By Bruce Wallace

A few notes from the past few weeks: If you missed the Family of Christ Lutheran Church fish fry, you missed one outstanding meal. Not only was the fish, fries and slaw the best, they had the best help clearing plates I’ve seen in a few years. A young man tentatively approached Rick Gowdy and myself and asked, “YOU DONE?!” We asked the young man – maybe six years old – who his boss was as we wanted to compliment his excellent service. “He’s my dad, he’s outside cooking,” he said as he hurried off.

Perfect cuteness at the end of a perfect meal. Spring break started today, which means a number of little ones will be out running around – it’s a good time to slow down and watch for those darting into the street. The Jefferson City newspaper reported last week that its city council there made changes in its code which will allow ride sharing companies such as Uber or Lyft to begin operating in town. The new regulation negates the sorely out-dated “certificate of need” requirement, which for decades allowed city officials across Missouri to pick and choose what businesses were allowed to start up in their community. However, don’t expect ride-sharing to hit Jeff City too soon. The city has said it will wait until the wheels of state government grind oh-so-slowly to devise new regulations.

Hmmm….before Uber there was a bulletin board in the student union where you could post a need for a ride. Those were the good ‘ol days when we didn’t need cell phones or the government providing regulations to…..regulate us. Funny how the Republican party and its elected officials used to be the party of “less government,” huh?

Superintendent Chris Felmlee is between a rock and a hard spot. Felmlee knows that Southern Boone residents pride themselves on low teacher-to-pupils numbers. But those numbers have been out of balance the past couple of years and the voters agreed to build more classrooms. More classrooms mean more teachers. However, more teachers means more payroll and Felmlee’s request for more than a half-million dollars in new salaries was an eye-opener at last week’s school board meeting.

Felmlee would love nothing more than to see more homes sold in the district and more revenue to the district, however, he also has to continue to provide excellent education in order for SoBoCo to continue to be a desirable district. Over the past two decades the school board has budgeted an 18-20% revenue surplus, which could be utilized in case of emergencies.

In the coming year, with a state government threatening to cut any state budget to the bone, the SoBoCo district could be budgeting a 15% revenue surplus – and/or eating into their reserves with a deficit budget. Time will tell how this story of numbers plays out…..

One reason the state needs to cut budgets?

Seems as though the state made a $100 million goof last year on something called Senate Bill 19, which allowed technology and service companies the right to count only sales to Missouri customers as taxable income. Sales to out-of-state customers would not count. And sales tax for the State in 2016 were down $155 million. Elected officials already are saying they had “bad information” about SB 19. Ya’ think? State Auditor Nicole Galloway recently said she’s going to review the impact of proposed legislation. That should be the most interesting reading out of Jeff City since Galloway took a look at University of Missouri bonuses for administrators.