Today's Feature
Maybe The Last.
The City Council Budget/Ways
and Means Committee is scheduled to meet this
evening for the final scheduled meeting to
perfect the budget. The Committee will meet in
City Hall at 7 p.m.
According to preliminary
figures, the Committee will need to trim
approximately $200,000 from requested funding to
keep from dipping into restricted reserves which
equal 25% of the operating budget, or
approximately $1.5 million.
Last year there was some
discussion about reducing the percentage to 20 or
22. The amount in the restricted reserve is
determined by the Council and is not a
requirement imposed from outside. Some larger
communities operate with 10 or 15% reserve.
According to City Administrator
Tom Short, the proposed requests do not include
additional funding for future improvements to
Civil War Road or for the interchange at Fairview
and Highway 71. The existing funds that have been
previously earmarked for those projects, about
$595,000, is still available. If the Committee
fails to reach its objective this evening, other
meetings may be scheduled.
Commentary
Martin
"Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126
The big news still continues to
be the state budget, only now the budget argument
has switched to the current year budget.
We had been working on next
year’s budget and finding that spending was
exceeding income, when late last week, Governor
Bob Holden announced that collections of state
income tax payments were over $200 million short
of what had been projected. It seemed odd that
with tax day having been on April 15 that all the
returns had been opened, processed, and totaled
in only 9 business days.
It also seemed odd that Gov.
Holden would choose to drop this bit of news on
us with only three weeks left in Session,
especially when he is trying his hardest to get
us to dip into the Rainy Day fund to pay for
ongoing programs.
As you might remember, there
has been quite a bit of discussion about whether
or not to use money from the Rainy Day fund to
balance next year’s budget. I am still
against this idea because there is no state
emergency. State tax revenues have not grown at
the rate they have in past years. That is a
situation, not an emergency. An emergency is the
floods of 1993 and 1995. In at least one of those
years we used reserves to pay for damage repair.
That is what reserves are to be
used for. To use savings to pay for programs that
are ongoing and will need to be paid for year
after year is fiscally irresponsible.
Now Governor Holden is
proposing to use Rainy Day money to pay for
current bills. In addition, he wants to bond
against future tobacco settlement payments so
that the state would get an up front lump sum of
tobacco money instead of payments each year. Of
course, the up front payment would be
considerably less than the total of the payments.
While I still think the tobacco
money is still nothing more than extortion
against a legal industry, it is still bad fiscal
policy to sell future payments and use the money
to pay for programs that will need to be paid for
again the next year.
Collections may be down and
maybe they are down that much, but in the words
of the greatest president to ever serve, Ronald
Reagan, ‘trust and verify’. I fail to
see how we can already know what collections
actually are. If they turn out to be short, we
can deal with it when we know for sure. To rush
into something before we know could turn out to
have very bad consequences. It may sound bad to
admit that we can’t trust Gov. Holden’s
announcement, but his track record leaves a
little to be desired in this area. It was less
than two years ago that he announced that several
companies had committed to help pay for his
inauguration expenses. This came as a surprise to
those companies and they were quick to announce
that Gov. Holden was making up a few things.
Let’s wait and see what the truth is this
time.
As usual, I can be reached at
House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson City,
MO 65101, or 1-800-878-7126, or
mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions,
comments, or advice.
CAPITOL REPORT.
by Steve Hunter
State Representative
127th District
At the beginning of the
legislative session, House conservatives outlined
their priorities to help all Missourians. We have
worked hard to increase funding for education,
reforming elections, and lowering the property
tax burden. However, the Speaker has refused to
send property tax reform to the House floor for a
vote.
As in the previous two
legislative sessions, House conservatives have
fought for education reform as the state’s
highest priority. The key to long-term success is
education, and House conservatives have outlined
an ambitious plan to improve education in our
state. In order to provide the quality of
education our children deserve, we must not only
increase education funding, but we must also use
our gambling revenues to provide additional
resources for schools as they were intended to
do, act to resolve our urban education crisis,
and reward teachers and schools for their
achievements.
Missouri voters intended
gambling revenues to provide additional funding
for schools rather than merely supplant existing
tax revenues. The legislature should establish a
Classroom Trust Fund that would capture the
state's gambling revenues and channel them
directly to schools. This Classroom Trust Fund
legislation would send gambling money to every
school district in the state, bypassing state
bureaucracy, to give schools an additional $165
per student with no state strings attached.
Schools could use these funds for their most
pressing needs, be they teacher salary increases,
school construction, computers, or whatever they
need. By strengthening education funding and
implementing education reform, we will ensure
that Missouri's future will be stronger than it
has ever been.
Last year House conservatives
led a bipartisan effort to pass the Secretary of
State's proposed election reform bill, but it was
not given serious consideration on the House
floor. There are many steps that must be taken to
help improve our elections process. We need to
update our election system to make it as easy as
possible to cast a legal vote and as difficult as
possible to vote illegally. We must take steps to
preserve the integrity of the ballot box by
preventing corruption and ensuring free and fair
elections.
Missouri has still failed to
adopt election reform in response to the election
fraud that occurred in St. Louis. Fair elections
are the foundation of democracy, and state
legislatures are ultimately responsible for
making sure that the laws governing the election
process guarantee free and fair elections. There
are many steps that must be taken to help improve
our elections process. The Senate has passed an
election reform bill that requires the voter to
present a current voter identification card or
another form of identification before being given
a ballot. This common sense approach would help
protect our elections from fraud and has no
additional burden to voters. In our society, you
need identification to do many things that are
not nearly as important as casting a vote.
Finally, we need to reform our
property tax system. A reasonable first step is
to freeze property taxes for those at least 65
years of age. This would eliminate a very
burdensome tax, which can present a definite
hardship to seniors living on fixed incomes.
Furthermore, pensions and Social Security
benefits be exempted from state tax because
seniors should not be overburdened by double
taxation. We need these reforms to protect
Missourians who need it most.
Since day one of the
legislative session, I have worked diligently to
increase funding for education, reform our
election process, and fix our flawed property tax
system. To really help our children we must adopt
our Classroom Trust Fund. To protect our seniors
we must adopt property tax relief. To protect our
future we must enact election reforms that make
it easier to vote and more difficult to cheat.
Despite the importance of these issues, the
Speaker has blocked all attempts to allow a House
vote on the Classroom Trust Fund and property tax
reform, and has failed to protect and strengthen
Missouri’s children, seniors, and future.
As usual, I can be reached at
(573) 751-5458 or at Room 103 BB, State Capitol,
Jefferson City, MO 65101, or by E-mail at
shunter@services.state.mo.us if you have any
questions or comments.
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