Two major projects sought by Springfield area legislators survived a flurry of vetoes issued late Friday by Republican Gov. Mike Parson as he approved a record state budget of about $51.8 billion for the fiscal year that began July 1.
However, a $28 million plan to reduce congestion and improve safety on a five-mile stretch of Interstate 44 from Kansas Expressway to Highway 65 was vetoed by Parson.
City officials confirmed Saturday that the budget includes:
- $8 million for the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge repair project, an iconic symbol of Commercial Street and a fixture of the northern Springfield skyscape.
- $4 million for capital renovations at Hammons Field. The upgrades are necessary for the home of the Double-A Springfield Cardinals to meet Major League Baseball-mandated facility requirements. When the city announced Feb. 1 it was purchasing the field, the city committed $4 million toward these upgrades. Now, state funds will cover the cost.
City officials were continuing their review Saturday of the budget bills to determine if added projects survived. Springfield Mayor Ken McClure said simply: “All things considered, I think we fared well.”
While legislators sent Parson a series of budget bills with nearly 275 earmarked items, he made 201 vetoes, generally citing concerns about sustainability in future years. In contrast, Parson vetoed 31 items in last year's budget.
Vetoes totaled $555.3 million, Parson said in his budget message. Legislators, working with a record state surplus, approved a budget about $1.3 billion more than he requested, with the biggest chunk of money going to widening Interstate 70 across most of the state.
“I have vetoed this provision in an effort to help ensure the financial stability of Missouri beyond my administration and the current General Assembly,” Parson repeats numerous times in his veto messages.
Among projects sought by Springfield area legislators, but vetoed by Parson, were:
- $28 million for Interstate 44 upgrades around Springfield. The project, supported by a bipartisan group of area legislators, would have included repaving a 4.7-mile stretch of I-44, plus eliminating the diverging diamond at Kansas and I-44 and instead building a flyover ramp and making other changes to ramps around Kansas Expressway, a common chokepoint for traffic.
- $12 million for the city's Cooper Sports Complex.
- $10 million for the Victory Mission for a homeless housing project.
- $2 million for the Discovery Center for renovations at the science center in downtown Springfield.
- $34 million that was specifically earmarked for a project to improve Lecompte Road in Northeast Springfield. Due to an error, the amount in the budget actually was 10 times the $3.4 million that was sought for the project, so city officials were not surprised by this veto.
“This is a local responsibility with minimal statewide impact,” Parson wrote about LeCompte Road, repeating a sentence that is included with dozens of other vetoes.
State Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued a statement soon after Parson’s action, but did not address the cuts directly. The budget addresses major needs, Hough said, and was the result of weeks of negotiations within the General Assembly.
“I believe this final budget uses the surplus funding available from the federal government and the monies entrusted to us by the people of Missouri to aggressively improve our state while remaining fiscally responsible with an eye towards the future,” Hough said.
Vetoes come despite record surplus
Parson issued his vetoes despite a record state general revenue surplus. The state treasury was holding $5.9 billion in general revenue on May 31 – about $1 billion more than the expected surplus when the fiscal year ended Friday. And revenues, while well off the double-digit growth of past years, was $118 million more than estimated for the year through Thursday.
“Our revenues are up, businesses are growing and investing, and we maintain a historic revenue surplus, but we must not spend just for the sake of spending,” Parson said in a release detailing his budget actions.
Parson did approve several initiatives from lawmakers — expanding his $859 million plan for widening portions of Interstate 70 to a $2.8 billion plan for adding extra lanes across the state is the most notable one.
In announcing his budget cuts, Parson highlighted spending on transportation and infrastructure, with $379 million for road and bridge projects in the Missouri Department of Transportation’s rolling five-year program, $248 million for broadband deployment within the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program and $60 million for safety improvements at rail crossings.
Education and child care support were budget priorities
Parson also said in his release that he was pleased with the education funding provided by lawmakers, including $233 million to fully fund school transportation, $70.8 million to boost core funding for colleges and universities and money to support minimum teacher pay of $38,000 statewide. Included in the budget are:
- $3.6 billion to fully fund the K-12 Foundation Formula for the fifth year in a row
- $288.7 million for capital improvement projects at public higher education institutions
- $78 million to increase rates for child care providers
- $56 million for public and charter schools to provide Pre-Kindergarten programs to all students qualifying for free and reduced lunch
- $26 million for private child care providers to offer Pre-Kindergarten programs to students qualifying for free and reduced lunch
Parson cut $16.8 million for four-year universities that would be dependent on a new performance-based funding model. The model is not ready and does not need to be funded, he wrote.
Missouri doesn’t just have a large general revenue surplus. It also has almost $2 billion in other funds, mainly additional federal aid for state services like Medicaid tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, that can be spent like general revenue.
The growth in revenue in the current year, about $340 million, will be enough to trigger the next round of tax cuts in a bill passed last summer. For 2024, the top income tax rate in Missouri will fall to 4.8% from 4.95%.
The rate was 6% a decade ago.
