OFFICIALS PAINT HANCOCK II AS A BUDGET HOUSE OF HORRORS

State and local officials Tuesday night painted Hancock II as a budget house of horrors.

Speaker after speaker paraded to the podium at the Show Me Center to talk of predicted budget cuts and employee layoffs.

About 80 people, many of them Southeast Missouri State University employees, attended the forum on Hancock II or Constitutional Amendment 7.

Seventeen speakers voiced their opposition to Hancock II. Among them: Charles McClain, Missouri commissioner of higher education; Robert Bartman, commissioner of elementary and secondary education; Dora Schriro, director of the Department of Corrections; and Jim Moody, former state commissioner of administration.

Moody authored a study on the economic impact of Hancock II.

The speakers, including Moody, said Hancock II would result in at least a $1 billion cut in the annual state budget. The alleged impact:

-- $55.4 million cut from the Missouri Department of Corrections, eliminating 2,883 prison beds, nearly 2,000 jobs and funding to open or operate 4,800 new beds.

-- $34.2 million cut from the Missouri Highway Patrol, resulting in the layoff of 713 employees including 365 uniformed officers.

-- Highway and Transportation services could see the loss of $140 million a year for roads and bridges, and $60 million annually for city and county highway projects. The 15-year road and bridge program of projects could be killed.

-- $220 million cut from the Department of Social Services and elimination of nearly 6,000 jobs.

-- $32 million cut to the Department of Mental Health.

-- $42.7 to $51.8 million cut in funding for Southeast Missouri's 75 public school districts. Those figures include a nearly $1 million cut for the Cape Girardeau public schools and more than $1 million in cuts for the Jackson school district.

Moody said Hancock II would trigger tax refunds at the expense of state programs and services.

John Oliver, state highways and transportation commissioner, said Hancock II would change Missouri's government from a representative to a voter democracy and destroy the state's road system in the process.

Robert Ballsrud, a bond attorney from St. Louis, said that passage of Hancock II on Nov. 8 would make it financially difficult for state and local governments to issue bonds.

McClain said that approval of Hancock II would "perpetuate a level of mediocrity" for higher education in Missouri.

He said it would lead to a "brain drain" as educators left the state for jobs elsewhere.

Oregon voters passed a measure in 1990 lowering property taxes. The result has been state budget cuts and an average increase in in-state tuition of 66 percent over the past four years, McClain said.

Bartman said Hancock II could force the layoff of 9,000 teachers and eliminate funding for many school programs.

Schriro said the ballot measure would curtail probation and parole services statewide and cut down on prison beds at a time when the state needs more prisons.

The state's prisons currently house more than 17,000 inmates, an increase of 1,622 since Jan. 1. A total of 2,253 of those inmates are from Southeast Missouri.

Pauline Fox, an economist with Southeast Missouri State, estimated that Hancock II would have a negative impact of $318 million on the region's economy.