HOUSE PANEL CUTS VO-TECH FUNDING; HECKEMEYER SAYS KASTEN SAT IDLY BY

JEFFERSON CITY -- The Missouri House Budget Committee Thursday slashed funding for construction of the new Cape Girardeau vocational-technical school by $1.5 million.

The Cape Girardeau School District had asked for $1.65 million. Gov. Mel Carnahan included the funding in his fiscal 1999 budget proposal, but the committee on a voice vote eliminated all but $150,000.

The project is part of an overall spending bill for capital improvements statewide.

State Reps. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau, and Joe Heckemeyer, D-Sikeston, opposed the funding cut pushed by Rep. Timothy Green, a St. Louis area Democrat.

Kasten said she hopes to restore funding when the full House takes up the capital improvements bill next week.

"We have a temporary setback, but this doesn't mean we have lost it," Kasten said. "I think we are going to overcome it."

Heckemeyer wanted to reduce the amount to $1.5 million, freeing up $100,000 for funding toward relocating the regional crime laboratory in Cape Girardeau.

Heckemeyer said the state had committed to providing $3 million for the vo-tech project. The state appropriated half of that amount last year.

Heckemeyer said the Legislature shouldn't appropriate more than $1.5 million for the project this year, but his amendment never came up for a vote because the committee approved Green's budget-cutting proposal.

He said Kasten should have asked for a roll-call vote. If she had, the committee would have rejected Green's proposal, Heckemeyer said.

"It was her job to defend her position," he said. "Mary sat there and didn't do anything. It was embarrassing."

Heckemeyer said any member of the committee could have asked for a roll call, but other lawmakers looked to Kasten to do so because the project is in her district.

Kasten said she didn't call for a roll call because she felt lawmakers' comments demonstrated that the majority of committee members favored cutting funding for the project. "I knew we didn't have the votes," she said.

She said committee members were in a "hostile" mood Thursday morning.

Heckemeyer said the committee session deteriorated into a "free for all."

Kasten dismissed Heckemeyer's criticism over the lack of a roll-call vote. "He is just trying to throw a little blame here," she said. "He is trying to make himself look good."

Kasten's objections to funding procedures for a St. Louis park project caused some urban lawmakers to vote to cut the vo-tech funding, adding that she didn't oppose the project itself. She hopes to reach some agreement with the urban lawmakers that could help restore funding for the vo-tech school.

Heckemeyer said he hopes the full House will provide $1.5 million for the project but doubts that will happen.

"It's too late," he said.

Heckemeyer said lawmakers in other areas of the state already feel that considerable state money is going to Cape Girardeau projects.

The proposed capital budget includes nearly $5.6 million for construction of a new polytechnic building at Southeast Missouri State University.

Green argued that vocational-technical schools have been built in the St. Louis area without state funding, but Kasten said the state has helped build St. Louis area vocational schools in the past. Kasten said the state at one time helped fund construction of vocational-technical schools. Then it quit providing funding for a time.

The state has started funding such projects again as part of Carnahan's emphasis on providing more vocational training, Kasten said.

The Cape Girardeau School District wants the state to pay half the cost of the new vocational school or $3.15 million.

Superintendent Dan Tallent said he hopes lawmakers will provide the added funding to reach that amount. Even without additional state aid the building will be constructed, he said.

The district's voters approved a bond issue last April to finance the project. Construction could start this summer. The school is slated to open in the fall of 2000.

But if the state doesn't pay 50 percent of the cost, the district won't have surplus revenue from the current bond issue, Tallent said.

The district might have to ask for a larger bond issue in the future when it seeks to build a new high school.