Missouri budget plan cuts aid for disabled and colleges

NIXA, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is proposing to end state-funded care for more than 20,000 disabled residents and cut higher-education funding by 10 percent as part of a remedy to what he described Thursday as a broken budget.

The $27.6 billion spending plan outlined by the new Republican governor also includes a mixture of good and bad news for public schools — slightly increasing their basic aid while slashing payments for school busing.

In a break with tradition, Greitens posted the budget plan online while leaving the Capitol to make a speech about it at a school in the southwest Missouri town of Nixa.

In a public letter accompanying the documents, he declared, “our budget is broken” and Missourians must “tighten our belts” to “work our way out of this hole.”

He told students in Nixa: “We’ve ensured that our K-12 classrooms are protected,” and he added it “wasn’t an easy decision” to recommend less money than colleges and universities desired.

But Greitens made no mention of the specific cuts he was proposing to the Medicaid health-care program for the poor.

Acting state budget director Dan Haug confirmed later the budget plan seeks to save about $52 million in state revenue — plus additional federal dollars — by requiring people to display more severe disabilities to qualify for in-home care or nursing-home services.

Springfield resident Lexi Amos asks Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens a question about MedicAid block grants and school vouchers after his delivery of an outline of the his state budget for fiscal year 2018 during an address Thursday at Nixa's Early Childhood Center in Nixa, Missouri.Guillermo Hernandez Martinez ~ The Springfield News-Leader via AP

The result is more than 20,000 people could lose services.

For those who pick their own in-home caregivers, the state also would cover a lower percentage of their costs than it currently does.

The cuts were proposed because “this is one of the fastest-growing areas of Medicaid,” Haug said.

Greitens’ budget also would reduce payments to Medicaid health-care providers by 3 percent, reversing increases they had received in recent years.

Even with those cuts, total state and federal Medicaid spending in Missouri would rise to $10.7 billion under Greitens’ plan, up by several hundred million dollars.

The overall 2018 state operating budget would grow by 1.2 percent under Greitens’ plan when compared to the 2017 budget passed by lawmakers.

The Republican-led Legislature has until May 5 to pass its own version of the new budget, which Greitens can veto fully or partially.

The budget is to take effect July 1.

Greitens, who took office in January, already has cut roughly $146 million to balance this year’s budget.

That’s on top of about $200 million cut by former Democratic governor Jay Nixon before leaving office.

Greitens’ 2018 proposal would deepen previous cuts to public colleges and universities, providing about $90 million less in core funding than they originally were supposed to receive this year.

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, a Kansas City Democrat, said the cuts could lead to tuition hikes, “pushing higher education out of reach for many Missourians.”

The governor’s budget plan would provide $3.3 billion of basic aid to public elementary and secondary schools, an increase of about $3 million but still about $45 million short of what’s called for under state law.

It also boosts funding for early-childhood special-education programs.

But state payments for school busing would be reduced to $69 million from the $105 million appropriated in the current budget.

Greitens told reporters in Nixa “more money is going to K-12 education” but acknowledged: “Now, would we love to be in a budget place where we can invest more in quality programs that are working for our kids? Absolutely.”

House Budget Committee chairman Scott Fitzpatrick said he will try to direct more to schools than Greitens proposed.

“If we can fully fund the (school) formula, we will. That is a top priority for me,” said Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Shell Knob.

The budget plan recommends no pay raise for state workers — who are among the lowest-paid in the nation — but proposes to fund the state’s payments to its main employee retirement fund fully.

Fitzpatrick said it’s unlikely the state can afford a pay raise next year.

Revenue this fiscal year has come in below what the last governor and Legislature estimated, and Missouri’s corporate income-tax revenue was down by more than 25 percent through the first half of the budget year.

Part of that may be attributable to a tax-law change approved by the Legislature that allows multi-state corporations to allocate their profits differently.

But Greitens also cited “special-interest tax credits” that sap money from the state and increasing spending demands for health care, which he blamed on former president Barack Obama.

Missouri did not expand eligibility for Medicaid as envisioned under Obama’s federal health-care law, but Medicaid costs have risen nonetheless.

By traveling to Nixa to talk about the budget, Greitens broke with decades of tradition in which governors outlined their budgets at the Capitol while delivering their annual State of the State speech.

About 15 people protested outside the Nixa school, including education researcher Lexi Amos of Springfield, who criticized Greitens’ appearance there as “political theater.”

Ballentine and Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.