Missouri Seeks Cease-Fire in Kansas City Border War

July 2, 2014


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A bill signed this week by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has the potential to solve one aspect of the wasteful jobs border war currently ravaging the Kansas City metropolitan economy: the use of state subsidies to fuel intra-regional business relocations.

Senate Bill 635

would prohibit the state’s business subsidies from being awarded to businesses relocating within the two-state metro area from Kansas to Missouri.  However, the law will only go into effect if Kansas enacts a companion law limiting its own use of state business incentives in the Kansas City metro within the next two years.

The legislation was sponsored by state Sen. Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City), who called the practice of subsidizing companies to hop the border “

senseless

.”  The bill also had the support of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, which stated that it was one of its “

highest legislative priorities

.”  One of the most vocal supporters of the effort to end the border war is a coalition of metropolitan business leaders, who in 2011 submitted an

open letter

to governors in both states demanding a cease-fire on the use of subsidies for intra-regional relocations.  And in June, while awaiting Gov. Nixon’s signature on SB635, the business coalition

again appealed to both leaders in an open letter

:

“For the last several years, both states have followed a destructive practice of encouraging a cross border job shuffle. This has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and it has generated little or no new economic activity. Neither state is a winner in this game as one state loses tax revenue while the other state forgives it.”

For its part,

Kansas has signaled little interest

in supporting a companion bill, citing the need of local suburban jurisdictions to pursue their own economic development agendas.  This is an ironic position to take, given the extent to which state subsidies have interfered in metropolitan economic dynamics in the region.  The best way to allow localities to pursue their own economic development agendas would be for both states to stop providing ammunition for the border war.