JEFFERSON CITY – With just more than a month left in the Missouri legislative session, budget talks are ramping up across both chambers, but with uncertainty over federal funding has state leaders preparing for the worst.
The Missouri House spent the day Tuesday in deep debate over how lawmakers believe around $50 billion should be spent across the state.
Senators spent most of their session Tuesday in debate over a bill eliminating the capitol gains tax. With money talks taking center stage in both chambers, the Senate's top budget architect, Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) spoke on the obscurity of the budget's next steps.
"I'm never one to judge my creativity, but when the math doesn't add up, I'm always a little curious how we got there," Hough said.
Hough argued the budget is already tight and eliminating a source of income for the state could cause problems in balancing it, especially amidst a cloudy federal landscape.
"It's not the easiest thing to forecast, especially with administration changes and conversations about Medicaid reimbursement," Hough said.
Missouri legislators are required by law to craft a balanced budget. This means anticipated revenue must match planned spending.
Hough focused on threats of lowering Medicaid reimbursement from Washington. Something which would, in Missouri's case, force lawmakers to find the cash themselves.
"Each percent of decrease in the federal reimbursement is roughly, according to our MO HealthNet director Former Speaker Todd Richardson, is about $30 million," Hough said. "That's going to have to be picked up if and when the Feds change their reimbursement metrics."
Hough, in an inquiry with Sen. Doug Beck (D-St. Louis), then worked through what potential cuts fiscal impact could be.
"Easy math, right? Let's drop it by 10%. They do an 80-20 [split] instead of a 90-10 match on that Medicaid expanded population," Hough said. "$300 million. $300 million that the state Supreme Court has said you, the legislature, have to fund."
"I can tell you that is that is a fairly scary financial forecast if you're the one trying to balance the state's budget," Hough added.
Hough suggested those numbers would be covered by cuts to services and communities across the state, though he did not suggest which would be the first to be defunded.
"I guess there's a whole lot of other services, a whole lot of other communities that you're just going to have to look at and say, ‘sorry,’" Hough said.
"One, it's enshrined in the Constitution. Two we've got a unanimous state Supreme Court decision that says we have to fund it," Hough added.
No federal cuts to Medicaid have been passed through Congress. A state budget will have to be passed before lawmakers can break for summer.
