Missouri Bootheel Archives

Southeast Missouri lawmaker: state employees and teachers should receive pay raises, not elected officials (AUDIO)

November 30, 2020 By Brian Hauswirth

A veteran state lawmaker from southeast Missouri will file a resolution this week, aimed at blocking proposed pay increases for state lawmakers and for statewide elected officials.

State Rep. Andrew McDaniel, R-Deering, speaks on the Missouri House floor in Jefferson City on February 26, 2020 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

State Rep. Andrew McDaniel, R-Deering, was first elected to the Missouri House in 2014, and will be a senior member in January during his final House term in Jefferson City. He’s voted against previous pay raises for lawmakers, and says it’s state employees and teachers who should receive a raise.

“Until we can keep our promises to the state employees across-the-board and to the teachers and stuff, I don’t think any elected official deserves a pay raise. That’s pretty much the simple gist of it,” McDaniel says.

The bipartisan Citizen’s Commission on Compensation for Elected Officials is recommending a five percent pay raise for state lawmakers and for statewide elected officials. The “Springfield News-Leader” reports salaries for state lawmakers have remained the same since 2007, about $35,000 annually.

The proposed pay raises would take effect on February 1, unless the Legislature approves McDaniel’s resolution.

“When January comes around (for the 2021 legislative session), hopefully it gets referred to committee right out the door and we get it all done and hopefully it gets to the Senate and they concur with what I believe and what probably the rest of the Missourians believe,” says McDaniel.

McDaniel represents Dunklin and Pemiscot counties in the Missouri House, two of the poorest counties in the state. He says his Bootheel constituents support his position.

Meantime, the Missouri Senate leader wants to see the details of the commission’s report, before he takes a position. Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, emphasizes that the commission’s work is independent.

“What I do believe is what it was designed to do was to not make it a political issue, where legislators weren’t setting their pay,” Schatz says. “But this commission has been charged with trying to address that in a fair and reasonable manner.”

The last time the pay raise issue came up was in early 2017, and it was defeated by lawmakers.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with State Rep. Andrew McDaniel, R-Deering, which was recorded on November 24, 2020:

The latest on Laura: storm will skirt Missouri later this week (Updated Map)

August 27, 2020 By Ashley Byrd

The National Weather Service anticipates the “cone” of Hurricane Laura will travel up from the Gulf Coast and turn east at Missouri later this week. The chart below shows Laura becoming a tropical depression as it enters the bootheel region, bringing heavy rains.

UPDATE: New $25 million hospital planned for southeast Missouri’s Bootheel; old facility to be demolished

June 21, 2020 By Brian Hauswirth

(Reporters Steve Patton and Monte Lyons at Missourinet Kennett affiliate KBOA contributed to this story)

A Georgia-based company now says it will build a new $25 million hospital in southeast Missouri’s Kennett, rather than renovating the former Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center. It closed in 2018.

Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center in southeast Missouri’s Kennett closed in 2018, and the old facility will be demolished (May 14, 2020 file photo courtesy of Jim Grebing at Kennett Economic Development)

Consultant Kerry Noble, a former chief executive officer at the Pemiscot Memorial Hospital in Hayti, is working with Main Street HealthVentures. He says that the new plan is to tear the former hospital down, and replace it with a state-of-the-art 49-bed full service facility.

“So we’ll be demolishing the old building and putting up a new structure, a new state-of-the-art, it will be a very high-efficient facility,” Noble says.

Noble and Main Street HealthVentures say brand-new heating and cooling systems will be installed, which will mean lower utility costs and greater patient comfort.

The company originally planned to renovate Twin Rivers, when they announced their plans in May. Mr. Noble now tells Missourinet Kennett affiliate KBOA (AM 1540) that building a brand-new facility is best for safety code requirements.

“There were a lot of conditions, standards that were going to be difficult to meet and we had requested waivers, or exemptions, from some of those standards, and of course now that’s no longer going to be an issue,” says Noble.

Kennett, which has about 10,000 residents, is located in the Bootheel, which is the state’s poorest region. Nine of the state’s ten poorest counties are in southeast Missouri.

Kennett Mayor Chancellor Wayne describes the plan as a big step forward for health care in Kennett and southeast Missouri. Supporters of the new hospital say it will impact about 70,000 residents across southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas.

The city has a large elderly population. Kennett residents have had to drive to Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Arkansas for emergency room care and for hospitalization.

The state Hospital Association (MHA) says ten rural Missouri hospitals have closed since 2014, including Kennett. Five of the ten closings happened in the southeast Missouri district of U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem.

Congressman Smith has described those hospital closings as unacceptable, saying people die when hospitals close.