Gov. Laura Kelly gets credit for her attempt to end the so-called Border War between Kansas and Missouri by directing the state’s economic development agencies to stop poaching jobs from the Missouri side of the Kansas City area.

It’s a sensible move, one that should end several decades where the two states wasted millions moving corporate jobs from one side of the State Line Avenue to the other.

Economic development, in the sense of recruiting new jobs into a state or city, makes sense — when the effort involves a new plant or one already on the move from some distant location.

There’s little benefit, however, to simply moving jobs back and forth across the state line in a singular metropolitan area like Kansas City.

Sure, Lenexa may benefit from the jobs that come with a new warehouse from Missouri, but not for long. Missouri’s been poaching one across the street that had been paying taxes in Johnson County. The result: two new facilities that pay little or nothing in the way of property taxes, and possibly, two old warehouses that sit idle.

This money can better be spent on recruiting jobs and factories from some other state, some other city. Or just helping existing Missouri and Kansas businesses to grow and add new jobs on both sides of the line.

The absurdity of this situation has been apparent, but neither state could afford to back down while the other was still trying to steal its jobs. This year, though, the Missouri Legislature passed a law in May to end these practices — effective when and if Kansas agreed to do likewise.

It took some negotiation, but finally, a stroke of the governor’s pen was all that was required to direct the Kansas Department of Commerce to stop this wasteful war.

We do have to wonder why Missouri has to push a law through its legislature while Kansas has not made this policy permanent. What one governor signs, after all, the next might undo.

The Kansas legislature might want to consider a bill to prevent that, but while Mrs. Kelly remains in office, we expect this truce will hold.

Both states will benefit from being able to march their economic-development armies off to some other war.

They should save millions, which can be invested in real development, real jobs and real growth, instead of poaching, stagnation in jobs and lower tax revenue in both states.

It’s a good change, long overdue. The only flaw we see is it applies only to the Kansas City area, not the entire border.

We commend both Gov. Kelly and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson for making this work, and for their cooperation in working to bring Department of Agriculture research facilities to the Kansas City area.

Working together should outperform job poaching any day.

Steve Haynes

Oberlin Herald