(Missourinet) – Governor Nixon’s State of the State address is Wednesday. That’s when he’ll unveil his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Senate President Ron Richard (R-Joplin) hopes bi-partisan issues will bring Republicans and Nixon together during the Governor’s last year in office.

“I think we need to have a partnership with the executive branch and work toward job creation and getting people back to work,” said Richard.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe voiced a similar sentiment.

“I think jobs and the economy are non-partisan issues,” said Kehoe. “We’d sure like to work together with the Governor to try and move those and other important issues like transportation and two or three of the top items in the state that are non-partisan issues that certainly get a lot easier if you develop a plan with all branches of government.”

Nixon said this election year will create more attention for his proposed budget.

“The more attention there is on what I think are the smart investments for the state, based on not only my last seven years as Governor but thirty years of public experience, I feel very strongly about things we are doing here. I think they are the right things for our state,” said Nixon.

He said balancing the budget means making some tough decisions.

“This year, with the budget I present, we will have 5,135 fewer employees than the day I was sworn in. When my time is over as Governor, we will have less debt than when I became Governor,” said Nixon. “We have made the choices to balance the budget, to pay down debt, to downsize appropriately in the places we should.”

Nixon’s proposal includes $131 million in additional state and federal funding for developmental disabilities. We will hear other key parts of his budget during Nixon’s State of the State address Wednesday at 7 p.m.

(Missourinet) – According to the Institute for College Access & Success, the average debt for a Missouri graduate of a public or private 4-year college is more than $25,000. Nearly one million borrowers with outstanding federal student loans exist in Missouri, owing a total of more than $24 billion.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) supports a proposal in Congress that would allow graduates to refinance student loans.

“What’s really insulting about these high interest rates that students are having to pay is that they are paying them to the government,” said McCaskill. “So the government is profiteering off these young people who are just trying to get better educated.”

McCaskill sits on the U.S. Senate Aging committee and has also examined the issue of seniors’ Social Security payments being garnished to repay student loan debt.

“The tuition costs have skyrocketed in this country,” said McCaskill. “The costs for students have expanded way beyond the cost of inflation.”

McCaskill said the nation’s economy is going to be impacted if nothing is done about skyrocketing college tuition rates.

“It’s going to impact the strength of our nation. It’s going to impact our workforce. It’s going to impact the availability of higher education for more young people across this country and ultimately will have a dramatic impact on our competitiveness in the global world,” said McCaskill.

Missouri ranks 33rd in the nation for the amount of debt students graduate with.

(Missourinet) – A state senator criticizes the Republican-led legislature for spending more time on abortion than it has on Ferguson, but a Republican leader’s staffer says more hearings on Ferguson are coming.

Two legislative hearings were held last week on issues related to abortion. More are scheduled, and this follows a series of hearings during the summer on whether Planned Parenthood is violating the law by profiting from the sale of fetal tissue.

Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-University City) compares that to a committee formed after riots in Ferguson that met only twice – once to organize and once to hear testimony.

“I wish the amount of time that has been put on this particular issue was also put on the people who have been treated like savages within communities that look like mine and across the nation,” said Chappelle-Nadal during a recent Senate committee hearing on an abortion bill.
She also wants more legislative attention on radioactive contamination in her region.

“This legislature … decided not to hear a bill dealing with radioactive waste that I filed, and I have people that are dying every single day,” said Chappelle-Nadal.

Chappelle-Nadal told one pro-life lobbyist at the hearing that she and he use the same language in discussing their issues.

“Every single time that I’ve heard you say something that I feel is an emotional tug for people who are from your position it’s the same language that I use for people who are losing their lives and their families in my district,” said Chappelle-Nadal. “I think that not giving my district and the problems within urban areas is abhorrent.”

The House-Senate joint committee that looked into the state’s response to Ferguson is the Joint Committee on Government Accountability. A staff member for its Senate chair, Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia), told Missourinet an annual report from the committee is in the works and more hearings will soon be scheduled for this year.

(Missourinet) – The final bill just to put a plan in front of the NFL and Stan Kroenke for a new football stadium in St. Louis, cost $16.2 million, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The article states that the public agency that owns the Edward Jones Dome paid 22 companies, from architects to engineers to financial advisers, to the law firm run by Bob Blitz, one of the two key players added to Nixon’s task force.

While the fans of St. Louis are considered the big losers, the big winners are architecture firm HOK which made $10.5 million. The attorneys, Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch, charged nearly $900,000. Thompson Coburn bond and financing lawyers billed $760,000.

As I’ve stated before, I felt the stadium plan was flawed and lacked solid concrete solutions. It was a plan that was originally thrown together in 60 days after Nixon first appointed Peacock and Blitz to oversee the stadium project. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t see the new stadium as a viable option and that opened up a vote of league owners which ruled 30-2 in favor of the Rams leaving St. Louis for Los Angeles.

(Missourinet) – Senator David Sater (R-Cassville) wants confirmation that people getting Medicaid are actually eligible for it, and he’s proposing the state hire someone else to check. He said it would save the state millions of dollars.

“If we’re paying out money to people who are not eligible, that is taking away money that would go to people that are eligible and need services,” said Sater.

Those who would be affected include Missourians receiving food stamps, temporary assistance for needy families, child care assistance and MO HealthNet benefits.

The company the state contracts with would flag those it thinks aren’t eligible but the Department of Social Services would make the final decision.

“It has proven that way in other states that people have passed away and there was not an up to date notification,” said Sater. “People have moved out of state and people get jobs.”

The state and the company would be required to file an annual report with the Governor and the General Assembly regarding the eligibility data.

Sater said the Department of Social Services supports the legislation.

He offered the bill for the first time last year. It passed in the Senate but the House didn’t vote on it.

(Missourinet) – Senator Claire McCaskill (D) will hold a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday in Jefferson City on the fact that Missouri is the only state in the U.S. without a prescription drug monitoring program.

Such programs create a database of prescriptions dispensed in an attempt to catch “doctor shopping,” and prevent the abuse of prescription drugs.

McCaskill says nearly two-thirds of the more than 40,000 drug overdose deaths among Americans last year were related to opioids other than heroin. She is calling Tuesday’s hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, “Fighting Against a Growing Epidemic: Reducing the Misuse and Abuse of Opioids in America.”

Speakers will include state representative Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston), who for the past few years has sponsored legislation to create a prescription drug monitoring program in Missouri. That legislation has been opposed in the Senate, primarily by Senator Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph), who cites privacy concerns at the idea of a database of Missourian’s prescriptions.

Tuesday’s hearing will be in the Governor’s Office Building, near the Capitol.

(Missourinet) – The state tax commission thinks the property tax values of some ag land should be increased, but some state lawmakers want to reject that recommendation.

Senator Will Kraus says an increase now would be poorly timed.

“Farm income is down over multiple years and most commodity prices are below the cost of production,” said Kraus. “If you look at the current situation right now with the flooding, and that we don’t even know the damage that’s being done right now and the impact it’s going to have on Missouri farmers, those are the two basic reasons why we think it’s not a good time to raise property taxes on farmland.”

Senator Mike Parson wants to encourage more people to get into farming, and says letting those values increase would do the opposite.

“If you’re a young man in your 20s, and you went out there and you said, “Okay, I’ve gotta go buy land, I’ve gotta go buy cattle, or I’ve gotta put plants in the ground,’ and the equipment, it’s a huge hill to climb to get started,” Parson told Missourinet.

A Senate committee will consider Tuesday morning Parson’s and Kraus’ resolutions to reject the proposed increase. A similar resolution has been filed in the House by Representative Bill Reiboldt (R-Neosho).

The Tax Commission proposed increasing the value of the best producing land by about 5-percent, or less than 6-cents an acre.

Ag land values were increased last year – the only increase since 1995.

(Missourinet) – A law that took effect with the new year reduces how long needy families can receive temporary welfare assistance from 60 to 45 weeks. The Legislature voted last year to override the Governor’s veto of creating the cut.

Jeanette Mott Oxford with social welfare advocacy group Empower Missouri believes needy families might use food pantries more because of the reduction in assistance.

“A lot of people, I think, will try to rise to the occasion to meet the needs,” said Oxford. “We need more of that.”

Missouri ranks second highest in the nation for those struggling with access to food, according to a USDA report released in 2015. The report also found that almost 8% of Missourians fall into the very low food supply category, which ranks only behind Arkansas.

Oxford believes the change in state law could move Missouri even further down in future rankings.

“Rather than assuming they just need stronger punishment and everyone will just get their lives together, people who are this poor already experience a lot of their lives as punishment. Putting more punishment on them is not a motivator for success. Indeed, it becomes a barrier,” said Oxford. “A lot of folks believe that if you’re on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), you get so much aid from all kinds of other programs that you just basically have a very enjoyable lifestyle and you aren’t trying to help yourself. That is seldom true.”

Oxford said the state has not raised welfare benefits since 1991. The state increased the benefits $3 in 1991 from where they were in 1975.