Gov. Jay Nixon has signed a bill aimed at keeping a federal intelligence agency in the St. Louis area.
Nixon endorsed a plan Monday to grant tax-increment financing for northern St. Louis to persuade the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to stay in Missouri.
The agency says it plans to move somewhere else in the St. Louis region. That could mean relocating to Illinois, taking with it about 3,000 high-paying jobs.
The legislation allows Missouri to contribute up to half of withholding revenues from the agency, which could be as much as $12 million a year.
A group of north St. Louis residents earlier this year sent a petition to the agency asking it not to consider a former public housing site in their community for the $1.6 billion headquarters.
