House and Senate to start budget negotiations next week

House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, and House Budget Chair Rick Stream, R-Kirkwood, said the budget that senators approved Monday spends more than the House's version and goes beyond the consensus revenue estimate that leaders adopted before the session started.

“We have no intention in the House to agree to anything that spends above what the CRE was that we agreed to back in December,” Stream said.

Senate Appropriations Chair Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, addressed the issue when he presented the budget on the floor Monday.

He said the Senate is at a disadvantage in budget negotiations because the House gets the budget first and “puts in a bunch of stuff” in it to match the priorities of its members.

The Senate has to try to get its own priorities into the plan for the budget year that begins July 1, he said.

He said it's a standard part of the process and the differences are worked out in committee every year — with each chamber giving up and receiving some of what it wants.

“We have to have leverage to get what we want,” Schaefer said.

Still, Schaefer said there’s no question that his budget proposal is in the black.

He said the state is currently $400 million ahead of the revenue estimate. He said he thinks the CRE is adopted too early to gauge how much the state will have when the new budget year begins.

“We try to budget to this stale number from December,” he said. “We’re going to have to change this process.”

Jones agreed that state revenues are outpacing earlier estimates but said he thinks the Legislature has to take the “responsibility to take a long term view and not just be excited about one month’s numbers.”

Even if revenues are coming in higher, Stream said, “My feeling is, we need to put that money in the bank so that we can either use it for emergencies down the road or unintended consequences of some legislation that might have passed or if we want to give the money back to the citizens in tax cuts.”

Schaefer said his budget isn’t really much more than the House’s or the governor’s proposal – it just better reflects actual spending.

One thing that’s been leading to a perceived budget creep has been the ongoing effort to eliminate “Es” – estimated appropriations that serve as placeholders instead of actual spending figures. In the past, some agencies have received appropriations lines that appeared in the budget as “$1E,” so it would appear as $1 in the total budget, even if lawmakers knew those agencies would spend much more than that.

A Cole County Circuit judge ruled – in a lawsuit cuts that is being challenged in the state Supreme Court over gubernatorial budget cuts – that the Legislature does not have the authority to make estimated appropriations.

“I could have left those Es in there and it would have left us $12 (million) or $13 million under the governor’s (recommended budget),” Schaefer said. “We have to appropriate an amount and we’re trying to do that.”

Both the House and Senate have worked for the past two budget cycles to remove those estimate figures and make the budget better reflect actual spending.

The Senate-approved spending plan has just 5 Es left in it, Stream acknowledged.

“Two or three years ago we had 700,” he said.

After the committee reaches an agreement, the House and Senate will have to approve final versions of the budget before May 10.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Jones also raised an issue with Schaefer’s decision to cut funding for the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Revenue, in an effort to get more information from those agencies about their ties to the federal government.

“I’d be very concerned about taking away funding to Homeland Security. We need to be briefed on what happened there,” Jones said of the $19 million hit to the Department of Public Safety.

Schaefer explained in presenting his budget that he had included hits to certain departments because they were not forthcoming with information about how their money is spent.

“For some reason, they’re under the belief that they just don’t have to answer our questions,” he said.

Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, spoke in favor of Schaefer’s plan to try to gain leverage through appropriations.

“We’re sitting here as the legislative branch – what other power do we have other than the appropriations process to convey to the executive branch that we are to be taken seriously?” Dempsey said on the floor Monday night.

As for the Revenue Department, Jones appeared to take a swipe at Schaefer’s effort to eliminate funding for driver’s licenses, which may have resulted in the defunding of other DOR functions, such as boat and mobile home registrations.

“This sounds like a pretty serious miscalculation,” Jones said, mentioning the apparent mix-up. “We didn’t have any of those concerns or questions from the House budget so I’ll say that Rep. Rick Stream did a fine job on all those matters here in the House.”

Jones and Schaefer both appear to be eying runs for statewide office in 2016.