The senate starts its second “rebooting Missouri” effort today–an exercise designed to make changes in state government to produce cost savings and better efficiency. The senate has gotten about one-thousand suggestions from the public, many of them from state employees, and will break into work groups to come up with recommendations by next week for specific legislation.  Some bills got through last year but several others didn’t have time. 

Senate leader Rob Mayer hopes enough money can be saved to avoid a second-straight year of the legislature coming up $105 million short in school funding.  Some of the savings might be in education itself–even asking whether Missouri needs the 524 school districts it has. .

Mayer says rebooting is essential for modern government.  He says government cannot be run the same way it was ten years ago.

 Listen to Mayer & Sen. Majority Leader Tom Dempsey news conference 18:49 mp3