Tag: Missouri House Budget Committee

House Budget Committee weighs proposed pay hike for state employees

      The Parson Administration has made its case to the House Budget Committee for a proposed 5.5-percent pay increase for state employees. 

Missouri Budget Director Dan Haug testifies before the House Budget Committee (Photo: Ben Peters, Missouri House Communications)

      The committee heard from the administration’s budget director, Dan Haug, who outlined the motivation for the plan that would cost about $72-million including $41-million in general revenue.  It would set state employee pay at a minimum of $15 an hour and kick in February 1, if it can get through the legislature by then.

      Haug said Missouri must do something to respond to recent and rapid changes in the labor market. 

      “We’re getting to the point where if we have more vacancies and more turnovers we’re not going to be able to operate our state facilities,” said Haug.  He said some facilities with minimum staffing requirements, such as prisons and mental health facilities, have resorted to forced overtime to fill shifts. 

      “That’s not the way we want to run the state,” said Haug. 

      Haug said one reason for proposing a February 1 start date is that a stipend being paid out of federal money to state employees in some institutions came to an end at the end of December.   

“We feel like if we wait until July 1, which is typically when we would do a pay increase, when the new fiscal year starts, then we’re just going to keep bleeding employees and we’re going to get to those critical numbers where we don’t have enough employees to safely operate our correctional institutions and our mental health institutions and provide the quality of services that the citizens of this state deserve,” Haug said. 

“We’re just responding to the wage market that is out there.  We are trying to figure out what a market wage is that’s going to let us be competitive.  We’re not trying to set the market.  Honestly we’re not even trying to get to the middle of the market.  We’re just trying to get somewhere where we can be competitive and get people in and keep our good people,” said Haug. 

Most lawmakers seemed to agree with the desire to increase state employee pay.

“Let’s face it:  we’re in competition with McDonald’s right now, so obviously something has to break there, without a doubt,” said Representative Don Mayhew (R-Crocker).   

      Excelsior Springs Republican Doug Richey agrees, but he has an issue with setting a new minimum baseline of $15 per hour for state employees’ pay.  He said given existing pay structures that could set the income of some new state hires too close to the level of pay of long-term employees.

      “Creating an arbitrary baseline prevents us from being able to be responsive to the market, as well as sends an unintended message that would be somewhat negative to those … who have been working for two decades,” said Richey.  “You can work for 20 years in your job, have tremendous institutional memory and ability, but you’re really no different than a part-time custodial worker at 17 years of age with no experience.”     

      “I wanna get away from the $15 an hour because to me that’s just a number.  That’s not what it’s going to take to get people in.  I’m an employer … in unskilled jobs and I can’t get people for $17 an hour, so that $15 an hour is just a number we’re throwing out there and I believe that is for political reasons,” said Representative Richard West (R-Wentzville).  “Let’s do realistic and what’s it going to take to hire?  For one department it may require 15, for another department it may require 18, for another department it may require 22.”

The Missouri House Budget Committee takes testimony from Missouri Budget Director Dan Haug (Photo: Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)

      Many legislative budget makers resist using federal funds to support ongoing expenses, like state employee pay.  They refer to it as, “one time money.”  Haug said this proposed pay hike relies only on state funds.

      “Missouri’s revenues are doing very well.  Right now the state’s economy is doing well.  We have more people coming back to work.  Our revenues are coming in very strongly.  They came in very strongly last fiscal year.  The consensus revenue estimate shows strong growth through fiscal year 23,” said Haug.  “Even at a very conservative growth rate of 1.5-percent growth in general revenue we can easily afford this ongoing pay increase.”

      Haug, who has worked with the state’s budget for more than 25 years, said, “I feel very confident that we can afford what we’re doing now and what we’re going to need to do in the future.”

      Other legislators asked whether studies should be done to make sure the state needs the employees it has, or that pay increases would be going to the employees who are most needed or deserving.  Haug said the state has reduced its workforce significantly in the past ten years, and said such an employee pay review could take months, and changes to the labor market necessitate a quick response.  He said state employee turnover in some positions and pay levels has been as high as 55-percent. 

      The committee has not voted on the bill which includes the proposed pay plan, House Bill 3014. 

House Budget Committee unhappy with how Greitens administration created drug monitoring program

State House Budget Committee members are not pleased with how Governor Greitens’ (R) administration paid for a new prescription drug monitoring program.

The Missouri House Budget Committee (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The Governor created the program with an executive order issued in July.  It includes a $250,000 no-bid contract with Express Scripts, under which that company provides data to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.  The Department uses that data to try to identify prescription drug abusers.

Legislators on the budget committee are frustrated that the administration created and found a way to pay for that program without their input or approval.

Versailles Republican David Wood said it looks bad for this new program to have been announced at a time when the governor has withheld money from other state programs, and after the legislature refused to fund many things saying the state is in a tight budget year.

“It makes me look like a liar,” said Wood.

The Office of Administration’s budget director, Dan Haug, told legislators the money came from additional federal funds for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that the state had not anticipated it would get.  He said the administration was free to use that money as it saw fit, and used it to address what it sees as a crisis:  prescription drug abuse.

Yukon Republican Robert Ross said the administration circumvented the legislature’s authority and used money that could have supported other state needs, including some the legislature voted to pay for but that later saw the governor withhold the funding.

Budget Director for the Greitens’ Administration, Dan Haug, took the brunt of criticism from House Budget Committee members over how the administration paid to create a prescription drug monitoring program. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“You are taking that money away from someone else,” said Ross.  “Now we could have that discussion of whether it’s more deserving to go to the kids, or whether it’s more deserving to go to the seniors, or whether it’s more deserving to go to those with disabilities, but at the end of the day you are taking that money from one of these other groups.”

Criticism came from both supporters and opponents of prescription drug monitoring with those on both sides saying their problem was not with the program the governor launched, but with how he launched it.

It also came from both political parties.

Springfield Democrat Crystal Quade told Haug it was “extremely frustrating” that CHIP money was used in a way that the legislature had no say in.

“I hope that as you all continue to come up with these new ideas to address this crisis that you bring them to use before you start moving money around,” said Quade.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) suggested the administration should not move forward with its drug monitoring program, and to instead bring it as a proposal to the legislature during the next budget process.  He urged administration officials to halt the transfer of that CHIP money to pay for the program, and to not sign a contract with Express Scripts.

“My suggestion would be to not do that,” said Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick called the use of that money, without the legislature’s approval, a “breach of trust.”

House Budget Committee members frustrated by Capitol metal detectors

Members of the state House Budget Committee have told the Greitens Administration they aren’t pleased with how it paid to keep operating metal detectors in the State Capitol.

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

The state legislature passed a budget that approved paying for additional police officers to patrol the Capitol while the metal detectors, which were installed shortly before Eric Greitens (R) became governor, would be removed.  Greitens’ administration has paid contract workers to continue operating those detectors using money out of a fund for building maintenance.

Lawmakers on the budget committee expressed frustration not only at how the administration is paying for those contract workers, but also at Greitens’ continued support for using metal detectors.

“If the administration had come out at the beginning of the year and said, ‘We think these metal detectors need to be here,’ and there was clear communication that that was the intent of the administration, I think it’s far more likely that there would have been an appropriation for the manning of the metal detectors,” said Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob).  “The public communication that was out there was that the administration was not in favor of metal detectors.”

Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety, was critical of the administration’s decision to use money from the maintenance fund to pay to staff the detectors – a step that was done without the legislature knowing about it or approving it.

“We need to be in the loop,” said Conway.

Not all budget committee members were as upset with the administration’s actions.

Kansas City Democrat Greg Razer asked Greitens’ Office of Administration Commissioner, Sarah Steelman, what would happen if the detectors are removed and an incident occurs at the Capitol.

Sarah Steelman is the Commissioner of the Office of Administration, under the administration of Governor Eric Grietens. She testified to the House Budget Committee that the administration wants to keep metal detectors in the Capitol. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications).

“The governor works here, the legislature works here, and anyone who’s here during the springtime knows that there are hundreds of rambunctious, loud fourth graders that roam this hall … if we remove the metal detectors and, God forbid, something horrible happens in the halls of this building and one of those kids are hurt, can we look that parent in the eye and say we did everything we could to protect your kid?” asked Razer.

“No, I don’t think we can,” said Steelman.

Fitzpatrick said he is, “somewhat indifferent,” about the metal detectors being in place, but he remains frustrated about the administration funding the staffing of those without the legislature’s approval.

He did say he does not want to see Capitol Police officers staffing those detectors after the legislature approved money for more officers to be hired so the Capitol halls would be patrolled.

“I’m going to have a major problem with that,” said Fitzpatrick.