Gov. on pandemic: ‘We’re moving in right direction’

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson took part in the 31st annual Missouri Press Association Day at the Capitol Jan. 28. The event was held virtually and offered media members the opportunity to ask questions via a Zoom platform chat option.
Parson, who spoke after Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, provided a few opening remarks and then took questions.
In closing, he told the press he will seek to be as transparent as he can, and wants to keep doing what he believes is the right thing for Missourians.
“The thing I would really like to see, especially in Missouri, I would like to see us work together to make the state better. I’m willing to do that every day when I go out there and I try to be as transparent as I can. I try to prove that in what I say... I don’t know how transparent other governors have been but I know we have and we try to get information out there. Instead of us butting heads for the next four years, I would like to be open enough to go out there and do what we’re doing, to have the briefings, trying to make sure that we’re getting the information out there that is fair on both sides. I think for the betterment of the state, I wish we could find ways that take the politics out a little bit more, take the bias out a little bit more. I know it’s going to happen but the reality of it is I think we can do so much, working together, making Missouri better.
“We’re going to keep doing what we believe is the right thing to do for the state of Missouri. We’re going to try to be as open as we can in this office and keep moving forward.”
Parson took questions on a series of topics, though much of the discussion revolved around the ongoing pandemic.
“I do think trying to get information out, especially in the middle of a crisis, it’s important to get as accurate as information out there as we can,” Parson said.
Parson encouraged the use of all metrics in Covid-19-related news coverage.
“Try to use accumulative data because the general public deserves to know what’s going on,” Parson said. “All of those, if you take one metric, just one on any given day you could write the narrative however you wanted, positive or negative. I think it’s always important to remember what is the total combination of the data and what does it really show.”
Recent CDC data, according to Parson, showed the state of Missouri with the third lowest positivity rate of the in the nation per 100,000 people, trailing only North Dakota and Oregon.
“We’re very proud of that, we’re moving in the right direction,” Parson said.
In many cases, the state is finding ways to reallocate vaccine doses.
“I think the reality of it is we’re going through the first phases of this,” Parson said. “When you send vaccine to rural areas, do they have enough to handle 1,000 doses at a time?...We don’t want anybody to be sitting on vaccine, that’s something we watch every day. We don’t want anybody to hoard it up. We want them to be able to utilize that vaccine wherever it’s at.”
Attempts have been made to redistribute in certain cases, Parson noted.
“All of this is on a time clock,” Parson said. “Once that vaccine is open you’ve got 10 days to distribute it across the state.”
Parson reiterated that students need to return to in-person learning in most cases.
“Kids need to be back in school,” he said, adding he is optimistic the impact of in-person vs. remote learning can be studied further.
“Where are these kids in the education arena,” Parson said. “We’ve got to see what really happened. What happened with virtual learning.”

By his figure, there are 83 percent of kids throughout the state now going to school in person though in larger metro areas it may not be that large of a percentage.
Parson was asked about the possibility of offering a tuition tax credit, which could potentially provide financial help for families looking at additional education choices.
“I think we should look at all options on that,” Parson said. “The main focus should be to making sure a kid gets an education. If we the same old thing we’ve been doing for decades and decades, you’re going to get the same results, nothing is going to change for a lot of these kids. If you look at these kids in poverty situations, what we did, somebody will come up with a grant, someone will come up with a little money to try and help the local community which really doesn’t move the needle. My whole theory is if we’re not taking care of the kid and figuring out some way to get them out of those houses and get them in an education environment, getting the training you need for a job, that’s going to take care of so many problems.”
It all starts with getting a kid an education. We should take every avenue we can to give a kid an education.”
Parson believes Missourians trusted the November election process.
“I think the one thing we’re very fortunate across our state is that our elections, for the most part, go pretty smoothly,” Parson said. “We get it right here in this state at the municipal level. We’ve got a lot of great people at the county level working with our election authorities, even in the urban areas ... I think the Missouri election process worked well. We made the adjustments we needed to make, but I do think you want to get back to a normal way we do elections.”
Parson was asked about finding ways to get qualified representation at Jefferson City.
“You’ve got to have a way to get good people up here to do good representation,” Parson said. With a compensation figure of $36,000 or less, he admits that in many cases, state government does “miss a lot of talent.” He later added this was “pretty modest” for many of the state’s elected officials.
“I just think you’ve got to get good qualified people to get into government to make decisions for everyday people.”

RURAL Broadband
One of the questions was regarding ways to improve rural broadband options.
“Rural Missouri, we definitely need to do more for broadband. We really do. My theory has been this, if we can start the day with electricity in everybody’s house, we can get broadband in everybody’s house in this state. The one thing that I am learning is that it’s not just the rural areas that has problems. You can go to a lot of urban areas and still have problems with broadband. With what we’ve been through for the past 10 months, has made us realize how many shortfalls we’ve got still in that area of broadband. I think we’ve got to do more. We’ve got to put more on the providers when they come to the table with the help of these resources and to be able to move these communities that maybe are not so much non-for-profit. We’ve got to keep pushing broadband in the state of Missouri. In today’s time if you’re in a business, if you’re going to school, not to be able to have the full use of the internet is such a competitive disadvantage. We’ve got to do a better job.”

Missouri Sports Betting...
Regarding potential legislation that would allow the state to collect tax revenue on sports wagering, Parson is optimistic a solution can be reached.
“I think that’s coming, whether you agree with it or you don’t. I think it’s going on all time now through different methods. I look for the state to adopt that at some point, I really do. People are doing that all over.”

Budget.
Previously, Buerck served as a senior program administrator for the Missouri Division of Youth Services. He is a member of the Missouri City Manager’s Association and Missouri National Veterans Memorial.