Missouri public sector employees are under-compensated, study says

A new report by the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute finds that Missouri’s public sector employees are less well compensated than their private sector counterparts.

Rutgers University’s Jeffrey Keefe authored the study. He found that Missouri public sector employees are more highly educated and receive more generous benefits, but their salaries are lower.

In all, public employees earn about 16% less than similarly educated private sector employees with comparable jobs.

“That number is larger for state employees than it is for local government employees. State employees earn 23.9% less, whereas local government employees earn 10.2% less than comparable private sector employees,” Keefe says.

Keefe attributed the high education level of Missouri public employees to the large number of teachers who are required to hold a college degree. He also believes that many low to mid skill public sector jobs have been privatized out of government.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Census: Missouri's Hispanic population grew by 79%

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KRCU) - New U.S. Census numbers indicate that Hispanics continue to be a rapidly growing segment of the population throughout Missouri.

While the overall rate of population change in Missouri was 4.8 percent, Hispanics increased at a rate of 79% since 2000.

Missouri’s population grew by about 390,000 since 2000. Of those new Missourians, nearly 94 thousand – or 25% - are Hispanics.

Madison County saw the greatest Hispanic rate of increase in Missouri, thought the sample size was small.

Cape Girardeau County’s Hispanic population grew by 136 percent. To put it in another context, Cape County added another 7000 people since 2000 … and 850 of them were Hispanic.

Roughly 3.5% percent of Missouri’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, up from 2% in 2000.

In Southeast Missouri, only Dunklin County has a higher percentage of Hispanics than the state average.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Speaker stresses sustainability in outdoor recreation

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KRCU) - If you are going to enjoy the outdoors, do so within respect.

That’s the message that conservation educator J.D. Tanner delivered Wednesday at the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Nature Center.

Tanner’s lecture covered the importance of environmental sustainability in outdoor recreation, and the impact that we have on our environment.

Tanner gave some eye opening facts about the impact that we have on the environment. He stated that a main concern facing our world is our society’s tendency to over-consume unnecessary things like plastic water bottles, and the unwillingness to recycle such objects.

"We now go and we buy water bottles, an item that is intended to be discarded immediately but we build it to last forever. So we go out, we buy and we buy, and things don’t make it back to recycling areas. We recycle 5% of plastic bottles, the whole world does," Tanner said.

J.D. Tanner is an influential advocate for environmental sustainability. He continues to inform people of our responsibility to protect the world we live in by teaching classes on such topics at San Juan Community College in Farmington, New Mexico.

According to Tanner, the best answer to getting people to act more responsibly in our environment is through education.

Daniel Rohr, KRCU

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Redhawks basketball advances to OVC quarterfinals; baseball team wins big

The Southeast Missouri State University men’s basketball team has been missing from the Ohio Valley Conference Championship Tournament since 2007.

They returned with a bang.

Wednesday night in Nashville, the seventh-seeded Redhawks dominated six seed Eastern Kentucky 65-49 to advance to the quarterfinal round. Marland Smith scored 20 points and collected 11 rebounds for the Redhawks. The Colonels were held 28% shooting from the field.

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The Redhawks baseball team finished a two-game sweep of Central Arkansas Wednesday afternoon. Brett Russell hit two doubles and belted a home run as Southeast won 10-3. The Redhawks improved to 7-2 with the win.

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McCaskill optimistic about compromise with the House

Despite a difference in priorities, Senator Claire McCaskill remains optimistic that the House and the Senate can reach an agreement on a budget.

The Democratic Senator from Missouri says that she wants to look beyond discretionary spending and tackle the entire budget.

"Cuts are important but I think it is, frankly, doesn’t make much sense to have all of the cuts come out of 12 or 15 percent of the budget. And that’s the part of the budget that educates our kids, builds our highways, and provides important assistance to state and local governments," McCaskill said.

McCaskill highlighted wasteful government spending. One egregious example is an agency that contracted a pricey public relations firm, even though the agency had its own federal PR staff on the government payroll.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Blackstone buys West Park Mall

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KRCU) - Cape Girardeau’s West Park Mall is changing hands.

The mall was recently purchased by U.S. based BRE Retail Holdings Inc., an affiliate of Blackstone Group LP.

West Park is one of 588 shopping malls owned by the Australian-based Centro Properties Group. Centro sold all of its mall holdings to Blackstone. The transaction means that approximately 96 million square feet of real estate will come under Blackstone's control, according to Centro’s website. The $9.4 billion purchase will covers debt amassed by Centro.

Blackstone Group LP is a global investment firm. The office administering this acquisition is based out of New York City.

Much of the money will go to reimbursing Centro’s stockholders.

Daniel Rohr, KRCU

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Chamber of Commerce opposes smoking initiative, supports waste water plant

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KRCU) - The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce board of directors weighed in on some key local ballot issues on Tuesday.

The Chamber chose to oppose the smoking ban initiative, saying that it was too restrictive. In a press release, board members concluded that the smoking initiative was a matter of individual rights.

The board members further believe that the initiative simply addresses the symptoms of the smoking problem instead of addressing the root problem. The Chamber suggests increasing the number of smoking cessation programs for employees.

Current legislation in Jefferson City would add the effects of second hand smoke as compensable under the Missouri Worker’s Compensation laws. Chamber president John Mehner urges businesses to consider this when making decisions about smoking in their establishments.

"I think that signals a changing environment in the acceptance, or lack of acceptance I should say, of smoking. Which is understandable," Mehner said. "Simply what the board is saying is that Chamber business members need to be aware of what those circumstances are and as they lay out their business plans for the future they to take those things into consideration."

The Chamber board supports both ballot issues related to Cape Girardeau'’s new water treatment plant. One ballot measure extends the quarter-cent sewer sales tax, while the other authorizes bonds for funding the plant. The board reasons that construction would continue regardless of the voting outcome, but passage of both issues would be less costly than voting them down.

The issues will appear on the April 5th ballot.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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