Missouri budget restores stadium funding, after House cut $2 million
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- Lawmakers restored $2 million to the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority.
- Missouri’s final operating budget totals $50.7 billion for state services.
- The budget maintains public school funding at last year’s level despite concerns.
Missouri lawmakers passed an operating budget that restored $2 million to the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority, which could have voided the lease between the state and the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals.
The cut was justified with the departure of the Chiefs, who in December announced plans to build a new stadium in Kansas. Missouri historically provides $3 million per year to the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority to help fund maintenance at Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums.
On Wednesday, lawmakers fully passed a budget bill that maintained school funding at last year’s level, increased funding for a scholarship program that goes to private schools and spends more general revenue than the state is expected to take in.
The Senate restored the funding for the sports complex when it passed a budget out of its appropriations’ committee last month.
House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, said he was glad to see the funding back in place for the stadium.
“That’s an investment that the state makes in a public-owned facility, and so we really need to make sure we keep those up because it benefits all the citizens,” said House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican.
Lawmakers pass $50.7 billion budget
The restored funding was one small piece of the state’s final operating budget, which contains $50.7 billion in funding for state services. At his annual State of the State address in January, Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe recommended a $54.5 billion budget.
House Budget Chair Dirk Deaton, a Seneca Republican, said it’s a bill that starts to “take a critical look at making sure the Missouri state government is living within its means.”
The state is still spending more than it takes in for its general revenue fund, the state’s primary operating fund that contains all state income taxes, sales taxes and corporate taxes. Missouri is constitutionally required to pass a balanced budget, meaning the state must continue to pull from a rainy day fund that’s been buoyed by years of pandemic-era federal relief.
The rainy day fund is nearly depleted, and lawmakers in the coming years may have to make deeper cuts in future budgets.
“Future general assemblies are going to have a very difficult task ahead,” Rep. Betsy Fogle, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said. “We still have a multi-billion dollar gap of where we are ending fiscal year 2027 and where we’re going to move in fiscal year 2028.”
Democrats call for more school funding
The state’s 16 spending bills sailed through the House, and only education matters gummed up the works on the floor on Wednesday.
The main contentions were the state not fully funding public schools according to the state’s funding formula and an additional $10 million to support the Missouri Scholars Program, which can go toward students in private schools.
Rep. Pattie Mansur, a Kansas City Democrat, argued that the scholarship program wouldn’t be enough to cover tuition at private schools in her district, and that she’d prefer the money be spent elsewhere.
“The families that are attending the private schools in my area were already attending those private schools,” Mansur said. “I’ve spoken with families who had an interest in those schools, the empowerment scholarship will not cover even a fifth of the cost.”
Deaton acknowledged that facing a potential downturn leads to tough decisions, but he believes the budget adequately funds public education.
“There’s some tough decisions having to be made in this budget, there’s no question about that, but it’s a budget that prioritizes education, public education, higher education, same level of funding as last year,” Deaton said.
Democrats disagreed, noting that the state is freezing public education spending in place at the same level as the year before and below what’s called for in the state’s school finance formula. Schools could also lose funds from state lottery sales, which a committee of lawmakers projected to be $45 million short of original estimates.
The education funding bill was the closest vote in the budget, passing 83-68 in the House, with 22 Republicans breaking ranks to join Democrats. The Senate passed the same bill 20-13, with three Republican Senators joining the Democrats.
“That was a very narrow margin,” Fogle said. “I think in large part that is because people do have concerns that we not only underfunded our foundation formula by $190 million, but with the uncertainty of this other additional 45 million that people had concerns about.”
Republicans stressed that the $4.3 billion the state contributes to public schools around the state is the same as last year, which was the most Missouri ever chipped in for public schools.
Kansas City Federation of Teachers legislative chair Carter Taylor said the lack of a cut to education was a relief, but that the state can still make progress when it comes to funding public education.
“It came as a welcome surprise, while we would, of course, wish that they would increase that funding, given that Missouri is one of the lowest, if not the lowest, state in the union in terms of school funding, I will take this as a sign of progress,” Taylor said.
The bill will now head to the Governor, who can make additional line-item vetoes of specific budget items.
