Property taxes, reassessment need attention w/ Rep. Ron Richard audio

Editor’s note: Missouri Rep. Ron Richard, R-Joplin, was interviewed in mid-December by members of the Globe’s editorial board. The following transcript of the question-and-answer session has been edited for clarity and length.

What do you see as the biggest issues coming up in this session?

Probably immigration. It’s already catching a lot of members’ attention, because of non-attention in D.C. Probably the second is property taxes. That’s been on the front page of every newspaper for a year-and-a-half. And Michael Gibbons, Senate president pro tem, who is running for attorney general, has made that one of his efforts. A lot of people are beginning to wonder about reassessment where there hasn’t been rollbacks, but there’s going to be a major push back in school districts because they think they get that money for free and don’t have to go back for a vote. I think there’s going to be an effort to cap assessments and make rollbacks mandatory.

On economic development, we had a pretty good bill last year. The only new think I would see is if there is something specific, like private capital going to speculative companies like maybe biofuels. There probably needs to be some incentive in Missouri for investing in companies that would bring them online from universities and colleges. That’s what folks in economic development tell me.

But as far as anything like the quality jobs bill last year, I don’t expect any major effort this years. But we didn’t think we were going to have a bill last year until we got together in March. I always try to watch what’s going on in other states and monitor what businesses are doing.

I’ve always been in tune with the business community, but I didn’t sell out to business either. I’ve made sure the businesses that get incentives have to provide insurance and pay more than the average wage in the county.

Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, has pre-filed a bill that would put some more teeth into some of the CAFO laws. Do you know from the House side if anything will be pre-filed ?

I’m sure there are some pre-filed bills I haven’t seen yet, but we passed a CAFO bill a couple of years ago and the Senate was unwilling or unable to act on it, and last year the speaker said we could probably pass any CAFO bill that started in the Senate. The speaker has decided that it will start in the Senate and that’s the plan this year. He said he was not prepared to put our guys on a vote unless it makes sense to take a vote. He’s willing to do whatever it takes. I don’t know where he’s at on CAFO legislation; he hasn’t said. A lot of the members, even those with ties to agriculture, would be happy with a moderate CAFO bill. Understand agriculture employs a lot of people, it’s still big business. But I think the House would favor setbacks, at least. At Arrow Rock, if they had a setback of a couple miles, it would be good. But the state is still pushing off those decisions that should be made locally. Sooner or later you’re going to have planning and zoning. We can’t have health ordinances in every county, that’s 114 different ordinances. How is somebody going to be employed or do business, or county or cities are going to run, when they all have different health ordinances? The state’s going to have to step in and make something work for the entire state. We’re willing to do that but until counties start taking that responsibility on themselves, I see it as kind of a hollow for us to take responsibility. But we’ll do it. In my experience in government, when you expect the state do it and you don’t let locals have a piece of it, it’s usually a pretty bitter pill because the state generally doesn’t have a real good way. When you go through 163 in the House and 34 in the Senate, I mean, you never really know what you’ll end up with.

What’s the budget look like for the next fiscal year? How’s the state doing?

The budget is up three percent, almost 4 percent to start with, now it’s in the 3.4 percent range. I think we needed a 2.2 or 2.3 percent increase to meet revenue, so I suspect by the six-month budget, we’ll have a firmer idea of what tax revenues are going to be. It looks reasonable enough. Gary (Nodler, Senate appropriations chair) and Allen (Icet, House budget chair) are concerned about 2010, if there’s going to be a downturn then. This year, the governor has promoted another increase, some on education and higher education.

So schools aren’t going to see anything close to withholding this year like they’ve seen?