Budgets, will they agree?
Richard Fulton
Remember last week when the geniuses in Washington couldn’t pass the final elements of the budget for this, not next, fiscal year and had to pass a resolution to do so this week or large parts of the government would shut down?
Well, today is the last day for Congress to pass that budget. Will they get it done?
But the national government is not the only government that is having troubles passing budgets. The Missouri constitution says the legislature must pass a budget before adjourning each year and it must be balanced. It’s supposed to be passed by six PM today or the governor must call for an immediate special session.
Something not done for fourteen years.
There is a special Conference committee of House and Senate members to “reconcile” the budgets passed by the two houses. It was supposed to meet Tuesday to finalize their efforts. Surprise, it didn’t happen. No news about Wednesday when this is written.
Why? Compromises are hard to get done when money is involved.
The budget is pegged at $27.8 billion dollars, about a third of which comes from the federal government. Some news reports say that the hold-up is some $100 million dollars worth of spending.
Legislators want to keep the $42 million they have added to the school Foundation Formula so that they can claim that they have fully funded the formula. But what they won’t say is that they changed the formula last year to lower the formula goals so they could be met with the $42 million. Slick!
If they didn’t change the formula they would need well over $150 million to fulfill the obligation.
Higher Education is one of the stumbling blocks for the Conference. The House restored $22 million for all the state universities except the UM system. They put UM’s share into cooperative programs, notably the MU medical program in Springfield.
The squabbles between the UM System and Missouri State continue while state regional universities, arguably the most efficient of all the state institutions, must scramble to meet low tuition expectations and higher costs.
The Senate put into their budget $30 million for the state Managed Care Program and they added $31 million to the Missouri State Employee’s Retirement System. These are not in the House budget.
The Senate said they would pay for these increases with $50 million from the state’s reserve fund. The House says they wanted to keep this money for anticipated added funds needed for Medicaid and for education later this year in a supplementary budget bill.
The House wants to cut monies for tax credits given to elderly renters. This in exchange for not dumping monies for home nursery care for the elderly.
Democrats in both houses wanted to reinstate a corporate loophole dumped by the Republicans in 2015 which was to cost the state $15 million in tax revenue. As it turns out the cost has ballooned to $200 million. That’s hard to make up elsewhere, so programs for the poor are the target.
The two houses must approve a reconciled bill by today and send it to the governor.
So watch the news. Congress must pass its budget that will last until the end of its fiscal year in September. They’ll do it, of course, since they have scheduled another two week recess starting today.
Missouri’s legislature will no doubt get its work done, but we will have to wait to see what compromises they made in order to do so.
What a way to run a railroad.
Richard Fulton is an emeritus professor of political science.
