Senator Carter talks end of 2025 session

With the last day of the Missouri legislative session in the rearview mirror, Missouri Senator Jill Carter joined the Morning NewsWatch to talk about 2025 in review.

According to Carter, the session was marked by improved productivity and community engagement and included significant wins in veteran support, education and foster care reforms, law enforcement and small business provisions. There were 67 of 2,600 bills passed, including utility accountability measures shaped by community input.

“I think that this legislative session was marked with quite a few wins for the Missouri citizens,” Carter said. “It was definitely one session that was way more productive and we had far less gridlock than previous years.”

Another topic that came up was what the future holds for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. Governor Mike Kehoe announced last week that he will be calling a special season to deal with the issue. 

“That (Kansas) offer expires in June of this year,” Carter said. “So, I think that where a lot of this pressure is coming from, the governor to call a special session basically puts forward a call and it functions much like a regular session. He decides the agenda, so only the lawmakers can respond to what he calls for. So, this isn’t going to be something that we can really go outside of the bounds of addressing one or two of the issues that he is calling us to meet to tackle. So, the legislation will go through committees. It’s much like a regular session. It goes through committees. It has debates, and it’s just more narrow and it goes faster.”

Senator Carter expressed her concern over the situation. The Chiefs and Royals are insanely popular in the state of Missouri, but does that mean the taxpayer should foot the bill for new stadiums?

“You’re looking at a $3 billion estimated cost for them to stay,” Carter said. “Kansas is chipping in the offer that’s on the table for Kansas is 70 percent of the cost of that $3 billion Missouri is offering somewhere, I’m hearing, 50 percent of the cost to rebuild the stadiums and then $50 million in tax credit. … We have got to have more tax reform if we’re going to do this. And I think that’s the only way that we get it across the finish line. There’s no way in good conscience that I can go and say, ‘yeah, we’re willing to give tax credits to a private business, but yet our, our state and the citizens of it don’t have any benefit coming to them.’”

Senator Carter also touched on the situation with the billing and customer service issues with Liberty Utilities. Ever since the utility company switched over to a new billing software, the issues with customer building began.

“They service 180,000 customers,” Carter said. “I had a conversation with the new CEO. They’re very cognizant of the fact that it is unacceptable. We all agree that the billing issues, the surprise charges and the poor communication is just unacceptable.”

Customers will have a chance for their voices to be heard once again with a public meeting planned for June 12 at MSSU in the Criminal Justice Center with the Public Service Commission and the Office of Public Counsel.