May 20, 2005
Thursday, Thursday, Thursday
As a way to mark Drinking Liberally's second anniversary, we're
having a bonus happy hour get together next Thursday, May 26th at the
Hi-Pointe from 5 to 8 pm. Come celebrate two years of Drinking
Liberally....cheap pitchers and a guaranteed good time! For those of
you who've been meaning to come but haven't made it yet, now's your
chance to share pitchers with fellow Libs as we promote democracy one
drink at a time.
Hope to see you all there!
===============
Who can turn down a good time at the Hi-Pointe!
Your ever-Liberal hosts,
Rachel, Bill, and Rob
May 18, 2005
high risk of a structural deficit based
Why?
• In Missouri, the percent of sales subject to sales tax declined by 13.5 percentage points from 1990-2003, exceeding the US median decline of 8.0 percentage points. Moreover, Missouri’s sales tax covers less household services than the average state.• Missouri has significant loopholes in its corporate income tax.
• Missouri could lose an estimated $378 to $592 million in revenue a year due to the growth of e-commerce. This loss is greater than the national average as a share of total revenue.
• The top bracket of Missouri’s income tax starts at a relatively low level making it a less progressive tax. An individual earning $30,000 in Missouri pays income tax at the same rate as someone earning $300,000.
• During 1994-2000, Missouri reduced taxes; the largest reductions were in the personal income tax. This is problematic since income taxes provide stronger growth over the long term than other types of taxes.
• Missouri has a constitutional revenue limit that restricts revenue to 5.64% of the prior year’s personal income and a limit on the growth of local property tax revenue. It also has a supermajority requirement for all tax increases.
• Missouri remains linked to the federal phase-out of the estate tax, which
eliminates a rapidly growing revenue source and costs the state an estimated $165 million per year. Also, Missouri’s income taxes are linked to the federal standard deduction, so that any increase in the federal standard deduction results in an increase in the Missouri standard deduction, which reduces Missouri tax revenue.• Two other national studies (Hovey 1998 and Boyd 2002) found that Missouri has a structural gap.
• Lastly, although this paper did not categorize Missouri as having unusually high
spending needs, it does face some spending pressure from the number of students with special needs.
Nothing new to most readers of BSL, but the long term structural problems in Missouri are quite severe--and despite nearly a $1 Billion reduction in tax receipts through cuts over the last few years, no one wants to face reality.
All of the above is a serious challenge to fully funding even the new funding scheme for schools and other basic services.
Is He Even Trying to Pretend...
Boy Blunder fires the state consumer advocate for utility regulations.....
Credit the administration for being clear on what they want to do...
The Office of Public Counsel was created in 1974, making it one of the first state agencies in the country whose sole mission was to represent consumers when rate-increase requests or other utility issues affecting consumers were being considered. State public service commissions also are supposed to protect consumers, but they must balance that role against the interests of utilities and their financial welfare. Coffman was seen by many as well-suited to fulfilling the public counsel’s role of being a consumer advocate.“His office has saved the ratepayers millions and millions of dollars,” said Stuart Conrad, a Kansas City lawyer who represents commercial customers of utilities.
Coffman was known nationally through his duties as vice president of the National Association of State Utility Advocates, a position he has held since 2003. News of his departure was viewed with dismay by many within his profession.
“He was doing his job and they made him go away,” said David Springe, head of the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, the Kansas counterpart to Missouri’s Office of Public Counsel.
Occasionally, state utility advocates are dismissed, usually for political reasons, said John Perkins, president of the National Association of State Utility Advocates. But none had met that fate recently.
Commercial customers of utilities view this badly even--so this isn't even just to make a better business climate, it actually screws other businesses.
May 11, 2005
Boy Blunder
I've found the nickname Runt to be offensive--he is the Governor after all and he isn't criminal so there's a certain level of respect due, but I think these polling numbers fairly allow the use of Boy Blunder for the Guv
Third lowest approval rating in the nation. 33% approve 57% disapprove. Ouch. More later.
How did this man get anyone to pass a school funding bill?
May 04, 2005
Minor Injuries in a Traffic Accident In U CIty
at KMOV, but I can't figure out why Grand was blocked off surround the VA for a couple blocks....
Oh, Jeessshhhh...The Guv Is Going to Do it Over 7 years?
Well that makes sense now, he's planning on lower decreases in mandatory spending from specific funds than he (probably wrongfully) projected for this years.
7 years $970 million (GUV): $138.6 million average increase
5 years $690 million (Senate): $138 million average increase
5 Years $660 million (House): $132 million average increase
Thanks to Roy for the post where he points out it is seven years
The meaning of this is that Blunt doesn't expect any general revenue increase spending increase over 7 years and expects far slower growth than predicted. This should be as dead as the previous proposals--it does nothing to improve equity and someone is going to lose more than simply better funding the current formula.
When Idiots Testify
The only fireworks in the otherwise sedate debate came after an evolution critic made an indirect connection between the Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colo., and evolution instruction.Ann Ihms, who traveled from her home in Indiana to testify, said the Columbine killers had a disregard for life that could have rooted from the view that humans evolved from lower species.
“What does that cause children to think?” she asked. “If I’m from a monkey I might as well act like a monkey.”
Ihm’s remarks prompted a response from Robert Boldt, of Jefferson City, who testified against the bill.
“The idea of equating the tragedy of Columbine with evolution is one of the worst acts of demagoguery that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
First, evolutionary biology doesn't claim humans are 'monkeys'. In fact, humans and 'monkeys' are both primates which is an order
While it's impossible to separate taxonomy from evolution given both reinforce each other, one could not classify primates any differently and have a taxonomy that makes sense meaning that humans closeness to other primates is independent of evolution, but of similar characteristics.
A little bit of science goes a long way towards making idiots even look stupider than they were previously.
To make matters worse, the idiots testifying on behalf of Davis' bill made the classic Cynthia Davis mistake of taking horrible acts of violence and trying to equate them a finding of science. Remember when Cynthia let out this corker?
It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go," she added. "I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back."
What's especially ironic about this is that Cynthia Davis is attacking the entire field of biology for which evolution is the unifying aspect of the field, yet she can't quite figure out how to obey a simple prohibition against converting campaign funds to personal use.
Why the hell should this woman be in the position of discussing curriculum?
The Solution? Tax Increases
First, it's a bit hard to swallow that rolling back some of the tax cuts during the economic boom would do that much harm, but let's assume a general income tax or sales tax is off the table. Given it's Missouri, such solutions are unlikely to go anywhere--where does that leave us?
The most likely solution is an increase in cigarette taxes. Currently 13 cents out of 17 cents goes to education and Missouri is 49th in taxes with no border state having lower taxes though Tennessee is at 20 cents.
Increasing cigarette taxes by 55 cents has been proposed both by Holden and by a proposition a couple years ago where it was defeated. My guess is that such a tax would pass given it's dedicated towards two purposes--education and health care. (Kevin brought up these attempts in comments the other day). Estimates at the time of Holden's proposal put the increase in revenue to $300 million.
First, there is a link between the two and cigarette use. Health care costs are significantly affected by smoking and the public picks up a rather healthy chunk of that--partly because smokers tend to be lower income and more reliant on state help.
Second, education tends to lead to lower smoking levels and for that reason is a justifiable use and a case can be made directly to the public.
In terms of economic impact, convenience store owners led the fight against an increase saying people would flee to Iowa, Tennessee or Kentucky to get cigarettes since they'd be lower priced. The problem with this is that we currently don't see significant cross border buys from Illinois, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and Kansas. Taxes would still only be higher than Arkansas and Nebraska, and relatively close at that. It turns out that cigarettes are a convenience buy for most.
This fix alone, if done 50-50 doesn't even come close to solving the State's problems, but it does address two critical needs--health care and education. Medicaid reductions hit doubly hard because they come with 2-1 match by the federal government. By making smaller reductions, most of the matched funds could be kept and federal dollars added to the overall.
The cigarette tax increase would alleviate, but not solve the education funding problems and reduce the Medicaid problems while newer program designs could be put in place. It doesn't address the issues of higher education, mental health, transportation infrastructure, public safety and corrections, but it does give education the highest priority and offers some help at coming up with enough funds to distribute funds equitably. It also protect the health care of the disabled, elderly and children. From there then more comprehensive solutions can be met. As an added bonus, the tax goes directly from a source of public policy problems and to the best solutions.
Why Everyone Can't be Happy with the School Funding Formula
UPDATE: See this post--the Governor is planning to introduce the funding over seven years which makes his plan no better than the Senate plan. It's the same thing over longer period and actually has nothing to do with any general revenue and expects lower growth from dedicated funding over that time than he predicted this years.
To understand the basic problem with school funding, one has to look at where it is now. Currently, the system works to provide a basic level of funding for every district. The Missouri Budget Project covers the subject in long form. The short version is that Districts are guaranteed funding from local and state sources depending on a number of factors.
Most basic to this calculation is what is the District entitled to which has four categories. The categories include the number of students in the District, the District's tax rate, the guaranteed tax base which deals with the equalized assessed valuation per pupil and what the formula guarantees from both state and local sources, and finally, the prorated portion of the allocation made for schools.
Then the District has subtractions from it's entitlement having to do with certain categorical assistance, some federal funds, Prop C, and how much can be raised locally (giving property poor districts an advantage by having less deductions).
Then one adds a kicker for poverty and finally hold harmless kicks in with the level of 1993 funding being compared to the above calculation with the higher number being what the District receives.
This being the easy answer, shows how complex this is, but more importantly it shows why it's so hard to get majority support in the Lege.
What no one is mentioning is that the current formula is underfunded and if it was fully funded, much of the disparity problem would cease to exist.
The Missouri Budget Project explains it this way:
The practical effect is that wealthier school districts, those with a higher tax base, receive less state aid. Low-and medium-wealth school districts therefore rely on state aid more than these districts. They depend on the formula to make up for what they cannot raise in local taxes due to assessed valuation disparities.
When the state lowers the amount of funding for elementary and secondary education, the areas with less valuation in property are hurt disproportionately because higher assessed valuations lead to less state aid. More so because Districts are given hold harmless classification for their 1992-3 funding level so even when funding is reduced, they get a specific amount based on that years state funding.
The problem then for equity is largely a problem for the less well off Districts, but any solution that seeks to work with the same level of funding is likely to result in either rural areas or suburban areas balking. One or the other has to lose with a similar overall level of funding. That's why the Governor just proposed upping the 5 year increase in both bills. Someone figured out that those small increases never fix any equity problems and that without more money overall, it won't work.
Working from the increase of $660 million House version or the $690 million Senate version over 5 years that results in increases less than increases for this year in overall spending with it being $132 million under the House plan or $138 million in teh Senate plan. Under the Governor's plan that the Post-Dispatch describes, the average yearly increase to get to $970 million more in 5 years is $194 million which is greater than the $170.6 million for this year.
The interesting thing is that even with sluggish revenue growth because of a continued slow economy, the $170.6 is all mandated growth from specific sources and funds that have to be spent on education.
So the funding increase per year is really no more than increases in these designated funds and have little to do with any increase in general revenue funding.
Strictly speaking, that isn't horrible--if you can save general revenue for other spending and increase education funding, that's a good thing.
The question is are those projections good and there is a lot of evidence in the last link that the projections for this year aren't good. The question then is where do the projections come for over the next five years and is there reason to believe the increases are realistic given that state revenues will be tight and anything over those increases in dedicated funds is going to be hard to tap without further cutting other agencies--something that becomes increasingly unpopular.
While the Governor's plan does increase overall funding enough to perhaps satisfy a majority in both houses, it's very unclear that it can be implemented without any revenue increases over the next five years.
Going to DC
Claire is headed to DC for a meeting with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee according to the Hill
This will be a meeting where Chuck Schumer and the DSCC try and court her and convince her they can support her bid well enough to win. It's also the trip that if she hopefully will tell the DSCC they can stuff their consultants and that she'll have her own people run the campaign and not have any of the garbage that went on during Farmer's race. DSCC should agree to that given her stature.
250 Miles of Trails
Damn impressive:
In addition to the strategies proposed by the CVC, I propose to add another 50 miles of bike routes and trails in the City this year to continue to connect our neighborhoods to each other and all neighborhoods to the river and to the parks. In four years, I believe that the spokes of all the trails and routes will exceed 250 miles — making the City of St. Louis one of the bike-friendliest cities in the country.
One of the more impressive things about this administration is that instead of relying on amorphous claims to improve things, Rainford requires everyone who wants something to have a plan and goals that can be measured. So at the end of a period, one can tell whether a goal has been made, analysis of why or why not it has been made and efforts can be directed to fix when it doesn't.
One of the critical aspects of city government is a level of accountability. Too often, and with good reason, accountability suffers because so many tasks have to be completed and often successes are too hard to track. By putting specific numbers on issues like the number of trails, one can go back and hold the administration accountable and the administration can hold itself accountable. That accountability then is put into place with all programs and ultimately, one can identify and see exactly where the City is at.
Combining this with the Mayor's efforts to put the City in long term financial stability, this allows the City to continue to identify problems early and then address them quickly instead of letting them fester and become worse over time.
Let's Start with the Kids
We have a lot to accomplish, but there are three issues at the top of my list: helping children; strengthening our City economy with new jobs; and capitalizing on the new enthusiasm in the region for City living.Let's start with the kids.
Thousands of City kids — black and white — live in safe neighborhoods, attend good schools, and will have great futures.
Others do not. They will not finish school; and they will not find good jobs. They are not engaged by their teachers. They don't play soccer or volleyball or baseball. They have no place to go after school, except street corners. They have few positive adult role models. At ten years old — fifteen years old, seventeen years old — they are already disconnected from our community.
And, we want them back. They are our future and responsibility.
For the last couple of years we have been laying the groundwork for a large-scale effort to enlist the resources of our entire community in rescuing children. The Commission on Children, Youth, and Families, which meets in May, is only the most visible part of an effort that also includes passage of the K for Kids Initiative last November.
We have worked with the St. Louis public schools to ensure that more of its resources are being spent in the classroom — on students and their teachers, rather than on less necessary things. But, there remains much more to be done in the area of student achievement. I hope you will join me in supporting our new superintendent, Dr. Creg Williams, and his management team as they work to improve the quality of education our children receive. I intend to ask the Board of Education to provide priority placement for neighborhood residents in all public schools, including magnet schools. And, I have already asked them to consider a return to K-through-8 neighborhood schools in our City.
We have also worked with the Archdiocese to keep as many parochial schools open as their parishes can afford and to consolidate weak schools to increase the viability of all schools.
We have made our case for additional schools with good data and solid projections. We acknowledge their challenges. But, the Archdiocese must share more of our faith in the City's future.
We will continue those efforts with public and parochial educators, but they will not be enough.
Through my educational liaison, I plan to work with community groups and businesses to create more, and better charter schools in the City; and to increase the number of private schools. At the end of this year, I want to have increased the number of good choices City parents have for their kids. Soon, I will be announcing plans for two new charter schools in South City. And we are also working to create a Downtown charter school.
Without high school diplomas and the skills that come with them, no child can succeed in today's world. At the end of four years of these efforts, I want to have doubled the number of kids graduating from high schools — public, private, and parochial — in the City.
One of the most successful early childhood programs is "Parents as Teachers." The program teaches parents how to raise healthy children, and gives them the tools to do so. In the last four years, we have raised the percentage of eligible City children enrolled in the program to 39 percent, from 18 percent. But, we need to do more. This year, I will work with our library system, neighborhood organizations, schools, daycare centers, churches, and the K for Kids Initiative to enroll more families. And, at the end of four years, I want to have matched the enrollment rate of suburban communities that enroll more than three-quarters of their families in Parents as Teachers.
It is important that we give our kids something to do when they are not in school. So, I have been giving a great deal of thought to our parks and our recreation centers. To be honest, they are underwhelming. Forest Park and few others are wonderful. But many of the other parks and all of the centers need attention. Most of our recreation facilities, including the pools, are outdated and under-equipped. Many community centers are shabby. And, some are closed. Taken together, they are an embarrassment.
Over the next year, I will ask the Parks and Recreation staff to consider new directions: improving parks, expanding recreational opportunities within the parks, consolidating the centers, building new centers, working with the school district to co-develop some centers, and cooperating with private programs that are getting better results.
It doesn't matter to parents if a facility was built by the school district or by the Board of Public Service. It doesn't matter if a sports league or an after school program is managed by the Recreation Division or by the Boys and Girls Clubs. At the end of four years, there should be a seamless network of parks; school, neighborhood, and community recreation centers; and after-school programs that all our children can actually use and enjoy. After we agree on a plan, I will likely propose a bond issue to fund the City's investment in its young people.
One of the things that every parent and teacher knows is that the early years are crucial to a child's development. In those years, environmental hazards like lead and asbestos can do great damage. And, in those years, the habits taught by good early childhood education programs, well-run Head Start programs, and high quality day care programs are the necessary foundation to later success.
We have made good progress on lead safety. Our program is gaining national attention for its innovations and efficiency. We must continue our efforts to produce and catalogue lead-safe housing, and work with the public school district to ensure lead-safe schools and playgrounds. In addition, I have asked the Health Department to intensify its initiatives on childhood immunizations and obesity.
After a great deal of well-intentioned discussion and preparation last year, a plan to build a new Head Start Center failed. During the next year, I hope to preside over the groundbreaking of a new Head Start Center in neighborhoods that need it.
And, finally, in order to ensure that we have high-quality early childhood programs available in the City to provide firm foundations for success in school, we must identify quality day care providers whose facilities can be expanded to serve more children; streamline the licensing process so that quality providers can establish affordable programs where they are most needed; and strengthen our regulatory system to identify and close down shady operators. I look forward to working with you to find suitable locations that attract families to your neighborhoods and jobs to our community.
The highlighted portion is one of the most significant issues--The Mayor is going to push for early childhood facilities. Much of the opposition is from Alderman and while the Mayor isn't going to declare war on Alderman, his moral leadership on this issue can go a long way towards helping early childhood care facilities being introduced into neighborhoods and fitting the neighborhoods needs.
Department of Corrections
2 for today.
First, I said Missouri wasn't a tobacco producer which is incorrect. Missouri does produce tobacco, but isn't in the same category of producers such as the Carolinas, Virginia or Kentucky.
Second, and one I can't believe someone didn't point out, there will be a Lowe's in the City at 55 and Loughborough. I made fun of the Mayor's ad team for including Lowe's in it's commercial touting the businesses Slay brought to the City and apparently, I just had my facts wrong. Oops.
Smoking Poll At Mayor Slay
Given the recent news in the County regarding a possible smoking ban, there is now a poll up at mayorslay.com on that very issue.
Obviously not scientific, but fun to respond to anyway!
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