February 19, 2010

The Missouri General Assembly now has two weeks until the spring recess.

In the House, various Appropriations Committees have forwarded their recommendations to the full House Budget Committee where they will be reviewed and then the House Budget Chair Icet will rewrite the bills with his own version.

The cuts were drastic and virtually every budget entity was impacted. The process is far from over as the full House Budget Committee will change the version handed in by the Appropriations Committees and then the Senate will review the House version.

Republicans are attempting to show fiscal restraint by reducing the Governor’s recommended budget by an additional $300 million. The Governor is counting on an additional federal stimulus package of $300 million. House Republicans are going to cut that amount as they do not believe the funding will come through this year.

However, on the Senate side it is anticipated that the Senate will mainly go with the Governor’s budget and force Nixon to make the cuts.

News this week includes:

Fair Tax
SJR 29 (Purgason) was voted DO PASS by the Senate Governmental Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee last week. Senators Purgason, Lembke, and Schaefer voted YES, Senators Days and Shoemyer voted NO, and Senator Schmitt did not vote.

These constitutional amendments propose to greatly expand the state sales tax and eliminate individual and corporate income taxes. A recent analysis indicates that the sales tax would need to increase to 11 percent to cover the costs in the bill. 

HJR56 (Emery), the House companion bill, has been referred to the House Ways & Means Committee.

The SJR does have several changes including the provision on the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings tax was removed.

Purgason believes that if the rate of sales tax is projected to be needed at 7% or higher he will lose support. Momentum is building against the bill and Senators are beginning to look for reasons to vote against the proposition.

Appropriations
The hard work paid off if at least momentarily.

The House Appropriations- Social Services Health restored our funding back to our appropriation of 2009 by adding $307,000to the Core Public Health Functions.

Representative Weter with help from Dr. Cooper and Representatives McClanahan and Schad worked to have this approved. The Chair Representative Sater agreed to the amendment.

After my contacts with these key individuals we were successful.

This is just a first step and all the recommendations of this Appropriation Committee may be overturned by the full Budget Committee. That would be the next battle.

Let’s visit when you are in.

Senate-Transportation
The Senate committee on Transportation met on Wednesday.

SB822   Increases the fine for seat belt violations from $10 to $50.

Presented by Keaveny that we take the seat belt laws more seriously as we do any other moving violations. Presented statistics that MO is below the national avg of compliance. Rita Days questioned the rational of cost increase to $50.00, Keavey had no rationale except our cost is very low compared to other states as well compared to our own parking and littering fines. 1 witness in favor.

Federal Reform
SJR25 (Cunningham) which would allow Missouri to opt out of federal health care reform was voted DO PASS by the Senate Government Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee.

Prompt Payment
SB 636 (Lembke) and HB 1498(Jones) were voted out of committee this week after extensive negotiations with the insurance industry.

Health insurance carriers are given additional time to resolve claims and penalties are reduced.

However, they may not suspend claims indefinitely as they have in the past.

Funding
On Tuesday, I was successful in obtaining an increase for the CORW funding for local public health departments.

Representative Weter offered an amendment to restore $309,000 in funding to put us back to where we were before the withholds for the 2011 year.

You will recall the Governor withheld $309,000 in August and the $700,000 last week all for the 2010 budget.

The Governor’s 2011 recommendations included the $309,000 cut.

Representatives McClanahan, Cooper, Schad and the Chairman Sater assisted Representative Weter. They deserve our thanks. It will be extremely difficult to hold this in the full Budget Committee.

Seat Belt
Senator Keaveny’s seat belt bill which increases the fine for a seat belt violation from $10 to $50 was heard on Wednesday.

Wells
HB 1402 was heard in the House Energy Committee.

The bill specifies that any water system that serves a charitable or benevolent organization and has a water volume drawn from the well that does not exceed 15,000 gallons per calendar month will be exempt from all rules relating to well construction except those applying to domestic wells and those requiring proof of water quantity drawn unless it is determined to present a threat to groundwater.

SFY 2011 Budget Bills Advance In House
On Wednesday, Feb. 17, the House Committee on Appropriations – Health, Mental Health and Social Services voted to forward House Bills 2010 and 2011 to the House Budget Committee. These committees recommended significant reductions to the governor’s proposed budget for state fiscal year 2011. The chairman of the House Budget Committee has directed the appropriation committees to reduce an additional 5 percent from the budgets of state agencies. He has decided not to budget the additional $300 million in state budget relief money proposed by President Obama but not yet appropriated by Congress. Governor Nixon’s proposed budget includes these funds.

The recommended general revenue cuts total $18 million for the Department of Mental Health, $10 million for the Department of Health and Senior Services and $31 million for the Department of Social Services.

TABOR
House Joint Resolution 87 (Icet) will be heard Monday upon House Adjournment.

The TABOR tax spending list is essentially the same as last year.

Next Week
Only eight legislative days remain until spring recess. Committee hearings will continue at a fast and furious pace.

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