HOUSE GIVES RIVER CAMPUS $4.6 MILLION; MONEY WOULDN'T BE RELEASED AS LONG AS LAWSUIT IS PENDING

The Missouri House of Representatives Wednesday budgeted $4.6 million to help fund the River Campus project.

But the House isn't ready to release the purse strings yet.

Under the capital improvements bill passed by the House, the state wouldn't spend a dime on Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus while a lawsuit is pending over the local share of funding.

The bill also requires local funding to pay for 50 percent of the project.

In addition, the House bill changes the sources of funding. Instead of relying largely on general revenue as proposed by Gov. Mel Carnahan, the House budget bill would draw on the state lottery for the lion's share of the money. The River Campus would receive $1.85 million from general revenue and $2.75 million from the state lottery.

The changes were made Monday as a result of amendments proposed on the House floor by Budget Committee Chairman Richard Franklin, D-Independence.

The changes in funding sources freed up $2 million in general revenue for design, renovation and construction of the Truman Memorial Building in Independence. The project is in Franklin's district.

Chris Sifford, a spokesman for Carnahan, said the River Campus amendments weren't recommended by the governor.

Southeast Missouri lawmakers said they didn't oppose Franklin's amendments for fear that the House would drop the project from the spending bill. "If we had protested very much, we may have lost this out of the budget," said Rep. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau.

Southeast wants to spend $35.6 million to develop old St. Vincent's Seminary in Cape Girardeau into a school for the visual and performing arts. The former Catholic school overlooks the Mississippi River.

The bill now goes to the Senate. Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, said he would try to have the spending restriction over the lawsuit removed.

Southeast President Dr. Dale Nitzschke said the university could live with the spending restriction. "Anytime we are seeking funding of any kind, the fewer strings attached the better we all like it," he said.

Still, he said, the university would settle for just getting the project included in the fiscal 2000 budget regardless of the strings attached.

Nitzschke said getting the project in the state's capital improvements budget demonstrates the state's intention to help fund the project. "Actually, we have come a long way," he said. "We didn't have anything in this budget in the beginning."

Carnahan didn't include the project in his proposed budget in January. But earlier this month he concluded there was sufficient revenue to spend another $11.8 million on capital improvements statewide. The added funding included $4.6 million for the River Campus project.

The university wants the state to pay $17.8 million of the cost. The other half would include $8.9 million in private donations and the same amount from city-tax-financed bonds that would be issued through the state's Health and Educational Facilities Authority.

Nitzschke said lawmakers' requirement that 50 percent of the funding come from local sources merely puts into writing what the university has said all along.

"One of the strengths of this project that moved it along is our commitment to raise 50 percent of the cost," he said. "So far as I know, no other institution has proposed that. No other institution has done that."

A lawsuit filed earlier this month by Cape Girardeau businessman Jim Drury could hamper local funding. Drury's lawsuit and a related tax protest seek to block Cape Girardeau from using motel and restaurant tax money to pay off bonds that would be issued to help fund the River Campus project.

Mayor Al Spradling III has estimated that it could take a year to bring the lawsuit to a close.

Franklin's proposed amendment sought to prohibit the state from spending any money on the project while any lawsuit was pending concerning the local share of funding.

But the amendment was revised Monday on a motion by Rep. Mark Abel, D-Festus, to cover only Drury's lawsuit.

Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson, can live with the amendment. "With the lawsuit pending, I think it is a reasonable amendment." he said.

Rep. Mark Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, hopes the restrictions might be addressed in conference committee once the Senate passes a capital improvements spending bill. At this point, he said, it is important to keep the project in the budget.