Scott Fitzpatrick – Missouri House of Representatives Newsroom

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.

Legislature’s budget could help counties save money on holding state prisoners

The budget passed by the Missouri legislature this week aims to get the state caught up in payments to counties for holding state prisoners, and to give counties cheaper options for taking care of those prisoners.

Representative Kathie Conway (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The budget includes more than $34-million to reimburse county jails that hold inmates on state charges until they are transferred into state custody. Missouri statute calls for the state to reimburse each county $22.58 per day for every state inmate that county holds in its jail. Missouri is about 6-months behind in those reimbursements according to House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob).

Out of that $34-million, counties can spend up to $5-million in state funds on alternative methods for tracking inmates – methods including ankle monitors or a smartphone app for monitoring of prisoners.

“There’s talk of, for super-low-risk offenders, potentially letting them out with an app on their phone – basically they’ll have to check in with facial recognition requirements and they have to check in however many times a day the court wants them to check in from their home,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick. “It’s a riskier method but it’s also much less expensive and if we feel like somebody’s not a risk of fleeing or something like that, it’d be a low-cost option.”

“This is a chance for the state and the counties to save money up front, and hopefully start catching up with the reimbursements we owe the counties and keep costs down going forward,” said Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles), the Chair of the budget subcommittee that deals with the Departments of Public Safety and Corrections.

“[The state only releases] $10-million per quarter [in county reimbursements], so if [a county gets] the money that’s fine, then you have to wait for the n ext quarter to start getting reimbursed again. There are a lot of counties out there that just can’t afford to do that,” said Conway. “This $5-million also gives other counties the opportunity to use this GPS tracker system if they wish … if they can use this electronic tracking system for the cost of what one day [of holding a state prisoner] would be, they’re actually going to catch up with their arrears a lot sooner.”

Conway has also been working for several years to develop a similar program that will be launching as a pilot in Audrain, Montgomery, and Warren Counties. It will use a bracelet similar to those people wear to track the number of steps they take each day, popularly known as a “FitBit.”

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

“It worked with [a smart phone app], and rather than the $12.50 a day that it costs for the ankle bracelet, this was around $15 to $20 a month. People could be out on probation and every three minutes this would send a ping for GPS and the probation and parole officer would always know their location, could send them notification of court dates and different payments that were due,” said Conway. “[We] set up a pilot program where it could be pre-conviction as well, and I think the significance of that is most of the cost for county jails to hold prisoners for the state came before the conviction.”

Counties could utilize that $5-million for any “alternative jail sanctions,” as these prisoner tracking options are being called, that don’t cost more than $12.50 per day. If not all of the $5-million is utilized, it will roll back into the money used to reimburse counties.

The legislature voted to approve its budget proposal on Wednesday, two days ahead of its constitutional deadline.

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.

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.

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.

State Representative’s review finds $36-million of potential savings in Department of Revenue

A state House representative says his review of the Department of Revenue uncovered ways the state could save up to $36-million dollars.

Representative David Gregory (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

St. Louis Republican David Gregory presented to the House Budget Committee what he called a, “Fiscal Opportunity Audit” of the Department. He explained that he spent 160 hours over several months studying the department, meeting with its staff, and comparing it to counterparts in other states. He said he found a number of ways the state could save money or generate revenue.

At least one of his findings has come up in other reviews of Missouri tax policy including Governor Eric Greitens’ (R) tax cut plan, and that concerns the state’s business sales tax discount. Missouri businesses that remit to the state in a timely manner the sales tax they collect get a 2-percent discount. Gregory said of neighboring states three have no such discount and four cap how much money businesses can retain. Missouri’s discount is the second highest among all states.

“Let’s say we wanted to implement an arbitrary cap. We still wanted to be the most business-friendly, we wanted to be the most generous in our area, we can implement a cap of $3000 a month. That would save $52.7-million a year in state taxes,” said Gregory.

Gregory said he also found that capping the state’s withholding tax discount – a discount that among the states is unique to Missouri – the state could save up to $13-million a year.

As for revenue generation, Gregory said for the Department to hire three more people to investigate notices of auto sales could generate more than $3-million a year. Hiring two more people to investigate the paying of sales taxes on vehicle purchases might result in $700,000 a year more revenue.

Gregory also looked at what the Department is spending on supplies and that led him to Missouri Vocational Enterprises. People incarcerated in state prisons work for MVE making products including furniture, clothing, notepads, and a variety of other products. All state agencies are required by law to purchase any product they need from MVE if it’s made there.

Gregory said when he looked into one specific product, a chair purchased from MVE by the Department, he found that, “the exact same chairs sell online at Office Depot for $150. Our Department of Revenue paid almost $400 a chair. That’s too much. That’s way too much,” said Gregory. “I like the MVE. I love the program. I think it’s a great idea and we’re going to work with them, but paying $400 – requiring a $400 spend on chairs is absolutely ridiculous.”

Overall Gregory said the Department spent $4.2-million a year with MVE.

“If we could get the MVE to commercial rates of one-third of what it is … even if we could just do a 50-percent cut … that’s $2.1-million a year in savings,” said Gregory, who said he’s been talking to MVE’s director and believes changes to that agency’s pricing can be implemented.

In looking at size, Gregory found that Indiana’s Department of Revenue covers about half-a-million more residents over about the same land size with 822 employees compared to 1,145 in Missouri’s Department. Gregory said he has identified 283 employees he believes the Department could cut without falling behind in its operations.

Gregory emphasized to the committee that his findings were just that; not recommendations or proposals. The budget subcommittee that deals with the Department will consider whether to explore them further or act upon them.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick said the Department will be given time to react, “As opposed to us doing it through the budget right now and maybe forcing the changes to occur too fast.”

“What happens now is I want to see to it that we implement and execute on those observations if the budget committee and the General Assembly agrees with me,” said Gregory. “A lot of them aren’t things you can just do overnight, so generally like I said in my presentation, my recommendation’s going to be that we work with management over a course of 12, 18, 24 months and see what we can do together to execute.”

Gregory said any changes the Department does experience could take years and some could require legislation. At some point he hopes to see a similar review done with other state agencies.

House budget reject Greitens’ administration plan to expedite tax refund payments

House budget leaders are rejecting Governor Eric Greitens’ (R) plan to use a line of credit to help pay for getting tax refunds out to Missourians.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (left) and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Representative Kip Kendrick (photos; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Under the administration’s plan the state would seek a line of credit of up to $250-million. That would be used to help the state get refunds out faster and would be paid off by the time the fiscal year ends at the end of June. The loan would have come from MoHEFA, the Missouri health and Educational Facilities Authority, which typically helps finance buildings projects for colleges and universities.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) considered the idea since it was first presented to him, but has since cooled on it.

“I personally didn’t love it at first, the first time I heard it, and the more I thought about it the more it wasn’t something I thought we should do, so the House is not going to do it,” said Fitzpatrick.

Both Fitzpatrick and the top Democrat on the budget committee, Representative Kip Kendrick (D-Columbia), also question the constitutionality of that plan.

“One of my biggest concerns about the whole thing is we have a process in place already to make sure we can pay refunds. The idea that we can pull from MoHEFA, and the explanation that taking this $250-million line of credit is the same thing as providing funding for Mizzou Arena – that’s a false equivalency. It’s not. The “F” in MoHEFA stands for facilities,” said Kendrick.

“The nature by which they wanted to do it was to use a quasi-governmental agency to borrow off budget and then use state appropriations to pay off through that quasi-governmental entity those loans,” Fitzpatrick said. “It was creative but it isn’t something that I feel real comfortable with on the constitutionality issue.”

Senate leaders have also reportedly rejected the loan idea.

Asked whether the legislature needs to reevaluate how refunds are disbursed in order get them out faster, and with the state paying less interest on delayed refunds, Fitzpatrick said let’s wait and see.

“Like two years ago we had a 15-percent year-over-year increase in refund expenditures. It went up like $200-million in one year and … we didn’t anticipate that. When you have something like that – that kind of growth in refunds – it can create some cash flow problems, especially right at the end of the fiscal year,” said Fitzpatrick. “If we have a good year of growth and we can get our General Revenue Fund cash balance in a better situation, and we don’t have an explosion in refunds … I think we ought to be able to get ourselves in a better situation where we’re paying refunds in a timely fashion.”

The House Budget Committee this week began going over Greitens’ budget proposal. Over the coming months the House and Senate will craft a legislative spending plan that will be sent to Greitens before the end of the session in May.

House budget leaders discuss Greitens’ plan to cut college, university funding

After legislators began going through Governor Eric Greitens’ (R) budget proposal many began expressing concern over his proposal to cut money from Missouri’s colleges and universities.

Representatives Kip Kendrick and Scott Fitzpatrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The Governor proposed a 7.7-percent reduction to higher education. Coupled with money frozen in the state budget that took effect July 1, 2017, that would be a 10-percent cut overall.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said that would amount to a reduction of about $68-million. Higher education funding is also shifting to being based on performance, which could mean additional decreases for some institutions.

“I haven’t heard any rumblings from any institutions about, ‘If this happens, we’re closing,’ but I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility,” said Fitzpatrick. “I don’t anticipate that all of those reductions will stand in the budget. I think that we’ll probably try to recover some of that, but I think that the institutions – some more than others – are going to have a difficult time with it.”

Fitzpatrick and the budget committee are just beginning the process that over the next couple of months will see countless changes made to the governor’s budget proposal to morph it into the legislature’s own state spending plan. He is sure efforts will be made along the way to restore at least some higher education funding.

“It’ll depend on what things we find in the budget that we think we can reduce or any other revenue source that we’re not currently considering that could become available through the process, which usually happens in some way shape or form,” said Fitzpatrick.

Legislators in both parties and in both chambers are expressing intent to propose more funding to colleges and universities than the governor proposed, so it seems likely the 10-percent reduction will not stand. Still the leading Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Representative Kip Kendrick (Columbia), said he’s alarmed at the governor’s proposal.

“This is a time when we’re at full employment. That’s what scares me the most is the economy’s doing well, yet we’re seeing such tremendous cuts to public higher education across the State of Missouri. I’m very concerned about what it’s going to mean for our state,” said Kendrick. “I think that this is a very concerning trend that we’ve been seeing … what happens in the next [economic] downturn? What’s that going to mean for higher education at that time?”

As for other provisions in the governor’s plan, neither Fitzpatrick nor Kendrick are supportive of a plan to take out a line of credit to pay for the state to get tax refunds out to Missourians faster. Both also want to retain or improve on the governor’s proposal to increase pay by $650 to state employees making less than $50,000 a year, but say only time will tell what form any state employee pay hike could take.

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.”