budget – Page 2 – Missouri House of Representatives Newsroom

House budget plan would save program to get low-income youths into workforce

The single biggest change the House made during floor debate of its budget proposal this week would continue a program that aims to help low-income youth enter into the workforce.

Representative Bruce Franks (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

St. Louis City Democrat Bruce Franks, Junior, saw that Governor Eric Greitens (R) had proposed cutting all funding to the Summer Jobs League within the Department of Economic Development. Franks proposed taking $6-million from unused funds in two programs within Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to restore it, and the House voted to accept Franks’ proposal.

The Summer Jobs League gives 16- to 24-year-olds from low-income homes in the St. Louis or Kansas City areas the chance to work in a business in a field they’re interested in.

“It’s really a comprehensive approach to youth violence prevention,” said Franks. “We serve the underserved: the highest crime rate areas, highest poverty within the city.”

The largest portion of the state’s appropriation to the Summer Jobs League will pay the salaries of the youth participants – up to $8.50 an hour for up to 240 hours. Franks said that is part of the incentive for businesses to participate.

“The jobs and the small businesses really benefit from having extra employees that they don’t have to pay that payroll, or that salary, so it really helps the small businesses when they can get three or four youth, teach them a great program, how to work, how to own their own business,” said Franks.

Participating businesses often hire the Summer Jobs League youths after their League term has expired.

Franks said Summer Jobs works in conjunction with other programs such as Prison to Prosperity, which helps youth in the St. Louis region transition out of prison.

“Now we’ve got youth that are getting out going straight to a job, straight to financial literacy, financial empowerment. Summer Jobs doesn’t just offer summer jobs. It offers 24-hour mentoring, behavior modification, job readiness training; all these different things to get you not only ready for the workforce but to continue on within the workforce,” said Franks.

Franks’ proposal earned praise from Republicans including Versailles Representative David Wood, who called it a better use of TANF dollars, “to catch the youth, get them into summer job programs, and teach them how to work early on.”

House Budget Committee Vice Chairman Justin Alferman (R-Hermann) said Franks, “worked extremely hard to find the funding for this program.”

House Democrat leader Gail McCann Beatty (Kansas City) said her law firm participated in Summer Jobs, and she worked with several young people through it.

“It is a great opportunity to work with these students, and sometimes you are the most positive influence that they have,” said McCann Beatty.

Franks thanked Alferman as well as House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R), Budget Committee member Representative Crystal Quade (D-Springfield), and others, for helping him find money for the League.

Many of Franks’ fellow lawmakers commended him on being a freshman member of a superminority who secured a large change in the state’s budget, but Franks said that’s not what he felt good about.

“It feels great because I was able to help the underserved. It feels great because I was able to work across party lines and we were able to come together to serve my community,” said Franks. “All too often the community that I serve has felt like they’ve been left out, and to have representatives on both sides truly care, truly vote in the interest of the people, that matters more than anything.”

The House’s budget proposal has been sent to the State Senate, which will propose its own changes. Once the two chambers agree on a spending plan, it will be sent to Governor Greitens.

House budget proposal could mean fewer DUI checkpoints on Missouri roads

If the House’s budget proposal stands, Missourians might see fewer DUI checkpoints on state roads over the next fiscal year.

Representative Galen Higdon opposed language in the House's FY '18 budget proposal that would keep state and federal funds allocated by that budget from going to DUI Checkpoints. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications) — Representative Galen Higdon opposed language in the House’s FY ’18 budget proposal that would keep state and federal funds allocated by that budget from going to DUI Checkpoints. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The House proposed language that would prevent money controlled by that budget from going to such checkpoints. House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said this is largely because of data indicating checkpoints aren’t effective enough compared to other enforcement methods.

“I looked at the data … on what’s the best way to get drunk drivers off the road, and according to data from [the Department of Transportation], the best way to do it is saturation patrols,” said Fitzpatrick. “Last year alone, saturation patrols resulted in a little over 3,000 DWI arrests. Checkpoints resulted in about 1,200, at a cost of over $1,000 per arrest when you look at how much we spend on the checkpoints.”

Lake St. Louis Republican Representative Justin Hill, who formerly worked for the O’Fallon Police Department, also said saturation efforts are more effective. He encouraged fellow lawmakers to give those a try for the twelve months of Fiscal Year ’18.

“Let’s look at the numbers, and I’m sure you will see, and your constituents and your police departments will see that this is more effective and is least impacting innocent individuals that might otherwise go through a checkpoint,” said Hill.

Representative Galen Higdon (R-St. Joseph) is a former Buchanan County Sheriff’s Deputy. He coordinated checkpoints for the last four years before his retirement. He believes checkpoints have reduced crashes in his district, so he opposed the new language.

“[Checkpoints] are an efficient way to reduce intoxicated or impaired drivers on our highways,” said Higdon.

Representative Justin Hill supports language in the House's FY '18 budget proposal that would discourage DUI checkpoints for what he believes are more effective efforts. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications) — Representative Justin Hill supports language in the House’s FY ’18 budget proposal that would discourage DUI checkpoints for what he believes are more effective efforts. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles) chairs the budget subcommittee on Public Safety. She said when the idea to bar state funds from going to checkpoints came up she heard from numerous law enforcement agencies, victims groups, anti-drunk driving groups, and others who opposed the change and were “upset” about it.

She said checkpoints and saturation efforts can work in conjunction, and said the latter actually work better when the two are used together.

“While [saturation efforts] are good methods as well, a lot of them hinge on DUI checkpoints because it drives people nearby to avoid the checkpoints,” said Conway.

Proponents of the change also said there are questions of whether checkpoints violate Missourians’ rights, and said saturation efforts are also more effective at dealing with other violations of the law besides impaired driving.

If the language becomes law, nothing in Missouri law would prevent law enforcement agencies from conducting checkpoints. They simply would not be able to use money allocated by the state budget to do so.

The House’s proposed budget plan next goes to the state Senate for its consideration.

House budget plan proposes nearly $3-million for education on new voter photo ID law

One of the things House Democrats wanted in the chamber’s proposed spending plan for the next fiscal year, they got.

The House voted to move $1.5-million from an election administration improvements fund in the Secretary of State’s office to go to the implementation of the voter photo ID law approved by voters in November. Specifically that money is for educating voters about the new law so that they can comply with it when they go to the polls.

St. Louis City Democrat Peter Merideth wants that education process to include direct mail; something the Secretary of State told the House Budget Committee he wasn’t planning to use.

“When we run campaigns, when we try and reach out to voters about elections, there is no better way to reach voters than direct mail, especially in rural parts of the state where people may not even have internet, may not even have cable,” said Merideth. “Direct mail reaches these people. That is the best way to let them know about their new rights and responsibilities.”

St. Louis City Democrat Bruce Franks, Junior, said the needs of educating people about the new law can vary from community to community.

“If we’re going to present something new, something that we haven’t had, we have to have adequate education on informing every single community, every single district that we have,” said Franks.

The change would bump the funding available for voter photo ID education to nearly $3-million. The House’s earlier proposal for funding it with about $1.4-million was based on what the Secretary of State had asked for.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) supported Merideth’s amendment.

“I’m not saying that they can or will spend this money, but they have a plan. If for some reason their plan doesn’t work, having another tool in the toolbox is reasonable,” said Fitzpatrick.

The measure initially failed but after a motion to reconsider the vote, many Republicans sided with Merideth and Fitzpatrick and approved it.

It becomes part of House Bill 12. The House is expected to vote Thursday on whether to send that and the rest of the budget bills to the Senate for its consideration.

House budget plan targets Conservation Department’s deal with former director

The state House is poised to send to the Senate a budget that would cut $500,000 from the Department of Conservation.

Representative Craig Redmon (R-Canton), who chairs the budget subcommittee that oversees Conservation, proposed the cut. He said it is in response to the Department having paid $127,000 plus benefits to former director Robert Ziehmer since he left the Department in July.

“There was a deal struck, unbeknownst to myself or the budget chairman [Representative Scott Fitzpatrick], where they continued to pay the director a salary and didn’t inform us, and it was contrary to what they had in their policy,” said Redmon. “We feel like this is a blatant disregard for the House of Representatives so this is a message sent to the Department of Conservation.”

Representative Michael Butler (D-St. Louis), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, argued Ziehmer had earned his settlement

“I’d like to ask the body to imagine if they were a director of an agency. They are taking a lot less money than what they’re worth. They work in an agency for 30 years and they are forced out politically from that agency,” said Butler.

Redmon said it is not clear why Ziehmer left the Department, and said his committee is still trying to find out.

St. Louis Representative Tracy McCreery (D-St. Louis) said Redmon’s amendment represents a punishment greater than the perceived offense.

“I think you’ve succeeded in getting the attention,” McCreery told Redmon, “but I think that what you’re going to do to the Department of Conservation is in the wrong spirit. We do not use the budget to punish a few commissioners by punishing all the employees in the department.”

Redmon noted that the budget must next go to the state Senate, and that $500,000 could be restored depending on what the Department tells lawmakers.

The budget for the Department of Conservation is laid out in House Bill 6.

Missouri House to finalize its budget proposal this week

Legislators often say it is the one thing the General Assembly must do even if it does nothing else: pass a balanced state budget. This week the state House will take the latest step toward that end, when its members debate a budget proposal to be sent to the Senate for its consideration.

The Missouri House Budget Committee worked Tuesday to finalize the proposal it would send to the full chamber for debate that will happen this week. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Scott Fitzpatrick’s (R-Shell Knob) top priority when he was named House Budget Committee Chairman was to fully fund the formula for K-12 school funding. This budget plan would do that.

“That’s going to continue to be my number one priority in the budget, and we did it without cutting the transportation program in K-12 that the governor recommended reducing,” said Fitzpatrick.

The bills would also not appropriate all of the money projected to be available, so that some will be left for expenses that are unforeseen or are greater than projected. In recent years, the legislature and governor had to take care of such expenses in a mid-fiscal year, or supplemental, budget.

“We agreed with the governor and the Senate that no less than $100-million should be set aside for a possible supplemental request,” said Fitzpatrick. “We also set another $100-million almost that is made up of Medicaid increases that the department requested that we did not fund, and we said, ‘Listen, we need you to do your best to hold down these expenses in Medicaid.”

The budget proposal would also maintain at their current level in-home Medicaid services to seniors and people with disabilities, assuming that a House bill to end a tax break for low-income seniors and disabled becomes law. The money that bill would make available would go to the in-home care program.

House Democrats don’t like basing the support of the in-home care program on eliminating that tax break. The lead Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Michael Butler, said his party came up with other options, and one of those would be to dip into that money set in reserve.

“Secondly, when there is over $50-million left in different state funds across the state, we think there are other ways to pay for it,” said Butler.

Representative Deb Lavender (right) proposed taking $6.85-million from a fund in the Attorney General's office and giving it to the state's public defenders. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications) — Representative Deb Lavender (right) proposed taking $6.85-million from a fund in the Attorney General’s office and giving it to the state’s public defenders. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Democrats also want to preserve a change made to the budget proposal last week, when one of its members proposed shifting $6.85-million from the Attorney General’s Office to the state’s Public Defender System. The Attorney General’s Office didn’t have representative in the hearing, and the budget committee approved the change.

The Public Defender’s Office wants a boost in state funding to hire more counsel, and to deal with what it’s told lawmakers is an “overload” of cases. “We, along with quite a few Republicans, believe the public defender’s office is in dire need of those funds,” said Butler.

Fitzpatrick said there might be a statutory issue regarding that money beings shifted out of the Attorney General’s office.

“There’s still a long way to go for the budget and I think it’s entirely possible that that will be changed back,” said Fitzpatrick.

Butler said another priority for his party is to make sure Lincoln University gets enough money to maintain its land grant status. He said the federal government has said Lincoln must have more matching funds in order to keep that status.

“We need to try to get as close to $6.1-million as possible. We are putting up $2.5-million this year and we’re very hopeful that is enough equity to the federal government,” said Butler. “Lincoln has for decades seen a disparity in funding. It has never met the land grant match. It has never been given proper funding.”

Butler said there is support from both parties for making sure Lincoln University keeps its land grant status.

The budget proposal would also fund a Medicaid asset limit increase, add money to the state’s senior centers, and restore some – but not all – cuts to higher education.

House passage would be just the latest stop for a Fiscal Year 2018 state budget. From the House it would go to the Senate, which will likely propose changes to the House’s plan. Once the two chambers agree on a budget, their proposal will go to Governor Greitens for his action.

House Budget Chairman proud of proposed full funding of education

The House Budget Committee Chairman is proud of a budget proposal that would accomplish what’s been his top goal since taking that job.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Shell Knob Republican Scott Fitzpatrick said in August when he became the budget chairman that his number one priority was to fully fund Missouri’s public schools. He recently unveiled budget bills that included fully funding the K-12 school formula.

If that part of the budget were to become law, it would be the first time the formula’s current form has had full funding since it was created by Senate Bill 287 in 2005.

“We’re making another year of record investment in K-12 public education,” said Fitzpatrick. “To me that’s the single biggest thing of which I’m most proud, and the other thing is we did it without spending any more than the governor and the General Assembly agreed to spend.”

Some have noted that the full funding would come one year after the legislature reinstated a cap on how much the formula could grow, year-to-year. Fitzpatrick said without those caps, the growth in the formula was unsustainable.

“When I got in to the General Assembly the formula was $400-million underfunded, and over the next three or four years we added about $300-million, I think, in funding to the formula, and it was still about $400-million underfunded,” said Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick’s proposal would also reject Governor Eric Greitens (R) proposed cut of all funding to K-12 transportation.

“That’s an important part of what we’re doing with education is that we’re not taking money from transportation and just putting it into the formula to say we fully funded the formula. We’re making the commitment that we’ve made in previous years to funding transportation as well as fully funding the formula,” said Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick’s budget is based in part ON passage of a bill that would end a tax break for low-income seniors and disabled renters. The money the state would save from that repeal would go to a program that provides in-home care for the elderly and disabled.

“We’ve invested every single dollar of that back into services for seniors – low-income seniors and a little bit as well for people with disabilities,” said Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick believes a property tax credit should be for people who own their homes and are working to pay it off, “especially because people who are receiving nursing home services being completely paid for by Medicaid are eligible to receive the renter’s portion of the credit, so somebody could be in a nursing home that’s already being completely paid for by the state and then on top of that the state will write a check to them for what’s supposed to represent a credit for property taxes that they paid, and that seems to me to not make a lot of sense.”

The House has passed the legislation repealing that portion of the credit. It must next be considered by the Senate.

Fitzpatrick’s budget also restores some of the state aid to colleges and universities that the governor proposed reducing. Fitzpatrick said he wanted to minimize the impact reductions would have on students in Missouri.

When legislators return next week from spring break, the full House Budget Committee will debate changes to Fitzpatrick’s proposal before sending it on to the full House, which could make further changes. It then faces debate in the Senate before going to Governor Greitens, who could sign it into law, veto it in part or in whole, or make spending restrictions.

House budget chairman on search for savings in FY ’18 budget; wariness about tobacco settlement money

The House took another step in drafting a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, when the bills that make up that spending plan were filed.

Meanwhile, House appropriations committees continue taking testimony from state agencies and elected officials about how much they want or hope to receive in state money if Fiscal Year ’18.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said those committees are looking for places the state can save money to offset a $500-million shortfall.

He said lawmakers are looking at renegotiating managed care contracts to reschedule some expenses as the state switches to managed care in FY 18, and examining the funding request from the state employee retirement system to make sure it isn’t unnecessarily great.

Governor Eric Greitens (R) last week recommended changes to his own budget proposal that would see greater spending on public school transportation and on in-home services for low-income residents with disabilities.

Fitzpatrick said the problem is Greitens proposes funding those restorations with money from Missouri’s settlement with tobacco companies. Greitens based his latest proposal on a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that would let Missouri get $52-million in settlement money.

“I think we will see that money but I think there’s a potential for another negative decision on the tobacco lawsuit front for the next year that is basically a new lawsuit that could offset any gains we’re making from that,” said Fitzpatrick. “I’m not 100-percent convinced that we’re going to spend the extra money that the governor recommended. I think if we can get comfortable with the likelihood that we’re actually going to have it available in the fiscal year that we may go ahead and spend that, but we’ll look at the best way to spend it.”

The appropriations committees will begin this week preparing their recommendations for spending in the areas they respectively deal with. In two weeks the main budget committee will prepare its spending proposal with Fitzpatrick’s input, creating a spending plan that will be debated by the full House.

Recent news articles have questioned whether the legislature, in this tight budget year, will fund Missouri’s new voter photo ID law, approved by voters in November. Fitzpatrick said it would be supported.

“We’re not going to play games with that,” said Fitzpatrick. “We’ve talked with Secretary of State [John] Ashcroft multiple times about it, and we’re going to make sure that he has what he feels is necessary, whether it be from general revenue or a federal fund that the Secretary of State has access to, we’re going to make sure that he has ample authority to implement that law the way that the statute requires.”

The bills Fitzpatrick filed last week don’t represent his budget recommendation, but that of Governor Greitens. He said he took that action with a mind for history.

“It is basically the only historical record of a governor’s budget. If you go back and try to find governor’s budgets from previous years, if the budget chairman does not file the governor’s recommendation then that is not documented … there is no permanent record of that,” said Fitzpatrick. “The bills themselves are the exact everything that the governor sent. There are even typos in there that staff found and I said, ‘Nope, leave them the same.’”