Government

Across the country, software geeks are building multi-platform applications to do all sorts of things. Among them, apps to encourage civic engagement and help cities run more efficiently.

Code for America, a non-profit out of San Francisco, is out front in this effort. The organization has fellows working in nine cities nationwide.  They're focusing on ways to make government work better for everyone.

Missouri House and Senate budget negotiators have crafted a final version of next year's state budget.

The nearly $25 billion spending plan includes a $66 million increase for K-12 schools, and a $25 million hike for state universities and community colleges.  It still does not include the Medicaid expansion proposed by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon, which disappointed committee member and State Senator Kiki Curls, also a Democrat, from Kansas City.

Republicans in the Missouri Senate have scaled back a proposal to cut state taxes in order to emulate tax cuts in neighboring Kansas and Oklahoma.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, has strongly objected to the bill's sales tax hike, saying it would hurt the poor and elderly the most.  That provision has been dropped.  

House Bill 253 would now cut the personal income tax rate by half a percentage point and the corporate rate by three points, and phase them both in over the next 10 years. 

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback wants lawmakers to extend a temporary sales tax hike as a way to fund the state's universities.

The governor says cuts to higher education would be a momentum-killer at a time when he thinks a lot of positive things are happening in Kansas. Lawmakers are hesitant to extend the sales tax hike, which was approved in 2010 on the condition that it would expire July 1 of this year.

Following a tour of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Salina, Brownback called the facility a great place to invest.

Looking back, desegregating the military seems like the obvious thing to do, but in the 1940s and 50s, it wasn't so clear for Harry Truman.

The Missouri General Assembly has sent Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, legislation that would provide a targeted roll back of the state's prevailing wage.