Gov. Mike Parson plans to sign several executive orders this morning, as part of what his office called a "major restructuring of four state agencies in an effort to improve economic and workforce development in Missouri."
In his State of the State address Wednesday, the governor said: "Our budget recommends another major change to reorganize and streamline the efforts of the departments of economic development and higher education - a plan which will make our government more efficient.
"We have to start focusing more on the importance of outcomes in state government and less on arguing over the inputs."
During a briefing before the governor's speech, Economic Development Director Rob Dixon said part of the change would allow his department to focus on the needs of the state's various regions, rather than on promoting all parts of the state in the same way - which is what the department has been doing over the years.
The main reason for the change, Dixon said, is Missouri's poorer performance when compared with 13 other mostly Midwestern states.
When the 2008 recession ended, he explained, Missouri was 13th of the 14 in gross domestic product growth. And since then, he said, Missouri has been last in the group.
Higher Education Commissioner Zora Mulligan told the News Tribune on Wednesday afternoon that Economic Development "has a broad-based proposal that will make a lot of changes in their structure - some of which will affect what we do in Higher Education. The end result will be a much more meaningful connection between higher education institutions and the workforce system that, I think, will really expand our ability to present options to Missourians that range from apprenticeships all the way up to Ph.D. programs."
Mulligan said the changes won't re-organize the operations of the 10 four-year colleges and universities, or their 13 campuses.
"It's more about philosophy than process," she added. "The changes that will be announced (today) won't address the number of institutions that we have or the nature of those institutions.
"This is really about re-thinking state government."
Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe told the News Tribune: "They're trying to work DED and Higher Education together on that workforce training, to make sure that if we look at kids coming out of our high schools, is it a career and technical education? Is it a community college? Is it a four-year college?
"Let's make sure we identify the kids' talents and desires and accompany that with what our economic development needs are."
Parson's news release announcing today's news conference also named the Natural Resources and Insurance, Financial Institutions and Professional Registration departments, but no details have been announced about their involvement with the proposed changes.