Senator Chappelle-Nadal’s first amendment required an annual report to the Department of Economic Development on the number of minorities trained through the Missouri Works Training Program (one of the programs offered in the legislation).  Her second amendment tightened the overall reporting to include employment outreach efforts made to minorities and women.

“My job is to fight for underrepresented populations.  Here we have a giant corporation, and a large incentive package.  We need these jobs, but we also need to make sure checks and balances are in place,” stated Sen. Chappelle-Nadal.

Senators Curls and Nasheed secured protections for minority students to have access to education relative to the aerospace training programs.  “We want to ensure that disadvantaged students are given tools to be competitive in a job market where salaries can range from $75-$100k/year,” stated Sen. Curls. She continued, “It’s important that as we proceed forward, that we make sure that people paying the taxes that support these incentive projects have access to jobs and opportunities associated with them.”

Senator Nasheed stated that although she wanted Medicaid expansion in the call for special session, she understood the positive economic impact and deadline of the Boeing offer.  She expounded, “Attracting new and highly skilled manufacturing jobs not only ensures the economic competitiveness of the state, it also flows through to the secondary industries that support manufacturing.  This type of return on investment would not have happened without the cooperation of everyone, but I would like to especially thank the Black Caucus, which put a tremendous amount of energy into making sure all these protections were included.”

The bill, SB1, now goes to the House for its approval.  The governor has given a deadline of close of business Tuesday, Dec. 10, for a legislative package to be passed.