Missouri senators begin debate on state budget with deadline looming

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. – A group of senators spent the afternoon debating one of the largest budgets in the state’s history.

With a constitutional deadline approaching, lawmakers are on the clock to get a budget to the governor’s desk.

Back in January, Gov. Mike Parson sent a budget request worth nearly $53 billion to lawmakers. Earlier this month, the House approved a spending plan that cut roughly $2 billion from Parson’s proposal. This week, in the Senate, members plan to add money back into the budget for education and infrastructure.

The House spent nearly 10 hours earlier this month debating the $50 billion state budget, which included cuts to the core funding increases for colleges and universities, along with reducing the overall bucket of money to increase teacher pay from $25,000 to $40,000.

Parson asked the General Assembly to give a 3% funding increase to colleges and universities to help with inflation, but the House reduced that to 2%.

During Tuesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, members added the money back to the spending plan to increase the core funding for colleges and universities to 3%.

Another addition is raising teacher pay from $25,000 to $40,000, with that money coming from the state, removing the local district’s responsibility for the pay increase.

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The governor recommended both of these items, but the House rejected them.

“I think we need to invest in that next generation of workforce, and it starts in the classroom,” Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, said. “It starts with our teachers that are in the classroom every day and the value that this state puts on the job that they do and I would absolutely put that money back in for them.”

Something that both chambers seem to agree on is spending nearly $365 million to expand parts of Interstate 44 in Springfield, Rolla and Joplin. Hough said at the moment, the rest of the interstate needs an environmental study done before any improvements are made.

“The totality of the project is one, not feasible,” Hough said. “Rough estimates have it almost $8.5 to $9 billion.”

Budget talks in the Senate come as members still need to address the federal reimbursement allowance, the tax that funds the state’s Medicaid program worth nearly $4.5 billion.

“It’s the glaring, no pun intended, elephant in the room because it’s really hard for the appropriations chair to go into committee and do markup if, in fact, he doesn’t know if there’s a $4.5 billion in there or not,” Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, said. “I don’t think it’s time to panic quite yet.”

The FRA is a tax paid for by health care providers like hospitals and then matched by the federal government, impacting more than a million Missourians.

But a group of Republican senators, known as the Freedom Caucus, said last week that there is no rush to get the FRA renewed before debating the budget.

“They are trying to create a narrative of, ‘Oh my gosh, it even has to pass before the budget,’ I mean, it doesn’t have to be renewed until the end of September, if I’m not mistaken,” Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, said. “So, to say this is an emergency is just beyond the pale. It’s not true.”

One provision the governor asked for in his proposal is a 3.2% pay raise for state employees, which the House and the Senate left in the budget.

The Senate Appropriations Committee plans to continue their meeting and review changes to the overall spending plan Wednesday morning.

According to the constitutional deadline, the budget must be on the governor’s desk by May 10.

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