KC Democrat: Republican nonsense may cost state billions in education, health funding

(From Rep. Ingrid Burnett, D-Kansas City)

I hope you are able to take some time out of your day today to celebrate your valentine. We need more love and less greed for sure. I’m headed back for another week of yet another unique and historic session. 

The Senate has exceeded a filibuster record and we still don’t have congressional district lines established. 

State government is grappling with how to allocate historic levels of revenue and stimulus funds while facing historic staffing shortages, and our partisan divide has not been this stark in generations. Please be patient with each other and generous with your affection today.

The two big items last week that the House sent over to the Senate were the Emergency Supplemental Bill and legislation to create barriers to the initiative petition process in Missouri.

Typically, a supplemental spending bill is intended to make adjustments to the current fiscal year’s budget to assure that the appropriation authority will be sufficient to finish out the fiscal year that ends June 30. 

At issue with this emergency supplemental, however, is $4.6 billion in federal pandemic relief funds that will cover the costs of Medicaid expansion through the end of the fiscal year, and includes approximately $2 billion to local public school districts and charter schools that will expire if not approved by the General Assembly by March 24, at which time it will return to the Federal treasury to be distributed to other states. 

These funds are intended for school districts to use for mitigating the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the loss of learning time for students. 

Although school districts were required to submit their plans for approval and DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) will distribute the money, the plans for its use were strictly left to the local districts subject to federal guidelines.

 DESE also was allocated approximately $470 million to enhance and provide support systems to assist districts, however, the House version restricts $75M of that to create a scholarship program to be administered by a third-party vendor yet to be identified for services yet to be prioritized.

The House version of the bill, authored by the House Budget Chairman, Cody Smith, authorizes significantly less spending authority than the $5.27 billion Parson had requested, primarily by not appropriating as much of the federal funds. 

Another key difference that sparked significant debate is the House plan which would provide a less generous pay increase to the lowest-paid state employees. While Parson requested establishing a $15-an-hour base wage for state workers, Smith only included a $12-an-hour wage floor for most departments. 

Both plans include a 5.5 percent pay bump for all state workers. Gov. Mike Parson had wanted the bill finalized by February 1 which would have avoided a decrease in pay for employees who were receiving extra pay for pandemic relief efforts that expired December 31, but House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage, delayed advancing it for four weeks. 

During the House Budget Committee hearings, we heard over and over from department directors that our low pay scale is driving high vacancy rates and hampering their ability to recruit replacements. Missouri ranks 49th in state worker pay, and vacancy rates across the state range from 26% - 60% with the highest rates within the direct public service workers who deal directly with the public. Many of the workers who have stayed did so believing their pay rate would be increased to $15/hr because of the press releases and media announcements that preceded the vote.

I want you to know that Democrats on the Budget Committee and on the House Floor did what we could to increase the urgency of moving these funds out of the treasury and into the worker's paychecks and school districts. 

The funds necessary to cover Medicaid benefits this year and the school district relief funds could have been handled months ago in a special session that Republican majority leaders refused to call. When the Governor released this emergency supplemental, Democrats were ready to support it and press the issue of higher raises as we moved into the next fiscal year. 

Helping Missourians get back on their feet is our highest priority. It was extremely disappointing, to say the least, that the Republican majority refused to back amendments to restore the Republican Governor’s proposal offered by myself and Democrat colleagues. House Bill 3014 now advances to the Senate.

Republicans Attempt to Limit Initiative Petitions

The House of Representatives voted 98-53 on Feb. 10 in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that likely would make it impossible to use the initiative petition process to propose and enact laws and constitutional amendments independently of the General Assembly. All but a handful of majority Republicans supported the measure, which Democrats unanimously opposed. 

House Joint Resolution 79 would drastically increase the number of signatures from registered voters required for an initiative petition to qualify for the ballot. 

For example, the minimum signatures needed for a proposed constitutional amendment would skyrocket from about 172,000 under current law to roughly 434,000. Also, proposals that did manage to make the ballot would need approval from at least two-thirds of voters to pass instead of the current simple majority. 

Listening to the debate, it seems clear that the intent of this and other Initiative Petition Reform Bills is to undermine the efforts that resulted in Medicaid expansion and banning right-to-work by making it substantially more difficult to get popular policies into law. 

HJR 79 now advances to the Senate, and if it clears the General Assembly, it automatically would go on the Nov. 8 ballot for voter ratification. Be aware that the bill’s sponsor included deceptive ballot language in HJR 97 that tells voters the measure would “allow only citizens of the United States to qualify as legal voters.” That requirement already is part of the Missouri Constitution. 

Ironically, this resolution would not meet its own standards. It only passed out of the House with 60.1 percent of the vote.

Send in the Clowns 

Links for the Senate Follies:

If you haven’t been following the fiasco in the Missouri Senate, here are a couple of news articles I recommend you check out:

https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/12/tempers-fray-as-missouri-senate-republicans-fight-over-congressional-map/

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article258331253.html

There’s even a rumor that we will have a Truckers Rally similar to what’s happening in Canada, but the latest intel is that it’s been postponed to Tuesday as the Senate has adjourned and will convene at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 15, 2022. You can find out who your senator is here.