Kansas City is in the midst of a debate about whether our airport should undergo a renovation that would cost at least $1.2 billion. There are many questions about this, and Kansas City Mayor Sly James just called on the city to have an “adult discussion about the facts,“ but the City Council has no interest in actually answering questions. In fact, City Councilman Russ Johnson, chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, refused to answer questions from the public or from the media about his hearing on the matter.

At that hearing in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Kansas City Aviation Department Director Mark VanLoh walked the committee through a slide show detailing the problems with the existing Kansas City International Airport. Chief among the reasons for spending $1.2 billion on a new terminal is “poor passenger experience.” Yet none of the material available to the public gives any indication of how the Aviation Department concluded passengers have a poor experience. When I asked about the Aviation Department’s methodology, Johnson responded that my questions would not be answered (questions start at 1:13:30). This matter is important because in 2010, J.D. Power and Associates rated the same airport as “highest among medium airports,“ writing: “Kansas City International (MCI) ranks highest among medium airports, and performs particularly well in three of the six factors: airport accessibility, check-in/baggage check and security check.”

In his later remarks disparaging J.D. Power, Johnson wrongly referred to the company as a think tank. It is not. It is a customer satisfaction survey firm that McGraw-Hill owns. J.D. Power is likely known to many voters because its ratings appear in numerous television commercials. VanLoh even said that when J.D. Power rated MCI the best in 2010, his department asked if they could publicize that rating and were told it would cost $80,000 to do so. They were likely correct to demur. But if VanLoh and his colleagues are going to rate the same airport as providing a “poor passenger experience,” it is reasonable to ask how they did so when they endorsed Power’s “best in the country” rating just a few years prior.

If the Aviation Department and their chorus on the City Council want to tear down a much-loved and nationally recognized airport, the public deserves transparent processes and substantive answers to serious questions regarding the endeavor’s necessity.

How can Saint Louis catch up to Kansas City? Increasing transparency in government spending would be a good start. The state of Missouri was a leader in spending transparency, but many of our cities have not caught on.

Governments often grant public subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives to powerful corporate interests and other groups at the expense of taxpayers. In Missouri cities, this type of information is not always easily available to the public. But our governments should readily share spending information. Otherwise, taxpayers may not even know when special interests gain unfair advantages through government spending. It is impossible to ensure that government decisions are efficient and reasonable unless information is publicly available.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Saint Louis’ failing grade in the  U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) report on the largest cities’ spending transparency online.

Saint Louis has major improvements to make, with the 28th lowest ranking out of 30 cities. Kansas City ranked much higher, at 14th, but still only received a letter grade of “C.”

Kansas City has made a more visible effort to show residents how the city spends funds. The city allows residents to view checkbook level spending, which Saint Louis should allow, but does not. This transparency helps keep Kansas City accountable to taxpayers.

But Kansas City does have room to improve. Some other cities have created centralized transparency websites and provide comprehensive information on tax subsidies. New York City’s “Open Book” website is the perfect example of what Kansas City and Saint Louis should strive to implement.

In conducting some research over the past year, we encountered a regrettable example of government keeping basic public information hidden. We asked for a breakdown of the total assessed value of each county by land and improvements. (Improvements are any structure on the land.) All we wanted was county totals, not individual parcel data. We did not think this was a complicated request, and all of this is public information.

Unfortunately, many counties do not track the land and improvement data separately in their software systems, so they were unable to provide us the requested info. (I think they should be required to track the data in that manner, but that is another issue.) Some counties that do track those valuations separately in their software quickly sent over the requested information for free. Other counties requested small amounts of money for the work. No problem there.

So far, so good. I was disappointed in the success rate of the information request, but at least every county was straight with us or sent us a reasonable estimated bill. Every county, that is, except Grundy.

The Grundy County Assessor demanded $9,000.

It was $9,382, to be exact. One dollar per parcel in that north central Missouri county, even though we did not want parcel data, just cumulative data. We pointed out to the assessor that we are a research institute and requested that he waive the fees. He declined and wrote, “I have a very large investment to protect.” And then it got good.

We noticed that most of the counties that provided us with the information used the same software, and the software company’s name was at the bottom of those replies. We went to that company’s website looking for public customer lists, etc. (This was not about Grundy County at this point. We realized that we needed to find all the counties that used this assessment software so we could make sure we at least had their assessment data.) The software company’s website lists client testimonials, and who do you think was listed among their clients? That’s right, Grundy County.

So, the Grundy County assessor was demanding more than $9,000 to provide us with public information that he could have gathered from their software in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

About a dozen Missouri counties using this system provided us with the public information we requested quickly and at no charge. When we pointed this out to the assessor, and asked him to justify the demand for $9,382, he got angry and wrote, “I don’t want to do business with you anyway,” and added that we should “get the information you need somewhere else.” This, of course, ignored the fact that we are a charitable research organization, not a business, and that there is no place to get Grundy County assessment data except from the Grundy County assessor’s office. Also, just whose investment did the assessor think he was protecting?

Our initial request was on June 4, 2012. We filed a Sunshine Law violation complaint with the Missouri Attorney General’s office on July 2. Over the ensuing months, we heard some vague promises that we would get the information. To their credit, the AG’s office stayed on it. Finally, we received it, for free, on Tuesday — March 19, 2013. Even though the original project we wanted it for has been completed for a long time, the data is still helpful for another project I am working on. Plus, it was the principle of the thing . . .

It took more than nine months for us to receive a simple request of public information that probably took the office 2 minutes to send us once they realized they had no choice. The Sunshine Law is important. Keeping public information hidden by obscene fees is immoral and wrong. Apparently, Grundy County Assessor Don Stotts does not feel that way. Thankfully, however, he (or at least his assistant who sent us the data) finally changed his mind.

By the way, 25 percent of the assessed valuation in Grundy County is land, and 75 percent is improvements. This entire nine-month controversy was about us being able to write the preceding sentence.

We all know that corruption is a threat to our government. And, the less transparent a governmental body is, the more likely it is that corruption will occur. Aren’t we all more likely to steal the last cookie if no one can see us doing it?

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) revealed unsettling results for Saint Louis in its report on the largest cities’ spending transparency websites. Saint Louis City received a grade of ‘F’ in spending transparency, and ranked 28th lowest on the list of 30 cities.

Other cities provide valuable “checkbook-level” information online. But Saint Louis fails to provide this information, keeping us in the dark on expenditures. This means we cannot easily track who receives taxpayer dollars.

Tax Increment Financing (TIF), tax credits, exemptions, incentive-based abatements, and other tax subsidies all affect the city’s budget the same way as direct spending. But cities can more easily hide these types of indirect spending.

The Saint Louis Development Corporation (SLDC), which supports the city’s TIF commission, provides almost no TIF information on its website. And, the SLDC fails to provide financial information for the other economic development authorities it supports.

As a result, it is challenging to track the details on Saint Louis tax expenditures. And if we cannot easily track spending details, we have a limited ability to hold recipients accountable for delivering on their promises. Without providing this information online, it is unnecessarily difficult to scrutinize the city’s decisions and to determine whether our tax money is being spent wisely.

No one could argue that this is a good thing — yet we see no attempts from Saint Louis City to provide more transparency.

I have heard the old adage, “the plural of anecdote isn’t data.” Nevertheless, on two occasions recently I had the opportunity to speak with teachers in public schools about the Common Core. If you are unaware, the Common Core is a series of standards for K-12 education. The standards were not developed nationally, but states have been highly incentivized (read coerced) to adopt them.

When I asked these two teachers about the changes in their districts (one teacher was from the Kansas City area, the other from the Saint Louis area) I was surprised by the commonality in their responses. It seems it is not just the standards that are common, but also the criticisms.

Though they have never met and work in completely different districts, both lamented about the increased testing associated with the Common Core.

Add testing to the growing list of complaints associated with these new standards, including:

• Their overall lack of rigor.
• The math standards eliminate Algebra I in the eighth grade.
• The tremendous costs associated with implementing the standards. Professional development, textbooks, and technology alone may cost Missouri more than $325 million.

The most interesting thing about the Common Core, in my opinion, is that our state adopted the standards with little public knowledge. Gov. Jay Nixon signed Missouri onto the initiative in August of 2009, before the standards were even drafted. Then in June of 2010, shortly after their public release, the Missouri State Board of Education adopted the standards. Thus, millions of dollars were committed and the future of Missouri’s education system was determined by a fiat rather than by the will of the people.

Bill Evers, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, recently spoke with the Independence Institute’s Ben Degrow about the Common Core and provides a nice overview of the issues.

Have more Common Core stories? Feel free to share them with me at james.shuls@showmeinstitute.org or on Twitter @shulsie.

One of my friends complained to me the other day that he could not find a website for a new business after Googling for a minute or two. He quickly decided that it had to be a scam — who could possibly own a business and not have a website?

Like my friend, most people use the Internet as their primary source for information. We expect to find everything we want with a few clicks, whether it is information on a new business, yoga videos for your cat, or a trip to the virtual banana label museum. Or more plausibly, a search for your city council’s upcoming meeting agenda. Because the majority of us use the Internet daily, it is frustrating when we cannot find something we are looking for.

It is especially frustrating when the information we cannot find is supposed to be public. Jefferson City just announced that the city will switch to an electronic record-keeping system to make city information more available to the general public. Our capital city already provides a good amount of information on its website, but I applaud the city for valuing accessibility of public information and seeking ways to provide it more readily. There are many municipalities and counties that do not prove this to be a priority. For example, Scott County does not even post its budget online.

To me, not providing budget information online is like getting in your car at 10 p.m. and saying, “Ugh, you know I really just don’t feel like turning on my headlights right now.” It is something that is so simple, takes little time or effort, and would benefit everyone.

More municipalities need to join the 21^st century and provide public information on their websites. The Illinois Policy Institute provides a 10-point transparency checklist as a good starting point. People have a right to know about their government and the easiest way to give them information is on the Internet. In the meantime, you can use Show-Me Sunshine and Show-Me Living to dig into public documents and state government spending.

What does your elected official or candidate for public office believe? The Show-Me Institute developed a questionnaire to help you evaluate where politicians stand on key issues in education, the economy, health care, and good government practices.

If you are curious to learn more about free-market solutions to the problems facing our state, click the link for each question to see relevant research and analysis on each topic.

A few questions from the list:

• Should parents have a say in where their child goes to school?

• Would you support making it easier to remove low-performing teachers regardless of experience?

• What do you believe Missouri needs to do to effectively compete with surrounding states?

• Do you favor subjecting regulations to a rigorous cost/benefit analysis and eliminating those that fail to demonstrate a net benefit to the state?

• Do you believe that the focus of any health care reform should put the doctor-patient relationship first?

• Do you support an open, transparent government, one that allows Missourians to easily understand how their money is being spent and who is accountable for such expenditures?

Click here for the full questionnaire.

Last week, a study presented to the Columbia City Council explored the impact of Missouri’s historic preservation tax credit on the city. The report, funded by the Historic Preservation Commission, found that “historic preservation” had accounted for almost 5,000 Columbia jobs and more than $1 billion of “economic activity” over the last decade, with almost $100 million attributable to the historic preservation tax credit. Like any report of this kind, it paid the requisite homage to the dark art of “economic multipliers,” which we have criticized in the past.

In stark contrast to the study’s claims, official state figures actually show that historic preservation credits return 23 cents for each dollar the state spends. These tax dollars are often used on dubious projects of little or no public use, such as private mansions and at least one country club.

The main point I would like to highlight, however, is that the Columbia study was written explicitly to pump an agenda, a point that may not be immediately evident if casual newspaper readers just saw the headlines. The study’s authors were (refreshingly) transparent about this in the text of the study itself. Goal one on the study’s first page explicitly says that the report “will promote the economic development benefits of historic preservation to an expanded audience.” Goal two makes the study’s goals even clearer (emphasis mine): “This report will encourage tax credit eligible projects to homeowners and developers by promoting visible local examples.” And the “Vision Impact” outlined at the bottom of that page is clear that the objective sought is to preserve “historic areas” through “education, enforcement, and incentives” (emphasis mine) — namely, the HPTC. This is more about marketing than good policy, and should be understood as such.

We at the Show-Me Institute have seen this sort of report before, of course. Back when Aerotropolis was still a thing, I wrote about the National Center for Beef Excellence’s “report” on whether it was “feasible” to “ship meat to China.” One would think that a state-funded group with “beef” in the name would make it clear that American beef was actually, er, banned in China. Alas, the NCBE attempted to pass off the study as objective when its only goal was to pump Aerotropolis.

That is, in the end, what is going on in Columbia, albeit with laudable transparency. There should be a vigorous debate about the merits of tax credits generally and particularly the historic preservation tax credit, but this report is only one especially biased side of that conversation. There should be no misconceptions about that fact.

Last Tuesday, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported that the Rockwood School District (of which I am a graduate) received an A+ rating for “transparency” among the 10 largest school districts in Missouri. According to the Sunshine Review, a non-profit group that concentrates on state and local government accountability, Rockwood’s website met all of their criteria and provides information regarding taxes, budgets, meetings, elected officials, administrative officials, contracts, audits, public records, academics, and background checks.

Some may see Rockwood’s website as a model for school districts to follow, but taking a closer look at the site, it is not perfect. For example, if you want to review the superintendent’s or other personnel contracts, benefits, pensions, or records of communication (like e-mails between the superintendent, the president of the teachers’ union, school board members, and the board secretary), you will not find it on Rockwood’s website. Instead, you have to make a specific request for public records, and depending on the information, it could cost you more than $18,005.

Is this worthy of an A+?

No, and taxpayers deserve more. Former Show-Me Institute Policy Analyst Audrey Spalding is exactly right, “It Is Time To Increase Public School Transparency.” We have the technology to share information online. Now it is time for school districts to step up and provide us with detailed information on how they spend our money.

At tonight’s Ellisville City Council meeting, a charter amendment is being introduced to amend the rules for recalling elected officials in Ellisville. Then, because of the looming deadline to get things on the November ballot, they have scheduled a special meeting for the next night (Thursday) to pass the charter amendment because they likely will not have unanimous support to pass it in one night.

“They,” of course, are the “Walmart 5,” the members of the city council who supported the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for Walmart despite substantial community opposition. There is a recall effort underway in Ellisville against some of the “Walmart 5″ (not all are eligible for recall for technical reasons). The TIF was a terrible idea, but this recall charter change idea is so awful that it makes the TIF idea look like the invention of the wheel.

The attempt to alter the rules of the charter after citizens have instituted a recall effort is one of the most atrocious abuses of power I have seen in Missouri in the 20 years I have been following politics and government. Thankfully, even the Walmart 5 cannot find a way around the rule that voters must approve charter changes. Hopefully, this naked attempt to silence widespread opposition to the TIF will fail, either at the polls or through a successful blocking of it in the next few nights.

Tom Pendergast is not dead. He just moved to West County.

In the past three years, the Missouri State Auditor has chastised public school districts for irresponsible spending, excessive pay for administrators, awarding a no-bid contract to a school board member, failing to collect on a real estate deal, and awarding a hefty car allowance to a district superintendent.

Given that state and local property taxpayers spend billions on Missouri’s public education system every year, taking a closer look at how school districts spend money is certainly warranted.

One way to do this could be to set up a transparency site like the Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP). MAP is a site where anyone can look at (or download) recent data for state tax credit issuances, state employee pay, and state spending. The general public can use it to learn how state money is being spent, reporters can use the data to find material for an article, and policy analysts can even use it to examine the amount of tax credits issued under a certain program over time. In fact, one school board member is trying to set up a school district transparency site that would follow this model.

Posting detailed school district expenditure data, even if only for Missouri’s largest districts, could help ensure that the general public has better information to monitor how public education dollars are spent. This provides more detailed information about a district’s spending than the school-level and district-level data that the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education posts.

In 2011, the state auditor suggested that the Kansas City Metropolitan School District reconsider its $800 per month car allowance for its superintendent. But the Kansas City district is not alone.

In my study of Missouri school superintendent compensation, I found that 26.1 percent of districts surveyed provided superintendents with a car allowance, a car, or an annuity. Indeed, 17 school superintendents in Missouri received a car allowance of more than $500 per month, with a few school districts providing more than $800 each month to superintendents for their vehicles. Years later, there are likely other school districts paying $800 or more for superintendent car allowances.

With a transparency portal, reporters or the general public could find information like that easily, and before an audit is warranted. Transparency might discourage board members and administrators from awarding outsize benefits or spending frivolously.

With better technology, making it easier every day to share information online, school district transparency portals are something to consider.

For years, Marisol Montero, newly-elected member of the Kansas City (Mo.) School District’s board of directors, has navigated the district’s maze of red tape and ignorance of state and federal education policy. Her efforts to ensure her son, who has special needs, was actually receiving the care that he required, and for which schools had accepted federal dollars to provide, led her to an idea to dramatically increase the district’s transparency.

She says her requests for information initially met resistance: She often was told “Why do you need to know that?” and that her request was “unreasonable.” However, the school was receiving federal money and not spending it, then claiming that because it was not spent, the school was not bound to certain reporting schedules. The federal government disagreed, and thanks to Montero’s leadership, the school administrators resigned.

Montero now hopes to save other parents the hassle of battling the bureaucracy just to learn what is going on inside schools. She believes that simply providing information would go a long way toward improving services. She proposes instituting a Transparency Accountability Portal (TAP), modeled after Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt’s Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP). The MAP portal serves taxpayers as “a single point of reference to review how their money is being spent and other pertinent information related to the enforcement of government programs.” It includes information about state agency expenditures, the distribution of tax credits, state employee pay, and the use of federal stimulus funds.

Montero’s TAP would show how money is collected and spent; and link each expenditure to a specific district goal. The TAP will be similar to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Missouri Student Information System and the Missouri Comprehensive Data System, but more detailed and specific to the Kansas City district. Montero wants to include:

* The amount of money a school receives for each program.

* How much the school has set aside in activity funds for field trips, etc.

* General ledger details such as individual employee salary and basic job function — including administrators, teachers, and janitorial staff.

* Contracts the district and schools have entered for things such as lawn care, maintenance, and equipment. Montero said there is no consistency in contracting. “Some contracts can be for three years, others for three months,” she said. There is often no way for outsiders to evaluate the efficiency of some expenditures, i.e., tutoring services. How many kids are participating, and are grades improving?

The database also can help taxpayers appreciate the amount spent on employee benefits and pensions. The board could use this information for public input while renegotiating contracts and cutting budgets. The portal also could reduce the time the district spends responding to open records requests.

Montero believes such a portal would help the board stick to what she identifies as the four Ds: Data Driven Direction and Decisions. Without the portal, Montero said the board risks making decisions based on opinions, not facts.