MOScout Daily Update: Burks to Ante $1M - Byrnes Enters Senate 10 - Lewis in Senate 18 - Warning on Sales Tax Change - Windham to Food Search and more…
Candidate filing opened yesterday. Filing will remain open for five weeks, until 5:00PM on Tuesday, March 31. It was a relatively ho-hum day, but here’s what caught my eye…
· CD – 5 (new map): Sen. Rick Brattin did not file as rumored, so that’s one to keep an eye on. Meanwhile, Taylor Burks, who did file, told the Wake Up Missouri radio show that his family’s personal investment in the race will be seven figures.
· Senate 4 (May termed): Attorney Chris Clark did not show up to file on the first day. His entry or exit will reshape that race, currently between Rep. Steve Butz and Gina Mitten.
· Senate 10 (Fitzwater to MTC): I’d expected Rep. Doyle Justus to jump in here; he didn’t. He filed for re-election for his House seat. But Rep. Tricia Byrnes did! She’d previously announced for county collector. Right now it’s just a two-way between Byrnes and Mike Deering. I think there will be more.
· Senate 18 (O’Laughlin termed):Cindy O’Laughlin’s previously endorsed candidate, Sarah Graff is OUT. She posted a note on Facebook promising to return donations, and now O’Laughlin is backing Rep. Ed Lewis who jumped IN!
· Senate 22 (Coleman not running): Amazingly Jim Avery appears to have cleared what was once a crowded field. He’s the only one who filed for the Republican primary.
When Is Fitzwater Leaving?
The mighty Jason Rosenbaum, writing about Sen. Travis Fitzwater’s appointment to lead the Missouri Technology Corporation, offers this quote about Fitzwater’s departure timing: “We're having conversations with everybody about that, including the governor, legislative leaders, partners, the board of MTC,” Fitzwater said. “We're trying to determine what's best for that. So we're still working on that detail.”
Why It Matters
· Fitzwater is in the middle of a couple of hot policy areas this session, including autonomous vehicles and pharmacy benefit managers.
· I don’t think the supermajority would care about one vacancy – in terms of the new “18 signatures” PQ rule, but that could also be a consideration.
UPDATED: Crawford Keeps Options Open On SB 848
There was a strange mid-vote reversal in the Senate Insurance Committee yesterday dealing with Sen. Justin Brown’s SB 848. This is the bill that undoes the 2012 law prohibiting the establishment of a state-based health benefit exchange.
Senate Insurance Chair Sandy Crawford moved to vote SB 848 “do pass.” Sen. Curtis Trent seconded it while signaling concerns, “I think we should move this out to full floor for further discussion, but not make any commitment about support at that time.” Meanwhile, Sen. Tracy McCreery was clear: “I do not support undoing a vote of the people.”
· Crawford – Aye
· Trent – Aye
· Sen. Lincoln Hough – Present
· McCreery – No
· Sen. Angela Mosley – No
And then… Sen. Crawford announced, “I am going to change my vote to a no.” Trent then followed her lead, flipping the vote to 5 No, 1 Present. I’m told that Crawford made the move so that they could reconsider the bill in the future.
Senate Perfects Moon Tax Break
The Senate had a good day yesterday perfecting a couple of bills. One of them was Sen. Mike Moon’s SB 1032. The bill increases the tax exemption for parents who have a child or adopt. There was bipartisan support.
Why It Matters
· No one batted an eye at the $7 million fiscal note.
· This is yet one more example of the vast jungle of incentives in law which are tied to the state income tax. If the Kehoe plan is ultimately adopted in some form, these will all become worthless.
The Case for Caution in Tax Transition
The Auditor’s office’s latest episode of “The World’s Greatest Podcast (about auditing)” has a couple of interesting nuggets. Listen to it here.
Deputy State Auditor Mike Price warns about the potential to misstep as the state navigates the minefield of moving from an income tax to an expanded sales tax.
When you’re talking about expanding the base of sales tax, that’s really going to have to be an educated guess… we don’t have a lot of great information, a lot of great data, on the stuff that we’re not taxing right now. There’s just not a great comprehensive source for that data.
I think everybody knows we just kind of had a debacle with this capital gains tax cut where the fiscal note said it was going to cost us $150 million… And now everybody’s saying it’s going to be more like $500 to $600 million.
That’s a massive miss on the fiscal note. But that’s an area where we actually do have the data. So we should have been spot on. And now we’re talking about sales tax data that we actually don’t have.
Klindt’s Magical Spreadsheet
Sen. Mike Henderson’s SB 1396 had a hearing yesterday in the Senate Commerce Committee. The bill would replace a complicated formula (the variable cost to serve new load for purposes of establishing a discount under this section shall be determined using (a) the energy and capacity market prices that underlie the net base energy costs reflected in the revenue requirement from the electrical corporation's most recent general rate proceeding; (b) any operations and maintenance expenses that vary with respect to the total number of customers or load served by the electrical corporation, excluding operations and maintenance expenses associated with generating electricity; and (c) any other incremental costs to serve the customer.) with a straight 25% discount for five years.
Evergy’s Jason Klindt explained to the committee the current formula causes “a lot of confusion and heartache for people like me that do economic development. Because when I sit in a meeting with a prospective client and they say this is great, but what's the incentive? I say I don't know. And they say, do you mean? And I say, well, I have to enter it into a magical spreadsheet... And when I do that, I get I get all sorts of different numbers. Sometimes it comes back as zero. Sometimes it comes back as 44%. I've seen all sorts of numbers because it’s based on a variable cost. By the way, that percentage changes every single year.”
DOR Tightens Belt
In the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, Department of Revenue Director Trish Vincent pointed out her department is tightening its belt: “Our budget this year is $3,000,000 less than it was last year… And you will also notice that we are down on staff as well.”
What It Means
$3 million is peanuts in the scheme of the $50 billion budget. But as the budget crunch hits, it’s the mindset that I think we’ll be seeing all across state government, doing the same work with fewer people and fewer dollars.
Windham to Operation Food Search
Former Rep. Kevin Windham has joined Operation Food Search as their Government Relations Manager.
New Committees
Former Rep. Jered Taylor formed a campaign committee to run for presiding commissioner of Christian County. See it here.
$5K+ Contributions
Blue Missouri Nominee PAC Number One - $12,000 from Laura Taylor.
Nexus PAC - $10,000 from DeepRun Inc.
Kevin King for Mayor - $10,000 from IAFF Local 781.
Lobbyist Registrations
Dena Benson-Scearce added Zoll Services, LLC.
Derek Coats added Farmers for Midsouth Crush, LLC.
Jay Hahn and Ryan DeBoef added Geronimo Power, LLC.
Doug Stone added The R. H. Johnson Company.
Lynne Schlosser added American Massage Therapy Association, Mo. Chapter.
Happy Birthday
Happy birthday to Rob Mayer.