House approves operating budget

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Schools would get more money, but not as much as they want. Thousands of low-income parents, seniors and disabled would lose their Medicaid health care. And the state would eliminate hundreds of positions while closing a prison and mental health institution.

House members passed a nearly $19.1 billion operating budget Thursday, most notable perhaps not for what it would spend, but for what it wouldn't.

With revenue lagging behind spending demands, and Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and majority GOP legislators firmly opposed to new taxes, legislators were forced to take a knife to state programs -- pruning the growth of some and killing a few.

"This budget as a whole is taking the responsible and necessary steps to return Missouri to a solid financial foundation," said House Budget Committee chairman Brad Lager, R-Maryville.

Cutting health care

But Democrats contend the cuts could have devastating effects for Missourians.

"We are literally killing people with this budget," said Rep. John Burnett, D-Kansas City. "When we cut health care to people, we actually shorten their life span."

House passage of the 13 budget bills for the fiscal year starting July 1 sends them to the Senate, where a committee already working on its own version is proposing additional budget cuts.

Lager claimed the House budget is balanced. But the Senate Appropriations Committee is working on the assumption that its expenditures exceed revenues by about $40 million, because representatives assumed savings from some programs that senators have not booked.

Public schools increase

The biggest winner in the House budget is K-12 public schools, which would get a $113 million increase to the state's current $2.2 billion in basic aid. State subsidies for school busing, special education, remedial reading and gifted programs would remain unchanged from this year.

Blunt pledged as a gubernatorial candidate to increase school funding each year, and Republican and Democratic legislators alike have declared education their top priority.

Yet even with the spending increase, the budget falls about $790 million short of the amount called for under the formula that distributes money to schools. That shortage enhances the spending inequities among Missouri's 524 school districts, many of which have joined a lawsuit claiming the state's school funding is unfair and inadequate.

When the budget's school spending increase is divided among nearly 900,000 students, "it breaks down to around the cost of a Sloppy Joe sandwich per student," said House Minority Leader Jeff Harris, D-Columbia. "A Sloppy Joe sandwich will not get us out of court."

The budget includes $1 billion for higher education -- the same amount colleges and universities received this year. Given the cuts elsewhere, Republicans touted the flat funding as a victory. Democrats complained it would lead to more tuition increases as colleges try to keep pace with rising costs.

Other cuts would eliminate coverage for about 100,000 of the 1 million Missourians on the Medicaid health-care program for the poor, require many remaining recipients to pay more from their pockets and reduce the health-care services available to them.

A single parent of two, for example, could earn no more than $292 a month to qualify for Medicaid -- down from current income eligibility threshold of $1,005 a month.

A disabled individual working part time currently can qualify for a special Medicaid program while earning up to $1,994 a month. That so-called Ticket to Work program would be eliminated in the budget while the income threshold for traditional Medicaid would be lowered, meaning a disabled person could earn no more than $638 a month to qualify. Those who earn more also could qualify if they spend enough of their own money on medical care to lower their income to the eligibility level.

The budget's Medicaid qualification levels for the disabled and elderly are slightly higher than proposed by Blunt. The House budget also funds several services -- including wheelchairs, artificial limbs and hospice care -- that Blunt proposed to cut for adult Medicaid recipients who were not pregnant or blind. But the budget adopts his proposed cuts to dental care, crutches and other medical equipment for most adult Medicaid recipients.

"There will be some people cut off," Lager said. "But there will still be a lot of people -- those who are our most vulnerable with the greatest needs -- who still will be covered."

The budget would eliminate 888 of Missouri's 61,255 full-time employee positions.

It also would close the Central Missouri Correctional Center near Jefferson City, a process that already has begun, and allow the Department of Mental Health to gradually shut down the Bellefontaine Habilitation Center near St. Louis. Both those cuts were proposed by Blunt.

---

Budget bills are HB1-13.

On the Net:

Legislature: http://www.moga.state.mo.us