Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signs budget with $2.8B plan to expand I-70 across the state
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Friday signed a roughly $51 billion budget for the next fiscal year that fully funds a massive expansion of Interstate 70 but cuts half a billion in items sought by lawmakers.
The $2.8 billion highway plan would extend the interstate from two lanes each way to three across the state from Blue Springs in Jackson County to Wentzville near St. Louis. It’s substantially more ambitious than the $859 million proposal Parson sought at the start of the year which would have expanded the highway in three specific spots near Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis.
“With this budget, our administration has done the right thing – the conservative thing – to make strategic investments and maintain responsible spending,” Parson said in a statement.
Half of the highway expansion will be paid for with general revenue and the other half through bonds repaid over 15 years.
Parson and lawmakers have framed the I-70 expansion as necessary to combat high levels of congestion on the major highway that slices through the state. However, researchers have disputed the idea that highway expansions are a long-lasting solution.
The Republican governor on Friday also slashed 201 items totaling $555.3 million that lawmakers had approved in May. Parson’s vetoes included a range of items from $28 million for design and improvements to Interstate 44, $3.7 million for a proposed early intervention program for youth at risk of mental health crises and $46 million for a nursing building at St. Louis Community College.
Parson signed the state’s spending plan, which begins Saturday with the start of the new fiscal year, as the state is propped up by a nearly $8 billion revenue surplus. Major items remained in the budget including $3.6 billion in state aid to K-12 schools, $78 million to boost rates for child care providers and $60 million for safety improvements at railroad crossings.
Lawmakers from both parties have touted the budget’s major infrastructure investments, including the I-70 project. The Kansas City area was a recipient of some of the largest appropriations.
It includes $50 million for improvements at Arrowhead Stadium and marketing ahead of the 2026 World Cup in Kansas City. An additional $2 million will pay for parking upgrades near the World Cup event sites.
Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, said he was glad to see that Missouri is the “biggest supporter of bringing a World Cup to Kansas City, we will show off our great city and state to the world thanks to the state funding.”
Parson also greenlit $300 million to build a new psychiatric hospital in Kansas City’s Hospital Hill neighborhood, replacing a facility that officials say is in dire need of repair.
“In order to increase opportunities for Missourians’ success, state government must also look to continually improve the services it provides to citizens,” the governor’s office said in a news release.
State Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican who chaired the budget committee in the Senate, said that the budget addressed “big issues that concern Missourians.”
“They are talking about the roads they drive on, the jobs they have and the jobs they want, caring for the aging generations and providing education and a future for the children of Missouri,” he said. “This budget focuses on tackling these issues right now, primarily through one-time capital investment.”
The budget includes $4.5 million in state aid for libraries that the House had initially cut in retaliation for a lawsuit on behalf of two library groups challenging a new state law that bans certain materials in school libraries.
The state budget also for the third year in a row blocks Medicaid patients from accessing care at Planned Parenthood. Friday’s approval comes less than a year after a Cole County judge ruled that lawmakers could not use budget bills to limit the list of eligible Medicaid providers.
The Missouri Supreme Court found in 2020 that lawmakers violated the state constitution when they attempted to end all funding of Planned Parenthood.
When lawmakers approved this provision in May, Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said they were “wasting time and critical tax dollars.”
State Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican who chaired the budget committee in the Senate, rejected this criticism in May, telling reporters that the provision “doesn’t really have, in my opinion, a lot of practical implications.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2023 at 4:44 PM.
