Following the traditional paper toss at the end of the session on May 17, several Springfield-area state legislators said they’re pleased with the work to improve the business climate in 2013.
Even so, several business priorities fell through this year.
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Springfield, might have had the most impact. The junior legislator sponsored 22 bills this session, and of those he sponsored or promoted in the House of Representatives, he said the language of 12 made its way to the governor’s desk.
Perhaps his signature accomplishment was the passage of the broad-based Tax Relief Act.
Burlison sponsored House Bill 149, which merged with HB 253 to create phased-in income tax deductions for businesses and individuals. The tax act awaits the governor’s signature.
“It basically allows for an individual tax deduction for business income, and it phases it in during a five-year period,” Burlison said.
The final bill also cuts in half the corporate income-tax rate during a 10-year period. Burlison’s draft had implemented cuts through a five-year period. “It’s not as dramatic, but after 10 years, the corporate tax rate will be at 3.25 percent versus 6.25 percent,” he said.
The individual income tax rate would drop to 5.5 percent from 6 percent between 2014 and 2018.
Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, said his key victory was establishing the Missouri Works Program. Dixon sponsored Senate Bill 323, and language from that bill was folded into HB 184, which has been truly agreed and finally passed to Gov. Jay Nixon.
Nixon has until July 14 to sign or veto bills passed this session, and legislators will have an opportunity to override vetoes in September.
“That took four existing programs, including the Quality Jobs Program, and put them into one program. It really streamlines the process for small businesses,” Dixon said.
Noting he was heavily focused on judicial issues this year, Dixon said he helped craft legislation granting Missouri Supreme Court authority to redraw the circuit and appellate judicial districts.
Rep. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, said he was disappointed to see HB 414 get tied up in a Senate appropriations committee.
Designed to fund capital improvements throughout the state, Hough said he worked on the issue throughout the session as a member of two House appropriations’ committees, as well as a member of the budget committee.
Burlison said notable letdowns were the failures of bills he sponsored to reinstate medical malpractice caps and right-to-work legislation, HB 77, aka the Freedom to Work Act.
Hough, a sponsor of HB 368, which sought to reinstate several benevolent tax credits, said representatives across southwest Missouri were involved in forwarding similar Senate legislation that was passed. SB 20, sponsored by Dixon, permitted tax credits to donors of groups such as the Child Advocacy Center and Isabel’s House.
Dan Mehan, president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, particularly praised legislators for developing a plan to fix the long-ailing Second Injury Fund.
“We needed to remove some of the claims that really didn’t belong in the fund out of the fund and into the workers’ comp market. Also, we had to increase the surcharge from a 3 percent premium to 6 percent for a temporary time, to put more revenue in the fund,” Mehan said. “In conjunction with that, we also corrected a problem caused by a court case, which allowed occupational diseases to be taken out of workers’ compensation and be taken as a tort claim. That’s very inappropriate because the work comp system was designed to take care of workplace injuries in an insurance mechanism that would serve as an exclusive remedy.”
As a member of the House workforce development committee, Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said he influenced the changes to the Second Injury Fund.
“Being one of the very few workers’ comp attorneys in the legislature, I was able to have a lot of hands-on work on that bill,” Haahr said. “In the four years they’ve been working on it, they’ve never been able to pass a fix on to the governor. This year, that was my No. 1 priority, to help craft a fix.”
Mehan also said income tax relief was appropriate given the recent moves by Kansas lawmakers.
“It was important from a competitiveness standpoint,” Mehan said. “If you lower the cost of doing business in the state of Missouri and the cost of working in Missouri, you’ve taken a step in the right direction.”
Both Mehan and Dixon expressed disappointment that a proposal to put a 1-cent transportation tax proposal on a state ballot never made it out of the Senate.
“Infrastructure improvement puts out the sign that we’re open for business,” Dixon said.
Another failure of the session, according to Mehan, was the lack of action on Medicaid expansion – a priority of the chamber.
Charlie Norr, D-Springfield, said he, too, was upset that Medicaid expansion gained no traction among the majority party.
While Norr co-sponsored a total of 58 bills, he said he was disappointed in the session. Norr said he felt tax credit reform shouldn’t have been sidelined, and Burlison’s income tax reform threatens fiscal responsibility.
As part of appropriations for higher education through HB 3, Hough said local legislators worked well together to ensure that Missouri State University and Springfield benefited from plans in the bill to devote $10 million toward a University of Missouri Medical School to churn out more doctors.
“The 28 to 30 new students that they would be able to put through their program, would then serve their clinical rotations as their third- and fourth-year curriculum in the Springfield area,” Hough said, adding that should help attract qualified health care professionals in the area after they live and work in Springfield for a couple of years. “Not only that, higher education [appropriations], as a whole, increased around $25 million. To Missouri State, that means an additional $4 million, as well as a new occupational therapy program that I worked on that is going to start not only at the Springfield campus, but also in West Plains.”
