Local officials react to State of the State address

County and city officials and school superintendents reacted to Gov. Bob Holden's State of the State address Wednesday.

Cape Girardeau County Auditor David Ludwig said state budget cuts affect every department in county government.

These days, "You never know how much will be available from the state," Ludwig said. "It's hard to forecast. They're looking at how to reduce funding and we're caught in the middle."

Ludwig said the state, in recent years, has cut back on the amount of money it reimburses the county for a variety of services, including funding to house local prisoners or pay for certain court expenditures.

"In some of these cases, we actually provide all the manpower, yet we're not getting full reimbursement from the state," he said. "In a growing county like this one, we try to provide many services and we want to continue to do that. We just have to be cautious on how we spend the money because we don't know how much we'll be getting from the state."

Cape Girardeau schools superintendent Mark Bowles said part of the state's problem is spending. But when districts are forced to cut important services, there may also be a revenue problem, he said. "It's painful to see cuts in education because the bottom line is it impacts kids."

Jackson superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson said getting people to come to a consensus about the best way to seek additional revenue is the big challenge the state faces. "There's a definite shortage," he said.

The proposals at the state level don't sound like anything new, said Diann Bradshaw Umler, superintendent of the Scott City schools. "We're trying to operate school districts, and this just seems like a political game. Without either side willing to budge, it's the kids who are being hurt."

Doug Leslie, Cape Girardeau city manager, said state budget cuts hurt cities too, although not in direct funding as occurs with schools.

Leslie said recent state budget cuts have reduced or eliminated funding for stormwater projects in Cape Girardeau and elsewhere in the state.

State economic development incentives such as money for job training programs also have been reduced because of state funding cuts, he said.

Staff writers Callie Clark, Bob Miller and Mark Bliss contributed to this report.