Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry Archives

Missouri Chamber calls on governor to deal with ‘opportunistic COVID-19 lawsuits’

May 21, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants Gov. Mike Parson to call a special session to put an end to “opportunistic COVID-19 lawsuits”. In a press release, the Chamber says coronavirus liability is an emerging problem in Missouri involving those who believe they might have contracted the virus at a business and wants to sue the organization.

Missouri Chamber of Commerce President Dan Mehan

President Dan Mehan says the Chamber is not calling for protections for businesses that defy government orders and ignore public health recommendations. He wants companies protected that are making a good faith effort and taking the necessary precautions.

During Wednesday’s coronavirus briefing, the governor appeared open to the idea of a special session to deal with coronavirus liability.

“It’s quite apparent we’re going to have to deal with the legal challenges that goes along with COVID-19,” says Parson. “Whatever we need to do – calling the legislators back but it won’t be for one individual thing if I call them back. We’ll have some things in place that we need to do. There are still some issues that are very important to the state that need to be addressed. We’re not going to let attorneys go out here and sue everybody because they was doing their jobs of COVID-19. So, whatever it takes to kind of even that playing field, we’re planning on doing it in Missouri.”

Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys President Brett Emison issued a response:

“Missouri already has laws in place to protect health workers during extraordinary circumstances like the COVID-19 crisis. Missourians need not surrender fundamental constitutional rights – including 7th Amendment rights – during a pandemic. If anything, such rights are even more critical. Businesses should take all reasonable precautions as they reopen to protect customers and employees. For our economy to fully reopen, employees and customers must be safe to engage with businesses. If businesses have no accountability, how can employees and customers feel safe? If no one is responsible, no one is safe,” he says.

Some state lawmakers and the governor have said a special session is likely later this year to deal with coronavirus-related issues and funding. After the Legislature adjourned Friday, Missouri House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, told reporters he expects a special session would mainly involve budget issues.

(VIDEO) Rundown of today’s COVID-19 briefing in Missouri

April 28, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Missouri reports at least 314 people have died from the coronavirus and another 7,303 have tested positive for the disease.

Gov. Mike Parson says the state reached its peak on April 7 in the number of coronavirus patients in the hospital. During Tuesday’s press conference, Parson says 1,242 people were being treated in a hospital that day. Since then, the numbers have fallen.

Gov. Parson (Photo courtesy of the governor’s Flickr page)

“As of April 25, the total number of hospitalizations has significantly reduced in every region of the state with the exception of the St. Louis region,” he says. “Our hospitals are not overwhelmed and things are improving.”

The declines include:

67% in northeast Missouri
63% in southwest Missouri
45% in southeast Missouri
41% in the Kansas City region and northwest Missouri
38% in central Missouri
8% increase in the St. Louis region

The St. Louis area has had at least half of the state’s overall cases of the respiratory disease.

Parson says the downward trend has led to his decision to gradually reopen the state for business on May 4. Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Dan Mehan says he’s glad to see a “light at the end of the tunnel for Missouri businesses”. He says a chamber survey shows the coronavirus has caused a significant financial strain on businesses.

“According to our research, Missouri businesses are expected to lose a quarter of their revenue this year. Another 15% of businesses, primarily small employers, are going to go out of business,” says Mehan.

The Chamber has a released a “Return to Work” guide that helps businesses reopen.

Greg Hunsucker of the Missouri Restaurant Association says restaurants are ready to get back to business in a safe and responsible way.

“Tables with dining rooms will be socially-distant,” he says. “We have worked with our employees to implement social distancing and many additional measures to provide a safe environment for all Missourians. On behalf of the 300,000 restaurant employees in the state of Missouri, we are ready to get back to work.”

Stay-at-home restrictions remain in place for some Missouri communities, including in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.

Despite coronavirus outbreaks among some of the nation’s meatpacking plants, President Trump is expected to order them to stay open. At least 3,000 workers among 48 meat packing plants around the country have tested positive for the virus. Gov. Parson agrees with the president’s move.

“Yeah I think that’s a good thing,” says Parson. “Whatever we do we’ve got to keep the food chain going in the United States and for Missouri – it’s a huge issue here. Yes, I want to see them open and I want to see people going to work and making sure we keep that food chain moving.”

The state is testing workers this week at meat processing sites in northwest Missouri’s St. Joseph and Saline and Moniteau Counties, after some cases have been reported there.

The state will be releasing more information about coronavirus cases among Missouri nursing homes. State Public Health Director Randall Williams says those details will begin being published on Friday.

“We will announce by county at what nursing homes have had more than two cases,” says Williams. “We’ve talked that over with our local health departments and they’re in agreement with that.”

Whether the plan includes assisted living centers is unknown. Dozens of Missouri nursing homes and assisted living centers have reported coronavirus cases, including large outbreaks and several deaths in Springfield and near St. Louis and Kansas City.

The entire press conference is below.

Missouri State Representative Roeber still recovering from vehicle crash

May 13, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

The Missouri House Speaker says a state lawmaker who was seriously injured in a March head-on collision will need to learn to walk again.

State Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, speaks on the Missouri House floor on May 12, 2017 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, tells Missourinet that State Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, continues to recover. Roeber is no longer at MU Health Care in Columbia.

“Representative Roeber is now back in the Kansas City area, she continues to receive treatment but at least my understanding is her need for surgeries are done,” Haahr says.

The March collision happened on Highway 50 in west-central Missouri’s Syracuse. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says Roeber crossed the center line on Highway 50 and struck a second vehicle.

Roeber, who was first elected to the House in 2014, chairs the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. She will not return to the Capitol this session, which ends Friday at 6 p.m.

Meantime, legislation that would allow charter schools to expand to Missouri cities and charter counties with a population larger than 30,000 is finished for the year.

Chairwoman Roeber is the House sponsor. Her bill is House bill 581.

House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon, tells Missourinet the bill was removed from the House calendar because of the amount of time it sat in the calendar and was not brought up for debate.

Speaker Haahr told Missourinet recently the bill already faced an uncertain future with Roeber out. He noted that charter school legislation would have probably have had come through the Senate first, where it’s already been filibustered.

“If not, we always have next year to work on that issue,” says Haahr.

Proponents of charter school expansion legislation include the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the organization Excellence in Education in Action. Supporters say school choices benefit all in society and that expansion will give more children an opportunity to attend schools that meet their needs.

Bill opponents include the Missouri School Boards Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association. Opponents say removing students from public education impacts the overall district and that the fiscal impact of charter school expansion will hurt public school funding and programs.

Under current law, charter schools are only allowed in St. Louis, Kansas City and an unaccredited school district. Charter schools are publicly-funded schools which operate independently of traditional public schools.

Study: Missouri must step up digital education to meet top 10 by ’20 goal

January 30, 2014 By Mike Lear

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation has released a report that it says shows Missouri must offer more digital learning options to K-12 students if it wants to be one of the top 10 states for education by 2020.

Evergreen Education Group CEO John Watson (at podium) discusses “K-12 Digital Learning in Missouri,” joined by Chamber president Dan Mehan (left) and Brian Crouse, vice president of the Chamber’s Education Foundation.

The study was conducted by Colorado-based Evergreen Education Group. CEO John Watson says one of its key findings is that Missouri needs to offer a statewide, publicly-funded online school.

“There are some districts across Missouri that are offering these types of options for students,” says Watson, “but we remain in a time where those options are not available to all students across all of Missouri. In 2014, these options simply should be available. There’s no reason students across the state can’t have access to a full range of online and blended learning options.”

Watson acknowledges that Missouri, like other states, would have to make improvements to its broadband infrastructure, but he says that’s no reason to wait on efforts to expand online education opportunities.

“Our view,” Watson says, “is that we don’t want to wait for broadband to be available everywhere to start putting some resources into these new types of programs. It really has to be a parallel effort where we’re creating new opportunities for students and the state is creating the infrastructure so that students across the state can access them.”

Watson says his group has found that increased investment in and focus on digital public education can be cost-neutral to a state.

“A sustainable funding structure for online schools should be tapping into the funding formula that is funding students now, and if a student is going into an online school that funding should follow the student into that online school.”

Legislation being offered by Senator Ed Emery (R-Lamar) and that will be offered by Representative Kathy Swan (R-Cape Girardeau) will address online learning options.

View an overview of the report here, and read the full report here.

Missouri employers to pay more for unemployment insurance in 2014

November 22, 2013 By Mike Lear

Missouri is one of 14 states in which employers will pay higher unemployment taxes in 2014 as a result of a debt to the federal government.

Missouri began borrowing federal money in 2008 to pay unemployment insurance benefits the state trust fund was not able to cover. The debt remained outstanding after two straight years, so Missouri’s employers have lost Federal Unemployment Tax Act tax credits that count toward the tax assessed for unemployment insurance.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry says businesses will have to pay $63 per employee next year, an increase from $42 per employee being paid against that debt.

Missouri owes $308 million to the federal government according to the Chamber.