May 14

Legislature yet to tackle minimum wage issue

The Missouri Legislature wraps up its current session this week, tackling issues ranging from Medicaid to abortion. But for fire district officials across the state, the big issue is a minimum wage law that threatens to bust their budgets.

For three months, the Missouri House has sat on a measure aimed at addressing how the minimum wage law, approved by voters in November, affects overtime pay for firefighters.

Fire officials say a flaw in the law could cripple their districts, forcing them to pay overtime to firefighters who work more than 40 hours a week. Some districts say their payrolls could jump by 20 percent.

House leaders are digging in their heels, refusing to fix the overtime issue unless they can also water down other parts of the law. And they have only five days left before they adjourn for the year.

The political stalemate has people such as Rick Gans biting their nails.

Gans is board president of the Monarch Fire District, which covers much of western St. Louis County. He said the new law had already cost the district an extra $681,000 since January, with each week raising the tab by $45,000.

In November, voters overwhelmingly approved the minimum wage increase, boosting pay to $6.50 an hour and calling for annual adjustments for inflation.

But the new law is missing something found in previous versions: an exemption for fire and police departments from having to pay overtime to those who work more than 40 hours a week. Firefighters often work two or three 24-hour shifts a week, and police officers typically work several 10- to 12-hour shifts.

Gans said that if lawmakers didn’t take immediate action, his district would be forced to take extreme steps, such as reducing pay to compensate for the higher overtime.

“We’re still looking for legislative relief, but it’s not looking good,” he said.

Legislation to address the omission sailed through the Senate in February. But House leaders have sought to tack on other changes to the minimum wage law. Those include eliminating an annual cost-of-living increase for the minimum wage and scaling back the minimum wage for tipped employees, such as waiters, to $2.13 an hour from $3.25 an hour.

Both changes would appease restaurateurs and business groups who say they’re being unfairly penalized by the wage increase.

House Speaker Pro Tem Carl Bearden, R-St. Charles, said the House was unwilling to budge on the overtime issue without addressing the other concerns.

“If all three of those don’t get fixed, then none of them get fixed,” Bearden said in an interview Friday.

But Rep. Scott Muschany, who is handling the bill in the House, sees room for compromise. Muschany, R-Frontenac, said he was willing to negotiate on the size of a pay increase for tipped employees. And he said he might accept a smaller inflationary increase in the minimum wage.

But Gov. Matt Blunt has said the people have spoken and has called on House legislators to pass a bill addressing just the overtime pay fix.

With the legislative session ending Friday, the overtime legislation is at risk of being crowded out by more prominent issues.

Chief among them is a plan to overhaul the state’s $6 billion Medicaid program and replace it with a new MoHealthNet program. The House approved its version of a bill Friday, but now the Senate and House must iron out key differences in the legislation.

Also awaiting action the final week are bills focusing on failing public schools, sex education, abortion and self-defense.

The Legislature has already wrapped up work this year on several proposals favored by Blunt, including a plan to convert $350 million from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority into college construction projects.

Lawmakers also sent a bill to the governor Friday that would eliminate taxes on most Social Security benefits.