St. Charles Regional & O’Fallon Chambers form Policy Coalition to Identify St. Charles County Legislative Priorities

Why It Matters

By working together, the St. Charles Regional Chamber and the O’Fallon Chamber of Commerce & Industries are presenting countywide legislative priorities that give businesses a stronger, unified voice in Jefferson City.

A joint approach:

• Avoids fragmented advocacy that can dilute our impact.

• Ensures consistency across the county on issues like education, workforce, and infrastructure.

• Demonstrates to legislators that St. Charles County is aligned on key economic and community priorities, making it harder for state decision-makers to ignore our needs.

• Provides clear talking points for members to share with peers, policymakers, and the community.

2026 Legislative Priorities

Attainable Housing

• Support the Missouri Housing Trust Fund (MHTF) with increased, sustainable funding through boosting the recording-fee allocation from real estate transactions. This would increase the current $3 per-deed fee to a minimum of $12, with the intention of expanding the eligible use of funds. Strengthening the MHTF funding is essential to addressing Missouri’s growing housing needs, supporting workforce stability, and enabling employers to attract and retain employees amid rising housing costs.
  • The $3 per-deed fee has remained flat since 1994.
  • Current collection totals $3-4 million annually.
  • Increasing to $12 is estimated to raise more than an additional $7 million per year.

Education

• Oppose any Open Enrollment policy that would allocate only the State Adequacy Target ($7,145 per student - FY2026) to receiving districts while the average per-student cost in St. Charles County is approximately $15,400, creating a shortfall of over $8,000 per student. Such a funding gap would shift significant educational costs onto local school districts and taxpayers, resulting in an unfunded mandate that undermines fiscal stability.
  • Open enrollment often triggers increased transportation expenses, administrative burdens, and disparities in special education funding.
  • Open enrollment would result in schools needing to hold more money in reserve to account for fluctuating enrollment, therefore leading to stagnant teacher salaries and delayed investments in improvements and other educational needs.
  • Any open enrollment legislation should be voluntary for the receiving districts.
  • Average cost per-student in Missouri is approximately $13,900.

Small Business / Economic Development

• Support the principle that any future changes to property tax must be accompanied by a reliable, sustainable alternative funding source to ensure continued full and equitable funding to all essential services (schools, fire districts, libraries, public safety agencies and more). Ongoing reductions in these entities’ revenues jeopardize their ability to provide safe classrooms, quick emergency responses, and accessible community resources.
  • As St. Charles County voters prepare to go to the polls in April 2026, per SB 3, we stand in strong support of the public entities and preserving their funding and the resources they need to continue serving our residents effectively.
• Oppose the proposed constitutional amendment that would impose statewide paid sick leave, while authorizing local governments to enact even higher requirements because it is profoundly costly and can result in reduced services to customers, hiring freezes, and increased prices. When the 2024 Prop A was first enacted as a statute, 37% of business leaders surveyed said it discouraged them from hiring new employees. Moreover, allowing local government to layer additional mandates intensifies cost and complexity.

Transportation / Infrastructure

• Support continued, sustainable funding for MoDOT to invest in one of our State’s greatest economic assets, our roads, highways, and interstates. Specifically long-term funding to the widening of Highway N, maintaining our bridges, new overpasses to improve crossover safety, and renewed investment in Highway K, Highway 79, Highway 61 (to Troy) and 364. Reliable transportation infrastructure drives business growth, workforce mobility, and regional competitiveness.
• Support legislation and funding that provides public transportation opportunities in St. Charles County. Partnerships can include Ride STC (St. Charles City Transit), federal FTA programs, Missouri Elderly & Handicapped Transportation Assistance Program, Missouri Transportation Finance Corporation, DDRB, Missouri Department of Mental Health, Missouri Development Disability Council, existing cross-community transportation options, Employer and Nonprofit contributions.

Workforce

• Support targeted childcare tax credits to reduce out-of-pocket childcare costs for Missouri families. These measures not only ease financial burdens on working parents but also help address the workforce shortage by allowing more people to reenter or stay in the workforce.
  • Similar to HB 269 / SB 455 / SB 742
  • Authorizes a tax credit in an amount equal to 30% of qualified childcare expenditures.
• Expand Missouri’s A+ Scholarship Program to include students pursuing industry-recognized certifications that are non-associate degree bearing. Aligning the program with industry certifications will empower students with career-ready skills, help fill critical workforce gaps, and enhance Missouri’s economic prosperity.
• Support Clean Slate Missouri as a meaningful step toward expanding the workforce by helping individuals with low-level, non-violent criminal records clear eligible offenses, allowing them to access better job opportunities and rejoin the workforce. This initiative would help an estimated 500,000 Missourians who have served their time and remained law-abiding regain access to employment, housing, and educational opportunities.
  • Clean Slate legislation simplifies this by making expungement automatic for qualifying offenses.
  • Research shows that this improves employment, helps individuals earn higher wages, reduces recidivism, and reduces dependence on public assistance.
  • For employers, this expands the talent pool.

Missouri Chamber Federation

The Missouri Chamber Federation is a partnership of nearly 200 local chambers of commerce working alongside the Missouri Chamber of Commerce & Industry. This alliance strengthens the collective voice of business in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., while ensuring that local needs remain a priority. By coordinating on key issues, the Federation combines grassroots engagement with statewide advocacy to advance policies that support economic growth and job creation.

As a proud member of the Missouri Chamber Federation, the St. Charles Regional Chamber helps ensure that the interests of St. Charles County employers are represented at the state and federal levels. Through this collaboration, our Chamber connects local priorities to a broader pro-business vision for Missouri’s future, amplifying the impact of our advocacy and strengthening opportunities for the businesses we serve.

2026 Legislative Priorities

• Childcare is a pivotal statewide workforce and economic development issue. Parents’ entry or re-entry into the workforce is often hindered by childcare provider shortages. Missouri should increase the accessibility, availability, and affordability of high-quality childcare.
• We support a broad-spectrum approach to upskilling and right-skilling our state’s workforce to address labor shortages and help businesses’ growth. This includes adequately funding our existing workforce development programs, like Fast Track, MoExcels Workforce Initiative, Missouri One Start Upskill Credential Training Program, and other job training programs. It is also important to advocate for new policies that are responsive and flexible to businesses’ needs to recruit and retain skilled workers today while anticipating employment needs of the future. Additionally, we support increasing resources for programs that assist justice-involved individuals who are seeking to re-enter the workforce.
• We strongly support a system of free enterprise and oppose efforts by the government to intervene in business decisions. The government should let businesses decide how to run its own workplace(s). We oppose out-of-state interests and anti-business entities who use the ballot initiative process to create burdensome business mandates.
• A strong education system is key to Missouri’s long-term economic strength and competitiveness. We support efforts to adequately fund all levels of education. This includes early childhood education, K-12, higher education, apprenticeships, and short-term post-secondary training programs.
• Economic development drives growth, creates new job opportunities, and facilitates an improved quality of life. Missouri should embrace an all-of-the-above approach in utilizing and offering innovative economic development tools and tax incentives to help its local communities and businesses thrive. We advocate for less burdensome regulations, easy-to-understand agency resources, fiscal responsibility from the state government, and similar initiatives to help retain and support existing businesses.We support continued statewide efforts to improve access to broadband, as it is vital for Missouri’s economic growth. 
• Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Therefore, Missouri should increase access to funding and other resources for small businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs to help them confidently start, grow, or expand. Local communities should have a voice when new statewide regulations are being considered, as the interests of Missouri’s diverse small business community are a priority for localities.
• Business owners recognize that accessible and affordable housing options and public transit resources are crucial to attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. We support growing access to affordable housing and transit options through increased state appropriations for key housing and community development programs as well as other state and federal incentive programs for the creation of affordable housing and transit.
• State investment in tourism supports economic growth, job creation, and tax revenue. We support increasing funding of tourism promotion and other tourism-related programs, as it would positively impact many communities and have a positive ripple effect across the entire state.
• We support comprehensive efforts to maximize Missouri’s position as an emerging technology and advanced manufacturing hub. By enacting innovative policies, increasing investment, and training our workforce for high-tech jobs, our state can grow its global tech, innovation, and manufacturing footprint. Supporting a friendly regulatory environment for e-commerce is another essential part of creating a thriving technology environment in Missouri as the world moves into the digital age. Supporting Missouri businesses’ ability to buy, sell, or trade goods and services efficiently, free of burdensome government regulations, not only supports growth of Missouri’s business community, but also demonstrates the state’s commitment to embracing the digital age and leading from the front as a technology hub. We also support fostering an AI-friendly and automation-friendly regulatory environment in the state to help fill in the gaps where skilled workers may be scarce.
• We support civil justice reforms that discourage frivolous lawsuits which burden Missouri’s judicial system and harm the state’s business climate. We advocate for legislation that protects businesses from costly, unfounded legal claims by strengthening standards for filing civil suits and we support policies that reduce legal uncertainty and ensure fair, efficient resolution of disputes to foster a more competitive economic environment.