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| Legislative Highlights from the Missouri Senate Week of Jan. 20, 2014 |
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The Missouri Senate was not in session Monday, Jan. 20, in recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. On Tuesday, Jan. 21, the governor delivered his State of the State address. The annual speech also coincides with the release of the governor’s budget recommendations for the next fiscal year. For the first time in a decade, the governor and the Missouri Legislature have not come to a consensus on Missouri’s revenue projections. Over the next few months, as the budget process progresses, the revenue projections will be adjusted accordingly. One of my top goals in serving Missourians is to strengthen education while maintaining a balanced budget and respecting all of Missouri’s priorities. The Senate will be working closely with the House to craft a fiscally responsible, balanced budget for the coming fiscal year beginning July 1. I will provide further details as we move through this process. This week I filed Senate Bill 756, which would modify the elementary and secondary education funding formula by adding an additional weight for gifted education. On Wednesday, Jan. 22, the Senate Appropriations Committee started its review of the FY 2014 supplmental budget requests and issues related to the FY 2015 budget. Linda Luebbering, from the Office of Administration’s Budget and Planning, gave a presentation to the committee. I was honored to sponsor the gubernatorial appointment of three District 19 residents during the Gubernatorial Appointments Committee hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 22. Wendy Davis was appointed to the Missouri Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities; Renee Stucky was appointed to the State Committee of Psychologists; and Daniel Hall was considered for appointment to the Public Service Commission. I also filed two bills on Wednesday. Senate Bill 763 would modify the services county hospitals can offer or contract, specifically Boone and Cooper counties. Senate Bill 762 defines “automobile event data recorder” and limits the release of data collected. Supreme Court Justice Mary Russell gave the State of Judiciary speech to the Missouri Legislature on Wednesday morning in the House chamber. Chief Justice Russell emphasized the need to reform Missouri’s criminal code. Missouri's criminal code was revised in 1979, but since then, lawmakers have continued to add to the code each year. The chief justice spoke of 232 offenses that were charged only once in Missouri last year, and an additional 130 offenses only charged twice. She stated that streamlining the criminal code is a warranted effort that would allow our criminal justice system to better serve Missourians. During the week, I met with various organizations visiting the Capitol on their legislative days to discuss their concerns about the budget in regards to funding. In local news, the Missouri Department of Conservation will offer a fire workshop in Boonville on Feb. 22, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Boonville Fire Department, located at 500 Bingham Rd., Boonville, Mo. The seminar will assist landowners who want to safely use prescribed fire on their own property. The workshop is free, but you must register by Feb. 19. Department staff will discuss the history of fire on the landscape, benefits from prescribed fire, proper methods and techniques for implementing controlled burns, equipment and how to use resources from the department and other agencies. Additionally, other topics that will be covered include creating a burn plan and timing the burn based on your management objectives and landscape, safety considerations, proper weather conditions for conducting a burn, and tips on how to organize burn teams and cooperatives. For more information, or to register for the workshop, contact (660) 886-7447, ext. 310. Thank you for your interest in the issues that affect the citizens of Boone and Cooper counties. If you have any questions or concerns throughout this session, or plan on coming by the Capitol, please contact my office at (573) 751-3931.Did you know...? On Jan. 24, 1984, the first Apple Macintosh went on sale. The Macintosh, or Mac, is a series of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on Jan. 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command-line interface. The company continued to have success through the second half of the 1980s, primarily because sales of the Apple II series remained strong even after the introduction of the Macintosh, only to see it dissipate in the 1990s as the personal computer market shifted toward the "Wintel" platform: IBM PC compatible machines running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. |
