MISSOURI WATCH: LEGISLATORS SHOULD PROCEED CAREFULLY ON PAY HIKE, FAIR SUBSIDY

Memo to Critics:

Secretary of State Bekki Cook has had her critics, but anyone with knowledge of her office's Elections Division is conversant with the speed and efficiency of its employees. Compiling, with any degree of accuracy, voting reports from hundreds of officials is a major undertaking, yet within a very short time after polls are closed, the Elections people can provide remarkably accurate information, even about extremely close contests.

Within a couple of days after the general election, reporters had a neatly compiled package of returns, a far cry from post-election periods when I was a kid. In the Pendergast days in the 1930s, returns were purposefully withheld in the event some "recounting" was necessary, and in 1934, when Harry Truman first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kansas City's returns were not reported until Boss Tom was certain his candidate had won.

The Elections Division contains one of my favorite employees, Margaret Freeman, who is my ideal of the Perfect State Employee: courteous, dedicated, helpful and a walking encyclopedia of Missouri Elections. In fact, I seriously doubt if the state could hold an election without Margaret.

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Memo to Taxpayers:

The President pro tem of the Missouri Senate will write me an angry letter, but I wonder when those of us who bear the cost will demand an end to the Missouri State Fair. By the end of this fiscal year, the Fair will be three-quarters of a million tax bucks in the red for routine operations, and the figure is much higher when past shortfalls are considered.

Organized before television, interstate highways and a dwindling farm population, the Fair no doubt served a worthwhile purpose at one time, but now it is largely ignored by much of the state. It was designed to improve farmers knowledge of agriculture, but as one agronomist has noted, "I already know how to farm better than I am."

Politicians love the Fair because of the Missouri Country Ham Breakfast and the chance to schmooze with voters, but attendance is down, expenses are up and public interest is flagging. The money could be better spent on college scholarships, children's immunization programs and drug rehabilitation.

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Memo to Transportation Department:

Not a few Missourians are losing confidence in a state agency that once ranked near the top in public respect, with much of the loss attributable to the Department of Transportation's inability to project construction costs beyond the next month.

Just four years ago, the General Assembly imposed a 6-cent gas tax hike designed to fund projects that promised four-lane highways into all cities with 5,000 or more residents, 43,000 miles of road resurfacing and some 1,900 bridges replaced or repaired.

The reality is something quite different: 67 percent of all major resurfacing projects will remain undone; 74 percent of the bridge repairs will remain undone; 84 percent of the two-lane highway improvements will remain undone; 86 percent of the lanes to be added to clogged interstates will remain unbuilt; and 82 percent of the roads to be upgraded to divided highways will remain undone.

Departmental promises and performance seem to be unrelated, and quite frankly, no one seems to know why. Gov. Carnahan's Total Transportation Commission has been studying the state's needs, but chances are it won't offer the most obvious recommendation: Get an extremely important state agency back on track before Missourians lose all confidence in its ability to design, build and finance essential highways.

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Memo to State Legislators:

If the 163 members of the Missouri House and 34 members of the Missouri Senate don't want the state's voters to adopt immediate term limits on them, they had better speak up and reject the proposed pay increases just recommended by the newly established State Salary Commission.

It didn't take long for taxpayers to note a proposed $8,000 annual pay hike in just 18 months for lawmakers in addition to a more than doubled per diem expense allowance.

No one wants to see the men and women who enact our laws paid starvation wages, but their proposed salary hike is substantial, and not many taxpayers can look forward to such increases in such a short period of time. Under the amendment creating the new salary-setting procedure, both chambers must reject the recommendations or they automatically go into effect.

Political observers are going to have fun watching all that Macarena Maneuvering set to begin next January. Hoooohaaaah!

Jack Stapleton of Kennett is editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.