Tom Flanigan Archives

Gov. Nixon vetoes bill to allow sale of alcohol in State Capitol, historic penitentiary

July 10, 2014 By Mike Lear

Governor Jay Nixon (D) has vetoed a bill that would allow alcohol to be sold at events in the State Capitol and the historic Missouri State Penitentiary.

Governor Jay Nixon says events in the State Capitol should not include the selling of alcohol. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Supporters said the bill would allow the Missouri Capitol Commission to include alcohol sales at celebrations of the laying of the cornerstone of the capitol and the state’s Bicentennial, and would help generate revenue for the restoration and maintenance of the Capitol. Other events held at the retired State Penitentiary would further the effort to draw tourism to the prison and Jefferson City.

Nixon says he disapproves of the bill because he wants children and families to continue to be comfortable visiting the Capitol.

“They do not come to see the sale of liquor by the drink,” writes Nixon. “Moreover, they introduction of alcohol sales in the Capitol is particularly troubling because the bill does not restrict sales in the presence of minors, nor does it limit sales to certain hours of operation.”

Nixon continues, “The additional revenues for Capitol restoration and maintenance that proponents assert would result from House Bill No. 1359 becoming law are outweighed by the message it sends to children and families. We should not sell alcohol in the Capitol.”

The bill cleared both the House and the Senate with enough votes to overturn a veto, if such an attempt is made in September’s veto session and if enough lawmakers vote the same way.

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

May 3, 2013 By Mike Lear

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)

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.

House Budget Committee questions Patrol commander about plane purchase

January 31, 2013 By Mike Lear

The Superintendent of the state Highway Patrol has faced questions from the House Budget Committee about his agency’s purchase of a new plane.

Highway Patrol Colonel Ron Replogle answers the questions of the House Budget Committee about the recent purchase of a $5.6 million plane.

Colonel Ron Replogle tells the Committee the idea to purchase the new $5.6 million dollar plane was his and his department’s, and was approved by the Department of Public Safety and the Office of Administration. He says the purchase was put out for bid December 6 and ads were placed in newspapers in Kansas City and St. Louis. It was awarded December 17 and the funds were transferred December 20.

Vice Chairman, Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage), told Replogle the purchase has raised eyebrows around the Capitol.

“There are people in the building that believe the plane was more of a political purchase and that would aid in certain people’s aspirations as they go forward in the year.”

Replogle says the plane can not legally be used for political purchases, but says he regrets not calling legislative attention to the purchase earlier.

“Hindsight’s 20/20. I’ll apologize not doing that. We’ve visited with some of those folks after the fact trying to make some of these points known of the need for the aircraft. That’s my mistake and I apologize for that. We should have come to several of those folks beforehand, laid this all out for you … the needs for it … so that it wouldn’t look like what many people are accusing of us doing here.”

Replogle says he regrets the unfavorable light that the situation has cast on the Patrol, but makes clear nothing illegal or inappropriate was done.

“I’m not a politician, I’m a police officer. I run a police organization. I guess maybe I don’t understand some of the issues surrounding the plane with some of the comments. I certainly understand the questions of why we went outside the normal budget process to purchase this plane.”

Replogle says the plane joins a 1999 craft that the Patrol inherited from the Office of Administration when it took over operation of the state’s air service in 2006. He says he wanted to have two aircraft to serve 22 state agencies.

He says only about 30 percent of the use of the personnel aircraft is done by the Patrol, for missions including prisoner transport, drug trafficking interdiction and investigations.

Representative Genise Montecillo (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications.)

Replogle estimates the plane costs about $900 per hour to operate, which was what concerned Representative Genise Montecillo (D-St. Louis) the most.

“I sit in education appropriations … and we’re having to tell young people that we’re cutting their access scholarships, we’re nowhere near fully funding the foundation formula. 900 dollars an hour to drive to a meeting anywhere in the state … I’m going to be honest, I find it appalling. It’s upsetting to me.”

Replogle tells Montecillo he can’t speak for what other agencies do, but says when the Patrol uses the plane it does a cost analysis of the cheapest way to travel.

“We actually plug our salaries in, the time it takes versus flying, versus driving. The flight we took last Friday probably would have been an overnight trip. We would have incurred hotel bills, we would have probably taken as many as three vehicles, and then we plug all those things in. We actually have a formula to show that it could be a cost savings for us to fly versus driving.”

The money for the purchase came out of a line in the budget that the Patrol is allowed to use to purchase patrol cars, boats, boat motors, trailers, aircraft and to pay for maintenance. Replogle says the purchase of some new patrol cars has been delayed and that allowed for the purchase of the plane.

“We’re in the process of changing out patrol fleet over from the Crown Victoria to mainly the Dodge Charger … we have slown down our ability to be able to get that Charger out the door because it’s more involved in the wiring processes for red lights, sirens, we now are installing two radio systems … we had ordered 350 new Dodge Chargers this year and we can’t get them out quick enough so we have delayed the purchase of about 125 of those … into next year.”

Replogle says the plane is a year-old model that the Patrol was offered a discounted price on through the end of 2012, and that made him move quickly on the purchase process. He says the purchase came with extended warranties and training for the Patrol’s four pilots. Replogle says the Patrol used a sole source bid in order to find a plane with the same operational systems that its pilots are certified under.

The Committee asked the Patrol to provide all correspondence regarding the plane with the Department of Public Safety, the Office of Administration and the Governor’s Office. Replogle says that information is being gathered.

State of mental health care in Missouri discussed against gun control backdrop

January 22, 2013 By Mike Lear

Among both those for and those against new gun control measures are those who say the quality of mental health care must also be considered when discussing violence prevention. By several accounts, the system in the state of Missouri is under funded, but there is more than one suggestion about how to fix it.

Representative Sue Allen (R-Town and Country) chairs the House Appropriations Committee on Health, Mental Health and Social Services. She says she has thought that mental health is underfunded for years, not just since recent shooting incidents in Connecticut and Colorado.

“I cannot believe there is not money to better fund mental health, and the key is finding out where it is. Now it may be taking it away from somebody else who maybe is a little more capable of meeting their own needs but they don’t have to because they’re entitled to something.”

Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage) was the chairman of that budget committee last year. He also says the Department of Mental Health has received too little funding for years.

“It’s a very small department, budgetarily, and it probably does more good dollar for dollar than any other department in the state of Missouri.”

Flanigan suspects that stigmas about mental health carry over into funding the department. He hopes this discussion will help to change people’s mindsets.

“It may be that mental health becomes one of those issues that people begin to talk about openly, and to talk about it in terms of positive outcomes. That’s what I would like to see that comes out of this whole situation.”

The National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Missouri a “C” grade for mental health care in a 2009 report. Missouri Executive Director Cindi Keele says improving awareness and treatment is a matter of funding.

“Public awareness campaigns cost money … community mental health centers need money to have people on staff, perhaps experienced family members, who are hired to be a mentor for these families that are going through these troubling situations.”

Keele isn’t impressed, however, with the idea of just looking elsewhere in the budget for places to pull money for mental health.

“I find that very frustrating … we’ve got to have some more revenue coming into this state, in my opinion.”

Keele says one way to improve the state’s mental health system would be to participate in Medicaid expansion.

“If more people had health insurance we could get mental health issues, to a great extent, detected much earlier and treated much earlier.”

Representative Jeanne Kirkton (D-Webster Groves) is a member of the budget committee on mental health. She says statistically, expanding Medicaid would reach a large number of people with serious mental health issues.

“If we look at the population of mentally ill and those that are poor, say under 133% of the federal poverty level, 1 out of 6 of those will have severe mental illness. So, if we’re going to talk about gun violence and mental illness, expanding Medicaid to that population is a plus.”

Legislative Republicans don’t support Medcaid expansion however, raising questions about how it will be paid for and whether Congress can be trusted to keep its fiscal promises. Three House Republicans have been studying the issue of expansion looking for an alternative plan.

Kirkton also expresses concern about stigmas regarding mental health. She says she is worried that ties to discussions of gun violence could further those stigmas.

“You look at the data … the people that are most prone to gun violence are substance abusers and alcoholics … that tend to be more violent than the severely mentally ill. It’s a very small percentage of them who are violent.”

Allen adds, she believes the issue of violence extends beyond guns and mental health to things like violence in movies and video games.

“It’s a very invasive issue … it’s societal. What’s the value of life?”

Lawmakers in both parties say they are not aware of legislative efforts to change any policies or practices in Missouri’s mental health care system.

Allen’s committee on appropriations for health, mental health and social services will hear an overview of the Department of Mental Health at a hearing today at 2:00.

Key GOP legislators want to see Governor’s Medicaid expansion proposal

December 5, 2012 By Mike Lear

Republican leaders in the House and Senate have alternately said they oppose Governor Jay Nixon’s intention to support Medicaid expansion and say it is unlikely to pass the legislature. Two key Republicans in the budget making process, though, say they want to see what the Governor is proposing and talk about it.

Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia, left) and Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage)

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) says there are too many unknowns to reject it out of hand.

“I think as elected officials and accountable to everyone in the public, whether they are opposed to it or in support of it, I think there’s a bottom line threshold of having to be able to understand the actual costs, in terms of dollars, both to Missouri taxpayers now and Missouri taxpayers down the road.”

Schaefer says he thinks there will be costs early on, even though the Governor’s office says expansion would involve no state tax dollars until after 2016.

The Governor’s office says if Missouri participates in the expansion, 300,000 to 400,000 more Missourians would be covered by Medicaid and the federal government would pay for 100 percent of that new population.

Schaefer says, “But it’s 100 percent of ‘something.’ The federal agency, Health and Human Services, has to promulgate rules to say what will or will not be covered under that program. They have not done that yet. So that’s why when people say they don’t know what the cost is, it’s because all the details that have to be filled in by the federal government on what the feds will pay for, what the feds won’t pay for, and what the feds will require a state to do but not pay for.”

Schaefer says pharmaceutical costs are one place that Missouri could see an immediate increase under Medicaid expansion.

“You may get into a situation where … Medicaid will only cover one drug per category, for example, so if somebody’s on two drugs within the same category the state would have to pick that up. Pharmaceutical is already our largest in the Medicaid budget as it exists and I think pharmacy is one are that you could see a substantial amount that the state would have to come up with.”

AUDIO: Kurt Schaefer explains his belief that Medicaid expansion could cost Missouri early on, 2:54

Schaefer says there is no indication of how Medicaid costs might be divided after 2020.

“I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think that the entire population, after it is expanded, could be required to go back to a 60/40 match where we’re at now. If that were the case in 2020 or shortly after that, that would literally be billions of state dollars from discretionary general revenue that would have to be put up for that money in order to get the federal match money.”

Schaefer says he wants to sit down with the Governor and see what his proposal is for Medicaid expansion, what the additional General Revenue cost is and see what the proposals are for where that would come from.

Representative Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage) chairs the House Appropriations Committee on Health, Mental Health and Social Services. He also wants to see what the Governor’s proposal is before taking a position on it.

“Part of our process in our committee will be to take a look at that. We don’t make judgements. We would like to put the facts out on the table, have an honest discussion of the facts and then let the General Assembly have the ultimate say on which way they would like to go.”

Flanigan also doubts no state tax dollars would be used early in Medicaid expansion.

“There’s no such thing as free money.” He adds, “Whether it will cost us anything in our 2014 budget that we’re going into, it’s the budgets that come after that. It’s the total cost that’s going to come up in ’14, ’16, ’20. Those are the issues that need to be examined and talked about.”

The plan is that when expansion is fully implemented, the state would pay 10 percent of the cost. Flanigan says the concern he and other lawmakers have is that the plan could change.

“The issue could be that the federal government decides that they only want to fund less than 90 (percent) … which would increase the state contribution. You don’t know what the economy is going to look like going forward.”

AUDIO: Tom Flanigan on his concerns about what Medicaid expansion might mean for Missouri’s budget, 1:51

The Governor will unveil his budget proposal in his State of the State Address next month.

House budget chairman confident balanced budget will be on time

April 30, 2012 By Mike Lear

A conference committee of the House and Senate could begin meeting as early as today to hash out the two chambers’ differences in the budget. The Chairman of the House Budget Committee says the Senate’s budget proposal is not balanced.

House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey will be one of the House budget conferees. (photo courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

Ryan Silvey says an amendment offered by Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis) threw the Senate’s proposal off kilter. “Senator Lembke was very clear … there was only $3 million left in the bank and he was very upset there was only $3 million left on the bottom line, and then by the time he got to House Bill 2011, he offered a $10 million dollar amendment. It’s not rocket science to figure out that three minus ten is negative-seven, so they put it out of balance singlehandedly.”

Silvey says what puts the Senate proposal out of balance is the restoration of a $28 million dollar blind medical subsidy fund, which the House proposed cutting. “It’s been our argument all along that it’s not sustainable, so it’s ironic that issue, which has become such a focal point, is what put the budget out of balance.”

Silvey says the two chambers do agree on at least one point. “Clearly the House made higher education a priority. We’re glad that the Senate concurred with that. The Governor’s $106 million cut to higher education is no longer on the table and won’t be discussed in conference.”

The state Constitution requires the budget be balanced and delivered to the Governor by the end of next week. Silvey is confident that will happen. “We’re going to figure out how to clean up the mess and what we can get in conference, but I’m confident that we’ll have conference committee reports on time by the constitutional deadline and that the Governor will get a balanced budget from the general assembly.”

Silvey will be one of the budget conferees for the House. Speaker Steven Tilley (R-Perryville) says he has a good idea who the others will be. “The vice chair of budget, Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood), then you’re going to see the third person from the Republican side be either Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) from southwest Missouri or Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage) from southwest Missouri as well. On the Democratic side it will almost always be Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) and Sara Lampe (D-Springfield).”