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maryville Daily
Volume 104
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Number 87
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Tuesday, May 6, 2014
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Online at:
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PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO • 75¢
Judge rules for county in CMC suit By TONY BROWN News editor
DAILY FORUM PHOTOS BY TONY BROWN
Transportation Fair
Clockwise from left: Isabel Green and Shawn Mahoney climb down from the cab of a Case I-H Magnum 315 tractor leased by Derr Equipment in Savannah to the R.T. Wright University Farm. Top left: Noah Derr and Elena Leonard, both age 6, take a ride in a KCP&L lift bucket Friday afternoon during the Horace Mann Laboratory School’s kindergarten transportation fair at Northwest Missouri State University. Top right: Horace Mann kindergartner Cain Bowles tries a fire helmet on for size while sitting behind the wheel of Maryville Public Safety’s new pumper truck. Looking on is MPS fire division supervisor Phil Rickabaugh. Above: Sgt. Rick Smail of Maryville Public Safety demonstrates a throwable flotation rescue device to Horace Mann kindergartners Sunxi Lugo, left, and Nesean Hoilett. The boys are shown inside the boat Smail uses to patrol Mozingo Lake.
Kindergartners hitting the road Photos TONY BROWN News editor
Sixteen kindergartners from teacher Nancy Farlow’s class at Horace Mann Laboratory School at Northwest Missouri
State University participated in a transportation fair Friday afternoon featuring a variety of service and first-responder vehicles from local businesses and agencies. Farlow said the outing was
the culmination of a study unit on travel and transportation that the children have been working on for the past several days. Participants bringing ve-
hicles to the fair included the U.S. Army National Guard, KCP&L, the R.T. Wright University Farm, Maryville Public Safety and the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Presiding Circuit Court Judge Roger Prokes on Monday issued a default judgment on behalf of Nodaway County, which is seeking to collect more than $350,000 in back personal property taxes from Carbolytic Materials Company, a bankrupt corporation that opened a factory in Maryville in 2009. The factory and its contents, designed to recover fuel oil, gas and the manufacturing agent carbon black from scrap automotive tires, were sold at auction April 30 for $3 million to Advanced Processes Inc. of Ambridge, Pa. Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rice said Monday that county officials have been seeking to negotiate a settlement with Advantage Capital Partners of St. Louis, the finance company that foreclosed on the equipment and fixtures inside the plant on which the taxes are owed. Until a deal is reached, however, Nodaway is continuing efforts to collect payment from CMC’s original owners, a group of St. Louis investors led by Ray Riek, the former director of research for Monsanto Co.’s rubber chemicals division. CMC failed to respond to Rice’s request for a default judgment. Nor did company representatives or legal counsel representing the defunct firm appear in court. Rice said CMC’s failure to respond, and Prokes decision, means Nodaway County can now initiate collection efforts without having to go to trial. According to court documents, CMC owes the county $349,391 in back personal property taxes plus nearly $35,000 in attorneys’ fees. Penalties, fees and interest will likely add to that total. Rice said the attorneys’ fees, if collected, will be deposited in the Nodaway County general revenue fund and will not directly benefit either the prosecuting attorney’s office or Rice personally. The prosecutor said the judgment allows the county to proceed with engaging a collection agency, issuing garnishments and taking other steps to recover “whatever remains of this judgment after collecting what we can from the secured creditors of the private property that sold at auction last week.” It is doubtful if any of the tax debt can be collected from Riek or the other investors personally, since the obligation was incurred by the CMC corporation, meaning that non-corporate assets belonging to indiSee COUNTY Page 3
Economy, not vote, will determine tax cut Override not final By DAVID A. LIEB
The Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri legislators plan to vote this week on whether to override a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon and enact a law cutting state income taxes for individuals and many business owners. But their vote won’t be the last factor in determining whether the tax cuts actually occur. That ultimately
will depend on the economy — or, more specifically, on the amount of taxes paid to the state. The legislation would phase in the tax cuts starting in 2017, so long as state revenues grew by at least $150 million over their high mark from the previous three years. Each additional incremental tax cut would depend on that same formula. Had that criterion been in place during the past
decade, the tax cut would have occurred in half of the years. Had it been in place over roughly the past four decades, the tax cut would have been triggered in 20 years, but not in 16, according to an Associated Press analysis of historical state revenue figures. In short, history would suggest that the tax cut is no sure thing. That’s fine for Republican supporters of the legislation. In fact, they contend the uncertainty of the tax cut is one of its best-selling points. Because of the $150 mil-
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lion revenue trigger, “there are tons of protections in there for core levels of budgets,” said Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit, who sponsored the legislation. “This bill is a realistic way to cut taxes without hurting current levels of funding.” Yet Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon calls the legislation “an ill-conceived, fiscally irresponsible experiment.” “There are no protections for public education in this bill,” Nixon said at a Capitol news conference when he vetoed the bill Thursday. He added: “These triggers
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are losers.” Because of how the bill is written, Nixon says it’s possible that a tax cut could occur even in the midst of a recession. In fact, that would have been the case during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. Missouri revenues grew by $287 million during the fiscal year that ended in June 2008. That would have triggered a tax cut for the 2009 calendar year. But the full impact of that tax cut would not have been felt until those 2009 tax returns were due on April 15, 2010.
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That means the tax cut would have occurred as state revenues were plummeting. In 2009, Missouri revenues fell $553 million. They dropped an additional $676 million in 2010, bottoming out at a little under $6.8 billion. “Had this bill been in effect, steep cuts to education and vital public services would have been unavoidable, as the tax cuts would have continued reducing revenue regardless of objective economic conditions,” Nixon wrote in a veto message to state lawmakers.
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