The Missouri Legislature has passed a roughly $52 billion state budget proposal. At the last minute, House Budget Committee Chairman Dirk Deaton, R-Noel, did not bring House Bill 19 to a vote.
The $513 million proposal included a variety of local construction projects around the state. Deaton said he wanted to save the money for future needs.
“We had many things in there that we thought were good and worthy of doing and would have liked to have seen done,” said Deaton. “But considering, you know, what we spent in the operating just felt like, you know, we couldn’t move forward at this time.”
Deaton said he had expressed concerns during budget meetings and hearings about his desire to have more money in the bank.
“These are bills that you don’t necessarily see every year,” Deaton said. “And it’s not funding of essential state services, of programs, of state employees. So it is a different category.”
Some of the projects within the bill included:
*$55 million for a future Missouri State Fair livestock barn
*$50 million for the MU Research Reactor in Columbia to expand and continue work on cancer treatments and other research
*$48 million to build a mental hospital in Kansas City
*$4 million to build a juvenile detention center
*Several upgrades to roads, bridges, airports, hospitals, railroad crossings, and water systems
*Improvements to a variety of National Guard sites, community health centers, and Boys and Girls Clubs
Deaton said he did not know the final calculations on the bill until about 3:30 a.m. on Friday and that was not enough time for the House to study the bill. Deaton said he did not give Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, a heads up about the decision.
“It’s unfortunate for virtually every community in every corner of the state that this action or inaction was taken by one person in the General Assembly, and I think that needs to change in the future,” Hough told Missourinet. “It’s kind of mind blowing that one individual can say, ‘Well, I just don’t want to make all these investments,’ after both the House and Senate had to work as hard as it had to get that bill to where it was.”
Hough said he does not know how this will impact this last week of session, but he’s heard from most senators, who are frustrated.
“If you’re a House Bill trying to get done in the Missouri Senate, it might be kind of challenging, just due to some pretty serious frustration that a lot of people have right now,” said Hough.
Hough said he will not ask the governor to call a special session because he does not have confidence that both chambers could pass the budget bill.
State Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Rusty Black said several agriculture-related projects will be impacted.
“At least at this point in time, there won’t be any start on any of those projects,” Black told Brownfield Ag News. “Those things that I care about are gone. The items in that budget can touch any part of the state and they do touch many, many communities around the state, whether it’s a very small project in a small rural town, to a larger project in a city that’s millions and millions of dollars that are for economic development, for other purposes.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Springfield Rep. Betsy Fogle, told reporters she was blindsided by Deaton’s decision to kill the bill.
“Had I known that the entirety of House Bill 19 was going to be killed publicly on the floor with no warning, I would have handled myself different in committee, and I would have tried to fund items in different house bills,” she said.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, was asked if Deaton’s decision could impact whether GOP priorities, like abortion restrictions and paid sick leave, will pass this week.
“Nothing would surprise me more than seeing an even greater battle emerge between the chambers in the last few days of session over this particular situation,” Aune told reporters.
A proposed vote of the people to make most abortions illegal again is a House Bill. So is a bill that would restrict paid sick leave requirements.
Other House bills that could be in jeopardy this final week include a tax credit package to bolster access to childcare services and an update to state law so that Missouri no longer takes pregnancy status into consideration when a court is asked to dissolve a marriage or grant a legal separation.
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