SALARIES, TAX CUTS TOP MISSOURI LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

Salaries and tax cuts will be on the minds of Missouri lawmakers when the 1997 session convenes Jan. 8.

Area lawmakers expect the General Assembly to eliminate the 3-cent state sales tax on food and reject a state commission's proposal to raise their salaries.

Area lawmakers say the proposed pay hikes are unwarranted, but that they should be paid more for expenses in the state capital.

There is no shortage of legislative ideas. With the start of the session only weeks away, lawmakers have pre-filed 158 bills in the Missouri Senate and 139 in the House.

Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan now supports the proposed food-tax cut, which Republicans pushed for last year.

"The governor stole it like he does everything else," said state Rep. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau.

Missouri is one of 19 states that has a sales tax on groceries.

State Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, said the legislature has to cut taxes because Missouri has exceeded the revenue limits of the state constitution's Hancock Amendment.

Kasten agreed. "We have broken the law for two years now."

The state already is faced with refunding money to taxpayers. Kinder said the refund is driving the tax cut effort.

Even with a tax cut, the state will have to refund some $147 million to taxpayers.

The refund currently is held up in court by a lawsuit. A judge issued a temporary restraining order earlier this year after the Missouri Association of Social Welfare filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of the refund.

State Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson, said he hopes the legislature will give Missouri families even more tax relief by raising the income-tax dependency exemption.

Taxpayers deserve a break as the state budget continues to grow, Schwab said.

Schwab said the state already has a built-in tax increase of close to $1 billion a year from a growing economy.

A state salary commission has recommended pay raises that would increase the pay for state Senate and House members by 30 percent over the next two years. The salary would climb from $26,803 to $35,000 by July 1998.

The commission also wants pay hikes for judges and the lieutenant governor.

But state Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, said he expects lawmakers will reject the pay hikes.

The entire pay plan takes effect unless lawmakers reject it by Feb. 1.

Kinder said legislators have to act within the first three weeks of the session or the plan goes into effect July 1.

Lawmakers want to be paid more for food and lodging expenses in the state capital.

The pay commission wants the state to pay lawmakers $86 a day for expenses and tie it to the federal per diem rate, which is updated annually.

State lawmakers currently receive $35 a day for food and lodging, which doesn't begin to cover the costs, area legislators said.

Lawmakers can't amend the pay plan, but they could let it take effect and then scale it back by slashing appropriations, said Missouri Senate spokesman Mark Hughes.

"That is just one idea that is being kicked around," said Hughes, who directs the Senate's communications office.

Thomason again will introduce legislation to toughen penalties for motorists who drive without liability insurance.

He has introduced similar legislation each of the past five years. The measure has had widespread support in the House but hasn't made it through the Senate.

This time, he hopes it will be different. "I have lined up quite a bit of support in the Senate," he said.

Other Southeast Missouri lawmakers back Thomason's measure.

Kinder said Republican and Democratic lawmakers will push for legislation that would lead to the creation of charter schools. Such schools would be free of many of the government regulations that hamper education today, he said.

Area lawmakers said other issues that will come before the General Assembly in 1997 include managed care, welfare reform and efforts to prevent plaintiffs in civil cases from venue shopping to get their cases heard where juries award the most money.