Governor Jay Nixon (D) is planning to host a meeting next week with Missouri lawmakers to broker an agreement on an economic development bill.
The State House and Senate adjourned in May without passing legislation that would have created several new tax breaks, among them a proposal that would have provided $360 million in incentives to transform Lambert Airport in St. Louis into an international air cargo hub.
One sticking point was how to scale back Missouri's current tax credits to cover the cost of the new programs.
Governor Nixon’s Press Secretary Scott Holste says the purpose of next week's proposed meeting is to reach an agreement on a jobs bill that would clear the way for a special session.
“Over the last several weeks, there’s been discussion with leaders of both the business community around the state as well as legislative leaders that has developed into, really, a kind of a preliminary consensus emerging,” Holste said.
Eric Schmitt (R, Glendale) chairs the Economic Development committee in the Missouri Senate.
“We’ve been working on this since the week after we got out of session," Schmitt said, "to try and come up with a consensus that gets us to where we know we need to be, to have the legislation that grows the economy, that creates jobs, and has the necessary reform that we talked about towards the end of session.”
A date and time for next week’s tentative meeting has not been mentioned.
