State budget heads to Missouri Senate after cuts in House
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Missouri Senate's Appropriations Committee will meet all week to go over the budget sent over by the Missouri House of Representatives.
The committee is going over 14 budget bills starting Tuesday morning, including those covering education, agriculture and American Rescue Plan funds. The budget sent over to the Senate is $46.5 billion.
Tuesday morning, Senators looked over the budget for elementary and secondary education and higher education.
The Missouri House Budget Committee cut many of Gov. Mike Parson's proposals, including his proposal to raise the starting salary for public school teachers. Missouri's starting pay for teachers is currently the lowest in the country. In total, the House left $1.8 billion on the cutting room floor.
Senators put the $21 million for the governor's proposal back in and added another $10 million.
"I've always been committed to giving teachers the resources they need, administrators the resources they need, and building up that educational infrastructure and backbone to our economy," said Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield).
The committee took the governor’s position on many items and added some new decision items such as a homeless student impact center in Kansas City and a hygiene education program.
"I'm pleased with a lot of the governor's recommendations," said Sen. Brian Williams (D-St. Louis). "And again, we have to stay focused on really getting the schools back up to where they need to be."
Lincoln university is seeking a full match for its land grant, which would bring in more than $287,000. The university has asked for this for many years and each year the state budget fell short of it, but Senators added enough in the 2023 budget to fully match the grant this year.
"I dare say that this conversation has gone back before everybody that's currently at the Capitol was even there in whatever capacity and so the from 2000 to 2022," said Lincoln University President John Moseley. "We do think that it's a good time for the state to take advantage of the opportunity that we find ourselves in to fully support the land grant."
The university wants to use land grant funds to do agricultural research.
"We focus on smaller farmers and right now, our efforts are focused in St. Louis, Kansas City and the bootheel region of the state," Moseley said. "We'd like to expand those services north of I-70 to smaller farmers there to help them grow their profits. We understand the importance of agriculture to this state."
The House and Senate will have a conference to discuss all the changes the senate appropriations committee makes on the budget before it can go to the governor's desk. Lawmakers have until May 6 to put a budget on the governor's desk.
