Raychel Proudie

The starting salary for an child abuse investigator is around $43,000 a year.

Only 16 investigators are looking into child abuse and neglect claims in St. Louis and St. Louis County. The head of the Missouri Children’s Division says that number should be closer to 60.

The Senate’s plan to go beyond the $860 million initially proposed to expand Interstate 70 remained in the budget agreed to by a Senate-House conference committee Wednesday night. Other Senate positions that remained were state funding for public libraries and the elimination of anti-DEI language in the budget.

The Missouri House passed legislation Thursday allowing the governor to appoint a special prosecutor in cities like St. Louis. But Republican leadership cut off debate on the bill before several Black Democrats from the St. Louis area were able to speak.

A previous version of the legislation would have taken money away from public school districts to make up for a disparity in funding for public charter schools. Now, the state would handle that responsibility.

On the last day before the legislature takes a week off, the House also passed legislation including banning discrimination in schools against traditionally Black hairstyles and creating nurseries in women’s prisons.

The legislation creates what is called the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Account and falls in line with the Republican effort of so-called school choice.

Six Missouri state representatives are working to pass legislation to forgive some or all of the unemployment overpayments that the Missouri Department of Labor is asking 46,000 residents to pay back.

The Missouri House on Tuesday passed a $1.2 billion supplemental budget with a vote of 133-4. Most of the money is federal coronavirus relief funds.

State Rep. Raychel Proudie joined St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jaclyn Driscoll to talk about the jarring end to the 2020 special session on violent crime, which saw some of Gov. Mike Parson’s policy priorities fall by the wayside.