State auditor warns Missouri’s budget surplus rapidly shrinking
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The state auditor said in a report Monday that Missouri's budget surplus could be depleted within a couple of years if changes aren't made quickly.
Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick reported in an analysis of the state's general revenue fund that a $6 billion deficit in fiscal 2023 will be gone by fiscal 2028 on the current trajectory.
"I applaud lawmakers for making decisions that caused the General Revenue Fund balance to soar to unprecedented levels, but state spending has also increased to an unsustainable level that will rapidly deplete the balance in the fund very soon if it is not brought under control," Fitzpatrick said in a news release accompanying the report.
A large chunk of the budget surplus came from one-time federal funds awarded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lawmakers voted to spend $960 million of the surplus in fiscal 2024 and $480 million in fiscal 2025, leaving the surplus at $4.3 billion this summer, Fitzpatrick reported. He predicts deficit spending of more than $2 billion this fiscal year if changes aren't made.
Meanwhile, tax cuts at the federal and state levels will continue to reduce general revenue, Fitzpatrick says. He included those changes in his projections, he wrote.
Missouri House Budget Chair Dirk Deaton (R-Seneca) said in a news release that he agrees with Fitzpatrick's findings.
"His analysis confirms what I have said both in private and public comments over the past year about the long-term condition of the state budget," Deaton said. "Specifically, the concern about a structural deficit created when ongoing General Revenue spending exceeds what the state collects within a given fiscal year."
Lawmakers will return to the Capitol next month to start the legislative session. Gov. Mike Kehoe is expected to lay out his budget plan, including the phasing out of income tax, in his Jan. 13 State of the State speech.
