This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay cleared his schedule Wednesday to hit the road to Jefferson City in a last-ditch effort to get some favored legislation – notably, tax credits – approved before the session ends at 6 p.m. Friday.
Although two days are left, Slay's chief of staff Jeff Rainford said that Wednesday was realistically the last day to wield any influence in the state Capitol.
“We’re just here to see what we can do to talk to everybody about all the issues that affect the city, whether it’s economic development stuff, tax credits, Major Brands,’’ Slay said, as he and Rainford roamed the Capitol halls looking to snag legislators, lobbyists and key state officials.
Slay ticked off his key objectives, which include seeking what he and Rainford called “a fair compromise” to preserve, protect or create certain state tax credits that the mayor says can boost the St. Louis region’s economic fortunes.
Among them:
- The land assemblage tax credit set to expire this August if it’s not reauthorized or extended. The credit has been important to developer Paul McKee, who is planning to redevelop large tracts of north city.
- A long-proposed freight-forwarders credit for the long-sought effort to transform underused Lambert Field into an international cargo hub.
- The proposed “angel’’ tax credits to encourage deep-pocket investors to put up money for entrepreneurs and new companies.
- Reauthorizing the state’s new markets tax credit, set to expire this year, which promotes emerging industries in new technologies.
- Tax credits to encourage data centers.
- Protecting the state’s low-income housing and historic tax credits, which Slay’s administration has used with significant success over the past decade to renovate and reconstruct parts of St. Louis, especially downtown.
Some state senators, and Gov. Jay Nixon, have long sought to curb the low-income housing and historic tax credit programs, which currently account for more than half of the state’s annual tax credit expenditures.
Seeks 'reasonable compromise in tax credit debate
Slay and Rainford emphasized that they are open to cuts in the current annual caps on the two programs, now $140 million for the historic tax credits and $190 million for the low-income credits.
Slay said he supported a “reasonable compromise” as long as the two programs weren’t decimated.
“We're willing to cut our fair share,” Rainford said. “We’re not willing to emasculate the programs” as some in the state Senate have sought. Some critics of the programs have been promoting proposed caps of less than $50 million each – or eliminating the tax credit programs entirely.
Rainford said the key for the city and the region is the entire tax credit picture, not just one part of it.
What the city doesn’t want to see happen, the aide added, was what has been happening the last few years in the state Capitol: “Four straight sessions and four straight years where it’s all mucked up.”
Rainford cited the futile effort of some in both parties to achieve “a grand bargain” that so far has died with each General Assembly adjournment.
The lack of agreement over tax credits generally has been displayed by filibusters in the state Senate, which has resulted in the low-income and historic tax credit programs untouched – but no other programs created.
Sources close to this year's talks say that some Senate tax-credit critics dislike the angel or freight-forwarder credits, and are particularly opposed to any extension of the land assemblage credit because they object to any more tax benefits going to McKee.
In any case, because of the multi-year House-Senate stalemate, Rainford said, the critics of tax credit programs “haven’t reined in a single one of them.”
Rainford said the effects of the lack of compromise has stymied economic development throughout Missouri, not just in St. Louis.
He pointed to several major new technology players, such as Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Square, who grew up in St. Louis but then ended up on the West Coast, in part because of the friendlier investment climate.
Said Rainford: “What we don’t want to have happen is the ideas and the brainpower starts in St. Louis and ends up somewhere else. That would make us a farm team for another city.”
Lobbying for Major Brands, foreclosure mediation
Aside from tax credits, the other key concern for Slay is passage of a provision – supported by St. Louis-based Major Brands, a liquor distributor – to return the state’s liquor franchise laws to what they were before a court decision in 2012.
A rival distributor, Glazer's of Missouri, sides with the court decision and opposes any legislative change. The Senate filibuster Tuesday night was waged largely by Glazer's allies.
Slay said he was backing Major Brands, in part, because many of its 700 jobs are in the St. Louis area. “We’ve got an outstanding employer, a great corporate citizen,” he said.
But that issue, like the tax credit measure, is stuck in the state Senate – and may die there at 6 p.m. Friday.
Meanwhile, Slay and Rainford also are talking to the governor about a bill now on his desk that, in effect, kills off the foreclosure mediation programs that St. Louis and St. Louis County put in place.
Rainford said the city was proud of the mediation program and contended that many local bankers support it as well, although banking associations apparently do not.
Even so, Rainford noted that the House and Senate had voted overwhelmingly against the programs, which he acknowledged may give Nixon pause.
“He can’t veto everything,” Rainford said glumly.
Rainford observed that he didn’t want to cast himself and the mayor as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid against the Bolivian army.”
But it’s close.
St. Louis public administrator to be appointed
Meanwhile, the duo can claim some small legislative victories for St. Louis.
Among them: Nixon announced Wednesday he had signed into law HB163, which among other things transforms the elective post of St. Louis public administrator into a position appointed by local circuit judges.
The public administrator handles estates for city residents who die without a will or known relatives. Slay supported the change.
