KINDER'S COMMENTARY: FUNDING FOR CAPE GIRARDEAU'S VO-TECH SCHOOL ADVANCES IN JEFF CITY

On Wednesday of this week, we finished all but two of the 12 bills appropriating the entire state budget of approximately $14 billion. Among these is included Senate Committee Substitute for House Bill 2, which is the budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In the Senate substitute is the entire $3.15 million for 50 percent of the cost of the new Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School, as promised. You will recall that this item received the endorsement of the State Board of Education before being included in the governor's proposed budget announced in January.

On Thursday morning, a grateful Appropriations chairman, Sen. Mike Lybyer, D-Huggins, approached me on the Senate floor to express his thanks for my support of him throughout the lengthy and laborious appropriations process. A smiling Lybyer volunteered to me that he would be working to keep this item in the final bill in the upsoming negotiations with the House during the House-Senate conference committee.

So far, so good. Mike Lybyer knows that Cape Girardeau voters came through in a big way on April 1. If we can get this point across to House negotiators, the state will come across with its portion of the money. We're almost there and will keep you posted.

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With a short five weeks to go in the legislative session that ends May 16, there are plenty of major issues hanging fire. In the Senate, we have yet to deal with the House-passed bill eliminating the three-cent sales tax on food. When that one hits the Senate floor, there will be plenty of amendments to dispose of.

House Bill 335, the major bill proposing to regulate managed health care, passed the House by the overwhelming vote of 125-17 and is yet to be taken up in the Senate. It enjoys wide bipartisan support and the backing of a broad coalition of health-care providers across the state. One problem is that nobody has much of an idea of a price tag. To quote one of the few House members who displayed the fortitude to oppose the bill, Rep. Scott Lakin, D-Kansas City, "We are looking to pass legislation, and we don't know the cost." Expected cost increases of between 15 and 20 percent on health insurance premiums are one of the reasons that every major business group opposes the measure. One thing that should give us all pause is the fact that increases of this magnitude will mean the elimination of health care coverage of any kind for employees of many small businesses that will be unable to afford the increases.

Senate Bill 360 is the major education bill seeking to get the state out of the desegregation funding business for the cases in St. Louis and Kansas City. In return for major reforms caleld charter schools, some of the desegregation savings would be spent on children from poor families, defined as those receiving free-and-reduced lunches. In the Senate alone, we could spend a week or so on nothing but this bill and still not finish it. This past week we had one afternoon of debate and barely scratched the surface. On this as on so many other measures, time is very much our enemy in securing final passage. This isn't always bad by any means. Plenty of bad legislation dies a well-earned death as time runs out.

Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 275 is my bill to ban partial-birth abortion. It won first-round approval Monday after three hours of debate and should gain final approval early this coming week. Well over a hundred House members are expected to support it in that 163-member chamber, and many have approached me expressing their support

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.