By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph state representative who serves on the House Budget Committee says the legislature missed an opportunity to help shore up state finances hit hard by the impact COVID-19 restrictions had on state revenue.
Rep. Brenda Shields says lawmakers needed to enact legislation to require online retailers to collect the state sales tax, authorized by the U.S. Supreme Court South Dakota versus Wayfair ruling. Shields says local governments would benefit as well.
“Our local municipalities are hurting, because people were shopping online and they weren’t going to their local stores and I think our local stores were hurting as well, because people were using the Internet,” Shields tells St. Joseph Post. “I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to get anything resolved around Wayfair. I think we’ll come back in a special session to do some work around Wayfair.”
Lawmakers returned to the state Capitol in time to approve a drastically altered state budget, cutting $700 million from the $35 billion state spending blueprint for the next fiscal year.
Shields says lawmakers did a lot in the little time they actually had in Jefferson City this year, but the shortened session meant some state needs went unmet.
Shields points out no education reform bills passed this year.
“I find that discouraging and hopefully next year we can go back and we can continue to improve on education in our state,” Shields says.
The legislative session lost six weeks due to COVID-19 restrictions imposed at the state Capitol.
Shields did succeed in passing her child care welfare bill which cleans up some statute language.
“We’re also able to standardize our background checks for childcare workers so now whether to work at a licensed, a licensed-exempt, or a registered child care facility that you can easily move in between those.”
Shields adds Missourians will save money, because the changes will reduce the number of background checks required.