Conference Committee finishes budget talks, final budget moves to approval by the General Assembly
Marie Moyer
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The state budget is on its way for approval with its next stop at the Missouri House and Senate floors after the Conference Committee on Budget adjourned Thursday night at around 5:50 p.m.
Notable additions ahead of Friday’s deadline included an approval for almost $500 million to go to the state’s Department of Education’s Missouri School Funding Formula and $100 million for the state treasury to give to the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts fund.
The Missouri School Funding Formula was a program formed to ensure that funds were available in all districts, including charter schools, to provide education to students.
The MOScholars fund gives organizations tax credits for donations to approved nonprofit educational organizations, which include public, private and charter schools.
According to the budget, $50 million will go directly into the scholarship fund while the other $50 million will go to additional spending. This was met with some points of contention in the committee with some seeing this as the government directly funding private or charter schools. Others believed that scholarship opportunities were important, no matter what institution.
“I think this is fiscally irresponsible and quite frankly, I think it’s shameful to put $50 million into funds that can directly discriminate against the students they are supposed to be serving,” Committee member Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern (D-Kansas City) said.
“We’re talking about education for children and I care about our children, no matter where they are and whatever help we can give them and their parents, that’s what we should do,” Committee member Rep. Marlene Terry (D-St. Louis) said.
Conference Committee cochair Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) expects the floor vote to go quickly.
“Most of the time, not a lot of conversation, mainly because we’ve done our work,” Hough said. “We’ve, tried to try to address as many of the priorities that the members have and so most of the time, this thing gets in a pretty good situation by the end of it.”