MEDCode and Regional ED Bill Gutted By Senate...

May 17, 2007 - Our Senate handler of the MEDCode and Regional Economic Development District bill, Senator Chris Koster, was finally recognized to take up our bill in the Senate shortly before midnight, the night before the end of the 2007 session. The debate concluded around 2:10 a.m. on the last day of session.

In the continuing effort to retaliate for the way the House passed HB 327, senators drastically amended the bill. Senator Chuck Gross removed the entire original MEDCode language from the bill and replaced it with language authorizing the Joint Committee on Tax Policy to study whether or not to allow voluntary tax increment financing programs. Senator Tim Green used the bill to add some tax increment financing language. Senator Brad Lager removed the regional economic development tax credit language (originally championed by Rep. Steve Hobbs). The Senate also added a Rice Advisory Council, biodiesel producer incentive changes, and a linked deposit program for small, locally owned businesses. This complete “oil change” of the bill is simply ridiculous, but not rare this session.

The original MEDCode bill has been completely removed from the bill. The regional economic development district language is still pretty much intact.

We thank our sponsors for their hard work on the bill. We will try again next year to allow economic developers specific authority to continue establishing voluntary developer agreements as we do today.