The only constitutional requirement of the Missouri General Assembly is to pass a budget. This year, the deadline is May 9. As a guide throughout the budget process, we heard the governor’s proposal, which he gave on Jan. 21.

The budget picture for Fiscal Year 2015, which runs from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, is sort of a good news, bad news scenario. The good news is, we may have a nice increase in state revenues during the next fiscal year. The bad news is, we may have a nice increase in state revenues during Fiscal Year 2015. Why? Because added revenue, after so many “down” years, means more people will be asking for more funding. This makes our task more difficult. Our job, as lawmakers, will be to figure out what our priorities will be.

On top of this, the governor and legislative budget experts cannot even agree on what is known as the Consensus Revenue Estimate (CRE), which — hence the name — is the amount of surplus or deficit revenues that are estimated to come in during a fiscal year. The governor says the increase will be 5.2 percent, while Missouri Senate and House budget people say 4.2 percent. This equals a $148.5 million difference.

What the governor presented to us reminded me a lot of a child at Christmastime. Remember the old Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs that came out in late September or October? They were the thick “wish books” that had all kinds of wonderful items in them, regardless of your age. Listening to the governor, I pictured an eager child circling toy after toy, page after page. Then, I thought about the parents who look through the catalog and see red circles around practically everything.

The Missouri Legislature, in this case, would be the parents.

Now, we have to go in and decide which of these “wishes” is affordable. It takes months of public hearings and tremendous strength to take what we hear and place funds where a majority of those involved believe they need to go. That is the difference between a “wish book” and a budget. We have to keep the budget balanced and not overspend. It is not easy to be the parent, nor is it easy to make the kinds of decisions we have to make as legislators.

We also need to keep in mind the governor has the power to withhold funds, which he does every year. Just because something is promised during a speech in January does not mean it will become reality by May, or even July 1, when the new fiscal year begins. If — for any reason — the governor does not feel that the revenue projections will be met, he can withhold the funds that were appropriated, and later decide how much and when to release them. In recent years, the first place he has withheld funds has been both K-12 and higher education.

There are a lot of unknowns when budgeting. The process starts in December and ends in May, for a budget year that starts in July. So much can change over those months, which is something else we keep in mind when going through all of this.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my office. Thank you.