Last week we heard the President's State of the Union Address and the Governor's State of the State Address, as well as the Chief Justice's State of the Judiciary Address.
With the exception of Chief Justice Mary Russell, about all we heard was how great a job was done last year and how wonderful things are going to be this year...if you don't mind coming up with a bunch more tax money. Nearly every proposal the Governor made necessitated a new funding stream (that's politician language for new taxes).
The morning after the speech I received a bunch of emails demanding that we balance the budget. I answered all of them the same way. Missouri has a balanced budget amendment in the constitution. We HAVE to balance the budget. I promise you, that is a good thing. I readily admit that our schools could use more money and certainly we need more money for children's and senior services and it would be great to have more tax incentives for rebuilding our historic areas, but Missouri as a state is no different than we are with our household budgets.
There are certain things that we are obligated by our Constitution to fund first. Education gets no less than 25 percent of the general revenue as an example. But if we want to increase money to one project without raising the tax burden, it has to come from another program's budget. I don't envy the Budget Director and his committee members one little bit. They have their job cut out for them.
It is a common practice for this Governor to announce budget cuts for sensitive programs for their shock value. Last week he eliminated the budget for cybercrimes and housing for the developmentally disabled. I had people in my office, people stopping me in the halls, my phones blew up, well you get the picture. We stopped what we were working on and started visiting with Senators and writing letters to the Governor's office and got the cuts eliminated. He made his point by saying that we have to make cuts to fund other needy programs because we don't have any new tax money coming in.
All in all, we're not in terrible shape as a state. Our "revenue streams" are starting to trickle again and things do look a lot better for this coming year. Naturally, there will be needs appearing faster than the funds to pay for them, but that's just like home too! I'm optimistic that our Speaker's plan to work on economic development and job growth will work as well as projected.
Something no one saw coming from the Ferguson mess was reform of the municipal court system. Senator Schmidt has filed a bill to reduce the percentage of revenue a municipality can fund from traffic tickets. The mess with St. Louis having over 90 municipalities within the county, some with as few as 13 people, has created a maze of speed traps that is nearly unimaginable.
They have no tax base to support the towns, so the municipal courts serve as the revenue source to pay all the bills. The Governor called for reform as did the Supreme Court Chief Justice. What that means for small counties is increased loads on sheriff's departments and emergency services as small towns are unable to maintain their own police and fire departments. There are some Senators and Representatives that believe as I do that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm proposing that we reform St. Louis County first and see how that develops before we start experimenting with the entire state.
With committee hearings beginning this week, we are hearing about some really interesting proposals. Remember, there are generally over 1,200 bills filed per year and only an average of 120 of them are passed. One that caught my eye was that Missouri residents would get fishing and hunting privileges for free. I'm sure that would make a lot of people happy, but none of them would be in the Conservation Department. This bill, like a lot of others to come may not have been carefully considered before filing. Remember last year's attempt to make the high five the State Handshake? The fun is just beginning. On a serious note, Senator Dempsey and I are sponsoring a Stewards of Children Training Session at the Capitol on Wednesday. I hope to eventually make this available to every teacher in the State.
More next week, until then I am and remain in your service,
Bill Lant
417-437-8223
573-751-9801
General News on 01/29/2015