Love note from Jeff City

Greetings, My Fellow Missourians

After six years of legislative work to reform Missouri’s Prevailing Wage Law, Governor Mike Parson signed a Reform Bill into law last Friday.  Several of us were asked to join him for the bill signing, and

I spoke briefly how he and I had filed identical Senate and House bills to allow 90 third-class rural counties to opt out of the state’s Prevailing Wage requirement during my first year as a representative in 2013.  We got it passed through the House and to the Senate the last week of session in 2013.  A senator for our district at that time, Governor Parson, was handling HB 409, and it was filibustered for more than six hours on the Senate floor.  After being laid aside due to the filibuster, it failed without any further activity that week.

Six years later, with hard work and compromise, we finally got the Prevailing Wage Law reformed so that rural counties across Missouri are able to do public works projects at a more reasonable cost.

I firmly believe it is our obligation as legislators to require our government to be good stewards and spend our taxpayer dollars wisely.   Reform of Prevailing Wage is one of the most important ways to achieve this.  Our public work projects should be awarded to the most qualified/competitive bidder.

SS HCS HBs 1729, 1621 & 1436, Labor Reform, was signed into law by Governor Parson on Friday, July 13.

As the July 14 deadline for the governor to take action on bills approached, Gov. Parson signed several pieces of legislation into law, and vetoed a handful of others. In total, Gov. Parson signed 63 bills after taking office.  In addition to the bills signed by the previous governor, the legislature saw the majority of the 150 bills it “truly agreed” signed into law.

The governor vetoed only three bills and said he would reach out to House and Senate leadership to explore options and discuss efforts to address veto concerns. The governor had also issued 21 line-item vetoes in the state budget.  In total, he line-item vetoed more than $12 million in funding contained in 10 different appropriations bills.

Lawmakers will now consider what, if any, actions to take with the vetoed bills.  The House Budget Committee met on July 17 this week to review the line-item vetoes in the budget.  Committee members used the time to gather information to assess whether immediate action needs to be taken to address the programs that will lose funding because of the vetoes.  Legislators will next meet in September for the annual Veto Session where they could decide to attempt to override some of the governor’s vetoes.

Historic Tax Relief for Missouri Families Signed into Law: 

Legislation approved during session, HB 2540, will provide significant tax relief to Missouri families in 2019. The bill recently signed into law by the governor will allow Missourians to keep more of their paychecks.  The legislation provides for the largest single-year tax cut in Missouri’s history.

A previous tax cut approved by the General Assembly lowers Missouri’s income tax by a tenth of a percent each time the state sees sufficient revenue growth.  The cut has already lowered Missouri’s highest income tax rate from 6 percent to 5.9 percent.  Now, because of this year’s solid revenue growth, the rate is set to drop to 5.8 percent for 2019 tax filings.

Now, because of the tax cut approved this year, Missourians will see even more savings for 2019. The new cut will reduce the tax burden for Missouri families even further to 5.4 percent. Another portion of the bill will eventually reduce the tax rate to 5.1 percent as long as the revenue growth triggers are met. With these triggers, Missouri will be one of the top states for lowest income taxes.