Kelli Jones Archives - Missourinet

Missouri intercepts $78 million in stimulus money from people who owe child support

February 15, 2021 By Alisa Nelson

The CARES Act passed by U.S. Congress last year allowed states to block the first stimulus payment to people who owed child support. Last April, Gov. Mike Parson said he was supportive of using that approach.

Missouri intercepts $78 million in stimulus money from people who owe child support

“If you owe for your children, you need to pay for your kids. They should be a priority of yourselves,” the governor said during a coronavirus briefing on April 10, 2020. “If there’s an opportunity to take that money and make sure we get it to those kids where they need it, by all means we’ll be taking it.”

According to Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones, the Missouri Legislature passed a bill during last November’s special session that allows the state to continue intercepting federal stimulus payments to pay custodial parents money they are owed.

Rebecca Woelfel, spokesperson for the state Department of Social Services, says between May 2020 and January 2021, Missouri captured $78.8 million total in stimulus payments from 60,842 individuals who owe child support.

Woelfel says most of the funds go to the custodial parent. Four-percent of the funds were retained for debt owed to the state for custodial parents who executed an assignment of rights for periods when the family received TANF, temporary financial aid to needy Missouri families.

Under the first stimulus plan passed by U.S. Congress last year, Americans who make $75,000 or less a year received a payment for $1,200 or $2,400 for married couples. Plus, they received $500 per child. The second stimulus payment was $600 per adult, $1,200 per married couple, and up to $600 for each qualifying child.

The payments were intended to provide an injection of cash to millions of Americans struggling to get by while the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the economy.

BREAKING: Missouri First Lady tests positive for COVID-19

September 23, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Missouri First Lady Teresa Parson has tested positive for COVID-19. Gov. Mike Parson’s spokeswoman, Kelli Jones, tells Missourinet the first lady took a rapid COVID-19 test and the results came back positive. She is awaiting results on another diagnostic version – a PCR test. Those results are expected later today.

Missouri First Lady Teresa Parson

Jones says Mrs. Parson has mild symptoms – a runny nose and a cough.

The governor is at the mansion in Jefferson City. The first lady is in Bolivar.

The governor was scheduled to speak to a group of Missouri broadcasters today but was not able to. The governor’s visit to St. Louis today to sign a bill about removing a police residency requirement has been postponed. Friday’s gubernatorial debate has been called off for the time being.

This is a developing story.

Parson defends out-of-state firm’s role in Missouri’s COVID-19 response

September 7, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Missouri has paid a consulting firm more than $829,000 so far in federal coronavirus aid to help coordinate the state’s pandemic response. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports payroll records show the McChrystal Group has received the federal funding from the state. The contract bypassed the normal bidding process.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson briefs Capitol reporters in Jefferson City on July 6, 2020 (photo courtesy of the governor’s Flickr page)

During a press conference at Washington University in St. Louis, Gov. Mike Parson defended his decision to bring in the firm.

“In July, we had the discussion whether to allow that contract to expire or not,” said Parson. “I didn’t. I was the one personally in the meeting that day and says, ‘Wait a minute – I don’t want to do that. We’ve got school starting. We’ve got universities starting. We still need to be able to figure out how to deal with this virus.’”

Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones told the newspaper that under the contract, the firm will be eligible to continue being paid nearly $250,000 a month for its work. The governor touted the firm building a statewide dashboard of hospital data.

“There’s not been one tax dollar of the Missourians that have paid for that. It’s all been through the CARES Act and it was all through the Health Care Foundation,” said Parson. “I’m just proud of the resources they had at hand to help us to fight the virus every day and to consider that they pulled a dashboard for all the healthcare, hospitals in the state together where we could share information to the public, at the time was very valuable.”

Parson’s Democratic opponent for governor, State Auditor Nicole Galloway, said the McChrystal Group did the governor’s job for him. In a press released, she said he paid the out-of-state firm over a half million dollars in taxpayer money meant to directly help Missourians impacted by the health crisis.

“All we have to show for it is rising infections, delayed school reopenings, a positivity rate over 10%, and a spot in the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s “Red Zone,” said Galloway.

Missouri Senator slams state’s no-bid contract paying firm $829,000 so far

September 2, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Missouri has paid a consulting firm more than $829,000 so far in federal funding for pandemic response coordination, despite Gov. Mike Parson saying a foundation was paying the tab. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports payroll records show the McChrystal Group has received the federal CARES Act funding from the state, instead of Parson saying earlier that the Missouri Foundation for Health would cover up to $600,000 in costs for the firm’s work.

State Sen. Lauren Arthur D-Kansas City (image courtesy of Arthur for Missouri)

During Senate floor debate Wednesday, Sen. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City, tells Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton, that she has a problem with the price tag and the contract bypassing the normal bidding process.

“Why are we spending a million dollars on this for one – the governor to ignore that kind of plan and for two – while we’re cutting things like school funding, when people don’t have enough PPE, when we don’t have enough testing available,” says Arthur. “I think it’s probably a better use of the state’s money – of taxpayer dollars, of Missourians’ money – to go towards tests so we know whether or not people are contagious, as opposed to spending money on quote structure and management to allow decision makers to determine policies.”

Missouri has spent over $1.5 billion of the more than $2 billion it has received as part of federal COVID-19 funding. Most of the money has gone to Missouri counties to help local governments fight the virus. The state has spent its portion on things like personal protective equipment, putting up emergency workers in a hotel, and a temporary hospital site.

Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones says under the contract, the firm will be eligible to continue being paid nearly $250,000 a month for its work. She says the McChrystal Group has been a tremendously helpful resource in pulling teams together within state government to drive quick and effective COVID-19 action.

The Virginia-based consulting company was founded by retired four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Missouri House gets to work today on six crime bills – not seven

August 24, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The Missouri House of Representatives gets down to business today on a special legislative session about crime. Gov. Mike Parson cites the state’s increasing crime rate as his reason for calling the extraordinary session.

Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, and Assistant Minority Floor Leader Tommie Pierson, D-St. Louis, brief Capitol reporters on March 5, 2020 in Jefferson City (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

The chamber is expected to debate and take a preliminary vote on six bills today. Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, says there was a lot of pushback on both sides of the aisle about the Senate’s approach. Instead of the Senate’s wide-ranging package, House Republican leadership has broken up each key component into separate bills.

“Logistically, instead of making their members vote yes or no on a bill that had a lot of really bad stuff in it, breaking it up allows them to pass the pieces that they want and not pass the other pieces,” she says.

One contentious piece would remove a requirement for St. Louis police officers to live within the city. St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden says lifting the condition would help to boost recruitment. Hayden says his department has a shortage of about 130 officers at a time when violence is on the rise in his city. Sen. Jamilah Nasheed says the state does not need to get involved in this local control item because St. Louisans will be voting on the very issue in November.

A bill Quade and others in both parties have a big problem with is one that would let judges decide whether 16 to 18-year-olds should be prosecuted as adults for certain crimes using weapons. A House committee increased the age minimum to 16, instead of the Senate’s bill making the minimum 14 years old.

A bill absent from today’s lineup is one that would let the Missouri Attorney General get involved in some St. Louis murder cases. Parson expanded his special session call to urge lawmakers to pass the measure.

“It seems as though that is not a priority issue from the Republican majority in the House,” Quade says.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys might have something to do with it. The group of 115 Missouri prosecutors, many being Republicans, is not on board with the governor’s bid to let the State Attorney General get involved in local cases. It says such measures undermine the independence and autonomy of locally elected prosecutors and any prosecutors seeking help can reach out to the association and get the support they need.

Some Republicans have been critical of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s handling of former Governor Eric Greitens’s invasion of privacy case involving his ex-mistress. Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt, both Republicans, have also publicly disagreed with Gardner, a Democrat, for prosecuting an affluent couple who pointed guns at protesters walking through their neighborhood in June.

Kansas City is on pace to have its highest murder rate in history. However, the governor’s spokesperson, Kelli Jones, says St. Louis has reached a record number of murders and a growing backlog of murder cases. She says Parson’s efforts are currently to assist St. Louis.

Quade maintains the special session bills do nothing to prevent crime.

“We need to be looking at funding in a much more equitable way – an intentional way. Then we also need to be addressing the larger-scale problems around police reform, around making sure that we are funding social workers to go out on the scene, you know things that even police officers have been asking for. I feel like the way that this special session has been handled does nothing to get to before the crime happens.”

Other bills focused on during this special session would:

*Create a witness protection fund to keep witnesses and their families safe before trial

*Toughen the penalty for anyone who sells or gives a gun to a juvenile

*Make it a crime to assist someone 17 or younger to commit a weapons offense

Southwest Missouri lawmaker describes his concerns with Ceres statue (AUDIO)

December 11, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

A southwest Missouri lawmaker who opposes returning the Ceres statue to the top of the Capitol in Jefferson City says the state should not be promoting any religion.

State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, speaks at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City on February 12, 2019 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, describes Ceres as a “false god.”

“Ceres as an agricultural goddess of Rome and I believe that represents a religion of sorts, so we shouldn’t be putting goddesses or gods of any type at the dome of the Capitol,” Moon says.

While the Office of Administration (OA) plans to return Ceres to the top of the Capitol this month, Moon has written a letter to Governor Mike Parson (R), asking him to stop it. Representative Moon tells Missourinet the statue should be placed at another location at the Capitol, but not on the dome.

“They (state officials) spent the money, they restored the exterior, you can still put her (Ceres) someplace else,” says Moon.

Moon, who’s a deacon and Sunday school teacher at High Street Baptist Church in southwest Missouri, says God “commanded the Israelites to have no gods other than him.” Ceres is the Roman goddess of agriculture and grain.

He says he hasn’t had an opportunity to speak to the governor by phone or in person, since Monday’s letter. Governor Parson’s spokeswoman, Kelli Jones, tells Missourinet the governor’s office has no response to Representative Moon’s letter, at this time.

During an interview with Missourinet at Friday’s unveiling ceremony at the Statehouse, Governor Parson indicated the statue would return to the dome.

“And she’s all dressed up, she’s pretty to go back up on top of our state Capitol and represent all of us here in the state of Missouri,” Governor Parson told Missourinet, next to the sculpture.

Moon admits he should have addressed the issue when Ceres was taken down for restoration in November 2018, saying he forgot about it until last week’s news coverage. That’s when he received a call from a constituent, asking about it.

The Ceres sculpture weighs more than 1,400 pounds. The restoration cost about $400,000, all part of a massive $50 million renovation project at the Capitol aimed at addressing deteriorating stonework on the facades, dome and drum, which was finished in 1917.

Ceres was placed on the Statehouse dome in October 1924 and remained there until November 2018, when the restoration process began.

OA says the statue was struck by lightning about 300 times during those years, mainly atop the head. Representative Moon suggests placing a lightning rod on the top of the Capitol, instead.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, which was conducted on December 10, 2019: