Relatively speaking, Missouri does not spend a huge amount on subsidies and has done fairly well in terms of disclosures. For example, Missouri's Accountability Portal, created in 2007, provides data on multiple forms of government spending with company-specific information for some programs. The state auditor also maintains a searchable database of municipal tax increment financing districts or TIFs. Furthermore, an earlier tax credit reform effort in 2004 prompted the passage of the Tax Credit Accountability Act, which requires companies to verify their capital investments and jobs created. These efforts in accountability and transparency paid off: A 2009 investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out that participants in the Quality Jobs Program had a poor record of creating jobs of any kind; this finding was later confirmed by a 2012 state audit. This prompted the streamlining of several inefficient programs into into one big program called Missouri Works, which nowadays costs less than $100 million a year.
Low subsidy spending notwithstanding, there have been two major controversies clouding Missouri's subsidy landscape. One is the overuse of TIFs by local governments. In the suburbs of St. Louis, hefty TIF subsidies for developers have been criticized for undermining school funding and contributing to retail overbuilding and sprawl. Missouri is also one of the very few states which allow state taxes to be included in their TIF. Efforts to reform the program have been repeatedly defeated by developer interests at the state legislature. Another big controversy concerns the practice of officials in the Kansas City area of using subsidies to lure companies back and forth across the border between Missouri and Kansas. In April 2011, in an unprecedented response to the situation, 17 CEOs issued a letter to Missouri and Kansas authorities urging them to stop this self-defeating practice. In July 2014, Missouri passed a law that would prohibit the state’s subsidies from being awarded to businesses relocating from Kansas to Missouri within the Kansas City metro area, but the law would only go into effect if Kansas were to enact a similar law. In 2019, the Kansas governor signed the executive order, giving rise to the first ever legally-binding bilateral state agreement to stop the "border war".
CLICK ON THESE LINKS FOR THE LATEST DATA ON MISSOURI:
Corporate misconduct: Results page for Missouri in Violation Tracker
Subsidy deals: Results page for Missouri in Subsidy Tracker (see also: mega-deals)
Tax revenue loss: Results page for Missouri in Tax Break Tracker
Disclosure enforcement: Missouri GASB 77 Roadmap
What else we're written about Missouri: Publications and Research
Big Giveaway Index
Other Resources
Watchdog Groups
Key Subsidy Programs
| Subsidy Program | Recent Annual Cost |
Online Recipient Disclosure |
Recipient Disclosure Score |
Job-Creation/ Job-Quality Score** |
Monitoring/ Enforcement Score*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
$13.8 million (2019)
|
43/100
|
70/100
|
70/100
|
|
|
$72.3 million (2019)
|
25/100
|
73/100
|
74/100
|
|
|
$48.4 million (2019)
|
64/100
|
90/100
|
85/100
|
|
|
not disclosed (2019)
|
0/100
|
|||
|
$15.0 million (2019)
|
* The score is derived from the Good Jobs First report Show Us the Subsidized Jobs (January 2014).
** The score is derived from the Good Jobs First report Money for Something (December 2011).
*** The score is derived from the Good Jobs First report Money-Back Guarantees for Taxpayers (January 2012).
Major Subsidy Deals
Ford Motor (2010)
In late 2009, amid reports that Ford Motor might cut back production at its 4,000-worker assembly plant in the Kansas City suburb of Claycomo, state officials began discussing subsidies to encourage the automaker to locate a successor product line there. Legislation was introduced and had passed the House but not the Senate as the legislative session was coming to an end. In May 2010 Gov. Jay Nixon, who had become an advocate of a customized tax break for Ford, called a special session to deal with the issue. The plan that emerged called for a maximum of $150 million in corporate income tax credits spread over ten years, with the money coming from the state income taxes paid by workers at the plant.
Skeptics pointed out that in 2003 the state had given Ford a generous package to keep open a plant in the St. Louis suburb of Hazelwood, only to see the company shut it down three years later. The legislation was held up by Republican State Senator Chuck Purgason, who protested what he called the “insanity” of having government pick winners or losers in the marketplace. The logjam was broken after Purgason, who was seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, was removed as chair of the committee considering the legislation. The bill, which also made tax credits available to Ford’s suppliers, was signed into law by Gov. Nixon in July 2010. Six months later, Ford announced that it would spend $400 million to retool and upgrade the Claycomo plant, and in October 2011 the company said it would add a new manufacturing line for the F-150 pickup truck. (Key sources)
Express Scripts (2005, 2009, 2011)
In 2005 the pharmacy benefit management company Express Scripts set off a bidding war when it announced it was considering various states for its new headquarters with an expected 1,200 jobs. But the company's main goal may have been to maximize retention subsidies for staying in the St. Louis area. The company turned down what were reported to be higher offers from other states after Missouri legislators, reportedly with an eye on the Express Scripts competition, created new corporate tax breaks through the Quality Jobs Act.
Express Scripts decided to locate its new headquarters on the campus of the University of Missouri at St. Louis as part of a subsidy package worth about $20 million – $12.5 million from the state, and more than $8 million from St. Louis County in property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions on construction materials. When Express Scripts decided in 2009 to build a new drug distribution center, it created another bidding contest. The Missouri Development Finance Board promptly awarded the project $3 million in Build Missouri bonds. That plus another $4 million in financial assistance apparently persuaded the company to put the facility in north St. Louis County. In November 2010 the company asked the county for another $63 million in bond financing.
In December 2010 Express Scripts was awarded a ten-year, $6.2 million property tax abatement, $3 million in Quality Jobs tax credits and $1 million in BUILD subsidies for an expansion of its headquarters complex. (Key sources)
Walmart in Missouri
- At least 23 Wal-Mart locations have received subsidies worth about $90.7 million in Missouri.
- At least 4 Wal-Mart locations in Missouri have challenged their property tax assessment.
- Many Wal-Mart workers are ineligible for health coverage from their employer or choose not to purchase what is available, because it is too expensive or too limited in scope. These workers often turn to taxpayer-funded health programs such as Medicaid. Missouri is among those states that have not disclosed data on the employers with the most workers or their dependents enrolled in such programs.
- Wal-Mart receives about $10.4 million a year from a state policy that allows retailers to keep a portion of the sales tax they collect from customers.
For more information, see the Missouri page of Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch.