April 9, 2010

The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee focused on the tough budget issues before the state this year.

The cuts have been horrendous and quite frankly never seen before.

The Senate has focused on $500 million in cuts and is not anticipating utilizing $300 million in federal funds that have not yet been approved at the federal level.

Nothing is sacred at this point. The $47 million dollar career ladder program for education was completely eliminated to give an illustration on the severity of the budget reductions.

In addition, the Senate has concurred with a House reduction of $105 million for the education foundation formula.

This will leave education flat at 2010 levels.

News this week includes:

Public Health Departments
The Senate passed its version of the Department of Health’s line item for public health departments.

The House version has stood with a slight increase from the Governor’s recommendations which place the amount at $9 million or $300,000 more than the Administration recommended. This is a major victory this year as all parts of the budget have been cut.

Mega Sales Tax
As expected Senator Purgason once again brought SJR 29 up for debate on Wednesday.

The “Fair Tax” was briefly debated and laid over after it was obvious little differences had occurred since the last debate. The House and Senator sponsors would like to amend major stumbling blocks before votes receive the initiative petition.

Meningitis
Representative Tim Jones had HB 2255 heard in the Healthcare Transformation Committee.

The bill requires the Department of Health to develop information for schools to provide parents and students about meningococcal disease and the availability of vaccine.

Community and Public Health
Glenda Miller was present at the Appropriations hearing on Thursday afternoon.

The Community Health and Public Health was cut $2.4 million. Of this, $1 million came from PRIMO. However, the federal health initiative fund was utilized to restore or backfill the PRIMO program resulting in a $1.4 million dollar loss.

Glenda said rather than losing 100 jobs the number will be closer to 40 jobs.

House-SC on Children and Families
The House special committee on children and families met on Monday.
 
HB 2384   Establishes the Embryo Transfer Act which authorizes the legal relinquishment and subsequent transfer of human embryos.

This bill is put in place a contract representing decisions on Embryo transfers. This may already transact legally but this is to help insure future probates if anything should happen to the donor parents. This bill allows for the parents to transfer guardianship if anything should happen to them rather than the embryos frozen and stored for life.

Susan Cline: Mo Right to life on record in favor. They support any form of adoption in any stage. Kerry Messer: in favor; this will make adoption of embryos more common because it takes the fear of future litigation away.

SB 855   Allows the State Registrar to issue heritage birth or marriage certificates celebrating the unique heritage of Missouri citizens. (Schaefer)

This bill was partly created to generate more revenue by creating newer formats of Birth and marriage certificates. Suggestions on verbiage made by Representative Schupp, to be litigated in exec section. Representative Mike McGee is concerned b/c of where this bill was generated from. This bill is out of children's and family entity, the new revenue may pull funds from the original source. He is requesting an amendment to feed some of the revenue from this bill back to it originating entity. Presenting Representative agreed.

HJR 57
The “opt out” resolution for the federal health care plan passed the House 109-46 and is now awaiting a committee hearing in the Senate.

House-Budget
The House Budget Committee met at 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

SB 757   Establishes the Joint Committee on Recovery Accountability and Transparency, requires amounts withheld from the state budget and out of state travel to be posted on the Missouri accountability portal, and requires county auditors to inventory certain prope.
 
Sen. Rupp, R-Wentzville, introduced Senate Bill 757 to the committee. His legislation would create a Joint Committee on Recovery Accountability and Transparency to ensure that funds are being spent effectively. The bill also requires amounts withheld from the state budget and out-of-state travel to be posted on the Missouri accountability portal.

Sen. Rupp said the legislation would evaluate all AARA funds and have zero fiscal impact on the state. There were no further witnesses in favor or opposition.

The remainder of the committee hearing was devoted to an annual report on the state's tax credits by individual departments, including the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Senior Services and the Missouri Housing Development Commission.

The hearing was adjourned at 10 a.m. for the morning session, but resumed with further reports later in the afternoon.

House-Budget
The House Budget Committee met at 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

SB 757   Establishes the Joint Committee on Recovery Accountability and Transparency, requires amounts withheld from the state budget and out of state travel to be posted on the Missouri accountability portal, and requires county auditors to inventory certain prope.
 
Sen. Rupp, R-Wentzville, introduced Senate Bill 757 to the committee. His legislation would create a Joint Committee on Recovery Accountability and Transparency to ensure that funds are being spent effectively. The bill also requires amounts withheld from the state budget and out-of-state travel to be posted on the Missouri accountability portal.

Sen. Rupp said the legislation would evaluate all AARA funds and have zero fiscal impact on the state. There were no further witnesses in favor or opposition.

The remainder of the committee hearing was devoted to an annual report on the state's tax credits by individual departments, including the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Senior Services and the Missouri Housing Development Commission.

The hearing was adjourned at 10 a.m. for the morning session, but resumed with further reports later in the afternoon.

Streamlined Sales Tax (Internet Sales)
SB 905 was debated again on the Senate floor this week to tax internet sales.

Senator Crowell has stalled the bill as he believes it is a tax increase.

Senator Schmitt of St. Louis is of the same opinion. Missouri loses approximately $200 million per year.

This legislation has been enacted in 23 other states and places internet sales on the same footing as local Missouri business.

Next week
The House and Senate will meet in a joint conference committee possibly next week after the Senate approves the Senate version of the budget.

Five weeks remain in the 2010 legislative session.

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