May 23, 2013

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Funding for developmentally disabled, blind still in question on final morning of session

May 17, 2013 By

One unresolved issue in this final day of the legislative session is how four programs will be funded, that the legislature tied in its budget to the passage of a bill to repeal a tax credit for low-income seniors in rental properties.

Those are First Steps, that supports families with children with developmental disabilities, early childhood education, healthcare for the blind and community health centers.

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House leadership had earlier in the week said that one possibility was to attach that tax credit repeal to a larger tax credit reform package. It was amended on the House floor to a Senate bill, SB 24, on Wednesday, but the House failed to adopt the changes. The same amendment had been among those drafted for SB 112 that the House sent back to the Senate yesterday, but it was not offered on the floor.

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) says the Senate has indicated it won’t support the tax credit repeal.

Instead, it has amended language to a couple of bills to use higher-than-expected state revenue to fund those programs. Stream had first been cool to that approach because it would mean exceeding the Consensus Revenue Estimate, a budget spending amount agreed to by the House, the Senate and the Governor in December. He says now, however, that’s the way to go.

“We have to face reality, and the reality is that the Senate has moved in a different direction in the last several days. So, we’re going to follow suit and make sure the people get the funding for the programs that we think need to be funded.”

The Senate’s funding mechanism has been added to HB 986, which has been sent back to the House where it will likely be taken up today.

Stream maintains Governor Jay Nixon created the question of how those programs would be supported.

He says the legislature’s budget was balanced on, “a bill that the Governor had initially proposed in his budget, had supported for three months, then backed away from it at the last minute.”

House leadership has said that the bill to repeal that senior renters tax credit used language drafted and offered by the Governor’s Office, and that Nixon’s state Budget Director Linda Luebbering had privately assured Stream that the Governor supported the bill less than two days before he said he would veto it.

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House Republicans: Nixon switched positions on new state office building

May 15, 2013 By

Governor Jay Nixon has harshly criticized legislative budget makers for proposing the construction of a new state office building. Now those lawmakers are saying the Governor has changed his position on that plan.

House Speaker Tim Jones (left) and House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Speaker Tim Jones (left) and House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Bill 19, a supplemental spending bill for capital improvements, includes $38 million for the new building that would be built in the site of the decommissioned Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. It would house the Department of Transportation and other state offices that budget makers say are in rented or leased space.

House Budget Director Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) says Nixon supported that plan privately before he opposed it publicly.

“I don’t talk to the Governor personally, of course, but with his director of the budget, Linda Luebbering. She twice came back and said the Governor is on board with the office building … if he had been opposed to it. If he had used language or she had used language that in any way, shape or form gave us the slightest inkling that he was not going to be in favor of it, we would not have included it in that bill.”

Stream and House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Eureka) say pulling those state offices out of leased space means that over time the state would save money in the deal, even paying off the building in 7 to 10 years.

Jones accuses Nixon of switching positions on this and another significant issue tied to the budget.

“Like what the Governor did to us on flipping on his support of the circuit breaker bill, I feel like I’m having Groundhog Day on House Bill 19 as well.”

Jones refers to SB 350, a proposal to repeal a tax credit for seniors in low-income housing. Nixon had built that into his budget proposal unveiled in January, but a few weeks ago announced he would veto it if it was not part of a larger tax credit reform proposal. The legislature passed the bill last week and Nixon has kept his promise, vetoing it yesterday.

Governor Nixon has not said what he will do with HB 19.

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Nixon threatens cuts, layoffs if legislative conference budget plan passes (VIDEO/AUDIO)

May 8, 2013 By

Governor Jay Nixon says the recommendation by a House-Senate budget conference committee that the budget for the Division of Motor Vehicles within the Department of Revenue be cut by a third is “unprecedented,” and endangers the state’s fiscal standing.

Governor Jay Nixon announces he will make cuts and layoffs in the Department of Motor Vehicles if the legislature carries through with a proposal to provide only eight months' worth of funding to that Department.

Governor Jay Nixon announces he will make cuts and layoffs in the Division of Motor Vehicles if the legislature carries through with a proposal to provide only eight months’ worth of funding to that Department.

The Committee’s co-chairs said the intent of that cut is to fund the Division for eight months. Its remaining funding would then be subject to a supplemental budget process when the legislature returns next year, if the Department of Revenue changes its licensing procedures to end the scanning and retention of documents from Missouri driver’s license applicants.

Nixon says the conference committee’s budget proposal flies in the face of years of Missouri budget making and could jeopardize Missouri’s AAA credit rating. He says if that budget proposal reaches his desk, he will have no choice.

“I will reduce staff and services accordingly, including making the necessary layoffs, effective July 1.”

The state budget director says how many people could be laid off and other specifics of such cuts are not known.

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) co-chaired that conference committee. He says there is no reason the legislature could not appropriate only a portion of a Department’s annual budget.

“It’s not something that is out of the ordinary for a lot of businesses … to play for an 8 month period to make sure that things happen, and in this case we clearly had the intent that if the Department did what we wanted as far as the scanning of documents that we would fund them fully once we got back in January.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) says layoffs and cuts are unnecessary.

“Provided that they are on the right track, the Governor is no longer doing the illegal things through the Department of Revenue, we made it very clear we would fund the rest of their budget for the rest of the year. There is absolutely no reason for the Governor to lay off. If he wants to do that … that’s his call.” 

Schaefer also says the Governor’s claim that the conference budget plan threatens Missouri’s credit rating is “absurd.”

Representative Jeanne Kirkton (D-Webster Groves) is the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee and was one of the House conferees. She says Nixon is probably making the “right call.”

She says she and other members of her caucus had concerns with the partial appropriation to DMV.

“The other aspect of it that is unclear to me is we have contracts with MorphoTrust, for example, that are written on an annual basis. How is that going to work? Those contracts may be just built on our appropriations but if we start laying off people here that’s going to affect everything down the line.”

MorphoTrust is the Georgia company that the Department of Revenue contracted with to print Missouri driver’s licenses under its new licensing procedures.  That contract was also cut by one-third in the conference committee proposal.

The Constitution requires the legislature pass a budget by Friday.

AUDIO:  Mike Lear interviews House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream, 3:55

AUDIO:  Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer’s media conference, 6:54

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House-Senate committee proposes one-third cut to state licensing division

May 7, 2013 By

The House-Senate Budget Conference Committee has proposed providing full funding for the Department of Revenue’s Division of Motor Vehicles for eight months. Budget leaders say the remaining four months of funding could be provided in January when lawmakers work on a supplemental budget, but only if the Department changes its licensing procedures.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) and House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) co-chair the budget conference committee. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) and House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) co-chair the budget conference committee. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) says that means scanning of documents needs to stop.

“That’s specifically not allowed, and I think when their general counsel testified he basically said, ‘Well we thought it was okay … we just made a conscious decision to say it was okay even though the law pretty much prohibited it.’ So that’s certainly the major issue there.”

The Senate had cut millions from the budget related to licensing, with budget leaders saying the Revenue Department had not been cooperative with lawmakers about its handling of personal information from applicants.

Stream says this approach puts the Department, “on notice,” but allows the Department to do its job for eight months.

“We’re not shutting down the ability to do driver’s licenses or people to get driver’s licenses at all, commercial driver’s licenses … all of that continues.”

The Committee recommendations also include a one-third cut to the contract with the Georgia company that is printing Missouri driver’s licenses and amounts that equal the salaries of the Department of Revenue’s general counsel and the Department of Public Safety’s deputy director.

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Plan for surplus includes money for Capitol, old prison site, mental hospital

May 3, 2013 By

The state House has approved a supplemental budget bill that would use higher-than-expected state revenue to pay for some state facilities’ needs.

A supplemental budget bill passed out of the State House on Thursday would spend $50 million on the Missouri State Capital, and put money toward renovation of the Department of Transportation Building (foreground). (Photo courtesy; Missouri House Communications)

A supplemental budget bill passed out of the State House on Thursday would spend $50 million on the Missouri State Capital, and put money toward renovation of the Department of Transportation Building (foreground). (Photo courtesy; Missouri House Communications)

The state budget director says revenue collections are up 11.2 percent compared to this time last year and 27.4 percent over April 2012. Governor Jay Nixon has proposed putting $121 million of that extra income to use, and House leadership says it and the Senate are on board.

They propose using $13 million to design and plan a new Fulton State Mental Hospital to replace a facility the Mental Health Department says is outdated and unsafe.

The hospital is in the district of Representative Jeannie Riddle (R-Mokane). She says this would be a great step forward.

“It doesn’t look like a hospital. It doesn’t feel like a hospital. It was built so long ago that the practices that we like to participate now in the mental health issues are not anything like they had, so the facility doesn’t match how they need to handle the care. So for the clients that are there, for the staff that work there, I think it’s a light in the darkness right now.”

The plan would also spend $50 million on renovations at the State Capitol.

Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage) is a member of the State Capitol Commission. He says that money will be used to increase the control of the environment inside the building.

“Windows to seal off the building and then a hi-vac system, so they can suck out all the humidity in the building because you’ve got to start somewhere before you can even get to the artwork … you’ve got to seal it off and you’ve got to be able to maintain the humidity in the building.”

$38 million is proposed to build a new state office building on the site of the historic Missouri State Penitentiary, 8 blocks from the Capitol along the Missouri River. The prison that opened in 1836 was decommissioned in September 2004 and Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) says putting a new facility there would accomplish two goals.

“The priority for me for the site is first to kickstart economic development there, second, preserve the historic sites, and to do both of those things at the same time, which I think is entirely possible.”

The building would house state offices that are currently in leased space. House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) says that would make up the cost of the building in about 7 to 10 years, in money saved by ending those leases.

The plan would also spend at least $25.4 million on capital improvements, maintenance, repairs and renovations at state parks and historic sites.

The bill has been sent to the Senate.

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