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Missouri lawmakers embrace financing for Fulton State Hospital

missouri capitol
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KBIA
The Missouri legislature will start looking into budget bills later this week.

  Missouri legislative budget leaders have embraced a financing plan for a new facility on the Fulton State Hospital campus.

The proposal calls for issuing bonds through the Missouri Development Finance Board and paying them off over 25 years. The upcoming year's budget would include $14.2 million for payment on bonds. House and Senate negotiators are working today on a final version of next year's state budget.

The financing proposal approved today by the lawmakers follows Governor Jay Nixon's plan for the project.

The Fulton State Hospital is Missouri's only maximum-security psychiatric facility and the oldest public mental health facility west of the Mississippi River. Patients include those committed by the courts for evaluation and treatment, and people found not guilty or unable to stand trial because of mental disease.