Budget
On Tuesday the Senate Appropriations committee met from noon until 5:30pm to mark-up the FY 2020 supplemental appropriation bill HB 2014. In a normal budget year the supplemental appropriation bill provides little excitement and may add a few hundred million dollars to provide funding to a line item in the operating budget necessary to fund programs thru the end of the fiscal year, however, as you know this year is not a typical year.
The FY20 supplemental bill contains spending authority that exceeds $6.2 billion, and of that, $5.6 billion in Federal funds expected to come to Missouri for COVID-19 relief across the state.
In the committee on Tuesday the Governor had an amendment to allocate a little over $300 million to Higher Education. Of this, the University of Missouri System would receive $138,745,625 million. In committee there was a lot of conversation between Senators and Dan Haug, the Governors Budget a Director, regarding whether the Universities would receive direct funding from the Federal Government or whether the funding would have to come through the state first. At this time it’s to be determined, that is why the Governor put language in the supplemental budget just in case the money has to flow through the state first.
On Wednesday, both the Senate and House third read and finally passed the supplemental appropriation bill, House Bill 2014. The bill now heads to Governor Parson’s desk for approval. There is still a lot of uncertainty on when session will continue, neither chamber knows when they will be back in Jefferson City. It is looking like both the House and Senate could come back on the first of May to try and pass the FY21 budget, or they may wait and have a special session to do the budget and key priority bills in late May and early June.
Reviewed 2020-04-10