February 22, 2012

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House committee hears update from State Budget Director

February 22, 2012 By
The Nixon Administration has laid out its ideas for filling in the $460 million dollar hole in the fiscal year 2013 budget to the House Budget Committee.
 

State Budget Director Linda Luebbering

The gap in the budget had been $500 million but a recent mortgage settlement secured by the Attorney General’s Office has knocked that number down by $40 million.

State Budget Director Linda Luebbering says the Administration’s recommendations to balance the budget includes a $191.7 million reduction from where budget planners expected Medicaid would be. She tells lawmakers, “It’s an actual reduction of $20 million for general revenue from this year, but a $191 million dollar reduction from where we thought we would need to be because of the change in the Medicaid match rate.” Luebbering says it will not require a change in eligibility or a reduction in services provided.

$74.7 million of the administration’s budget recommendations also rely on measures still before the state legislature. A revenue collections bill would generate an estimated $12.9 million, with another $51.8 million to come from a tax amnesty bill. Both are sponsored by Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage).

What had been a $16.9 million dollar recommended reduction to community and technical colleges has been scaled back to $10.5 million, also due to proceeds from the mortgage settlement.

Other amounts include $41 million from restructuring debt, $29.3 million in administrative savings, a $7 million reduction to biodiesel subsidy payments and a $2 million reduction to public health agencies.

The Administration’s top priority for the budget remains $203 million to the Foundation Formula. Luebbering says, “$198 million of that is needed just to keep the formula where it is this year.”

Luebbering tells the committee there are some positive signs in the economy. “The unemployment rate is down. We are starting to see a little bit of growth on the collections side. Not a lot yet this fiscal year. We were at 1.3 percent growth in our revenue collections at the end of January, so not stellar growth, but certainly it’s good to see that we’re continuing a positive on our collections numbers.”

Republicans question the validity of the lower unemployment numbers, saying that federal statistic does not count individuals who don’t have jobs and are no longer looking for them as being unemployed. Luebbering says the data still holds meaning, “Because it has historically looked at people who are looking for jobs or who have jobs. So, I think it is a historically relevant statistic that has been measured the same for years. Granted it’s not a complete number, but it at least is consistently calculated every month.”

The House Budget Committee will continue to hold agency budget hearings this week.

Filed Under: Economy, Legislature, News Tagged With: , , , ,

House rejects recommended hike on farmland values (AUDIO)

February 21, 2012 By

The House of Representatives has voted to reject the State Tax Commission’s recommendation that tax assessment values on the top four grades of farm land in the state be raised.

Representative Casey Guernsey

The Commission considers changes to those values every two years. This year it had suggested that those four categories’ values go up eight percent. Representative Casey Guernsey (R-Bethany) told his colleagues those areas of land were hit the hardest by last year’s floods.

“I would simply contend that this is not a year to be raising taxes on farmers who have been absolutely devastated by the floods all across the state.”

The Commission’s recommendation will still take effect unless the Senate also votes to reject it by March 4. A hearing on the matter was held earlier this month, but the matter remains in a committee.

The property tax changes would be effective for 2013 and 2014 assessments.

AUDIO: Representative Guernsey and Representative Jill Schupp (D-Creve Coeur), 12:45

Filed Under: Agriculture, Legislature, News, Politics & Government

Primary election filing date change advances in House Committee

February 20, 2012 By

The House Committee on Elections has given a favorable vote to the Senate bill that would push back filing dates for the August primary one month. The move is intended to allow time for the courts to settle issues with state house and senate, and congressional districts.

Representatives Stacy Newman and Pat Conway

The measure was opposed by two Democrats on that Committee. Representative Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis County) says she wants to be sure the Secretary of State’s Office can pick up the cost of publishing a notice of that date change so that county clerks don’t have to. “I’d like to make sure … it’s no fault of anyone’s here, but just to make sure that their budget is not being penalized because of this additional cost.”

Committee Chairman Tony Dugger (R-Hartville) told Newman he assumes that money is already built-in to the fiscal year 2012 budget. “I think they often put an ‘E’ in some of those line items that allows discretion of the Secretary of State to pay for such things as these.”

Representative Pat Conway (D-St. Joseph) suggested that filing dates be pushed back only for the offices whose districts are in question, pending court action. “That will also allow local election officials to start preparing their ballots because that will be a lengthy process when you get into entailing all of the issues that are going to be on the August ballot.”

See the language of SB 773

The votes of Conway and Newman were the only two against the measure, which advances to the House Rules Committee.

Filed Under: 2012 Campaign, Elections, Legislature, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

GOP Senate candidates debate at Lincoln Days (AUDIO)

February 20, 2012 By
The Republican party candidates for United States Senator have for the first time been together in a debate, Saturday at Lincoln Days in Kansas City’s Crown Center. The trio said more on stage about the President than they did about Senator Claire McCaskill or one another.
 
GOP Senate Candidates (from right to left) John Brunner, Congressman Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman

All three said the president’s health care reform plan must be repealed. Congressman Todd Akin said a new approach must be taken. “The way to attack Medicare is to get rid of the government price setting and use the Medicare dollars so that people actually have purchasing power and can make choices.”

Former state treasurer Sarah Steelman says Republicans are going to have to recognize that there is a health care problem in the U.S. “The cost of paying for insurance keeps going up and up and up and it takes more of families’ discretionary income.”

Businessman John Brunner told the audience not to forget that Senator McCaskill’s was the tie-breaking vote in favor of the health care reform package, and he told Republicans to stop calling it “Obamacare.” “I think we just need to call it the Obamacare program and go forward with that and keep those two together and repeal both of those folks.”

Infrastructure

The three were asked to consider what they would do to provide funds for highways and infrastructure. Congressman Akin says before he would raise the federal gas tax, he would look at an idea that has been promoted by the Director of the Missouri Department of Transportation. “I think we’d do better to copy what the governor or Indiana did, and that is to simply put some toll booths on, say, Highway (Interstate) 70, because when you do that it’s a user fee. If you don’t use it, you don’t pay the fee.” Brunner and Steelman both say they oppose the toll roads idea.

Steelman brought the infrastructure conversation back to one of the main budgeting ideas she supports. She says the government has plenty of money already, but needs to re-prioritize it through zero-based budgeting. “We need to go in to each program in the federal government and look at it and find out what it’s about. Is it constitutional? If it is, do we really need it? If we really need it should it be at the federal level, the state level or at the local level?”

Brunner says he would repeal the federal gas tax. “Why is the money going to Washington D.C. and then coming back in the forms of earmarks and political decisions in terms of what really needs to be fixed in different parts of the state?”

Federal farm policy

Citing the possibility the likelihood that the reformulation of the federal farm bill will be pushed back to next year, thereby falling to the winner of this campaign, the three were asked what they would do with it. The candidates focused on regulations, land use issues and restricting the hours that children can work on farms, saying those issues are the ones farmers are concerned with the most, though none of those are farm bill issues.

Congressman Akin said he would try to phase out direct payments over time, where he says the government is doing “sort of bail-outy types of things.” He also wants to separate out social programs, like food stamps, from the farm programs in that legislation.

Off-stage conflict

While the debate on the stage was low-key and congenial, the fireworks came to the row of reporters covering the event. A Brunner campaign staffer handed out a release criticizing Steelman’s plan for what she would do in her first 60 days in office. It said her plan contained no new ideas, calling it a “cut and paste” platform.

Brunner was asked why he didn’t bring the issue up on the stage. He said he wanted to keep a friendlier tone in front of fellow Republicans. “We’re gonna move down this campaign trail. It’s still early. We’ll have plenty of opportunities.”

Steelman questioned why Brunner did not bring the issue up in front of the audience. “He didn’t show up for the first two debates. Here, he had a chance. He didn’t take it.” She added, “Maybe he’s worried about me.”

AUDIO:  Listen to the debate, 1:19:18

Filed Under: 2012 Campaign, Featured, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , , ,

National Weather Service offers fewer chances to learn storm spotter training

February 17, 2012 By

Reductions in funding have caused the National Weather Service to scale back the number of severe weather spotter classes it is offering. In northwest Missouri, the number of talks has been cut in half.

Spotter training classes help people know how to interpret storm features, such as this wall cloud. Images courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Andy Bailey is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWS’s Pleasant Hill office. “Where as in the past we would do forty-five to fifty training sessions per season, this year we’re looking at about twenty-five.”

Bailey explains, the spotter schedule has been adjusted so the Service can get the most “bang for its buck.”

“For some of the rural areas, we’re working to do spotter training at one location per county every other year. In urban areas, where population is higher, we need to do it every year. We also do it every year in locations that are a little bit further away from our radar.” Bailey says that is because basic radar limitations mean the Service needs more eyes in those areas. “Places like around the Kirksville area, for instance, we’ll do spotter training there every year.”

Bailey hopes interested individuals will take advantage of any chance they have to take the training.

The classes teach attendees how storms form, why certain types of severe weather develops and where to look in a storm to see if certain phenomena are developing, such as a tornado.

Bailey says it can take a while to sink in. “After just one training course they’re probably still a little bit fuzzy but if they come back every year or two to get training and they go out spotting quite a bit, they really get to be very skilled at identifying that weather.”

See the schedule for spotter training classes offered in the Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield Weather Service coverage areas.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Human Interest, News, Weather Tagged With: , ,
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