The Missouri House will spend a large part of this week passing its version of the state budget.
Lawmakers will spend a maximum of six hours debating the budget on the House floor Tuesday. The body will then pass it out of the chamber Thursday.
“I think you'll see a budget that shows that we're committed to funding all the needs of Missourians, but also something that is fiscally responsible but meets our obligations,” House Speaker Jon Patterson, R-Lee’s Summit, said.
According to Patterson, the House’s version of the budget is a little under $49 billion, which is roughly $5.8 billion less than Gov. Mike Kehoe requested in his initial version of the budget.
Patterson highlighted some aspects of the House-proposed budget last week, including raises for police officers and funding the obligations listed in a wide-ranging education law that legislators passed last session.
However, the budget does fall short in providing the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education with the full amount it requested for its funding formula for public schools.
Kehoe said during his State of the State address that his proposed budget provided $300 million less than DESE asked for.
Patterson said the legislature is still funding education at record levels.
“I think my takeaway from the budget is we are providing schools with record funding. Does it meet the definition of fully funding the foundation formula? I think it's been said enough that we're not doing that, but it is record funding,” Patterson said.
Rep. Betsy Fogle, D-Springfield, said this reduction in the foundation formula is one of the larger frustrations in this year’s budget.
“Fully funding public education is one of the most important things we do in this body, and we'll leave a lasting legacy for all children back home,” Fogle said.
Fogle also said she was disappointed in the House’s decision to remove federal dollars for child care that Kehoe’s office proposed.
Once the budget passes the House this week, it will go to the Missouri Senate, where it will likely undergo changes.
Last year, the legislature did not have time to have conference committees between the chambers on the budget bills before the deadline.
Patterson said he believes there will be conference committees this year.
Fogle said that on a procedural basis, the work on the budget couldn’t have gone better this session.
“We have put our heads down and sat in that budget room for hundreds of hours, which I really appreciate, and have reverted to the old way of going through the budget, line by line, which I know is quite time consuming, but I think the right thing to do when we're talking about a $50 billion budget,” Fogle said.
Abortion amendment to advance
Patterson said a proposed constitutional amendment addressing abortion will leave a House committee this week.
House members heard hours of testimony in February of the proposed amendment that would largely overturn Amendment 3, which ended the state’s near-total abortion ban.
The resolution heard in committee would remove provisions that were in Amendment 3 and instead allow abortion only in cases of rape, incest, medical emergencies or fetal anomalies.
Patterson said he expects the resolution will go through changes in committee.
“I expect there will still be more refining of the legislation, but with the goal of getting something out that our members can vote on,” Patterson said.
Missouri voters approved Amendment 3 in November with 51.6% of the vote. Any proposed amendment changing Amendment 3 would also have to earn voter approval.
Patterson said the legislature moving forward with this amendment isn’t going against voters’ wishes.
“I don't think anything I've seen talks about a repeal of Amendment 3. I think we're trying to address some of the issues of Amendment 3,” Patterson said.
Patterson listed keeping the exceptions for abortion as an example of upholding what Missourians voted for.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said the fact that the House is moving on this legislation after the halfway point shows Republicans are not united on how to respond to Amendment 3.
“There simply is not consensus on the other side of the aisle on what language to end up with, how far to go or not, what they think that they can get passed by the voters or not,” Aune said. “And I think that that is likely causing a lot of contention in their caucus right now, and I'm not mad about that.”
