What Greene County senators Hough and Trent hope to accomplish in the statehouse in 2024

With the start of the 2024 legislative session quickly approaching, the Senators representing Greene County share their goals for the upcoming session, offering insight into their prefiled legislation.

Sen. Lincoln Hough, who serves as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for Missouri’s operating budget, overall hopes for a productive session where members of the General Assembly are understanding of the differing opinions from legislators representing rural and urban communities.

“Just because someone is different or has a different opinion on what their community needs or how it needs to come together, doesn't make them wrong. It doesn't make them mean,” Hough said. “I think we just need to be aware that we have six and a half million people in this state and not everyone's the same.”

Sen. Curtis Trent, who serves as Vice-Chair of the Insurance and Banking Committee, is optimistic about the goals that the General Assembly can accomplish to help Missourians.

“There are a lot of important issues that the state needs to deal with and my hope is always that we can get through as many of those as possible in a productive and cooperative way,” Trent said. “Some people kind of start out pessimistic about the session, and I tend to be optimistic until events prove I should be otherwise.”

Both Senators have prefiled legislation pertaining to a variety of issues facing the state, including potential taxation on video streaming services, federal reimbursement for hospitals and nursing homes, and accountability and transparency standards for local school districts.

Sen. Lincoln Hough turns focus to federal healthcare reimbursements, state budget

Hough, who is starting his sixth year in the Missouri Senate, has prefiled six bills for the 2024 legislative session, which focus on topics such as federal reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes, collecting delinquent property taxes and public universities conferring doctorate and professional degrees.

A recurring task for state legislators is extending the sunset on the Federal Reimbursement Allowance, which ensures matching funds are received from the federal government for health care services, thus lessening the state funding burden of Missouri’s Medicaid program.

“It's not a sexy issue, but it's a $4 billion issue in federal reimbursements to hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies for low income seniors, things like that,” Hough said.

It is an essential issue that must receive attention from lawmakers for the federal government to continue providing matching funds, which Hough feels makes it an ideal target for tacking on unrelated amendments.

“It's usually a political football,” Hough said. “Everything is political anymore, it seems like but anytime folks know that we have to get something done, they try to attach things to it and they may or may not fit.”

But overall, it is something that must be approved, lest lawmakers are left to scramble to find funds to make up the difference.

“Quite frankly, I don't want to try to figure out how to fill a $4 billion hole in our state budget if we don't get that done,” Hough said.

Another bill prefiled by Hough seeks to allow more public universities in Missouri to offer research doctorates, professional degrees and degrees in engineering and health related professions. Currently, the University of Missouri is the only public university that can offer degrees in certain fields.

Legislation aimed at revising the collection of delinquent personal property taxes is also among the bills prefiled by Hough. While other state senators have prefiled bills looking to abolish the tax completely, Hough hopes his legislation will offer another perspective on the topic.

“Our schools are funded by property taxes, our libraries and our communities are funded largely by property taxes,” Hough said. “So just saying we're going to abolish it would leave a gaping hole in my opinion in a lot of services that people depend on.”

Hough feels that most of his attention will be on ensuring that the state passes a balanced budget that will fund the necessary programs and improvements needed by the state, especially in areas such as infrastructure and education. Last year, the state’s budget was nearly $52 billion, the biggest in Missouri history.

He attributes the size of last years budget to two factors – the abundance of federal money flowing into state coffers and personal accounts as a result of the pandemic, and the sales and income tax growth, which Hough attributes to higher wages earned by Missouri taxpayers.

“When folks get checks from the federal government, not everyone just buries it in a hole in their backyard,” Hough said. “They spend it,  they invest in their homes and they invest in their kids and they invest in their automobiles. All those things drive those higher returns to the state.”

More: Greene County lawmakers had much to be thankful for from 2023 legislative session

Sen. Curtis Trent hopes to block taxes on streaming services, enhance transparency in education

As Trent enters the second year of his first state Senate term, he’s prefiled 27 bills touching on a variety of topics, including blocking taxation on streaming services, increasing transparency in educational performance and leveling the playing field for taxes on public and private utilities.

Although taxing video streaming services, like Netflix or Hulu, is generally prohibited, one lawsuit originating in East St. Louis, Illinois sought to impose a tax on streaming services, since their delivery depended on the use of cable either buried underground or hung from power lines. Many similar lawsuits have been attempted in other states.

“If you had three or four streaming services, it would be applied three or four different times to your bill,” Trent said.

Trent’s legislation would block such attempted taxation, if the issue were to arise in Missouri.

“This would just clarify that and sort of cut that loophole off before it could get started,” Trent said.

Another bill from Trent focuses on reworking some of the accountability standards and transparency in local school districts.

“It would require a more transparent scorecard for parents to be able to evaluate their school's performance,” Trent said. “It sets up incentives to reward schools for improving, and it creates a new emphasis on student growth, which is an important metric, I think, because it gives a more accurate metric of how schools are doing.”

Trent hopes that this legislation will reflect the progress that students are making, and highlight areas where their education could be improved.

“If you have a low performing student when they start at a school, and they have a tremendous amount of growth, even if they're still behind, I think that's an important thing to know that they're improving and that the school is working to improve their performance,” Trent said.

“Conversely, if you had a high performing student when they started school, and they continue to perform high but they were not really growing at a very rapid rate, I think you'd be concerned that there's no value added to their time in the classroom,” he said.

A third bill among the 27 filed by Trent focuses on repealing taxes on private utilities, which public utilities are not subject to. He intends for this legislation to even the playing field, and ease the unfair tax burden on some Missourians.

“It's an uneven playing field right now, because public utilities don't pay that tax and private utilities do,” Trent said. “So if you're on a private utility, you basically have this hidden tax in your electric bill every month.”

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Senators Lincoln Hough, Curtis Trent share 2024 legislative priorities