MOScout Daily Update: Jan Revenues Drop - House Contra Voters? - Corrections Makes Progress on Unfilled Jobs - Schatz for FrankCo Commish and more…

January Revenues Go South Again

After a strong December, state revenues reverted to their previous weak trend.  January 2025 was 11.5% lower than January 2024, bringing the fiscal year-to-date position to a negative 2.1% (-2.1%) compared to a year ago.  That’s a shortfall of about $167 million.

The declines were across all streams of revenue.  Sales and use tax receipts were down 11.1%; individual income tax and pass throughs were down 9.9%; and corporate income and franchise tax were down 8.7%.

What It Means

·       This doesn’t change the long-term goal of the Republican supermajority to phase-out the state income tax.  But, as long as they continue to use increases in revenue as triggers for the cuts, there likely won’t be any in the near-term.

·       Declining revenues will be a concern for the Kehoe Administration.  There’s still a large fund balance in the state coffers, but they’re spending it down at a nice clip.  And Kehoe’s team won’t want to be entering a re-election cycle three years from now having to make budget cuts.

Police Takeover To Senate Perfection Calendar

Yesterday the Senate perfected its first bills – two relatively uncontroversial bills from Sen. Sandy Crawford dealing with county revenue reporting.  Then they spent a couple of hours on Sen. Mike Cierpiot’s utilities bill – Sen. Tracy McCreery has issues with it – before laying it over.

Meanwhile, a couple more high-profile bills were placed into the pipeline for debate.  Among the new bills on the Senate’s perfection calendar…

·       Take over the St. Louis police: SBs 52 & 44.

·       Changes to class action lawsuits: SB 47.

House Contra Voters?

This morning in the House Commerce Committee (8AM), three bills tweaking the recently passed Proposition A will discussed.  Prop A passed with 57%/

·       HB 567 – delays implementation of Prop A by six months.

·       HB 958 – provides minimum wage exemptions for workers under 21, and firms under 50 employees.

·       HB 758 – provides minimum wage exemptions for workers under 21, and firms with under $10 million in sales, and also ends indexing minimum wage to CPI.

This comes on the heels of yesterday’s afternoon/night hearing the House held on Rep. Melanie Stinnett’s resolution to return the issue of abortion to Missouri voters.  It shows that the Republican supermajority is unafraid that voters will punish them for undermining what they’ve just passed.

Also

I’ve been impressed with the House chairs holding marathon hearings on divisive issues while maintaining respect and decorum for witnesses.  Rep. Brad Christ did a great job earlier this week on the transgender hearing, and Rep. Holly Jones similarly did so last night.

Corrections Wrestles With Vacancies

There was an interesting exchange in the Senate Appropriations hearing yesterday. The Department of Corrections was running through their new decision items for the committee, and the discussion landed on the departments’ use of incentives and stipends to recruit and retain workers.  This is one of their major challenges...

Chair Lincoln Hough: The changes that we've made on the pay plan specific to you all in the last couple of years, are we doing better on our retention at your facilities?

DOC Director Trevor Foley: We have cut our vacancy rate in Corrections Officer I almost in half from our historic high water mark, which was less than three years ago. While we still are struggling with staff – we have approximately 960 C-I vacancies right now – that's not a good position right, but considering where we've been in the past we continue to make progress. We've net gained another 250 officers in the last 12 months.

Hough: Do you think these dollar stipends in a couple of these specific areas are going to be helpful?

Foley: I do. I mean, I'll be honest, if we could get massive broad-based pay increases for all our staff, that would be wonderful, but that's not likely… because of the number of them… is a big number. We're trying to target our resources where we had the biggest need…

Sen. Mike Cierpiot: How much did the department spend in overtime last year, and how many full-time positions would that fund?

Foley: Last year, we spent about $54 million department-wide on overtime. Um, probably about full-time equivalent, probably about 900. That's back of the envelope math…

Team Rayner on Lobbyist Team

For the past year, Mike Rayner has been represented by Mark Bruns and Jim Foley, and the addition of [Rich] Aubuchon strengthens the team. Mr. Rayner remains committed to protecting our police officers while broadening his focus to include support for veterans, tough-on-crime prosecutors, and legislation that positively impacts our state’s economy. He stands with our leaders who prioritize community safety, advocate for our front-line heroes, and work toward a stronger future for Missouri. That’s the mission.

Schatz for Franklin Co Commish

eMissourian reports that Dave Schatz is throwing his hat in the ring to be the next Franklin County presiding commissioner.  Read it here.

·       Current Presiding Commissioner Tim Brinker is resigning Feb. 14 to take a job as senior vice president for government relations with Greater St. Louis Inc.

·       Dave Schatz, a former state Senate president pro-tem who lives near Spring Bluff, and Franklin County Clerk Tim Baker, of Robertsville, said they have submitted applications to Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe for the post.

·       “Obviously, county government is a little different than state government. You’re dealing a little more one on one with constituents, as opposed to the process at the Capitol,” he said. “But I think my time of service and knowledge of public policy, the things I worked on for the region, in Franklin County, St. Charles County and Washington County – I think it will be invaluable experience taking this job and helping move Franklin County forward.”

·       Schatz was elected twice to the Missouri House, in 2010 and 2012, before being elected to two four-year terms in the Senate in 2014 and 2018. Schatz placed sixth among 21 candidates in the 2022 Republican Primary to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt. Schatz received 1.1 percent of the vote statewide in the race won by then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt…

St. Louis Labor Council Backs Jones, Spencer

Yesterday, I wrote that the AFL-CIO has endorsed Cara Spencer for mayor. That wasn’t right.  It was actually the AFL’s local arm, St. Louis Labor Council.  The state AFL-CIO doesn’t get involved in local races.

And – they endorsed both incumbent mayor Tishaura Jones and Spencer.  It was a dual endorsement since two people will advance to the run-off.

New Committees

Missouri Dream PAC was formed.  It’s a political action committee to support Rep. Brandon Phelps.  See the filing here.

$5K+ Contributions

United Springfield - $10,000 from Jeff Hutchens.

Association of MO Electric Cooperatives (AMEC PAC) - $5,500 from Laclede Electric.

Lobbyist Registrations

John DeStefano added IGT, and Utility Strategic Missouri.           

Carlos Gutierrez added Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

Erin Schrimpf added MoCannTrade.

Mason Sisk added Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International.       

Noel Torpey added  FanDuel Group Inc, DraftKings Inc, and Sports Betting Alliance/Vantage Legal PLLC.

Steve Tilley, Thomas Robbins, Chris Schoeman, and Alec Rosenblum added Mid America Capital Inc, and BRB Missouri, LLC.

Rowland Frederick Howard deleted Tower of Hope Ministries, and Precision Body and Paint 2nd Chance Program.

Birthdays

Happy birthdays to Steve Hobbs, Tyler Hobbs, Allen Andrews, and Teresa Hensley.