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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Missouri House Committee passes Chiefs, Royals stadium plan
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The stadium package for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals cleared another hurdle at the Missouri State Capitol Tuesday. The House Committee on Economic Development endorsed the package following more than three hours of discussion. Potential Royals move to Kansas sparks mixed reaction in Overland Park What was talked about had to do with Senate Bill 3. It's the same package that body approved early Thursday morning. It funds any stadium plans for the Chiefs and Royals with tax revenues that the stadiums generate. Republican State House Rep. Sherri Gallick from Cass County, heads the Economic Development Committee. On more than one occasion during the committee meeting, she expressed her support for the bill. She discussed how much the Chiefs and Royals do for charities on the west side of the state. 'Those things may not exist, or they may exist on the Kansas side,' Gallic said of 15 and the Mahomies. 'I would like them to continue to exist on the Missouri side.' Gallick was alluding to the fact that the Kansas Legislature passed a Sales Tax and Revenue (STAR) Bond package one year ago, aimed at trying to lure either the Chiefs and or the Royals to the west side of the state line. The Show-Me Institute's Senior Fellow Patrick Tuohey is against the bill and was the only one who testified against the State Senate Committee on Fiscal Oversight passing it. Tuohey came back to the capital city Tuesday. 'The package of STAR Bonds offered by Kansas is not at all competitive, and there's plenty of reporting on this,' Tuohey said to the Economic Development Committee. 'Kansas refuses to put public taxpayer money to back up the bonds if they don't generate enough tax revenue, and that means that investors are not going to be invested in buying this.' One person who came to the capitol to support the stadium package was Kansas City Sports Commission and Visit KC President and CEO Kathy Nelson. Nelson did not testify in Topeka in June of 2024 when Kansas lawmakers passed the STAR Bond package. 'In 2024, sports driven media coverage equated to more than 300 million total impressions, highlighting Kansas City as a travel destination,' Nelson said to the committee. 'Due to our sports teams, last year Kansas City, Missouri was highlighted as a top global travel destination by publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure, Lonely Planet and TIME Magazine. Nothing else puts us on a global map like these teams.' After the hearing, Nelson was asked whether she thinks the teams will stay in the region now that Kansas and potentially the Missouri legislature, will have tried to keep the teams through pieces of legislation. New Heartland Coca-Cola facility opens in Olathe 'I hope so,' Nelson said in response. 'I know both owners personally. I believe their hearts are here in the Kansas City region, and I think they want the opportunity to stay here. They don't want an opportunity to leave.' The full Missouri House of Representatives will likely take up the stadium package Wednesday. The session starts at 10 a.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stadium bill, disaster aid sail through Missouri House committees
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer listens to a question Tuesday as she testifies on the need for tornado relief funds alongside city policy director Casey Millburg. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent) The special session bills to fund professional sports stadiums in Kansas City and provide disaster relief to St. Louis passed House committees easily on Tuesday, setting up final votes that will send them to Gov. Mike Kehoe. There were no changes from the Senate-approved versions as the stadium financing bill passed the House Economic Development Committee on an 11-2 vote and a spending bill with $100 million for storm cleanup in St. Louis by a unanimous vote. As long as there are no amendments passed on the floor, those two bills and another to authorize disaster housing support will be finished Wednesday. If there are any changes, they will have to be approved by the state Senate, which passed all three bills last week. The immediate purpose of the special session was to get state lawmakers on record with an offer to the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and MLB's Royals before the teams had to make a decision on whether to jump the state line to take a deal offered by Kansas. The Kansas offer, with a deadline at the end of the month, is a serious proposal and Missouri will lose the teams — and the economic activity associated with them — if it does not put up a counter-offer, said state Sen. Kurtis Gregory, a Republican from Marshall. Under the stadium bill, Missouri would calculate the tax revenue generated by activities in Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums — home of the Chiefs and Royals, respectively, since the early 1970s — and dedicate the money to bond payments. 'This isn't using tax dollars off of the income tax that's collected from someone that's working at Dollar General or a feed store or a fertilizer shop or a clothing store or wherever,' Gregory said. 'This is using the taxes that are generated at the stadiums themselves, off of Joe Burrow when he comes to play in Kansas City, we collect taxes off his paycheck, or when Taylor Swift has a concert at Arrowhead Stadium.' Backers of the bill estimate that close to $1.5 billion would be spent over 30 years. The money would pay about half the cost of upgrades at Arrowhead and a brand new stadium for the Royals. Opponents of the plan tried to persuade the committee to wait. The Chiefs and Royals have not accepted the Kansas offer and haven't promised to stay if Missouri makes a firm financial commitment, said Patrick Tuohey, a senior fellow at the conservative Show-Me Institute. 'This entire special session and this deal is an absolute hustle,' Tuohey said. The Kansas offer is dependent on investors being willing to buy bonds backed only by the new tax revenue generated in a district around the stadiums, Tuohey said. That won't be enough money to service the debt, he said. 'This deadline simply means that the Kansas offer ends,' Tuouhey said. 'The absolute worst time for Missouri to offer, to make an offer is during that time. You should wait until after the 30th and see if Kansas wants to extend. But the idea that the Chiefs and the Royals are dictating deadlines to the Missouri Legislature is crazy.' Under the legislation, Missouri would keep money received that exceeds the current tax revenue, Gregory said. And if the teams move, he added, the state loses both. 'We're not talking just about the potential revenue loss for the team moving across the state lines,' he said. 'I think we are talking about jobs and tax revenue coming from a lot of different places across the Kansas City metro area.' The property tax cap in the legislation would apply to 97 counties, 75 where base bills could not increase more than 5% per year and 22 more where no increase would be allowed. The bill exempts additions to the tax bill for newly voted levies and the additional value of home improvements. The bill includes two other major provisions, with the most expensive being a tax credit for people living in areas where a federal disaster declaration has been requested. The credit would be equal to their insurance deductible and available regardless of whether the disaster request is approved. The other provision would renew a tax credit program that supports major amateur sporting events. The disaster tax credit, only for damage occurring this year, would be capped at $5,000 per person and $90 million total this year. For people who cannot use their full tax credit, the bill would allow them to carry the loss forward for another 29 years and cap the total allowed at $45 million per year. The provision could eventually cost state taxpayers about $600 million, Dan Haug, state budget director, said in testimony to the House Budget Committee. 'That is what I would call an upper limit,' he said. In the spending bill, Kehoe initially sought $25 million for housing assistance grants, adding it to the core items he wanted from a construction bill spiked in the House just before a final vote in the regular session. Under pressure from Democratic lawmakers in the Senate — votes vital to passing the stadium package — Kehoe agreed to add $100 million to help St. Louis recover from a devastating tornado that hit May 16. The bill spends $360 million overall — $175 million of general revenue and $185 million from other funds. Despite grumbling that many items in the bill spiked during the regular session were badly needed, House Budget Committee Chairman Dirk Deaton, a Republican from Noel, said nothing would be added. When Kehoe agreed to the additional money, federal recovery aid for St. Louis was uncertain. That changed Monday when President Donald Trump approved the request for a disaster declaration, making federal help to the state and local governments available as well as aid to individuals with damaged property. The federal recovery aid is welcome but the state funding should be maintained, Haug said to the budget committee. 'These disasters are so expensive that without federal help, there's no way we can cover all of this,' Haug said. 'We just don't have the general revenue resources to do that.' Just in the city of St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer told the committee, the tornado damaged 23,000 homes and affected 48,000 people. 'Many of the homes that are so badly damaged are generational homes,' Spencer said. 'These are homes that represent all the most that many of these families have.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
