Maybe The Last.

The City Council Budget/Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet this evening for the final scheduled meeting to perfect the budget. The Committee will meet in City Hall at 7 p.m.

According to preliminary figures, the Committee will need to trim approximately $200,000 from requested funding to keep from dipping into restricted reserves which equal 25% of the operating budget, or approximately $1.5 million.

Last year there was some discussion about reducing the percentage to 20 or 22. The amount in the restricted reserve is determined by the Council and is not a requirement imposed from outside. Some larger communities operate with 10 or 15% reserve.

According to City Administrator Tom Short, the proposed requests do not include additional funding for future improvements to Civil War Road or for the interchange at Fairview and Highway 71. The existing funds that have been previously earmarked for those projects, about $595,000, is still available. If the Committee fails to reach its objective this evening, other meetings may be scheduled.

Commentary

Martin "Bubs" Hohulin
State Representative, District 126

The big news still continues to be the state budget, only now the budget argument has switched to the current year budget.

We had been working on next year’s budget and finding that spending was exceeding income, when late last week, Governor Bob Holden announced that collections of state income tax payments were over $200 million short of what had been projected. It seemed odd that with tax day having been on April 15 that all the returns had been opened, processed, and totaled in only 9 business days.

It also seemed odd that Gov. Holden would choose to drop this bit of news on us with only three weeks left in Session, especially when he is trying his hardest to get us to dip into the Rainy Day fund to pay for ongoing programs.

As you might remember, there has been quite a bit of discussion about whether or not to use money from the Rainy Day fund to balance next year’s budget. I am still against this idea because there is no state emergency. State tax revenues have not grown at the rate they have in past years. That is a situation, not an emergency. An emergency is the floods of 1993 and 1995. In at least one of those years we used reserves to pay for damage repair.

That is what reserves are to be used for. To use savings to pay for programs that are ongoing and will need to be paid for year after year is fiscally irresponsible.

Now Governor Holden is proposing to use Rainy Day money to pay for current bills. In addition, he wants to bond against future tobacco settlement payments so that the state would get an up front lump sum of tobacco money instead of payments each year. Of course, the up front payment would be considerably less than the total of the payments.

While I still think the tobacco money is still nothing more than extortion against a legal industry, it is still bad fiscal policy to sell future payments and use the money to pay for programs that will need to be paid for again the next year.

Collections may be down and maybe they are down that much, but in the words of the greatest president to ever serve, Ronald Reagan, ‘trust and verify’. I fail to see how we can already know what collections actually are. If they turn out to be short, we can deal with it when we know for sure. To rush into something before we know could turn out to have very bad consequences. It may sound bad to admit that we can’t trust Gov. Holden’s announcement, but his track record leaves a little to be desired in this area. It was less than two years ago that he announced that several companies had committed to help pay for his inauguration expenses. This came as a surprise to those companies and they were quick to announce that Gov. Holden was making up a few things. Let’s wait and see what the truth is this time.

As usual, I can be reached at House Post Office, State Capitol, Jefferson City, MO 65101, or 1-800-878-7126, or mhohulin@services.state.mo.us for your questions, comments, or advice.

CAPITOL REPORT.

by Steve Hunter
State Representative 127th District

At the beginning of the legislative session, House conservatives outlined their priorities to help all Missourians. We have worked hard to increase funding for education, reforming elections, and lowering the property tax burden. However, the Speaker has refused to send property tax reform to the House floor for a vote.

As in the previous two legislative sessions, House conservatives have fought for education reform as the state’s highest priority. The key to long-term success is education, and House conservatives have outlined an ambitious plan to improve education in our state. In order to provide the quality of education our children deserve, we must not only increase education funding, but we must also use our gambling revenues to provide additional resources for schools as they were intended to do, act to resolve our urban education crisis, and reward teachers and schools for their achievements.

Missouri voters intended gambling revenues to provide additional funding for schools rather than merely supplant existing tax revenues. The legislature should establish a Classroom Trust Fund that would capture the state's gambling revenues and channel them directly to schools. This Classroom Trust Fund legislation would send gambling money to every school district in the state, bypassing state bureaucracy, to give schools an additional $165 per student with no state strings attached. Schools could use these funds for their most pressing needs, be they teacher salary increases, school construction, computers, or whatever they need. By strengthening education funding and implementing education reform, we will ensure that Missouri's future will be stronger than it has ever been.

Last year House conservatives led a bipartisan effort to pass the Secretary of State's proposed election reform bill, but it was not given serious consideration on the House floor. There are many steps that must be taken to help improve our elections process. We need to update our election system to make it as easy as possible to cast a legal vote and as difficult as possible to vote illegally. We must take steps to preserve the integrity of the ballot box by preventing corruption and ensuring free and fair elections.

Missouri has still failed to adopt election reform in response to the election fraud that occurred in St. Louis. Fair elections are the foundation of democracy, and state legislatures are ultimately responsible for making sure that the laws governing the election process guarantee free and fair elections. There are many steps that must be taken to help improve our elections process. The Senate has passed an election reform bill that requires the voter to present a current voter identification card or another form of identification before being given a ballot. This common sense approach would help protect our elections from fraud and has no additional burden to voters. In our society, you need identification to do many things that are not nearly as important as casting a vote.

Finally, we need to reform our property tax system. A reasonable first step is to freeze property taxes for those at least 65 years of age. This would eliminate a very burdensome tax, which can present a definite hardship to seniors living on fixed incomes. Furthermore, pensions and Social Security benefits be exempted from state tax because seniors should not be overburdened by double taxation. We need these reforms to protect Missourians who need it most.

Since day one of the legislative session, I have worked diligently to increase funding for education, reform our election process, and fix our flawed property tax system. To really help our children we must adopt our Classroom Trust Fund. To protect our seniors we must adopt property tax relief. To protect our future we must enact election reforms that make it easier to vote and more difficult to cheat. Despite the importance of these issues, the Speaker has blocked all attempts to allow a House vote on the Classroom Trust Fund and property tax reform, and has failed to protect and strengthen Missouri’s children, seniors, and future.

As usual, I can be reached at (573) 751-5458 or at Room 103 BB, State Capitol, Jefferson City, MO 65101, or by E-mail at shunter@services.state.mo.us if you have any questions or comments.

If you really wanna appreciate the "good ol’ days," catch the PBS series called the Frontier House, I believe.

The set up is three families that move to Montana and live as if it were the mid 1800’s for five months. An interestin’ look at how it musta really been. No toilet paper, no gas heat, no contact with the outside world. It was no doubt a simpler time, mainly ‘cause folks had little time to do anything that wasn’t simple.

That is if ya call tryin’ to cut enough wood ta make it through the winter with an ax and hand saw simple. Cuttin’ hay by hand and haulin’ water from the creek. Milkin’ the cow twice a day and washin’ clothes by hand in a tub.

Nothin’ like sittin’ in an easy chair eatin’ popcorn watchin’ tv ‘bout roughin’ it.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

McCune- Brook Hospital

Health Notes

by Judith Sheldon

MORE REASONS TO QUIT: As if smoking didn’t do enough harm to smokers and those who inhale passive smoke, we now have evidence that smokers are more likely to have retarded children than other groups.

Dr. Carolyn D. Drews, an associate professor of epidemiology at Emory University, headed the research project that made the startling findings that were published in the April issue of Pediatrics, the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Smoking had previously been linked to low birth weight, infant mortality, and lower intelligence in children. Now, there’s evidence that retardation in children can also be tied to smoking.

While it’s true that not all smokers gave birth to retarded children, the fact that so many did makes the case for those who say pregnant women should not smoke. Period.

The Mayo Clinic conducted another study on smoking and found that alcoholics were more likely to die from cigarettes than from alcohol. Dr. Richard D. Hurt of the Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center in Rochester, Minnesota, noted the irony of many people overcoming their alcohol problems, only to die from the effects of nicotine dependence.