Governor Matt Blunt’s end of session speech features a lot of praise for the General Assembly for what the Governor calls a successful legislative session.
Among the prioroties Blunt thanked lawmakers for passing: legislation authorizing the sale of $350-Million of assets of MOHELA – the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, a bill eliminating the tax on most Social Security benefits, and one of the top issues in recent years – MoHealthNet, the replacement for Medicaid.
Legislation sent to the Governor also includes additional tax relief for Missourians through full deductibility for the cost of health insurance premiums. On the negative side, Blunt says he’s disappointed that legislation that would deny judges the power to raise taxes did not get through the legislative process. He also would like to have seen a fix for the new overtime law that would require firefighters and police officers to receive overtime pay after 40 hours of work instead of the 54 hours under federal rules.
Blunt says it is too early to discuss the possibility of a special legislative session to deal with work that was not completed.
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