Missouri eyes free college tuition for public safety personnel and dependents
Senate Bill 71, sponsored by Sen. David Gregory, R-St. Louis, would provide college tuition awards for public safety personnel such as police officers, firefighters, paramedics, telecommunicators, first responders, emergency medical technicians or advanced emergency medical technicians.
Public safety personnel with at least six years of service shall be entitled to an award worth up to 100% of the resident tuition charges, including fees, for an institution of higher education located in Missouri.
The legal dependent of public safety personnel with at least ten years of service is also eligible for a tuition award if he or she executes an agreement with the institution of higher education outlining the terms and conditions of the tuition award, including the legal dependent's commitment to reside in Missouri for the next five years.
Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett called the measure a new and innovative" tool that would not only benefit public safety personnel and the departments they work for, but the communities they serve by offering new ways to recruit and retain valuable officers in Missouri.
"This is a good hand in glove kind of concept because the more we train, the more we educate our staff, the better they serve the community," he said. "It's a win-win. It keeps our folks here in the state of Missouri and it allows our universities that have really quality programs to continue to prosper."
Puett said the measure would focus on degree programs designed specifically for public safety and public safety-oriented fields. Individuals who have already earned a baccalaureate degree are ineligible to use the tuition award to earn another degree.
The measure passed both the Missouri House and Senate this legislative session and now awaits approval from Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe. The governor has identified fighting crime and enhancing public safety as a top priority.
"Kudos to the governor, Department of Public Safety and the legislature because the governor came in with a law enforcement priority and he is holding true to those values," Puett said. "This is one of the planks in that effort to recruit and retain good law enforcement officers for our state.
Puett said if the measure is ultimately approved, the department would look to utilize it immediately, helping them save local tax dollars that are currently used for tuition assistance.
According to a fiscal analysis, the measure would lead to a decrease of roughly $3.4 million in general revenue funding.
Four St. Joseph Police officers talk at the scene of a shooting at 16th and Grand streets in 2024 in St. Joseph. Cameron Montemayor | News-Press NOW
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
35 minutes ago
Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump ready to ‘crush' Russian economy if Putin avoids talks with Zelenskyy
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump is prepared to 'crush' Russia's economy with a new wave of sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming weeks. Graham, who spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia's invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it. Republican leaders have said they won't move without him. 'If we don't have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,' Graham said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Senate, now away from Washington for the August recess, is scheduled to return in September. Graham's call with Trump came less than 24 hours after high-stakes meetings at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders. Trump and the leaders emerged from those talks sounding optimistic, with the expectation being that a Putin and Zelenskyy sit-down will happen soon. Still, Trump's comments to Graham, one of his top congressional allies, mark the latest sign that pressure is building — not just on Putin, but on Trump as well. 'Trump believes that if Putin doesn't do his part, that he's going to have to crush his economy. Because you've got to mean what you say,' Graham told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday. As Congress prepares to return to session in early September, the next few weeks could become a defining test of whether lawmakers and international allies are prepared to act on their own if Trump doesn't follow through. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the lead Democrat pushing the bill with Graham, says there is a 'lot of reason for skepticism and doubt' after the meetings with Trump, especially because Putin has not made any direct promises. He said the Russian leader has an incentive to play 'rope-a-dope' with Trump. 'The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,' Blumenthal told the AP this week. 'What Putin understands is force and pressure.' Still, Republicans have shown little willingness to override Trump in his second term. They abruptly halted work on the sanctions bill before the August recess after Trump said the legislation may not be needed. Asked Tuesday in a phone interview whether the sanctions bill should be brought up even without Trump's support, Graham said, 'the best way to do it is with him.' 'There will come a point where if it's clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do,' Graham said. 'And the best way to do it is have congressional blessing.' The legislation would impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries such as China and India, which together account for roughly 70% of Russia's energy trade. The framework has the support of many European leaders. Many of those same European leaders left the White House on Monday with a more hopeful tone. Zelenskyy called the meeting with Trump 'an important step toward ending this war.' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his expectations 'were not just met, they were exceeded.' Still, little concrete progress was visible on the main obstacles to peace. That deadlock likely favors Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow, progress on the ground in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after talks at the White House that Trump believes a deal with Putin is possible. But he said sanctions remain on the table if the process fails.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Iraq and Afghanistan veteran launches Democratic campaign against Sen. Susan Collins in Maine
Graham Platner, a 40-year-old Army and Marine veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched his campaign for the Senate in Maine on Tuesday, joining a growing Democratic primary field seeking to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Platner, an oyster farmer who was born and raised in Sullivan, Maine, will run on a platform of universal health care, housing affordability and ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars. 'I feel an obligation to protect this place and protect the people in it,' Platner said in an interview. Platner joins a growing Democratic primary field that features Jordan Wood, a former chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., and David Costello, who challenged independent Sen. Angus King last year. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has said she is considering getting into the contest, while Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, has opted against joining the budding primary in what, on paper, might look like Democrats' best opportunity to flip a Senate seat in 2026. Collins is the only Republican senator who represents a state Kamala Harris carried in the last presidential election. But she has proven a tough opponent in blue Maine. In her last campaign, in 2020, she beat Democratic opponent Sarah Gideon by more than 8 percentage points, even as Donald Trump lost Maine by more than 9 points. Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats would need to flip four seats in the 2026 midterms to take the majority. Platner said his experience in the military helped shape his political perspective as he prepared his campaign. 'When I joined the Marine Corps, I joined up because I really, truly believed in the American project,' he said. 'I wanted to fight for something I loved and that I thought was good in Iraq and Afghanistan. I watched both failed policies, failed strategies, failed tactics being used over and over and over again.' 'There's a point where you have to start asking yourself what is the point of this,' he added. 'Why are you doing this? And when I went back as a security contractor in 2018, what I began to realize is that I was just watching vast amounts of taxpayer money getting put into the pockets of defense contractors, of security contractors, of this whole apparatus that almost seemed to exist merely to take taxpayer money and put it into somebody's private bank account. And in seeing that up close for a while, it turned me into a deeply, deeply cynical and angry guy. From that I began to kind of look at our larger political system, our larger economic system, and you just begin to see the same exact thing.' Platner is seeking to connect with working-class voters who've migrated toward the GOP in recent cycles. He pointed to Golden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as figures offering hope for the Democratic Party nationally and in his state. 'If we focus primarily on fighting for working-class values, fighting for policies that help working-class people, clawing back a lot of the power that has been consolidated in the kind of higher establishment-class politics, I think if you stick to that stuff, you can win,' Platner said. 'And getting dragged into many of these minor culture war fights is not remotely the answer.' 'I don't just identify with the more of the left parts of the party. People like Jared Golden are doing an excellent job. That's why he's been able to hold on to a Democratic seat in a Trump district,' Platner said. In a statement responding to Platner's launch, Jason Savage, executive director of the Maine GOP, excoriated Platner for appealing to Democrats' left flank. 'Being a Bernie Bro and Kamala Harris donor is a profile to appeal to Portland progressives, not centrist and conservative voters in rural Maine," Savage said. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said in its own statement that Collins was unfazed by Platner's campaign. "While Maine Democrats have to duke it out in an increasingly crowded and messy primary, Susan Collins is singularly focused on delivering for Mainers and fighting for common-sense policies that improve the lives of workers and families," said Joanna Rodriguez, an NRSC spokesperson. In his launch video, Platner excoriated 'billionaires and corrupt politicians profiting off and destroying our environment, driving our families into poverty and crushing the middle class,' saying his military experience made him unafraid to 'name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy.' 'I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins' deliberations and moderation,' he said. 'The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us out and not giving a damn." This article was originally published on
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump reignites his push to ban mail-in voting after meeting with Putin
President Donald Trump said Monday that he will "lead a movement" to end mail-in balloting in elections. The Constitution, Congress and the states figure to have their say, too. The issue has re-emerged as a fixation for Trump when the most pressing business before him is his effort to mediate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. It appears to have been rekindled, or at least stoked, by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reinforced Trump's unsubstantiated view that postal ballots "rigged" the 2020 election, at a summit Friday in Alaska. Follow live politics updates here In an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier on Friday, Trump relayed that "one of the most interesting things" Putin told him during the summit had to do with the unreliability of mail-in voting. "He said: 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. ... It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,'' Trump said, adding that Putin told him "no country" has mail-in voting. It's false that the United States is the only country with vote-by-mail. Other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, also do. Russia has been heavily criticized, including by the U.S. government, for not having free and fair elections. Trump then vowed Monday on his Truth Social platform to issue an executive order aimed at banning vote-by-mail. "Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," Trump wrote. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do." He also brought it up when he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later in the day, saying, "Mail-in ballots are corrupt." But Trump faces high legal and political hurdles to changing the laws governing federal elections: the Constitution, federal and state statutes, the popularity of absentee balloting and the GOP's success in using mail-in votes in key swing states, such as Trump's home state, Florida. The Constitution vests the power for choosing the "times, places and manner" of House and Senate elections in state legislatures, with Congress and the president retaining the right to pass laws overriding them. States also have the authority, under the Constitution, to determine how presidential electors are selected. Federal law requires states to accept mailed ballots from Americans living overseas, including veterans. "I don't want to presuppose what might be in the executive order, but I think it's pretty clear that the times, places and manners of elections are set by the state. That's right there in the Constitution," said Matt Weil, vice president of the democracy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank. Changing those "requires an act of Congress," Weil said. And doing that would be no small feat when Democrats can block legislation in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement, 'Senate Democrats will make sure that any and every measure that would make it even more difficult for Americans to vote will be dead on arrival in the Senate and will continue to fight to protect our democracy." The Republican National Committee hinted at the power of Congress in a statement Monday supporting Trump's plan. 'Under his leadership and direction, the RNC is continuing to build upon our historic election integrity efforts from the successful 2024 election cycle, and we will be ready to help implement any and all changes made to our nation's election laws by the President and Congress," RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels said. "The Republican Election Integrity motto is simple: we want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.' Beyond those challenges, many Republicans say Trump is fishing in a politically toxic pond that is better left alone. "From a pure tactics standpoint, it is not helpful," said a former Trump campaign official who is working on midterm campaigns. In his failed 2020 re-election bid, Trump discouraged Republicans from voting early and as absentees, and many of his allies believe that cost him votes. By contrast, in 2024, his advisers persuaded him to embrace those practices on the premise that he could "bank" votes early and not have to spend money trying to mobilize people who had already cast ballots. Trump's emerging push is destined to fail, the former campaign official said, and it could tamp down Republican turnout in the process. "It discourages our use" of mail-in voting, which "is going to exist," he said, adding that "this is where he starts getting into conspiratorial spaces where independent voters are like 'What? What is he talking about?'' Trump's White House recently hosted a group of secretaries of state to discuss "our ongoing commitment to election integrity," said Ben Kindel, a spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican. While LaRose still backs Ohio's mail-in balloting laws, Kindel said, "we look forward to reviewing the details of what the president is proposing. … Changes to Ohio's voting process require a vote of the General Assembly, so I'm sure we'll be talking with them as well." Trump's aversion to absentee ballots is perhaps most striking because Republicans' recent success in Florida elections — in Trump's home state — has coincided with the state GOP's mastery of mail-in voting. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been a longtime proponent of early voting in the state and helped Trump see the benefit to him across swing states in 2024. Wiles and several other White House officials did not respond to requests for comment. In Florida, Trump's push to crack down on mail ballots has hampered Republicans' decadeslong effort to build their mail programs. Since they began developing a mail-in program in the 1990s, Republicans in the state have dominated their Democratic counterparts using the method Trump detests. But his message, that the practice is inherently corrupt, has altered the landscape in Florida, allowing Democrats to ramp up their efforts and, for the first time, take an edge in vote-by-mail ballots — even as Trump won the state in 2020 and 2024. 'For years, you had to build into turnout plans the fact that the GOP would have a big advantage in vote by mail,' Steve Schale, a longtime Florida Democratic operative who was an early advocate of his party's better using mail ballots, said in a message to NBC News. 'Using VBM to drive their sporadic voters to vote. We did counter first by driving people to vote in person early, then VBM.' The slipping of Republicans voting-by-mail advantage has dismayed some of the state's veteran Republicans. 'There was a time when Republicans owned and relied on voting by mail,' said longtime Republican operative Mac Stipanovich, who helped build Florida's vote-by-mail program but left the GOP over disagreements with Trump. Stipanovich, who was chief of staff to Republican former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, said the idea of expanding vote-by-mail to make it easier for all voters to cast ballots is 'anathema to the Trump Republican Party, in which voter suppression is dressed up as preventing voter fraud.' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has tried to follow Trump's call to crack down on vote-by-mail in the state, signing sweeping changes to such laws in recent years. They worked as intended. During the 2020 presidential campaign, 4.3 million mail ballots were cast in Florida, a number that dropped to 3 million during last year's presidential contest. Some of the changes have concerned even Republican election officials, notably a requirement that voters renew their vote-by-mail ballot requests each election cycle. 'That's a major thing,' Republican former Florida Sen. Alan Hays, who is now the election supervisor in Lake County, told a Republican-led state legislative committee in February. 'Our theory is if they had the luxury of checking a box in that general election return ballot that said, 'Please keep my vote by mail request valid,' then we could have continued to send them their vote-by-mail ballot for the special election.' Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a DeSantis appointee and Trump supporter, did not reply to a request for comment about Trump's renewed push to crack down on voting by mail. "Mail-in voting is good when the rules are applied," a second former Trump campaign official said. "I just think this is stupid." Democrats responded harshly to Trump's Truth Social post, even as they waited to see the actual proposal. Connecticut Secretary of State Jena Griswold said she is ready to go to court to block him, if necessary. "Donald Trump is trying to grab power ahead of the 2026 Election and says he will ban vote by mail," Griswold said. "This is a direct attack on democracy. States oversee elections, not Trump. We will challenge any unlawful executive order and will beat this unconstitutional attempt to disenfranchise millions of Americans." 'The federal government can't take over the election system. The Constitution is very, very clear. In fact, I have my copy here,' Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told NBC News, holding up his copy of the Constitution. 'The time, place and manner of our elections are established by the states. Congress can jump in once in a while, but there's a process to the rules. You can't just come in as a wannabe strongman and take things over.' Oregon conducts its elections entirely by mail, and it was the first state to hold a presidential election by mail. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read emphasized that voter fraud is "extremely rare." He said he believes Trump "is actively working to corrupt our elections. If he had any inclination to actually understand or care about the American people, he'd know that mail-in voting is really the best way to protect everybody's right to vote, and that's especially true for rural folks, for elderly people and for people who work for an hourly wage." Read also pointed to the states' constitutional role in deciding how to conduct elections, adding, "I'm going to protect the rights of Oregonians and the rights of the state to choose how we elect our representatives. This is a real threat." Some Trump allies say no one should be surprised by his desire to stop mail-in balloting, as he has long decried the practice of voting in any way other than in person on Election Day. "It's the same position the president has always held," a person familiar with the Trump camp's thinking said. "That being said, if mail-in ballots still exist come 2026, we will use them and win." This article was originally published on
