8-percent shortfall for the year, committee members weren’t very sympathetic.

“Do you know anywhere we could cut?” asked Sen. Tim Green (D–Saint Louis). He explained that if the committee couldn’t make cuts in one program, it would have to cut another.

Throughout the afternoon, Green asked several others who requested the maintenance of state funding to offer suggestions of where they would make cuts. No one had a concrete answer.

With a severe tax revenue shortfall of more than 10 percent during the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, Gov. Jay Nixon made $200 million in state budget cuts, something Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia), brought up several times during public testimony. He asked several representatives to explain the reasoning behind the cuts made to their specific government agencies, implying that the amounts seemed somewhat arbitrary.

Marcia Pfeiffer, testifying on behalf of state community colleges, said that about $7.75 million in state funding for community colleges had been cut. She said that the particular amount of funding that had been cut had no other significance than that it amounted to approximately 15 percent of the total $50 million that had been cut from state funding for higher education.

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The letter claimed to be from the Department of Transportation and said the $5 was an incentive for personal information about driving habits.

And while it looks like a scam, the DOT says it’s not. […]

“When you called me back and told me it wasn’t a scam, I got even angrier. For the government to spend this kind of money on a mailer like this just infuriated me even more,” Held said.

Sending out cash with a survey could be worth it. The five-dollar bill grabs the recipient’s attention and makes him or her feel somewhat obligated to respond. And while this gimmick may sound expensive, mailing a survey that no one replies to would itself be a waste of money. Making decisions without information is costly too.

It would be interesting to find out whether a one-dollar bill is as effective in eliciting responses. If so, switching to the lower denomination might be a way to keep expenses down. Anyone at MoDOT want to give it a try?

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