Both teams face a deadline at the end of June on whether they will accept an offer from Kansas to pay 70% of the cost of building new stadiums across the state line
BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
Missouri lawmakers will return to Jefferson City next month for a special session to debate providing tax breaks to keep the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals in the state, Gov. Mike Kehoe said in a news conference Friday morning.
The special session could also consider a $500 million spending bill for construction needs around the state, he said, but a final decision has not been made.
In the final days of the regular session, which ended Thursday, Kehoe unveiled a plan to use tax revenue generated by the Chiefs and Royals to finance bonds for their stadiums. The Chiefs would use the money to upgrade Arrowhead Stadium while the Royals would use it for a new stadium in Missouri.
Despite the late reveal, the Missouri House passed the proposal on a 108-40 vote. But the Senate balked at the deal, with many members saying they could not support it because a $513 million capital construction bill died when the Missouri House refused to allow it to come up for a vote.
Kehoe did not see the delay of the stadium proposal as a final defeat.
“We introduced that in the last week of the session to try to find what the feelings were,” he said.
The exact date for the special session has not been determined, Kehoe said.
The Chiefs and the Royals face a deadline at the end of June on whether they will accept an offer from Kansas to pay 70% of the cost of building new stadiums in that state. The proposal floated by Kehoe would pay up to half the cost as well as up to $50 million in tax credits for any direct investments made by the teams.
Remodeling Arrowhead and building a new baseball stadium would cost up to $3 billion, Kehoe said.
“I would consider that significant economic development,” Kehoe said of the stadiums, comparing them to manufacturing projects that won incentives from lawmakers in the past
Missouri House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat, said she agrees that the state should work to keep the Chiefs and Royals from moving to Kansas but blamed Kehoe for the late introduction of his plan for the need to hold a special session.
“We are at this point because Governor Kehoe committed gross legislative malpractice by springing his stadium plan on lawmakers with no warning and just days left in the regular session without bothering to first build support for it,” Aune said.
The hurdles for a successful special session are both political and financial. The stadium plan died in the regular session when the Senate twice used a rare procedural rule to end debate on controversial bills on abortion and sick leave rights.
The move infuriated Democrats, who vowed the Senate will not function normally until they feel they can trust the GOP to work towards compromise.
“I’ve heard a long time, ‘well, nobody has ever made us pay.’” Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, an Affton Democrat said at a news conference Wednesday. “You’ll find out now.”
Complicating the debate is lingering anger over the projects that were lost when the House sunk the capital improvements bill. The $513 million would have paid for projects at eight hospitals around the state, supported a new nuclear reactor at the University of Missouri to make cancer treatments and a new mental health hospital in Kansas City.
In all, more than 60 projects added by lawmakers, in addition to more than 20 sought by Kehoe, will not be funded.
One of the biggest boosters of the Chiefs and Royals, state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, said she could not support a stadium funding bill if the capital improvements bill is not part of a special session.
“Those things are more important to me and to my colleagues than the Chiefs,” Washington said.
Kehoe did not rule out including the capital spending in a call for a special session, but did not commit to it, either.
“I’ve heard and listened to quite a few senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle on that very same issue, and I understand what their concerns are,” Kehoe said. “And I think it’s fair to say everything is on the table of what that special session might look like.”
Kehoe has a June 30 deadline for acting on the $53 billion in spending that was approved for the coming fiscal year. The budget spends $15.8 billion in general revenue, about $2.2 billion more than estimated revenue for the year, by dipping into the accumulated surplus that stood at $3.6 billion when the current fiscal year began.
Revenues are not keeping up with projections and Missouri House leaders cited a need to maintain a fund balance in excess of $1 billion for future years. Kehoe, who will be responsible for making sure spending does not exceed available funds, said he agrees with that approach.
“I don’t think it’s ever appropriate for some politician to think just because we have it, we have to spend it,” Kehoe said. “ It’s more appropriate for us to leave some reserves in the tank for the times when the budget does get tougher.”
Kehoe, who took office in January, had a successful session. Major items he asked for in his State of the State Address — a state takeover of the St. Louis Police Department, school safety legislation and a major tax cut eliminating income taxes on capital gains — all passed.
Kehoe took some defeats as well, with lawmakers spending more than he wanted on public schools, the failure of a bill reducing the top income tax rate and the defeat of legislation allowing parents to enroll their children in school districts other than the one they live in.
He said he looks favorably on the bill repealing the Proposition A sick leave law but stopped short of promising to sign it.
Kehoe also did not say whether he would put the constitutional amendment imposing a new ban on abortions on a special election ballot or let it wait for a November 2026 vote.