House Budget Bills Sent to Senate
The next four weeks of legislative session promise to be busy. The House of Representatives, where all budget bills begin, has completed deliberations and sent their proposed budget to the Senate, where the bills have been taken in and will be making their way through our budget process. As Senate Appropriations Committee Chair, I look forward to shepherding the bills through committee hearings, where we will give thoughtful consideration to both the governor’s and the House’s budget recommendations. We’ll mark up the budget in areas where we might differ and then we’ll move to conference committee, where the Senate-passed and House-passed budget versions will be reconciled and a final budget will be determined and sent to the governor.
We’ll be under the gun this year, with only 17 total legislative work days to craft and pass our proposed budget by the May 5 deadline, as mandated by our state constitution. My goal is to get through mark-up as quickly as possible so that we can move to conference, where both chambers will work through the process of give-and-take on the road to an amenable compromise.
While school foundation formula funding remains a concern, I believe addressing the separate line item of transportation is our most immediate concern. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: there are enough challenges to getting a quality education today without adding the obstacle of physically getting students to school.
With that thought in mind, I am pleased that the Senate was able to third read and finally pass Senate Bill 434 this week. If passed by the House and signed by the governor, SB 434 would allow school districts to reallocate half of the funds derived from the Foundation Formula away from professional development to school transportation when transportation funds fall below 25 percent of funding. The decision to make this reallocation would be made at the local/district level, making this a local control issue, which I strongly support.
While SB 434 will certainly help fill the school transportation budget shortfall, we will still need to find ways to offset what could be as much as a $36 million hole, or at best, $25 million. Either way, we’re going to make this a priority because, as I said, our kids have got to be able to get to school.
Also this week, the Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2017 Supplemental to House Bill 14, which appropriates money for supplemental purposes for the several departments and offices of state governments to get them through the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Always feel free to contact me throughout the year with any comments, questions, or issues by calling my office at (573) 751-5713 or by visiting my website at www.senate.mo.gov/brown.
Thank you for reading this and for your participation in state government.