Jefferson City

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri senators on Monday debated a crackdown on hemp-derived cannabis sales at gas stations and smoke shops, a proposal that has placed the state’s convenience stores and legal cannabis industry at odds.

Representatives of the state’s strictly regulated legal marijuana industry are pushing for legislation that would limit sales of hemp-derived products to state-licensed dispensaries. The hemp products were made permissible by the 2018 federal farm bill.

Missouri state Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Defiance.

Laurie Skrivan, Post-Dispatch

Opponents argue the Missouri proposal, by Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Defiance, unfairly advantages the legal marijuana industry. But Schroer cast his plan as a way to protect public health and safety, pointing out that St. Louis-area minors had been sickened after ingesting cannabinoids.

On March 14, six elementary school students in the Riverview Gardens School District were sent home after eating Delta-8 Nerds Rope Bites and Mad Monkey Sour Strawberry Premium Gummies, the Post-Dispatch previously reported.

Schroer said since the 2018 farm bill, “hemp-derived products including delta-8 have flooded the market with little-to-no oversight,” he said. “This lack of regulation has created a dangerous loophole allowing children, teenagers easy access.”

Unlike sales of cannabis in state-licensed dispensaries, hemp-derived delta-8 products currently for sale at Missouri gas stations are unregulated by the state Department of Health and Senior Services. There are also no specialty taxes on the delta-8 products or official age restrictions.

However, industries that developed after the 2018 farm bill fear that the proposed Missouri legislation would extinguish their businesses by giving regulatory power to the state health department, which has imposed strict limitations on the issuance of marijuana licenses. Currently, there are fewer than 220 dispensaries allowed to operate statewide.

“What you’re saying is we need to shut down all of the businesses that are currently selling this product, and making revenue from this product,” said Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis.

May proposed an amendment to Schroer’s plan that would allow sales at convenience stores and elsewhere so long as sellers limit sales to buyers 21 and older and that products comply with state packaging and testing requirements.

But Schroer said May’s amendment amounted to the “honor system” and eventually the Senate adjourned for the night without agreement on the marijuana bill.

The House is considering its own plan to place delta-8 regulation under the DHSS umbrella, but the House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee has not voted on the legislation since taking it up in February.

The legislation is Senate Bill 984.

While marijuana and hemp are the same plant (cannabis) federal law makes a distinction between marijuana, which is grown for high THC content, and hemp, defined by its low content. But since congress passed the 2018 farm bill authorizing the growing of hemp nationwide, there’s been an unforeseen consequence. People exploiting what they see as a loophole in the law have taken hemp, extracted a non-intoxicating compound called CBD and chemically altered it into various types of impairing THC. Chemically derived THC has wound up in candies, vape oils and other products sold in gas stations, convenience stores and online. At least 17 states have banned such products in the past year. Regulators in Michigan are considering rules that would allow processors to convert CBD into THC with written prior approval. They also would have to label their product as synthetic.

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Originally Appeared Here

Missouri lawmakers return to the Capitol Monday with a long list of policy priorities still in flux and only eight weeks to get it all done before the legislative session ends in May.

Yet despite a host of issues dominating debate during the first half of the session, the two top tasks lawmakers must complete before adjournment aren’t in question: Pass the state’s roughly $50 billion budget and renew $4 billion in medical provider taxes vital to sustaining Missouri’s Medicaid program.

A failure to do either would require a special session this summer. And factional infighting among Senate Republicans likely means neither will be easy. 

Senate leadership and members of the Freedom Caucus have squabbled all session, a continuation of the fissures within the Senate GOP that has mired the chamber in gridlock for much fo the last three years. 

The Freedom Caucus wasn’t impressed with the $52 billion budget proposal laid out by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, and only mildly less dissatisfied with House Budget Chairman Cody Smith’s $50 billion alternative. 

“There’s a real disconnect between the fiscal conservative promises that a lot of Republicans are making in campaign season and what they’re continuing to talk about when we come down to the Senate floor and actually debate policy,” said state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican and member of the Freedom Caucus.

Eigel, who is also a candidate for governor, predicted a long slog through the budget this year. 

“It’s going to take a lot of work,” he said. 

Potential trouble also lurks in the background across the rotunda in the House.

The GOP supermajority in the House is expected to work quickly through the budget this week, with the chamber avoiding the internal dissension that’s plagued the Senate. Yet hovering over the House as it heads into the session’s home stretch is the ongoing ethics investigation of House Speaker Dean Plocher, who is facing a litany of allegations of misconduct. 

The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to hold its fifth closed-door meeting Tuesday, with the timeline for issuing a final report unclear. 

Plocher has already faced calls for his resignation from some Republicans. If the committee concludes he engaged in unethical conduct, the fight over whether Plocher should keep his job could derail the session as lawmakers are trying to finalize the budget. 

Even if a budget compromise can be reached, the Freedom Caucus has also raised concerns about renewing the federal reimbursement allowance, or FRA — the taxes paid by hospitals, nursing homes, ambulance providers and pharmacies as a mechanism for drawing additional federal funds and boosting payments for Medicaid services.

A Senate bill to renew the taxes before they expire later this year has been stalled over Freedom Caucus demands that it include provisions excluding Planned Parenthood from providing Medicaid services.

Including that provision, GOP leaders have argued, could put the entire program at risk of running afoul of federal law. In an effort to tamp down resistance to passing a “clean” FRA, a separate bill blocking Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed by Medicaid was passed by the House earlier this year. 

“It’s a bipartisan belief that we need to pass (the FRA) clean,” Plocher told reporters, later adding:: “I’m an eternal optimist, and I believe we get it done.”

But time is running out, said Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat. The Senate should have taken up FRA legislation at the beginning of the session instead of waiting until the last minute. 

“I don’t understand why it hasn’t been brought up,” Rizzo said. “I don’t understand why it hasn’t had a really good debate. I mean, it seems like there’s a lot of things that have gotten a lot of time on the floor that are way less impactful than the FRA… Everyone in this chamber knows how essential the FRA is to health care, especially in rural Missouri.”

If the legislature is forced to hold a special session this summer to renew the FRA — which is how it was last renewed in 2021 — it will be the Senate’s fault, said Plocher, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. 

“It won’t be because of the House’s actions,” he added. 

Beyond the budget and FRA, Republicans are determined to make it harder to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process. 

A version of the proposal cleared the Senate last month when Democrats agreed to end their filibuster in exchange for Republicans stripping out provisions labeled “ballot candy.”

The bill would require a statewide majority and a majority vote in five of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass a constitutional amendment resulting from an initiative petition or a state convention.

In addition to making it harder to enact constitutional amendments, the legislation included “ballot candy” that would bar non-citizens from voting and ban foreign entities from contributing to or sponsoring constitutional amendments. 

Democrats called the immigration and foreign entities provisions a misleading sleight of hand meant to confuse voters from the issue at the heart of the amendment. Republican leadership agreed to remove them, and the bill was sent to the House. 

But state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold who sponsored the initiative petition bill, urged a House committee to restore the “ballot candy.”  And she hinted at the idea that Senate Republicans were going to turn to a rarely used procedural move near the end of session to force the legislation through over Democratic opposition. 

Coleman’s bluster infuriated Democrats, who accused Republicans of going back on their word and undermining the negotiating process in the Senate. In response, Rizzo and his fellow Democrats used the filibuster to shut down Senate business for a day. 

Despite the setback, Rizzo said he hopes cooler heads will ultimately prevail. 

“I don’t harbor any ill will or animosity towards (Sen. Coleman),” Rizzo said. “Obviously, she made some mistakes in the House committee.”

Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughllin, a Shelbina Republican, said Coleman “maybe just didn’t think before she made the comments. I think maybe she just didn’t weigh out what the results of that would be.”

The House intended to restore the ballot candy, said state Rep. Peggy McGaugh, a Republican from Carrollton and chair of the House Elections Committee. But the specter of Senate Democrats upending the legislative session could change those plans. 

“They made it clear they don’t like the plan we’re working toward,” she said. “So there will be a lot of give and take there… and I don’t know exactly where we’ll end up.”

The most expansive bill to clear the Senate so far this year would expand the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program and allow charter schools to open in Boone County. The bill also includes provisions boosting public school funding and teacher retention efforts.

“This is a great package,” said state Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Republican from Manchester who is sponsoring the bill. “It’s a great package for parents. It’s a great package for kids.”

Meanwhile the House passed open enrollment legislation that would allow a school district to accept transfer students from outside its boundaries. Its sponsor, Republican state Rep. Brad Pollitt of Sedalia, has argued that open enrollment “offers parents the opportunity to select curriculum options to better align with their personal beliefs.”

How either bill will fare in the other chamber is unclear. 

“The House has focused the last few years on open enrollment,” said Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican. “The things that we’re focusing on are a little more involved or a little deeper or a little more holistic.”

One of the first bills to win House approval this year would create tax credits designed to make child care in Missouri more affordable and accessible.

The state continues to grapple with a child care crisis, with about 200,000 children living in parts of Missouri considered “child care deserts” because there are one or fewer child care slots available for every three children.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Brenda Shields of St. Joseph, would create three types of credits: for taxpayers who donate to support child care centers, for employers who make investments in child care needs for their employees and for child care providers. 

It won overwhelming approval in the House, and is a priority for both Parson and Senate Democrats. 

But the Freedom Caucus has poured cold water on the idea.

“What we’re focusing on is cutting the tax burden for everybody, not having targeted giveaways and tax benefits for certain groups of folks,” Eigel said. “I want to lower the tax burden for everybody.”

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Originally Appeared Here

Missouri’s backlog of Medicaid applications dropped in February, but the average time it took to determine eligibility for them continued to exceed the federal limit.

The median time it took Missouri’s social services department to process Medicaid applications for low-income Missourians in February was 77 days, an agency spokesperson told the Independent.

That means half of the applications processed in February had been pending for at least two and a half months.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires that Medicaid applications for the largest group of participants — who are low-income children, families and adults — be processed within 45 days.

Missouri’s application delays have violated federal rules for three months.

In December, the median processing time was 49 days and it rose to 64 days in January. Median processing time is the metric the state is required to report to the federal government.

Processing issues can mean low-income Missourians go months without health insurance, delaying or foregoing necessary care. And it affects new applicants as well as those who may have lost coverage during the eligibility verification process and need to reapply.

Alistair Wiley, of Ste. Genevieve, has been trying to get back on Medicaid since January. She and her husband lost coverage during the renewal process, despite submitting the paperwork and continuing to meet the income limit, she said.

“It’s just been a living nightmare,” she said.

Since then, she says she’s endured several calls that were at least a two hour wait time each, submitted a new application in January, and received confusing information on why her application was stuck. She said workers couldn’t give her an estimate on when her application would be processed.

Wiley has had to ration or miss several medications, she said, and her husband has had to delay surgery.

“I am only on half of the dose I need to treat my severe depression, which has made keeping track of this and fighting for myself incredibly difficult,” she said.

On top of that, she said, she has called several state hotline numbers that don’t give the option to speak to a person and tell her to check the state portal, “even though it’s difficult to navigate.” When she reaches a human being, she said some staff “don’t seem to know what to do.”

“It feels like there are many roadblocks to receiving the help we need in this state,” she said.

Federal data lags, but as of November, Missouri’s processing delays were among the worst in the country, according to a report by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published last month.

According to that data, only New Mexico, Missouri, Georgia and Washington, D.C., were processing more than 40 percent of applications in more than 45 days. Forty-two percent of all applications Missouri received were processed in violation of the federal limit as of November.

Leaders of the Department of Social Services have said they’ve shifted to devoting efforts to overcome the backlog and that the average processing time will soon decline as a result.

The backlog of applications dropped to 35,833 in February, from 52,891 in January.

Baylee Watts, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, says that’s because Missouri’s Family Support Division withdrew duplicates and ramped up efforts to process more applications, in “an effort to utilize all available staff to process applications during the large majority of their work hours.”

“With these efforts we were able to largely reduce our pending application numbers and expect to see the median days to processing return to an acceptable number,” Watts said.

Missouri is required to report the median processing time to the federal government but publishes the mean — what most people think of as the average — in monthly public reports, Watts told the Independent. The mean posted in state reports is slightly lower but still exceeds the federal limit: It was 57 days in February and 50 in January.

The state has long grappled with processing delays and call center wait times and was put under a federal mitigation plan in the summer of 2022 for average processing times that reached 115 days.

At the quarterly MO HealthNet oversight committee meeting last month, Kim Evans, director of the Family Support Division, said her agency has been in contact with the federal government about pending applications.

“I actually had a call with them this morning,” she said at the meeting. “We’re on schedule to have them back down, under the processing time, by the end of February.”

The department didn’t respond to several requests for clarification.

From November to mid-January, during open enrollment season for the federal insurance marketplace, the state generally sees an uptick in Medicaid applications. It is also in the process of re-evaluating the eligibility of all Medicaid participants on its rolls after a three-year pause due to the COVID pandemic.

Evans told the MO HealthNet oversight committee that she expects the state to experience longer processing times every year during open enrollment.

“So this is going to be a normal process for us from November to somewhere February or March, depending on what our open enrollment period looks like,” she said.

The same workers who process Medicaid applications are generally also the ones responsible for answering the phones, and they switch between those tasks based on need.

By the end of last year, the most recent data obtained by the Independent, shows the average phone wait time for the general line, including most Medicaid queries, was 1 hour 45 minutes.

State Sen. Tracy McCreery, a Democrat of Olivette who serves on the MO HealthNet advisory committee, cited the Independent’s findings when asking Evans last month about wait times. McCreery said she “remain(s) concerned” and asked what the state’s plans are to remedy it.

Evans said it “is never our goal for individuals to wait this long. But there are different levels of the call center,” she said, going on to explain user error in selecting the correct phone line, or failure to listen to the automated answers.

She added the department is asking the legislature for money to create a “call center bot,” to increase automation and reduce the need for staff on the general call center line.

The goal, Evans said, is to free up staff who are currently answering the general questions calls to transfer them to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program interviews instead. The state is facing a federal lawsuit over its call center wait times for SNAP.

The Missouri Independent, www.missouriindependent.com, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering state government and its impact on Missourians.

Originally Appeared Here

Despite setbacks in both the House and Senate leading up to legislative spring break, proponents of bills seeking to end Missouri’s practice of seizing Social Security benefits from foster children expect to regain momentum on the issue when lawmakers return to Jefferson City next week.

In the Senate, GOP state Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder of Scott City saw her bill hung up in debate when it was heard late last month and earlier this month, with numerous amendments added and withdrawn. There was no vocal opposition.

Since then, Rehder said she’s been working to strip out amendments that could threaten the bill’s passage. She says the bill is “really in good shape” and she “anticipates it getting out this coming week.”

“It’s ready to get brought up, and I honestly think that it’s supposed to be the first bill to get brought up Monday,” Rehder said in an interview with the Independent.

The House version, sponsored by Republican Rep. Hannah Kelly of Mountain Grove, won initial approval but had that vote rescinded in order to remove an amendment deemed problematic. That means the bill still needs to be passed again by the House before it heads to the Senate.

When lawmakers return Monday to the Capitol, there will be only eight weeks left before the session adjourns for the year. And traditionally, getting a bill out of one chamber and into the other before the session’s homestretch improves its chances of making it to the governor’s desk.

The state took at least $6.1 million in benefits from foster children last year — generally Social Security benefits for those with disabilities or whose parents have died. The money is used to reimburse the state for agency costs.

“That is not taxpayer money coming in. … That is literally money that is taken in the form of (survivors’ benefits) payments that children are owed because they have lost their parents,” Kelly said during House debate earlier this month.

The House seems likely to give Kelly’s bill final approval without much drama.

In the Senate, factional infighting among Republicans has upended the chamber throughout the session — adding uncertainty to every bill’s fate.

No senator has spoken up against Rehder’s bills during debate, but discussion of various amendments has dragged out and slowed the bill’s progress.

Under the legislation, the state could only use those funds to pay for the child’s “unmet needs” beyond what the division is obligated to pay, such as housing as the child prepares to age out of foster care. The state would also be required to ensure the account in which the child’s benefits are deposited is set up in a way that doesn’t interfere with federal asset limits.

In an interview, Rehder said she has been focused on working with senators to strip out amendments that might be outside the scope of the bill’s subject. Last year, a bill she sponsored to ban sleeping on public land was struck down by the state Supreme Court for failing that procedural requirement.

Rehder said during Senate debate that “as I told the majority of folks that come up and talk to me about the underlying bill … the one thing I’ve requested is that any amendment that gets put on — I’m happy with amendments, I’m not saying don’t do amendments, I’m saying let’s do a limit that across this body we agree on.”

State Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove, proposed an amendment that would remove the expiration date on a law passed last year that bans minors from beginning transgender health care treatments and limits sports participation for trans athletes.

During a subsequent debate over the bill, Moon said that “after thinking about (withdrawing the amendment) over the weekend, there are some things that I think need to be considered prior to that happening. I may be willing to do that.”

Rehder objected to the amendment for not being within the scope of the original bill, and Moon withdrew it after further discussion with Rehder.

Amendments that have been attached to the legislation so far include Democratic Sen. Karla May’s proposal to add suicide prevention-related phone numbers to those listed on student ID cards. Republican Sen. Rusty Black’s amendment would exempt licensed child care providers who care for only school-age children from certain compliance requirements. Republican Sen. Rick Brattin’s amendment would add considerations for judges when determining child custody.

Rehder hoped the bill would come up for a vote in the week before spring break, she said, but it didn’t due to a filibuster.

“We had to lay it over to go through these amendments” she said in a recent Senate communications video, “… and I’ll have those senators understanding that regardless of whether I’m for their language or not, if it will kill this underlying bill, that is to help foster children, I’m simply not going to allow it on.”

Originally Appeared Here

U.S. farm income is falling from record highs as low commodity prices, trade headwinds and higher costs squeeze profits, according to a new report from the University of Missouri.

The 2024 U.S. Agricultural Market Outlook report released Tuesday by the Food & Agricultural Policy Research Institute, also known as FAPRI, is a 10-year projection of the agriculture economy. It examines production trends and pricing for commodity and specialty crops and livestock and discusses issues like interest rates, consumer prices and biofuel production that affect farming as a whole.

For producers, the news isn’t especially welcome.

“We got lower commodity prices kind of across the board, except for cattle,” said Pat Westhoff, the agricultural economics professor who serves as the institute’s director.

The annual report is eagerly anticipated in the agriculture industry and its findings have extra significance this year as Congress tries to pass a farm bill renewing producer support and food distribution programs.

Net farm income nationally is expected to be about $118.2 billion this year, down from a record of about $162 billion in 2022.

Westhoff said he briefed Congressional staff on the report Tuesday and the reaction was a classic glass half-empty, glass half-full split. Some saw the large decline in farm income as a problem, while others noted that income is expected to remain above the average from 2015 to 2019.

“People were using the same numbers and making the opposite arguments,” Westhoff said.

Missouri is second only to Texas in the number of farms, with 87,887 farms that sold $14.7 billion in agricultural products in 2022, up from $10.5 billion in 2017 according to the Census of Agriculture. Missouri farms also received nearly $1 billion in government payments or other income.

With farm production expenses of $10.7 billion, Missouri farms had net cash income of $5 billion.

The 5,596 largest Missouri farms, with sales of $500,000 or more, sold more than $11.6 billion in products in 2022. The 67,400 Missouri farms with sales of less than $50,000 sold $685 million in agricultural products.

Prices for grain and oil crops have fallen dramatically in the past year. Missouri farmers were receiving $14.90 a bushel for soybeans in January 2023, and $6.94 a bushel for corn. According to the monthly agricultural prices report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the price received for soybeans in January 2024 was $12.90 a bushel and for corn it was $4.79.

The issues facing farmers nationally, Westhoff said, are true in Missouri, where corn, soybeans and wheat are the major cash crops.

The FAPRI report projects the decline in commodity grain prices will slow, but continue.

Missouri farmers get a slightly better price than the national average for corn and soybeans because of proximity to large rivers and industries such as ethanol and biodiesel that buy commodities locally, Westhoff said.

“Where you have crushing facilities for soybeans matters tremendously,” Westhoff said. “Where you have ethanol plants matters as well.”

Missouri produced 264.9 million bushels of soybeans in 2023. A decline of $2 per bushel means the farmers producing those beans received $500 million less than they did for the same commodity the previous year.

The sharp decline in market prices for soybeans hasn’t been accompanied by a similar decline in prices for fertilizer, fuel and other supplies, said Casey Wasser, chief operating officer of Missouri Soybeans, the industry lobbying association.

“The input prices have not come down at all with the other prices,” Wasser said. “So that’s where that net farm income is going to hit producers pretty tight.”

Missouri has the nation’s sixth largest cattle herd. It also is home to the sixth largest number of hogs, and its farmers sold the seventh largest number of chickens for meat consumption and had the nation’s 12th largest flock of laying hens.

But Missouri is losing farmers – and farmland – faster than the national average.

The number of farms declined 7.8% since the 2017 farm census while nationally the number fell 6.9%. Nationally, 2.2% of farmland was converted to other uses between the surveys, while in Missouri the acreage in farming declined 2.7%.

The smallest producers are being squeezed the tightest, said Tim Gibbons of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. In a telephone interview after he spent a day lobbying in Washington for changes in national farm programs, Gibbons said the issues facing farmers go well beyond commodity prices and interest rates.

Control of agriculture continues to be concentrated in large corporations, he said. Farm programs are designed to support cheap commodities and large producers, he said.

“What I’m hearing on the Hill is a joke relative to the situation that is farming in Missouri and in the United States right now,” Gibbons said.

Corporate-backed buyers are outbidding local residents for farmland and the concentration in meatpacking means producers become dependent on contracts that can be canceled when profits narrow. The decision by Tyson Foods to close a plant in Perry, Iowa, that employs 1,300 people will have a ripple effect on the farmers who raise hogs under contract, Gibbons said.

Missouri has lost more than 1,000 cattle producers a year over the past 25 years, a trend that accelerated to about 2,000 per year in the past five years, according to the farm census. The number of farms producing hogs has declined from 12,133 in 1992 to 2,184 in 2022.

“The policies that have been in recent past farm bills have been written by and for these multinational corporations and lobbyists that lobby for them,” Gibbons said. “We need a very different vision and a farm bill.”

The only area where prices are increasing in the past year are for cattle. That’s because the national herd is at its lowest number since the 1960s, in large part due to pastureland drying up because of droughts starting in 2020.

Short supplies are pushing prices up.

“It’s causing liquidation and we’re not seeing rebuilding right now,” Gibbons said. “That connects with interest rates as well.”

Higher interest rates in the United States, which increase costs for farmers as they borrow to finance annual operations or add land and equipment, put farmers at a disadvantage internationally by making the dollar worth more in exchange, Westhoff said.

One indicator of the impact is that the U.S. has become a net importer of food and agricultural products, reversing decades of a surplus in the balance of farm trade.

“We are importing lots of value-added products that might otherwise be produced here and of course that has spillover effects,” Westhoff said.

The FAPRI report section on government aid to farmers notes that the cost of the two main programs intended to shore up prices – agricultural risk coverage, or ARC, and price loss coverage, or PLC fell below $1 billion because of recent high commodity prices.

At the same time, crop insurance payments in 2023 totaled $9.3 billion.

“We need to figure out a system of farmer-owned grain reserves and price floors and price ceilings to stop the volatility of the market, and keep that price floor at the cost of production,” Gibbons said.

Missouri Soybean is pushing for changes in federal farm support programs to reset the protected prices at a higher level, Wasser said. Prices on beans could fall another $2 per bushel and Missouri farmers wouldn’t qualify for payments to make up any of the difference, he said.

“We’re still not even close to a safety net, with inputs and $11 beans it’s tough for any farmer no matter what your size or your leverage to be making any profit on that,” Wasser said..

FAPRI’s job is to provide information, not advise on policy decisions, Westhoff said.

The difficulty of getting changes to the programs is cost, he said.

Some “would like to do some changes that would improve the safety net from the perspective of producers but those changes all cost money,” he said. “And unless you’re going to reduce that spending or reduce spending on conservation programs, there’s not any obvious way to put those pieces together.”

The decline in commodity prices should ease inflation in food costs and even reverse some recent increases, such as for eggs and pork, Westhoff said. Food purchased for consumption at home should not increase any faster than inflation generally, the report indicates.

But consumers shouldn’t expect everything in the supermarket to get cheaper, he said.

“For the most part, the share of those commodity prices that affect consumer food prices is pretty small,” Westhoff said. “Therefore even a significant decline in the farm level price doesn’t translate to any decline, or not a very big decline, in grocery store prices.”

The Missouri Independent, www.missouriindependent.com, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering state government and its impact on Missourians.

Originally Appeared Here

Address: 2132 Jefferson Ave., New Orleans, 70115
Sales price: $1,226,000
List price: $1,250,000
Date sold: Sept. 11
Days On Market: 2
Listing agent: Margaret Stewart, Latter & Blum

Sales agent: Caroline Graham, Latter & Blum

Coveted corner lot. Remodeled. Renovated. Well-maintained. Perfectly-priced. Move-in ready.
These were all selling points that quickly moved the Uptown New Orleans home at 2132 Jefferson Ave., said Margaret Stewart, realtor with Latter & Blum. The home sold for $1,226,000 on Sept. 11. Stewart was the listing agent on the transaction, while Latter & Blum realtor Caroline Graham was the sales agent.

It spent just two days on the market, received multiple offers within 48 hours following an open house, and closed within two weeks. The home was built in 1918, but remodeled and renovated over the years, including by the most recent seller, a local New Orleans resident living there for 13 years, said Stewart.
“The seller took tremendous pride in making sure this fabulous, traditional Uptown New Orleans style home was well-maintained, combined with a beautiful remodel job on the first floor that created a stunning primary bedroom suite with a beautiful, spacious bathroom, and impressive walk-in closet, while also adding an extra downstairs room for office space,” said Stewart. “The home is on a coveted corner lot with pretty curb appeal, stunning slate front porch, spacious front and rear yards with lush landscaping, and side-by-side, off-street parking.”
Additional amenities include wood floors, natural light, kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, kitchen opening to a back deck and yard, formal living, dining and den plus additional bonus/game room with a window, and exposed brick and fireplace.

Graham said 2132 Jefferson “gave the ambiance of old traditional New Orleans style. The corner lot with off-street parking gave it an edge above the rest.” She added that her clients, an Uptown family, were drawn to “something with a foyer and not open concept, with separated spaces for children and adults.” The downstairs play room or greet room leads to two beds upstairs.
Another plus for Graham’s clients is the proximity to Danneel Park + Playground on Octavia Street and Danneel Street, along with Holy Name of Jesus School, also in the area.
“It’s a beautiful location with nice parks and schools; everything in walking distance and close proximity to Uptown stores and restaurants,” Stewart said.
Graham on the real estate market: “The market today is finding its balance within the ebbs and flows of the historical patterns. Insurance companies and property tax assessments have made buying much more difficult for your average buyer. Thankfully, local New Orleans lenders can get more creative in their financing packages and products to offset their clients buying power.”

Other high priced home sales in the past week:
Address: 900 Aline St., New Orleans, 70115
Sales price: $1,060,000
List price: $1,095,000
Date sold: Sept. 11
Days On Market: 72
Listing agent: Terrence Davis, Keller Williams Realty New Orleans

Sales agent: Lana Hunt, Keller Williams Realty New Orleans

A luxury, new construction home in Uptown New Orleans at 900 Aline St. sold for $1,060,000. The home features 4 beds, 3½ baths, 2,900 square feet of living space, and 3,390 square feet total, and is located in an X flood zone.

• Open floorplan, soaring12-foot ceilings, Chef’s kitchen with Thermador appliances, Quartz counters and waterfall edge island, wet bar with wine fridge, tankless water heater, primary suite with marble bath, shower, soaking tub, and custom walk-in closet.
• Gated off-street parking, fenced yard, full-length balconies off the primary and first floor, large covered deck off the living areaprovides indoor/outdoor living experience, and deep corner lot provides room for a pool.

Address: 340 Arrowhead Lane, Covington, 70435
Sales price: $940,000
List price: $920,000
Date sold: Sept. 15
Days On Market: 0
Listing agent: Susan Ameen, Keller Williams Realty Services
Sales agent: Brittany Jenkins, Dempsey Rogers, Inc.
A 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom home in Warrior Trace in Covington sold for $940,000. The property features a 5,240-square-foot home on a total lot size of 7,000 square feet.

• Custom home on 15.3 acres with a bonus room upstairs; 100×40 metal barn with three bays on the property.

Information provided by Kelleye Rhein & Stephan Mock of Reve Realtors.

Originally Appeared Here

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Senate Democrats ended their filibuster Tuesday of a bill that seeks to expand the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program — agreeing to let the legislation come to a vote after Republicans added provisions boosting public school funding and teacher retention efforts.

The bill receiving first-round approval in the Senate Tuesday evening is the second version to come to the floor this week. The original 12-page bill ballooned to 76 pages before expanding to 153 pages Tuesday after negotiations.

“There are plenty of things (in the bill) that I dislike,” Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, told the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Andrew Koenig.

Koenig, a Republican from Manchester, acknowledged the compromise.

“That makes two of us,” he said.

“I know that there are things you wish you could change, and there are things that I wish I could change. At the end of the day, I think we’ve gotten to that right balance,” Arthur said.

Republican Sens. Justin Brown of Rolla, Mike Moon of Ash Grove and Elaine Gannon of DeSoto joined Democrats voting against the bill.

Gannon has spoken against the bill at the committee level and told The Independent that she fears tax-credit scholarships pull money from public schools.

“If you want choice, pay for it. If they’re not happy, there’s other options out there, like charter schools and private schools.” she said.

Annelise Hanshaw

/

Missouri Independent

Missouri State Sen. Elaine Gannon, R-De Soto, speaks against K-12 tax-credit scholarships during a filibuster Monday in Jefferson City.

On the Senate floor Monday evening, she spoke about six counties who removed tax-credit scholarships from their local Republican Party platform.

“These six counties feel if they take public dollars, the government’s going to come in and regulate those parochial schools and private schools,” she said.

Currently only available in charter counties and cities with at least 30,000 residents, the legislation that won initial approval Tuesday would open the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program, MOScholars, statewide.

It would also increase the salary one can make to qualify for the program as low-income from 200% of the amount used to determine reduced lunch to 300%. The income cap, for a family of four, would be $166,500, under this school year’s reduced lunch eligibility.

The bill would additionally increase the amount awarded to those with limited English proficiency, those who qualify for free or reduced lunch and students with individualized education plans.

MOScholars currently has a ceiling of $50 million in tax credits, which it has not reached in its first couple years of the program. The bill seeks to raise the cap to $75 million, with an adjustment tied to the “percent increase or decrease in the amount of state aid distributed to school districts.”

Koenig has launched a campaign for State Treasurer, the office that oversees the MOScholars program.

The bill also would permit charter schools to open in Boone County. Currently, charter schools are only allowed in Kansas City and St. Louis.

The bill includes incentives for school districts in charter counties or cities with 30,000 or more residents to have instruction five days a week, changes to the state formula that funds public schools and boosting the minimum teacher salary to $40,000.

Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, who is in his last year in the Senate, spoke in favor of adding a charter in his home county.

“We’re just trying to give another option for Columbia,” Rowden, a Republican from Columbia, said on the Senate floor.

These provisions were in place as Senate Democrats led a filibuster lasting roughly four hours before the chamber adjourned at 8 p.m. Monday. After closed-door negotiations, Koenig’s bill was amended to impact 24 additional sections of state law.

The changes include incentives for school districts in charter counties or cities with 30,000 or more residents to have instruction five days a week, changes to the state formula that funds public schools and boosting the minimum teacher salary to $40,000.

The foundation formula, which currently has a multiplier of student attendance, would shift to enrollment in its place. A study by Bruce Baker commissioned by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggested the switch last year.

“It is well understood that average daily attendance rates tend to be lower (relative to enrolled, eligible pupils) in districts that are higher in child poverty and in minority concentrations. As such, when state aid is calculated based on average daily attendance, that aid is systematically reduced in higher poverty, higher minority concentration districts,” Baker wrote.

A fiscal note has not been completed for the current version. Koenig said the changes to the state-aid formula, which would be ushered in 10% increments, would cost $70 million for each 10%.

Also added to the bill is the proposed creation of a literacy fund that could receive up to $5 million from the state’s general fund to provide grants for weekly reading programs.

Other additions include a proposal to permit school districts to pay teachers more who fill roles in “hard-to-staff” schools and areas, a boost to the career ladder program and additional pathways to teaching certifications.

One piece of the bill discussed Tuesday would allow people with bachelor’s degrees to complete an 18-hour teacher training program for credentials to teach in Missouri private schools.

Public schools could get more teachers into classrooms through a provision giving bachelor’s degree recipients “subject-area certifications” only for their areas of expertise. The bill also would strike an entrance exam to receive training in education.

Debate ended at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, with Senate leadership promising to send the bill to fiscal oversight in the morning. It needs to be approved by the Senate one more time before being sent to the House.

This story was originally published in The Missouri Independent, part of the States Newsroom.

Originally Appeared Here

Kansas City-area lawmakers want to give a sales tax break to developers expected to expand a federal facility that builds non-nuclear components to “modernize and refurbish” the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

A bipartisan group of Missouri lawmakers from the metro are promoting legislation to offer a sales tax exemption on materials needed to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s existing campus in south Kansas City, which is operated by Honeywell International Inc.

Democratic Sen. Greg Razer told a Missouri Senate committee that the agency, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, plans to add 2.5 million square feet of new facilities and hire thousands of new employees.

Rather than building the expansion itself, Razer said, the federal government will acquire the facilities from a private developer who can build them more quickly. He called it a “smart plan to keep our existing weapons arsenal safe.”

“We need to modernize this to keep them safe to ensure that accidents don’t happen,” Razer said, “and that’s what we will be doing in Kansas City.”

According to a fiscal analysis on Razer’s bill, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to spend more than $3 billion on Kansas City facilities. Razer’s bill would divert almost $61 million in state revenue over 10 years, which he said the construction job creation alone would offset.

The permanent jobs would then bring in additional state revenue. Jackson County, the city of Kansas City and the Kansas City Zoo would see a combined $81 million diverted from their budgets over 10 years.

If the federal government built the facilities, it would be exempt from paying sales tax anyway, Razer said. Exempting the private developer allows it to keep its costs on par with what the federal government’s would be.

State Reps. Chris Brown, a Republican, and Anthony Ealy, a Democrat, are sponsoring the same legislation in the Missouri House.

The representatives’ bills were combined and passed a House committee unanimously. Razer’s bill also cleared its Senate committee unanimously.

Sen. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, offers amendments to a bill in the Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee on Jan. 24, 2024 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).A spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Agency said in an email that the new facilities would house about 4,000 employees, including existing employers working at other facilities and new hires. Asked how many jobs would be transferred from other facilities and how many new employees would be hired, the spokesperson did not clarify.

The spokesperson said since Honeywell moved to the existing campus in 2014, it experienced “significant growth in workload and personnel to support NNSA’s planned modernization of the nuclear deterrent.”

Now, it’s pursuing the expansion to “expand manufacturing capacity and office space necessary to sustain continued production growth in support of NNSA’s national security mission.”

Construction is expected to begin this year and continue into the next decade.

Kevin Breslin and Terry Anderson appeared before committees in the House and Senate to support the legislation on behalf of the developer, Promontory 150 LLC.

The company, according to Missouri Ethics Commission filings, is located on Main Street in Kansas City, sharing an address with the law firm Watters Wolf Bub Hansmann. Breslin is registered as a lobbyist for Promontory 150 LLC, Botts 150 LLC and Bannister Transformation & Development LLC.

Botts 150 LLC appears to refer to the project. The National Nuclear Security Administration campus is located on Botts Road.

Bannister Transformation & Development LLC owns the former Bannister Federal Complex where Honeywell operated before moving to its Botts Road facility more than 10 years ago.

Anderson, according to a witness form filed with a similar bill in the House, represents Promontory 150 LLC/Platform Ventures. He’s co-founder and co-president of Platform, a real estate investment firm in Kansas City.

Breslin said in the Senate committee hearing that the federal government had already made an initial appropriation to pay for the 15 buildings it plans to add over the next 10 years.

In the last 10 years, Breslin said, the campus has grown from 3,000 to 8,000 employees. The facility needs to double its capacity to accommodate work anticipated over the next 15 to 20 years to update decades-old systems.

“They need to be refurbished,” he said. “They need to be modernized in order to make sure that they’re safe and protective for our national defense purposes, so this is a critical, vital function that needs to be performed, and they simply need additional infrastructure to accomplish their national defense mission.”

Breslin told the House committee the facility is “not a weapons production facility,” arguing it instead “supports the technology that secures those weapons.”

The website for Honeywell’s Kansas City campus says it develops, produces, procures and delivers “over 80% of all nonnuclear components in support of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.”

Both Razer and Breslin said it would take an additional three to five years for the federal government to hire contractors and build the facility itself than it will for the developer.

The legislation was backed by economic development and city officials from Kansas City who welcomed the proposed influx of jobs.

During a hearing in the Missouri House Economic Development Committee last week, representatives praised Honeywell as a good “corporate citizen” and lauded the project as wonderful and promising for Kansas City.

Honeywell will run the new facility. The company referred questions to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Honeywell last month announced it would invest $84 million to expand its aerospace manufacturing facility in Olathe and hire 156 workers.

Razer’s bill faced opposition from the state’s Sierra Club chapter and the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, a nonprofit organization that promotes nonviolence. The groups opposed the idea of producing parts for nuclear weapons.

“This is a long-term investment in, really, the possible annihilation of humankind,” said Jeff Stack, with the fellowship of reconciliation. “We shouldn’t be a party to that.”

Razer said he would love to live in a world where nuclear weapons don’t exist.

“However that’s not the world we live in,” Razer said, “and we’re not producing new weapons … We are making sure that our aging weapons are safe.”

Originally Appeared Here

The first – and perhaps only – chance for the public to tell Missouri House members what they think of Gov. Mike Parson’s $52.7 billion budget proposal will be Thursday.

The timing is upsetting Democrats on the House Budget Committee, who said public input should have occurred weeks ago. Scheduling one hearing on all 17 spending bills for the day before lawmakers take a week-long spring break doesn’t allow for adequate deliberation, they argue.

“Because we are so far along in the process, for anything to change in the budget because of public testimony would be highly unusual,” said Rep. Deb Lavender, a Manchester Democrat who began pushing for hearings at the end of January.

At the hearing, Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith will reveal how he wants to change Parson’s spending plan. Votes on the budget will be held the week of March 25 with floor debate tentatively scheduled for the following week.

Smith defended the timing of the hearing. He’s heard from advocacy groups, other lawmakers and individuals in one-on-one meetings and will allow for more testimony after spring break if the Thursday hearing isn’t enough time for everyone who wants to speak, he said.

“If we had an objection or concern raised in my office about the opportunity to testify publicly, and the short notice about that, I would be open to making more time for that,” Smith said.

Parson’s budget includes raises for teachers, a 3% increase for higher education budget and childcare and funding to study improvements on Interstate 44. He’s also asking for a 3.2% pay raise for state workers, $1.5 billion in federal funds for broadband expansion and $314.7 million for new construction on college campuses.

The state is in a strong financial position. While the record surplus that has built up over the past three years is down from its peak of $8 billion, the treasury is holding $4.6 billion in surplus general revenue, with another $2 billion in funds that can be spent like general revenue. 

Surplus general revenue, under House rules, is off limits for budget committee members who want to push new or increased spending items. And Smith, who in past years has cut large sums from Parson’s spending plan, said he will do so again in his proposals coming tomorrow.

“I’m going to be looking to limit as much spending as I can and the management of general revenue certainly will be a part of the committee substitute process,” Smith said.

Smith has frustrated Democratic spending proposals in past years because they must cut in one place of the budget to increase spending on another line.

“I have no reason to think he hasn’t continued to excel at his skills to lock all of the money behind doors I don’t have access to,” Lavender said.

The timing of Thursday’s budget hearing isn’t unusual compared to past years, but it does represent a failure of an ambitious plan to move the budget along earlier in the year. House appropriations subcommittees began looking at department requests in December, with a stated goal of holding votes in the full House this week.

With factional fights tying up the Senate, timing could become critical. Lawmakers must pass spending bills through both chambers no later than May 10. Last year, the budget was finished only on the final day allowed by the constitution.

Members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of six conservative Republican senators, have vowed to debate the budget line-by-line on the Senate floor.

“That’s why they wanted to (finish earlier in the House) because everybody knows that there is a real risk that this has a problem in the Senate this year,” said state Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat. “And we may find ourselves in a special session for the budget.”

Smith, however, said he’s confident that the potential embarrassment of missing the constitutional deadline will help move the budget in the Senate.

“Everyone on all sides of the warring factions within the Missouri Senate agree broadly that we should finish the budget on time, that that’s our one responsibility,” Smith said “That’s my impression.So, I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to get things together well enough to pass the budget on time.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough said he will be rushed but will get a budget to the Senate floor in time to hold the debate if it proves lengthy.

“With the House taking the amount of time that they’ve taken,” Hough said, “it puts us in a little bit of a jam on the Senate. So we’ve got to work a little more feverishly than I would really like to once we get their bills.”

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Originally Appeared Here

Efforts continued Thursday to move legislation forward that would allow employers, child care providers and families a tax credit in a push to expand access to child care in Missouri.

On Thursday, the Senate Government Accountability Committee passed legislation that would establish tax credits to employers who make contributions to their employees’ child care expenses, as well as grant a tax credit to families who pay for child care and child care providers.

The Missouri House passed the legislation in early February.

The bill would allow individuals to claim a tax credit equal to 75% of their contribution as a child care provider each tax year, not to exceed $200,000 a year. The minimum contribution individuals can claim a tax credit for is $100.

Companies could also claim 30% of child care contributions when employers contribute to child care expenses for their employees’ children. Another provision of the bill would see a tax credit for child care providers up to the amount of the eligible employer withholding tax and 30% of the child care provider’s capital expenditures, which can include things like construction and renovation of a child care facility.

Those provisions are capped at $200,000 per year, with a minimum qualifying contribution of $100.

The measure is meant to curb the growth of “child care deserts.” Those are defined as areas where the poverty rate is at least 20% or the median family income is less than 80% of the statewide average, and where at least 500 people, or 33% of the population, are located more than half a mile away from a child care provider in an urban area or more than 10 miles away in rural areas.

“We heard mainly from a lot of chambers of commerce, a lot of industry leaders associated with industries in Missouri who really see the lack of child care options in the state of Missouri,” said Will Wheeler, chief of staff to Sen. Karla Eslinger, a Republican from Wasola, and chair of the Senate Governmental Accountability Committee.

“It has great bipartisan support,” he said. “This is a priority for the governor, this is a priority to the Senate Committee Chairwoman, Senator Eslinger, and we hope to get it done by the end of session.”

Gov. Mike Parson pointed to the bill as deserving the attention of the legislature in his State of the State address this year.

Testimony in support of the bill in the Thursday hearing was short, with no one testifying in opposition, underscoring its bipartisan nature. Others who testified after the initial introduction of the bill in January voiced overwhelming support for the legislation.

“A large hindrance to any workforce effort is child care,” said Allen Dillingham, director of government relations for The Builders, a chapter of the Associated General Contractors, in testimony in January. “Child care issues are becoming more and more important for every industry in the state. The construction industry is not immune to these workforce challenges.”

Parents, too, are feeling the pinch as the cost of child care goes up — making it unaffordable for many families.

“In order for my child to receive the kind of care I provided to other children, it would have taken my whole monthly paycheck,” said Alyssa Anne Morrow, who submitted testimony in support of the bill in January. “I stayed home for many reasons, but not being able to afford care was the biggest. The workforce of all industries in Missouri relies upon the availability of the child care workforce.”

The bill has received support from both Democrats and Republicans who have voiced approval for state support of child care providers.

According to previous Missourian reporting, there are about 500 fewer child care providers in Missouri than there were five years ago. Parson’s legislative director, Jamie Birch, said in a 2023 interview that 77% of Missouri’s counties were considered a child care desert, and child care providers still in business in the state can only serve 39% of children younger than 6.

Efforts to pass legislation to curtail the child care shortage in Missouri have stalled in previous years, with the House failing to pass new laws to expand child care access last year.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

Originally Appeared Here