A session of unfulfilled possibilities

KENNETT, Mo. -- Only a few more days remain in this year's session of the Missouri General Assembly before members pack up their bags and head for home. There are already signs there will be little to distinguish this year's session from the scores that preceded it, making it just another Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda conclave with few landmark features and even fewer needed ones.

In defense of this session, let it be noted that a serious revenue shortfall prevented the usually easy resolution of matching cash on hand with expenses for the next year. Although Missourians are doing a surprising job of living near-normal lives during a time of national trauma after last September's terrorist attacks, balancing a smaller-than-usual increase in tax collections with a wide variety of programs in education, welfare and health initiatives is much more than a mathematical process that can be resolved by computer software.

If one adds to the present mix of tough challenges the ever-continuous rivalries, with each side jockeying for public approval for their partisan peccadilloes, the resolution of how to allocate scarce tax dollars is made to seem even more difficult, as indeed it is. This becomes particularly true when a handful of legislators serving on budget and appropriations committees arbitrarily decides to vote against all compromises, a bit of insanity that escapes rationalization.

The best that can be hoped for at this moment is that a majority in both the House and Senate can be assembled to enact the 15 bills that are the state budget. The one encouraging note is that supplemental appropriations can be offered that will fill the remaining holes left by the existing spending measures.

Saying that this is the best that can occur between now and May 17 should not be taken as acceptance of the present fiscal impasse that has taken some four months to receive the study and debate required from the full membership.

If Missouri had only an insufficiently funded budget to address in the second quarter of 2002, perhaps the state's business could be handled in a satisfactory manner, but that's not the case. Missouri, like many if not all of its sister states, has a great many critical issues on its agenda. Unfortunately, these challenges will not be given the time or attention required for their resolution. Some will not even be mentioned.

This small fact may be overlooked in all the self-congratulation that will occur on the third floor of the Capitol in the next two weeks, but the serious problems created by neglect and indifference will still be there after the lawmakers return home. Pardon me if I don't join the brass band that is set to play "Happy Days Are Here Again." Let's make this as realistic as possible and play the melody in F-flat.

Our lawmakers have done little or nothing in resolving some of the untouchable issues that are limited only by the space available in this column, but they are virtually endless if you have the fortitude to note them:

1. Fully funding the school foundation formula is not the same as creating programs that will lift the test scores of every child enrolled in Missouri public schools. Washington has spent more time, study and effort into achieving this than has our own state legislature. Unfortunately, the federal plan will require some state funding that will subtract from the available foundation money. This year's session has only barely touched on methods of improving academic achievement, an oversight that only promises more disappointing test scores and additional failed school systems.

2. There are wide gaps between what has been appropriated for existing mental health programs and what is actually required to meet an expanding caseload, particularly among our state's children. Three major treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children have already been closed; outpatient centers are increasingly dependent on Medicaid payments to fund treatment for seriously ill children. The state has demanded parents give up custody of their children before treating them, a request that only enhances the illness of mentally troubled children and their families.

3. The deadline for the state's welfare mothers to earn adequate paychecks from their private-sector jobs is rapidly approaching, with states, including Missouri, targeted for penalties from Washington for those still left below the poverty level. The consequences of this outcome present the possibility of disrupting appropriations for the state's largest-spending agency, the Department of Social Services. Any disruption in this agency's budget would have consequences far beyond those enrolled in the reform program.

4. Our state has yet to come to grips with the discrepancies of its health-care system, particularly as our senior citizen population increases its percentage of the 5.2 million census. There currently is troubling diversity between health-care services rendered to citizens living within a few miles of each other and dependent on the quality of care delivered by health maintenance organizations. Adequate study of this increasingly inadequate system should be a top priority of the General Assembly. Unfortunately, it has not been.

5. No list of unfinished business would be complete without mentioning the state's embarrassing highway system and its deterioration. Answers, ranging from short-term bonds to high-priced public relations personnel, seem not only inadequate but, sadly, laughable. The root causes are too-low gas taxes and too many rural roads included in the system, yet the General Assembly has only discussed problems without offering solutions.

I wish I could say this was a full listing of unfinished business, but it isn't. The best tactic may be the one offered by legislators: pretend everything is fine and dandy.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.