House votes to allow felons to work in places that sell alcohol and lottery tickets

A House Bill that would remove the restriction on felons working in businesses that sell alcohol and lottery tickets was sent Thursday to the Senate.  House Bill 1468 would also lift the requirement that employers with liquor licenses notify the state of any employees with felony convictions.

Representative Cheri Toalson Reisch (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Bill sponsor Cheri Toalson Reisch (R-Hallsville) said the bill will not only make it easier for felons to find jobs, thus reducing recidivism; it will also make more workers available.  She said her county, Boone, has the lowest unemployment rate in the state and more potential workers are needed.

“We need more people to fill these entry level positions and have a place to start, and this will also enable them to support themselves and their families,” said Toalson Reisch.  “I like to use my local Casey’s General Store as an analogy.  You cannot make pizza and donuts in the back because they sell lottery tickets and alcohol in the front.”

The bill passed with broad bipartisan support.  Columbia Representative Kip Kendrick (D) said it is common sense legislation.

“These individuals who have paid their debt to society and are back out trying to make a living, we should be doing all that we can as a state to make sure that they are welcome back in their communities.  Part of welcoming back is ensuring them access to jobs and employment opportunities … to make sure that they are finding ways to make a living and reintegrate back into society,” said Kendrick.

Ballwin Republican Shamed Dogan said the bill includes a provision that would prevent an individual from selling lottery tickets if convicted of a past crime that involved those.

“[Toalson Reisch] has worked these particular business owners.  They’re very supportive of this for their own freedom to hire folks with a record and it’s something that is in line with a lot of the criminal justice reforms that we’ve supported that are pro-economic growth and pro-personal growth for these people,” said Dogan.

The legislation cleared the House 148-1.  Last year several amendments were added to the proposal and it failed to pass out of the House, but this version of the bill has no amendments.

Its supporters include the Missouri Petroleum Marketers Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Empower Missouri, and the Missouri Catholic Conference.

House plan would ease late payment penalties, interest, in response to surprise tax bills

The House has given preliminary approval to giving Missourians a break on late payment of taxes, because many Missourians might have been surprised this year with a higher-than-anticipated tax debt.

Representative Dean Dohrman (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“I’m also frustrated with the situation that brought us here, but today we can’t do anything about that,” said La Monte representative Dean Dohrman (R), the sponsor of House Bill 1094“But today, as Winston Churchill once said, ‘We can do the best we can with what we got.’”

HB 1094 would block late payment penalties on tax debt owed to the state by individual taxpayers through the end of this year.  It would also waive any interest owed on such debt until May 15.  For those who might pay penalties before the bill would become law, it would require that those Missourians receive refunds.

The bill is a bipartisan response to an issue with the Department of Revenue’s tax tables that resulted in many Missourians being faced with greater debt than expected.  Lawmakers heard stories of individuals who anticipated a tax refund from the state instead getting hit with bills for hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars.

Representative Nick Schroer (R-St. Charles) is the vice-chairman of the House oversight committee that’s been investigating that situation.  He said the Department’s explanations have changed, and he blames its former director, who resigned last month amid the crisis.

Representative Crystal Quade (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“We still don’t really know the true cause of what is happening.  We’re still digging and trying to figure that out, but I think this is one way that we can lessen this tax burden on these people who … dollars count to these people, whether it’s diapers, groceries,” said Schroer.

That oversight committee has continued to schedule hearings to investigate what caused the problems and how the Department responded.

House Minority Leader Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) also sits on that oversight committee, and pre-filed similar legislation in December.  She said the Department knew about the tax issue as early as September yet didn’t act for months to notify taxpayers.  She said she’s frustrated the House is only now taking action.

“Tax day’s in five days.  If folks in this body … I mean I hate to say it; if we were really concerned about these surprise tax bills and what was happening to citizens, we would’ve dealt with this much, much sooner,” said Quade.

“I heard time and time again from the director of revenue as well as the liaison that this isn’t a lot of money – that we’re talking an average of $85 or it could be upwards of several hundred dollars, and as I said before we have [legislative assistants] in this building who are seeing swings of $3500,” said Quade.

Lawmakers including Columbia Democrat Kip Kendrick, another oversight committee member, want Missourians to understand that their issues with tax debt might not be over after this year.

Representative Nick Schroer (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“If they’re concerned with their bill this year then they need to go back and look at their W-4 because next year, 2019, their current year, it’s going to be a full four quarters of potential under-withholding and not just three quarters,” said Kendrick.

Republicans, including Noel representative and oversight committee member Dirk Deaton, maintain that while some Missourians could see greater tax bills this year, changes in the federal tax code mean their overall debt is down.

“Missourians are keeping more money in their pockets, so we’ve got to fix this withholding thing but at the end of the day Missourians, as they should, are keeping more of their hard-earned money,” said Deaton.  “That’s what I think people need to realize.”

Another favorable vote would send HB 1094 to the Senate.

House Budget head unveils road and bridge funding proposal as part of F.Y. ’20 budget

The Missouri House’s Budget Committee Chairman has unveiled his plan for paying for road and bridge work in the state, in place of the plan proposed by Governor Mike Parson (R) in January.

House Budget Committee Chairman Kip Kendrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Cody Smith’s (R-Carthage) plan is to use a $100-million from the state’s General Revenue Fund to support the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), which is the Department of Transportation’s plan for road and bridge improvements for the coming years.

Parson’s plan called for using $351-million in bonds to replace or repair 250 bridges throughout Missouri.  The bonding would have been paid back with about $30-million from the state’s General Revenue fund for 15 years.

Smith said it is important to focus on creating a plan that would funds transportation infrastructure but not put the state further into debt.

“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in debt service every year … when we have an opportunity to make a similar impact on the bridges that have been identified as in need of repair over the course of four years and thereby save the state $100-million over 15 years I think we out to try to take that opportunity,” said Smith.

The Department has paid more than $700-million in debt payments in the last two years, and its average payment is $313-million a year.

Smith proposes spending $100-million in general revenue on roads and bridges in the next four years’ budgets or more.  That would be subject to the appropriation process in each of those years.  Smith potentially will be the House budget chairman throughout that time, and therefore would be in a position help make that happen.

State budget experts say General Revenue has never been used to pay for transportation infrastructure.  That is usually done with funds earmarked for that purpose.  Smith said it’s time to consider a fundamental change.

“The budget is a reflection of the state’s priorities and amongst those priorities should first be the core functions of government and I’d certainly put transportation infrastructure amongst the core functions of government,” said Smith.

Representative Kip Kendrick is the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Columbia representative Kip Kendrick is the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.  He called Smith’s proposal bold and a part of a larger discussion about how Missouri’s transportation infrastructure should be paid for, but funding it with general revenue would pit it against other priorities supported by that fund, like K-12 and higher education.

“A hundred million dollars in general revenue, I believe, sets a potentially bad precedent.  I don’t know how you ever unwind that,” said Kendrick.  “I think we need to be looking at long-term solutions and dedicated funding streams to address our infrastructure problems at the state level.”

Smith said weighing the various priorities of the state against one another is the job of the legislature.

“That is exactly what we’re doing here.  We’re talking about how we prioritize transportation versus education versus public safety – that is the process that the General Assembly goes through and I think that’s a natural and appropriate process,” said Smith.

The Missouri Department of Transportation says it is about $8-billion short of being able to fund its transportation needs in the next decade.

Missouri voters in November rejected a 10-cents-per-gallon tax increase to pay for road and bridge work.

Smith’s plan is part of his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.  He unveiled that plan Wednesday.  Over the coming weeks the House Budget Committee will propose changes to that plan, then send it to the full House for debate during the week of March 25-29.  Before the state budget is finalized it must be approved by both the House and the Senate, then the governor could approve, reject, or delay funding from it.

House votes to override governor on four budget items; Senate takes no action

The Missouri House voted to override the governor’s vetoes of four items in the state operating budget that became law in July.  The Senate has opted not to take up those items for consideration, so the governor’s vetoes will stand.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick proposed the overrides of five vetoes the governor made in the state’s budget. The House voted for four of those overrides. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The House voted to override Governor Mike Parson’s (R) vetoes on line-items that support juvenile advocacy units in the Kansas City and St. Louis offices of the state public defender; time-critical centers for heart attack and stroke patients in Missouri hospitals; independent reviews by the Office of Child Advocate of local offices that serve troubled youths; and the oversight of grants to organizations that serve the deaf and blind.  The four items totaled more than $785,000.

House budget leaders said those items will be brought up for consideration when the legislature meets again in January, for the start of its regular session.

The House voted only on five budget items during its annual veto session, which began and ended Wednesday.  On the fifth budget item, $50,000 for grants to law enforcement agencies for the purchase of tourniquets for officers, the House fell short of the constitutional majority needed for an override.

Money for inspections of state-certified heart attack and stroke trauma centers

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said after the governor vetoed money to fund inspections and certification of time-critical trauma centers for heart attack and stroke patients, his administration then said those inspections would be conducted anyway.  Fitzpatrick said he wants to see the inspections continue, but for them to be funded by pulling money from parts of the budget not intended for them violates the role of the legislature in the budget process.

“The governor vetoed all the people and all the money for that particular program and my opinion is once you do that, you can’t fund that program,” said Fitzpatrick.  “That is going to come to a head in January.  It is going to be an issue and it will get dealt with in a different way.”

The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Kip Kendrick (Columbia), agreed.

“I don’t know exactly how that program moves forward if the line’s been vetoed and the two [full-time employees] in the program have been vetoed.  We want to see the program move forward, but also how does the program exist if it doesn’t have a line and a place in the budget … I don’t want to see any of the services disrupted or interrupted, but that being said we need to make sure that we’re handling things appropriately.” said Kendrick.

Money for Office of Child Advocate review of local abuse investigations

$100,000 for the Office of Child Advocate would pay for two people that St. Charles Republican Kurt Bahr said would conduct a thorough review of how child abuses cases are processed.  He said the office needs those two additional staff members to keep up with that extra work.

“We are making sure that we’re taking care of kids in the foster care system, we’re making sure that any charge of child abuse is being looked at and is being processed correctly so that the system works for the most vulnerable in our society,” said Bahr.

Money for oversight of grants to organizations serving Missouri’s deaf and blind

The $45,000 for the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing would pay for a person to oversee grants to organizations serving the deaf and blind.  That position was created as part of House Bill 1696 passed in 2016, which was sponsored by Representative Lyle Rowland (R-Cedarcreek).  He said those grants have been fully funded for the past two years.

“In our world today we want all moneys from government to have accountability, and we need to have a person in place in that commission that oversee this money, can answer questions, can develop the [requests for proposal], to allow this to take place to help the deaf, blind community,” said Rowland.

Shrewsbury Democrat Sarah Unsicker said the person currently overseeing these grants has a number of other jobs and is overwhelmed.

Representative Kip Kendrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“People who are deaf/blind need additional services including language acquisition, communication assistance, and help with activities of daily living.  The Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is not equipped to deal with these specialized needs of this population by themselves and needs this staff person to assist with these needs,” said Unsicker.

Money for public defenders for juveniles in Kansas City and St. Louis

Fitzpatrick said the $487,000 for juvenile advocacy units in the St. Louis and Kansas City offices of the public defender system would ensure that the constitutional right to counsel for juveniles in those regions would be met.

Bahr said those juveniles need proper defense attorneys to keep them from entering a “prison pipeline where they end up becoming a far larger cost onto our society as perpetual inmates.”

Representative Ingrid Burnett (D-Kansas City) said as a teacher she worked with elementary school children both before and after these public defender units for juveniles existed.

“The difference between the outcome for these children is staggering,” said Burnett.

Kansas City Democrat Barbara Washington said she has personal experience as a juvenile offender, and said the importance of juveniles having representation cannot be overstated.

“I sit here today because I had an attorney.  I sit here today because my parents could afford an attorney and I can state today that no one else who was incarcerated with me at that time was even able to graduate from high school, and that was because at that time there was not a public defender system totally dedicated to juvenile offender,” said Washington.

No hard feelings from the House toward the governor over budget vetoes

Both Fitzpatrick and Kendrick said the attempts to override Parson’s vetoes did not signal a battle between the House and the governor’s office.

“The governor came into office in June and basically had one month to review the budget at the same time he was trying to assemble his team.  I think that unfortunately there were some things they didn’t get the full picture on and had to make some decisions before they had all the information,” said Fitzpatrick.  “We’ll continue to work with the governor.  This is not intended to be an issue that is supposed to disrupt the relationship.  It’s just a part of the process.”

Kendrick was not critical of the governor, even regarding the veto of funding for time-critical trauma center inspections and the procedural issues surrounding its continued funding.

“Everybody makes mistakes, right?  We all make mistakes.  Sometimes you’ve just got to own up to the mistake that you make … I don’t think Governor Parson wanted to see this program disappear.  Soon after I think he realized that it’s an important program obviously not just to us here in the building but to everyone around the State of Missouri,” said Kendrick.

Legislature’s budget proposal would boost employee pay and benefits, study pay by job class

State employees would receive a pay raise beginning January 1 under the budget the legislature proposed last week, and their health care benefits would also be bolstered.

The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Kip Kendrick (left) and House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The legislature approved a budget that would increase by $700 the pay of employees making less than $70,000 a year.  Those making more than $70,000 would receive a 1-percent increase.

It would also pump $61-million into the Missouri Consolidated Health Care Plan – the insurance program for most state workers.  Budget makers say MCHCP was close to depleting its reserve funds, and they hope that the infusion of money in this budget will stave off premium increases for state employees.

“I don’t think there’s enough discussion in the state right now on the condition of Missouri Consolidated Health Care Plan,” said Columbia representative Kip Kendrick, the leading Democrat on the House Budget Committee.  “Any new funding that we could do for them this year – I’m glad we could get to $61-million in new decision item funding for Missouri Consolidated – it’ll help offset that.  I suspect there will be plan changes and premium increases, but it will help us at least keep those costs somewhat contained.”

The budget also includes an additional $350-per year increase in pay for prison guards.  House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said lawmakers have heard that the Department of Corrections has had increasing difficulty in hiring and retaining guards, and that is in part due to the offered salary not being great enough.

Fitzpatrick and Kendrick agreed that while there are employees throughout the state to whom they would like to give greater pay increases, corrections officers’ pay needed immediate attention.

“The raise we agreed to specifically for corrections officers combined with the raise for all state employees amounts to over a $1000 increase, which for some of these corrections officers who are making in the high 20s, low 30s per year I think is significant,” said Fitzpatrick.  “That, by itself, probably isn’t going to be a game-changer but hopefully it’ll help reduce turnover and help us with the issue we have with the vacancies in that area.”

$3.2-million would go to increase pay for public defenders.  Kendrick said the average public defender starting out is making $39,000 a year.

“Typically having a new law degree and an average debt of over $100,000, $39,000 does not go nearly far enough.  We needed to do what we could make sure we increased pay for public defenders to somewhat balance the justice system again,” said Kendrick.  “Nothing against prosecutors – prosecutors are great.  They tend to be paid much better than public defenders and when you have that it kind of tilts the balance even more so in the direction of the prosecutors.”

Kendrick said bolstering the state’s public defenders could save the state money by slowing the growth of its prison population.

The budget also includes a $6.3-million boost in pay for the state’s Highway Patrol troopers.

Fitzpatrick said perhaps more significant for state employees than the pay and benefits increases in this budget could be funding for a reward for performance study requested by the Office of Administration.

“We’re going to give them the opportunity to go out and really study all the job classes in the state – what we’re asking people to do and trying to compare and find out what the market rate is on that, so that we can get a real good sense of what job classes we really need to focus on,” said Fitzpatrick.  “I think we have some job classes in the state that are probably overpaid, I think we probably have some that are severely underpaid, and some that are probably right about where they need to be.”

Fitzpatrick said with the information from that study the legislature could begin, even next year, working to get Missouri out of last place among all states in employee pay.

The legislature’s budget lays out more than $28.3-billion in proposed spending of state-controlled money.  It was approved on Wednesday, two days ahead of the constitutional deadline, and will next be sent to the governor.

House members prepare for conference with Senate on FY ’19 budget

Missouri House budget leaders are preparing to confer with their counterparts in the state Senate about the two chambers’ respective budget proposals.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (left) fields questions from reporters as House Speaker Todd Richardson (R-Poplar Bluff) listens. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The House last month passed the 13 bills that make up the proposed state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.  Its plan laid out more than $28-billion in spending.  The Senate spent the last month going over that plan and making changes to it, and this week endorsed its own proposal totaling more than $28.6-billion.  Now the two chambers will have to work out an agreement between the two versions that can be sent to the governor by May 11.

“[The Senate] spent a little more money than we did but I think that they have a good budget plan that is workable for conference,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob).

Of the more than $570-million dollar difference between the two chambers’ spending plans, roughly $261-million comes from the Senate proposing spending in the Fiscal Year 2019 budget that the House plan would address in a supplemental budget early in calendar year 2019, when better data would be available on how much must be spent in some cases.

As far as the various components of the budget, Fitzpatrick said the greatest difference between the two chambers’ proposals in terms of dollars is in what each would spend on K-12 education.  Full funding for the K-12 education formula in Fiscal Year 2019 would be about $99-million.  The House proposed that, while the Senate took the position found in the governor’s budget proposal of spending $48-million.

“[The Senate] did use some of that money within House Bill 2002, which is the education budget bill, so we have the flexibility of moving some of that around,” said Fitzpatrick.  “It’s not a secret that one of my top priorities is fully funding the [K-12 education funding] formula and keeping our commitment on the pre-K expansion that most of the members that are serving today made a few years ago, that once we fully funded the formula that that expansion would be available.”

The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Representative Kip Kendrick (Columbia), said the Senate’s proposal for K-12 education funding is concerning and House members would work to maintain its position on that.

“I was happy to hear the chairman of the committee, Representative Fitzpatrick, talking about making sure that we’re going to hold that line, and I can tell you that we’re going to do whatever we can to hold that line for the foundation formula to make sure that we get back to that $99-million mark,” said Kendrick.

One issue that has already been settled is that of higher education funding and limiting tuition increases at all but one of the state’s publicly-supported colleges and universities.

The House chose to restore $68-million to higher education support that the governor proposed cutting, but only if institutions agreed not to increase tuition by more than one-percent in fiscal year ’19.  Those institutions agreed except for Missouri Southern in Joplin, which House members agreed is in a financial situation dire enough that they were allowed to opt out.  The Senate proposal has upheld that plan.

“It wasn’t something that the House could do on [its] own so we appreciate the Senate working with us on accomplishing that,” said Fitzpatrick.  “I think it will result in a positive outcome for the families and students who pay tuition in the State of Missouri.”

Kendrick is also glad to see that plan preserved but has some concern with the Senate breaking out funding for special initiatives at colleges and universities, which typically go toward projects including construction and expansion.  The House had rolled the money for those items into the core allocation for institutions.

Representative Kip Kendrick is the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

“Those received additional funds but I have concerns that those have been line-itemed back out rather than wrapped up in the core.  [The House] moved them into core to protect those lines.  We have some concerns that with them being separated out that they become more vulnerable for complete withholds or vetoes – just more vulnerable out there standing alone – so we’ll do what we can to move those back into the core,” said Kendrick.

Kendrick is also concerned about more than $4-million that the Senate proposed moving out of funding for treatment courts in Missouri – those are drug courts, mental health courts, and veterans courts.

“[Those are] services that have been proven very effective in reducing recidivism rates.  The actual recidivism rate for an offender coming out DOC is about 50-percent recidivism; treatment courts is around 15-percent recidivism,” said Kendrick, who has personally worked with people going through mental health courts.  “It does keep people out of prison.  It keeps them in services, making sure that they are properly rehabilitated and receiving the services they need.”

Kendrick wants to see the House work to hold its position on the support for treatment courts.

Other differences between the House and Senate spending proposals that either Fitzpatrick or Kendrick highlighted concern funding in the social services budget for nursing homes; whether state-appropriated money can be used for DUI checkpoints; funding for autism services; and increases in state employee pay, including a Senate proposal to boost pay specifically for corrections officers – a proposal Fitzpatrick said the House would try to find a way to concur with.

Fitzpatrick will begin next week meeting with his Senate counterpart, Senator Dan Brown (R-Rolla), and each chamber will begin selecting members for committees that will meet to negotiate compromises on each of the 13 budget bills.

House budget plan would restore FY ’18 funding levels to colleges, universities

The Missouri House has perfected a budget proposal for the next fiscal year including an agreement to hold down college tuition, while restoring $68-million that Governor Eric Greitens (R) proposed cutting from colleges and universities.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The House is proposing putting that money back into the core funding for those institutions, putting them back at the level of state support they are receiving in the current fiscal year.  In exchange, the state’s institutions will increase tuition by no more than one-percent in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) proposed an amendment that completed the restoration of that $68-million dollars.

“I think that this is the appropriate thing to do,” said Fitzpatrick.  “I think a one-percent tuition increase is manageable for the folks in this state.”

Under the agreement between Fitzpatrick and the institutions, the schools must receive the money the House has proposed appropriating.  If the appropriations are withheld by the governor or otherwise do not reach them, they can increase tuition based on the Consumer Price Index.

The agreement is supported by Democrats, including the top Democrat on the budget committee, Kip Kendrick (D-Columbia), whose district includes the University of Missouri’s flagship campus.

“I appreciate this and the whole conversation we’ve had in budget committee and working with the chair on reaching an agreement.  I think everyone in here has the intent of … wants to hold tuition increases to a minimum to make sure college remains affordable and accessible for all,” said Kendrick.  “Higher education institutions have taken it on the head in the last few years with some major budget cuts, so glad that we can do all that we can this year.”

Representative Kip Kendrick, the top Democrat on the Missouri House Budget Committee (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

Until the agreement was reached, Fitzpatrick had proposed putting $30-million of the money that is now going to core funding into the Access Missouri scholarship program, which would have fully funded it.  Kendrick is glad to see that money going back to the core, but he hopes Access Missouri receives additional funding in future years.

“I love Access Missouri.  It is a fantastic, needs-based scholarship program in the State of Missouri.  It is our only needs-based aid program in the state and for a brief moment of time it had 30-million new dollars in it, and I hope that we can do what we can in the future also to make sure that we appropriately fund that line as well,” said Kendrick.

Budget committee member Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) agreed.

“While I wish that we could be funding Access Missouri and I hope that we try to do so in the future, representing Missouri State, one of the institutions who is a big part of this agreement, I was thankful for the budget chair to have the discussion and have everybody at the table and come up with this solution,” said Quade.

The tuition agreement does not extend to Missouri Southern in Joplin.  Fitzpatrick said their financial situation is dire enough that he agreed to let them opt out of the one-percent tuition cap requirement.

The funding for higher education is found in House Bill 2003, which itself appropriates more than $1.17-billion.  The House is expected to vote on that and the rest of the budget bills on Thursday.

If passed, they will go to the Senate, which will spend the coming weeks developing its own budget proposal based on the House’s plan.  The two chambers will then attempt to compromise on a final spending plan to send to the governor in May.

House budget leader has plan to restore higher ed funding, but wants agreement on tuition first

The Missouri House budget committee has a plan to continue funding of Missouri’s colleges and universities at the amount budgeted last year, but in exchange lawmakers want those institutions to freeze tuition.

Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said the solution comes from money the state set aside for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  Because federal funding for the program was uncertain, the state set aside funds for CHIP.  Now that federal funding has come through, Fitzpatrick has said the state could restore all $68-million that Governor Eric Greitens (R) proposed cutting from higher education.

Fitzpatrick said full restoration is his goal, but he is seeking agreement from the state’s institutions that they will hold down tuition.

“I want to make sure that if we’re putting that money back it’s going to result in holding down the cost of college for Missouri students, so I’m in the process of trying to seek a deal on holding down tuition with the institutions in the state in exchange for making a full restoration,” said Fitzpatrick.  “So far that deal has not been agreed to and so what we did was we put, out of the $68-million we took $30-million of that, which is the amount that it takes to fully fund the Access Missouri Scholarship, which is the state’s need-based scholarship program, and we fully funded that scholarship because if tuition is going to go up I want to make sure that we are putting some of that money into a place where it’ll help the people that are having to pay that tuition offset it.”

Fitzpatrick told the rest of the committee that if the institutions agree to his plan he will put that $30-million back toward their state support.  If they don’t agree, he will leave that $30-million where it is and might move some of the remaining $38-million to other things.

“My goal is to help the institutions out but I also want that to translate into the cost of college being held down, and I don’t plan to seek an agreement that tuition won’t be raised every single year but I do think if we’re going to be spending close to $70-million on just going back into institutional budgets that there should be some consideration for that,” said Fitzpatrick.

Representative Kip Kendrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The leading Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Kip Kendrick (Columbia), said he’s still undecided on whether he supports the chairman’s proposed agreement, but he thinks the committee’s members all want to see tuition as level as possible and keep higher education affordable for Missourians.

“It’s hard to make an argument against fully funding the only needs-based scholarship program we have in the state of Missouri,” said Kendrick. “Access Missouri provides access, as it says – it’s in the name. It provides access to many Missourians – middle-class and lower-income individuals – to higher education. It’s an important program, it’s been underfunded for a number of years, so it’s hard to necessarily argue with where it currently stands.”

Kendrick said he hopes before the budget is final money could be found to both restore core funding to colleges and universities and to fully fund Access Missouri.

The budget committee will go through it’s “mark up” process next week.  Individual members of the committee will propose changes they want to make – to increase funding where they think it should be increased and propose where that funding could be pulled from.  From there, the committee will vote on whether to send each budget bill to debate by the full House, which is expected to happen after the legislature’s spring break.

Missouri House adopts resolution launching investigation of charge against Gov. Greitens

“We will do our best.”

Representative Jay Barnes presents a resolution that would launch the House’s investigation into a felony charge against Gov. Eric Greitens. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

That was the final statement to the House Thursday from Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) before the chamber adopted a resolution that launches its investigation of a felony charge against Governor Eric Greitens (R).  Barnes will chair the Special Investigative Committee on Oversight that will conduct that investigation.

A St. Louis grand jury last month indicted Greitens for felony invasion of privacy.  He is accused of taking, without consent, an intimate photo of a woman with whom he had an affair in 2015.

House Resolution 5565 authorizes the Committee.  It was approved 154-0.

Barnes discussed with other members how the investigation will be conducted.  He said the committee will close its hearings to the public when witnesses are giving testimony.

“The reason for that, if you think about legal process and the context of a trial where testimony is given, other witnesses in a case are excluded from the courtroom while a separate witness is testifying … lawyers call that, ‘invoking the rule.’  So we could ‘invoke the rule,’ but if we have a public hearing, invoking the rule means nothing because everything that a previous witness says would be reported to other potential witnesses and they could come in and that would color their testimony based on what they had heard previous witnesses have said, and I think the best way to get accurate information is to close those hearings so that other potential witnesses don’t know what previous witnesses said,” Barnes explained.

Barnes said the first witnesses the committee will question are individuals that were identified in publicly-available documents and documents that have been reported on, though he did not name them.  He said subpoenas would be sent to those witnesses.  Based on their testimony, more individuals could be called to testify.

House Speaker Todd Richardson (right) and Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo (left) talk with Representatives Jay Barnes (second from right), who chairs the Special Investigative Committee on Oversight, and Representative Don Phillips (seated), the vice chair of that committee. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Democrats expressed concerns that they would like more clarity about what possible actions will remain after the committee completes its work, but in the end they joined in supporting the resolution.

Columbia representative Kip Kendrick (D) said the situation with the governor has become a distraction for lawmakers.  He wished the committee well in conducting its investigation.

“It’s an embarrassment for everyone in this body, for everyone in this chamber, for the whole state,” said Kendrick.  “The charge of this committee to hold this investigation is very serious.  Outside of passing the budget this year it’s probably the most serious thing that’s happening … I hope that everyone in this chamber, on both sides of the aisle, don’t enter into the partisan bickering or partisan fights on this moving forward.  There are going to be attempts to make this a partisan issue and it’s not.  This should be a fair and thorough process that should be allowed to play out.”

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty (D-Kansas City) asked Barnes about the process, and at the end of her inquiry told him, “We’re putting all of our trust in you to handle this properly.”

Barnes acknowledged to the chamber the levity of the job before him and the committee.

“This is a solemn and serious obligation.  Thank you for the trust that you have placed in me and the members of this committee and the trust that this body places in us.  We will do our best,” said Barnes.

The committee, whose other members are vice chairman Don Phillips (R-Kimberling City) and representatives Jeanie Lauer (R-Blue Springs), Kevin Austin (R-Springfield), Shawn Rhoads (R-West Plains), Gina Mitten (D-St. Louis), and Tommie Pierson, Jr (D-St. Louis), is expected to begin holding hearings next week.