This week, the governor released his recommendations for the state’s $28.7 billion operating budget – a roughly $200 million increase compared to the current year’s budget. Right after the release, Senators and staff quickly began diving deep into the recommendations during this week’s Senate Appropriations Committee meeting.
The governor has recommended nearly 50 new spending items, yet he is recommending cutting college and universities’ budgets by $68 million. This recommendation for Missouri’s higher education institutions represents about a 7.7 percent drop in state funding compared to the current budget year. While changes and reforms are needed in higher education, those reforms can be carried out without steep cuts, and not at the expense of higher tuition and more loans for students and parents. The Missouri economy needs a skilled workforce, and we shouldn’t be making it harder to acquire to those skills and stunt the growth of our economy.
Other budget recommendations from the governor includes a nearly $163 million increase in infrastructure funding for Missouri’s 34,000 miles of roads and 10,000 bridges. There has been much debate in the General Assembly on how to fix the state’s infrastructure’s funding shortfalls and get the much needed funds to repair our state’s roads and bridges.
In early January, the governor joined lawmakers from the Senate and the House of Representatives to announce Missouri’s Consensus Revenue Estimate (CRE) for the 2019 Fiscal Year. The CRE is a number established by state budget experts and used by the Legislature and governor to build and balance Missouri’s budget. The key figure in the CRE is the projected general revenue collections for Fiscal Year 2019. Total general revenue collections are expected to be $9.418 billion. This number reflects a growth in general revenue of 2.5 percent over last year’s budget.
Moving forward, the Senate will craft our own budget recommendations. We will take into account the one tenth of a percent tax cut resulting from Senate Bill 509 in 2014, the rising health care costs, and the cuts made in last year’s budget. We are also watching how the federal government tax cuts will affect us in Missouri. While general revenue growth is good, however it’s limited growth.
Fiscal Year 2019 starts on July 1, 2018. The General Assembly must approve and send its proposed budget to the governor by May 11, 2018, for his approval. While the constitutional deadline for approval is still months off, budget work is in full swing.
As always, I encourage my constituents to contact me throughout the year with comments, questions or suggestions by calling my office at (573) 751-5713. To find more information about the bills I sponsor, visit www.senate.mo.gov/brown. Thank you for reading this and for your participation in state government.