Engler: Cost-Saving Efforts Continue as Budget Moves to Conference

This week, the budget moves to the conference committee process where House and Senate members will go through the 13 bills that make up the state budget to iron out any differences between the two chambers. The five members that were appointed by the Senate leader began their work on Thursday.

This year’s budget has been a struggle, and the Senate’s version included nearly $500 million in cuts. The conference committee will need to reconcile the Senate’s approximately $23.1 billion budget with the House’s slightly less than $23.6 billion budget. The decisions we had to make on the Senate floor were very difficult, and I commend the work of committee members as they begin the conference committee process.

Appropriations Chairman Senator Rob Mayer has had to craft a budget in one of the toughest years in our state’s history. He has created a video to explain some of the Senate’s choices during the budget process. You can watch this video by clicking here.

After the state spending plan is agreed to by the conference committee members, the budget will again move through the House and Senate for final approval. Our constitutional deadline for completing the fiscal year 2011 (beginning July 1, 2010) budget is May 7th. I am confident our tradition of fiscal responsibility will continue and we will pass a balanced budget to send to the governor.

We also began work this week on ways to reform the education system in our state. Our work is focused on finding ways to save the state money, a task we have been working on throughout the legislative session. It is important that we look at every aspect of state government to find ways to streamline and reduce spending, including education, public safety, and state pensions.

It is hard to believe that the end of the 2010 legislative session is so close. By the time the final gavel falls on May 14, we will have completed a budget in one of the toughest fiscal situations in Missouri’s history and made common-sense changes to the structure of state government to reduce spending. I will continue to keep you up-to-date on our work in the coming weeks.