Joe Smith: Missouri Legislature Passes Balanced Budget, Without Raises Taxes

This week, we passed a balanced budget, approving funding to run critical functions of state government without a tax increase. Thirteen budget bills totaling $23.1 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1 were agreed upon by both chambers and will be sent to the Governor for final approval. Together with the Senate, we shaved a total of $484 million from the Governor’s proposed budget, making the tough decisions necessary to keep Missouri afloat in our harsh economy.

Unlike the federal government, we managed to look at each budget item, line by line, and responsibly make the reductions needed to uphold vital programs. We were also able to trim down those items that we could live without, even though it wasn’t an easy process.

I am pleased to report that we voted to maintain the school funding formula at its current levels. In addition, Missouri’s K-12 schools will receive the same level of funding in the 2011 Fiscal Year as they did this year. We also approved $37.5 million for the Career Ladder program that pays teachers for extra work such as afterschool tutoring. The funding would pay teachers for work that has already been completed during the 2010 Fiscal Year. The largest savings, anticipated to be millions, came from looking at state departments and identifying how they may run more efficiently by eliminating more than 1,000 government jobs, including taxpayer-funded lobbyists and items like equipment, travel and expenses.

We completed the budget more than one week in advance of the deadline set by the state constitution, which is something I haven’t seen since I entered the legislature. I am extremely proud of the work of our budget chairman, Representative Allen Icet, R – Wildwood, and his budget committee for their longstanding dedication to this process.

Because we continued down a fiscally-conservative path while balancing our state’s budget, we are able to keep Missouri in a leadership position when it comes to being financially stable. While other states across the nation are struggling miserably to keep afloat, Missouri is ahead of the game and operating the best we can consider declining state revenues.