The legislature has finished mapping out a 24-bilion dollar plan to finance state government services, programs, and institutions for a new fiscal year. But some Senators have nagging thoughts about whether it’s a balanced budget and whether part of it is legal.
Sensate appropriations chairman Kurt Schaefer maintains the budget is balanced and an improving economy should make it unnecessary for the governor to withhold any money to keep it balanced. St. Joseph Senator Rob Schaaf says he thinks it’s not balanced but he can’t prove it.
Much of the attention in the last three weeks has been focused on 28-million dollars in the 24-Billiion dollar budget—funding for the blind pension program.
St. Louis Senator Jim Lembke says that appropriation is against the law.
But Shaefer says it’s legal, and there’s precedent.
S-CHIP is the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Regardless, it’s out of the legislature’s hands now. All of the budget bills have been sent to the governor, who already has said the wording in the blind pension section is illegal.
