Missouri has $2 billion; 3 weeks to spend it

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Two billion dollars. One-hundred-sixty ways to spend it. And three weeks to figure it out.

Those are the figures facing Missouri legislators as they grapple with how to spend an expected influx of federal money from the economic stimulus package.

The Missouri Constitution requires the legislature to pass a budget by May 8.

But the House and Senate remain far apart on how much -- and how, specifically -- to spend from Missouri's $2.2 billion share of "budget stabilization" money from the stimulus package.

Unlike some stimulus money that is federally earmarked for purposes ranging from highways to homelessness, the "budget stabilization" portion provides states the flexibility to essentially spend it as they wish.

And there are a lot of wishes.

"I've literally had requests from all over the state -- lobbyists, colleagues, municipalities, counties," said House Budget Committee chairman Allen Icet, R-Wildwood.

Icet has introduced a package of budget bills containing about 100 proposals that he estimates would spend about $1.8 billion from the pool of flexible federal funds. Some of those expenditures already have been approved by the House; others are to be debated today by the House Budget Committee.

In whittling down the wish list, Icet said he found it difficult to leave some of the federal dollars available for the following year's budget.

"The requests just didn't stop," he said.

The Senate, meanwhile, has passed a proposed operating budget that plugs $943 million from the federal budget stabilization money into more than 60 government programs and services.

There is some overlap. But generally, the House and Senate have proposed two structurally different ways of spending the federal dollars on two substantially different lists of projects.

Chambers must agree

For the state to spend any money, the constitution requires the two chambers to pass the same final version of the budget.

Among the expenditures proposed by both the House and Senate:

* At least $500 million from the federal stimulus package would go to the basic budgets of K-12 schools, and more than $100 million to the core budgets of public colleges and universities.

* $3.1 million would speed up the scheduled purchase of 322 state vehicles.

* $900,000 would fund a St. Louis program to help released prisoners re-enter society.

* About $500,000 would be used to print the biennial edition of Missouri's Official Manual, popularly known as "the blue book."

There are other areas where the House and Senate are in partial agreement.

Both, for example, want to fund a new radio system for the Missouri State Highway Patrol and state agencies. The Senate has proposed spending about $75 million. The House has proposed spending nearly $112 million on an interoperable system that could make it easier for state and local emergency responders to communicate with each other.

But there are numerous other proposals not yet agreed to by the two chambers.

The Senate, for example, has budgeted about $6.5 million from the federal funds to pay out state tax credits and $14.4 million for the arts, humanities and public broadcasting. The House has proposed $20 million to bail out the financially strapped Metro mass transit system in St. Louis and $100 million to create a new business incentive fund sought by Gov. Jay Nixon.

The two chambers have proposed a variety of ways to funnel more money to higher education institutions.

The Senate has proposed $60 million for general maintenance and repairs at colleges and universities. The House has proposed $10 million to expand health slots in college classrooms and $115 million to complete university building projects that originally were to be financed with proceeds from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Gary Nodler would rather not be in the position of making such choices. Nodler, R-Joplin, explained to a Capitol crowd protesting federal taxes and spending last week that he, too, is opposed to the large amount of spending in the federal stimulus package.

But since federal officials have decided to spend it, Missouri must decide how to use it, Nodler said.

"There is no question that these federal bills have made the challenges and complexities of the Missouri budget process much greater this year," Nodler said.