CAPE, JACKSON FEE OFFICES TO UNIVERSITY

The Cape Girardeau and Jackson chambers of commerce, which for 12 years have been agents for the Missouri Department of Revenue license fee offices in their respective cities, no longer will serve as agents.

Late Wednesday Gov. Mel Carnahan announced that the fee offices in both cities would be awarded to the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation, which will take them over during the next few weeks.

"I am confident that awarding these fee offices to the Southeast Foundation will benefit all of Southeastern Missouri," Carnahan said in announcing the change. "The fund-raising efforts of the Southeast Foundation are commendable and praiseworthy. I am pleased that this organization will now have the opportunity to further be involved with supporting the Southeast region."

There are approximately 165 license fee offices in the state. Their managers serve at the pleasure of the governor.

In 1981, Gov. Christopher Bond made the two chambers among the first organizations to become fee office agents in the state. About 30 of the offices have non-profit or charitable organizations as agents.

Officials of the Cape and Jackson chambers expressed disappointment. Members of both groups had lobbied Carnahan to let them keep the offices, as Gov. John Ashcroft had done following his elections in 1984 and 1988.

Chris Sifford, communications director for the governor, said Carnahan had appointed Norma Wildman of Cape Girardeau to manage both offices for the Foundation. She will make decisions concerning personnel in the offices and will be attending a training session for fee agents conducted by the Department of Revenue this month in Jefferson City.

Wildman works as a cashier at Capital Bank in Cape Girardeau. She is the wife of Walt Wildman, executive director of the Cape Regional Commerce and Growth Association, who served on Carnahan's transition team. He is a longtime friend of the governor.

The Cape Girardeau chamber board held a special meeting late Wednesday when it became apparent they were going to lose the fee office in Cape Girardeau.

John Mehner, a member of the board who will take over as president of the Chamber next year when Bob Hendrix retires, read a brief statement from the board after the meeting.

The statement said: "The board of directors of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce expressed surprise and disappointment in learning the governor's decision to terminate the license bureau management by both the Cape Girardeau and Jackson chambers of commerce.

"The approximately $40,000 annual proceeds from the Cape bureau have been used to promote economic and industrial development in our area for the past 12 years."

Mehner declined to make further comment or to say how the chamber learned of the governor's decision.

Steve Popp, past president of the board of directors of the Jackson chamber, said he was disappointed by the news and believed the action would leave the chamber in a financial bind.

"Obviously I'm disappointed," said Popp. "I thought we worked hard and made a good case for our position."

Jackson Mayor Paul Sander, who serves on the chamber board, said he is unhappy with the decision and believes that will be the consensus of citizens of Jackson. But Sander acknowledged the governor has full authority to appoint anyone he wants to run the offices.

Said Sander: "From the city of Jackson and the chamber standpoint, it is an unfortunate situation for the chamber in Jackson to be put into. I realize it is strictly a political appointment and up to Gov. Carnahan to do as he sees fit on the matter. I don't particularly agree on the appointment because this has been the backbone of our chamber. It will drastically affect how we operate our chamber and the funds we have to promote the chamber and the city of Jackson."

Since the chamber has had the fee office, Sander said a full-time office has been opened and a full-time executive secretary has been hired. But the status of the office and staff will have to be re-evaluated immediately, and could be in jeopardy, said Sander.

"What has become an aggressive, full-time office through the work of Patty Reisenbichler as executive secretary will all have to be reviewed now because of financial ramifications," he said.

Carnahan apparently tentatively offered the fee offices to the Foundation earlier this summer and the group's executive committee voted unanimously to accept the offer if it was made. On Aug. 6, during a closed session, the university's board of regents concurred with the committee's decision.

In a joint statement released Wednesday afternoon, University President Kala Stroup and Foundation Executive Director Robert W. Foster said they were pleased to have received the appointment from Carnahan.

"The fees generated by the handling of license applications will provide some `gift income' over the next few years to the University Foundation, as that organization continues to raise funds for scholarships, equipment, buildings, Small Business Development Center operations, economic development programs, and other needs of the university which cannot be met by state appropriations and student fees," the statement said.

Foster and Stroup also made it clear in the statement that the Foundation did not attempt to take the offices away from the chambers.

They said: "It is important that our friends in the chambers of commerce in Cape Girardeau and Jackson understand that the University Foundation would not have considered assuming responsibility for these fee offices had there ever been the most remote chance that the Department of Revenue's present relationship with the chambers would be continued by the Carnahan administration."

The governor's communications director said there was nothing the chambers did in operating the offices that led Carnahan to replace them as fee agents.

"It was just that the governor felt the Foundation was deserving," said Sifford. "We thought the Foundation had done outstanding work over the years. They have raised money for scholarships, outreach to small businesses, helped renovate university buildings, and made donations to the Bootheel Center at Malden. The governor felt they had done outstanding work and wanted to help them continue the work."

Carnahan said the Foundation had worked with state agencies in the past that led to several state facilities on campus.

Although the two offices have been awarded to the Foundation and will be managed by Wildman, Sifford said he expects facilities in both cities to remain open.

Stroup and Foster maintained the University Foundation "has had a long history of responsible action and public service in support of state goals. The Foundation was the principal facilitator, and in effect, the state's agent on two projects which have been of enormous benefit to the public in Southeast Missouri the Division of Youth Services Group Home and the Division of Mental Health Cottonwood Treatment Center. We are pleased that the Foundation's association with the state will be continued in this new direction."

The fee offices will likely generate at least $50,000 a year for the Foundation.

This is the second education organization awarded a fee office. In June Carnahan announced that the Lebanon Education Foundation would manage the office there.