State commission stops in Cape, listens to speakers in favor of keeping tax credits

More than a dozen speakers asked the state to continue offering tax incentives for social services, low-income housing and historic preservation during the Missouri Tax Credit Review Commission's meeting Monday at the River Campus.

The review commission was appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon in July to examine the state's 61 tax credit programs and make recommendations on which programs to cut or eliminate in light of the state's declining revenue.

Commission co-chair Chuck Gross, a former state senator, said Monday's hearing in Cape Girardeau drew the largest crowd he's seen so far. The commission's fifth hearing is today in St. Louis.

Sen. Jason Crowell urged the commission to make Missouri's tax credit programs part of the legislature's budget appropriations process. Tax credits should be weighed against other state spending for programs like education and Medicaid, he said.

"The only rational basis to divvy out limited resources to unlimited needs is an appropriations process where everyone has to compete against everyone else and make their case," Crowell said.

Molly Strickland, executive director of Lutheran Family and Children's Services, and Jennifer Mullix, executive director of Discovery Playhouse Children's Museum, spoke about the importance of Neighborhood Assistance Program tax credits used by their organizations. NAP credits are issued to people who make qualified contributions to not-for-profit organizations.

Strickland said Lutheran Family and Children's Services, which provides assistance for women in crisis pregnancy situations, saves the state money when its clients give birth to healthy babies.

"Our costs are about $3,500 per client and served 90 clients in Southeast Missouri last year. It costs more than $2,500 a day at the hospital for a baby born needing extended medical care," Strickland said.

Commission co-chair Steven Stogel, a St. Louis lawyer and former developer, said the group has struggled with how to measure the impact of social services.

"There are economic models for job creation, but it is very hard to do the intangible when you're talking about human capital," he said.

Job creation resulting from tax credits was the focus of most of the testimony Monday.

Local developer Chad Hartle, who recently renovated Schultz School into a senior citizen apartment complex, spoke in support of historic preservation and affordable housing tax credit programs. He said his affordable housing projects over the past 20 years have created jobs, reduced crime in the neighborhoods where they're located and provided affordable housing for hundreds of residents.

"The risks are too high to develop affordable housing projects in rural areas without state tax credits," Hartle said. "I wouldn't get the federal dollars if it wasn't for the state credits."

Several others involved in the $14 million project, including John N. Thompson of First Midwest Bank, Bill Bonney of Dutch Enterprises and Nathan Leoni of Double Diamond Construction, all attested to the jobs saved by the Schultz renovation.

"We got our men involved in this project at a period of time when there was not work. Having to tell someone 'We don't have work for you' and knowing they have to go home and tell their wife they don't have a job ... it's awful. It will keep you up at night," Bonney said.

Others who spoke in favor of tax credits to provide affordable housing to low-income people were T. Robin Cole, past president and development committee chair for Cape Area Habitat for Humanity, and Bill Bunch, executive director of the East Missouri Action Agency.

Habitat invested $447,691 of tax credits to build and sell homes that appraised for more than $1.5 million, Cole said.

Scott House and Richard Withers of the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Committee and Moe Sandfort of Old Town Cape also spoke in favor of historic preservation tax credits.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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