February 9, 2012

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College and university presidents forwarn of impact of higher ed cut

February 1, 2012 By

Presidents from the colleges and universities around the state have testified to the House Appropriations Committee on Education about what will happen to their institutions if Governor Jay Nixon’s proposed 12.5 percent cut to higher education funding becomes a reality.

University of Missouri System interim president Steve Owens (seated, left) testifies before the House Education Committee.

They all said the outlook is not good.

The University of Missouri System President Steve Owens said the 12.5 percent reduction translates to a $50 million dollar hit to the University’s operating budget. He says the college has avoided raising tuition to deal with past reductions, but says that could only work for so long. The college’s staff has recommended a tuition increase of 6.5 percent, that the Board of Curators will begin considering on Thursday.

Owens says state support for full-time equivalent students at MU is down from $10,400 in 2001 to a projected $5,926 in fiscal year 2013, assuming the proposed cut remains.
The messages from most of the institutions were along similar lines. Cuts would result in increased tuition, cuts to faculty and programs, increased class sizes and postponement to needed maintenance.

The state’s community colleges would also have to hike what they charge students, according to Mineral Area College President Steve Kurtz. “Preliminary discussions with presidents and chancellors indicate that statewide average (increase) is about $4 a credit hour.”

Several of those officials said the efforts to deal with the cut was already underway. Northwest Missouri State University President John Jasinski says plans will be announced next week for cuts and restructuring.

He asked the Committee’s lawmakers to consider what message the state is sending to current and future students. “We spend $16 thousand on non-violent, incarcerated individuals and we’re spending 3, 4 and 5 (thousand) on a full student FTE, what’s the value of higher ed there? What’s the whole tobacco tax situation and what’s happening there? What about the amount of money we give to private higher ed institutions?”

Representative Genise Montecillo (D-St. Louis) summed up what the testimony meant to her thusly, “It’s going to be difficult to continue to work towards our goal of having more college graduates.”

The Committee will next meet February 7.

Filed Under: Economy, Education, Legislature, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,

Some special session language lives again

February 1, 2012 By

Some of the language from bills in the 2011 special legislative session lives on in this session. Three such measures have been advanced out of the House Committee on Economic Development. 

Representatives Jeanie Lauer and Mike Leara are sponsoring language taken from bills in the 2010 special session.

Representative Mike Leara (R-St. Louis) is supporting what he says was the best language to come out of that session, in the freight forwarders tax incentive. It would incent forwarders to take international cargo out of Lambert Airport in St. Louis, rather than other states. “There’s a huge amount leaving from Chicago. It’s very expensive, (there are a) lot of delays for both weather and traffic. This, we believe, is just enough to incentivize the freight forwarders to send it to our state to depart versus other states.” Leara says the language is good, but was buried by some of the things it was tied to in the special session.

At the Committee hearing Chip Casteel, Senior Vice President of Public Policy for the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, said China is still working toward a goal of getting half of the freight it ships in-and-out of the United States onto its own jets. It’s at 12 percent of that freight so far, “so they’re looking for alternative places. They’re looking for additional hubs that aren’t congested. They’re looking for new approaches. Frankly, they were looking for the State of Missouri to make a commitment to back up this concept, and they still are.”

The incentives in Leara’s bill could total $60 million dollars over eight years. It would sunset in 2020, but could be extended at that time for another six years.

Leara says he does not oppose expanding the bill to also provide incentives for shipping in-and-out of Kansas City or the rest of the state.

2 bills sponsored by the same representative

Representative Jeanie Lauer (R-Blue Springs) is sponsoring two bills she says were lifted straight out of the special session’s Senate Bill 8.

HB 1244 would promote private-public partnerships to help support technology-based businesses. “This is specific to technology … because that’s the driving direction for the state of Missouri, is to help bring technology jobs into the state. We see that we are losing those not just to the Kansas side but we’re losing them to our southern states as well as our northern states.”

Another bill of Lauer’s, HB 1245, would use incentives from the Missouri Quality Jobs Act to retain jobs already in the state, either through withholding tax retention benefits or a tax credit.

She says the bill includes some taxpayer protections for both incentives. “Both of these avenues have performance measures attached to them and they both have clawbacks, so it certainly takes care of the many concerns that we have all had about companies coming in, getting initiatives, going under and then folks being left to hold the bag.”

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Global food demand leading to vertical farming (AUDIO / VIDEO)

January 30, 2012 By

Imagine tall buildings in City Central full of crops — and perhaps livestock — instead of people. The Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture hears about where and how it’s happening.

Dickson Despommier — a professor at Columbia University in New York — is one of the world’s foremost experts on vertical farming. He tells the Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture the idea has mushroomed since his team of researchers started working on the idea. Despommier says vertical farming is happening in countries that have run out of arable land to feed its people — South Korea, Japan, Holland, England, Singapore. (Holland is building theirs underground with grow lights.) Japan got serious about vertical farming in a sterile environment after contamiation concerns from the Fukushima nuclear incident.

Stateside, in addition to Chicago, there are projects in Milwaukee and Seattle.

The world population is expected to grow by another 3 billion people — that’s 3 billion more mouths to feed, so this is an idea that is going to continue to grow, Despommier says. He says Missouri has the research institutions, the farming interest and the legislative drive to make vertical farming projects successful in this state.

His presentation on vertical farming shows how crops can be grown in industrial buildings amid dense population. “Just Google ‘vertical farming’,” he says. “It’s a really big deal.”

The committee also heard about initiatives in urban aquaculture and community gardening projects. A bill to push such initiatives in the state is expected to come forward soon.

Despommier says to one member of the committee who asked whether it can grow jobs, yes, so long as farmers are displaced by floods, drought and production moving overseas. He says Missouri, one of several states, can certainly identify how Mother Nature has wrecked so many crops.

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster? — From www.verticalfarm.com

AUDIO: Jessica Machetta reports (1:10)

 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Economy, Featured, Flooding, Human Interest, Legislature, News, Politics & Government

Governor-backed auto industry incentives introduced

January 26, 2012 By
The automotive industry incentive component of the Governor’s job creation strategy has found its backers in the House and Senate, and they come from both sides of the political aisle.
 
In his State of the State Address and stops around the state, Governor Jay Nixon has promoted his Missouri Works plan. It would expand on the provisions of the Missouri Manufacturing Jobs act of 2010, which helped promote expansion at Ford’s Claycomo Plant in Kansas City and General Motors’ plant in Wentzville. Legislation introduced this week basically targets those incentives at manufactures in the automotive industry.
 

Representative Chuck Gatschenberger (R-Lake St. Louis) is sponsoring HB 1455.

The House version, HB 1455, will be carried by Representative Chuck Gatschenberger (R-Lake St. Louis). He says, “Those manufacturers of vehicles … they need brakes, they need windshields, they need trim, they need engines … and not all of those are built right there on that spot.”

Parts makers qualify under the proposal if the products they make are used by an automaker. Companies with at least half of their sales coming from parts used to modify vehicles can also qualify for incentives.

Gatschenberger says it offers two options to those companies. “One is if you employee five employees, you’re gonna get the same benefits with withholding the taxes that you pay from the state for the benefit of the company. The other aspect of it … there’s a lot of companies in this state that are not going to be able to employ five people but they can employ two people. If they do two people and $100,000 of investment in their business, they can fall under the same guidelines.”

Gatschenberger says it also includes some clawback provisions.  ”Let’s say they have those two people but they lay two other people off. Then they lose the benefit. It’s not the specific people that they hire, it’s the total number of people.”

See the Governor’s Office’s release on the introduction of the legislation.

The package increases the standard incentive period to five years, from the three found in the 2010 language. Companies would get a tax break equaling 5 percent of their new payroll if wages are at the average for the county, 5.5 percent for wages that are 120 percent of that average and 6 percent for wages at least 140 percent of the county average.

Senator Kevin Engler (R-Farmington) is the sponsor of SB 691.

Gatschenberger notes the package opens up incentives to all auto manufacturers, not just Ford and General Motors, “So if Nissan thinks, ‘Hmm, we might want to put a plant somewhere but where are we going to put a plant,’ it’s making the carrot bigger and jucier.”

The Governor’s Office says the package boasts a lengthy list of bipartisan supporters. Also in the House are Speaker Steven Tilley (R-Perryville), Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones (R-Eureka), Jerry Nolte (R-Gladstone), Minority Leader Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City), Assistant Minority Floor Leader Tishaura Jones (D-St. Louis), Minority Whip Mike Colona (D-St. Louis), Representative Stephen Webber (D-Columbia) and Representative Bert Atkins (D-Florrisant). Senator Kevin Engler (R-Farmington) is sponsoring the Senate version, SB 691 with Minority Floor Leader Senator Victor Callahan (D-Independence) a co-sponsor.

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Budget director: challenging year for state (AUDIO)

January 18, 2012 By

An economy that is only slowly recovering and the end of federal stimulus money used to prop up state programs means some of those programs will have to take cuts..again.

Governor Nixon’s proposed state budget uses cuts in some programs, services, employees, and subsidies to fill a half-billion dollar hole.  State budget director Linda Luebbering says the biggest funding cut comes in higher education–about $106 million.  “Quite frankly….we don’t have the money,” she says.

Senate appropriations chairman Kurt Schaefer of Columbia says a 12.5%  cut to higher education is “unacceptable.”  He accuses Nixon of balancing the budget on the backs of education for the last three years.

Nixon hopes the legislature will enact a tax amnesty program that might convince people to pay 51 million dollars in back taxes without penalty.  The issue has failed in the past.     

AUDIO: Listen to the budget briefing approx 39:00 mp3

Filed Under: Economy, Education, Featured, Legislature, News, Politics & Government
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