Missouri Governor Jay Nixon says he needed to cover all his bases before proposing to add $40 million to his higher education budget.
By Jacob McCleland, KRCU
The governor explained the delay at an appearance in Cape Girardeau Wednesday.
Missouri colleges and universities were bracing for a 12.5 percent cut in allocations in fiscal year 2013.
Then on Tuesday, Attorney General Chris Koster swooped in with a legal settlement with five mortgage banks for foreclosure fraud.
The settlement will bring $40 million to the state. The governor plans to use that money to soften the blow for higher education.
Nixon now says he knew about the potential settlement’s size for the last few months.
“But I just felt like that we needed to wait until things were finalized and the vast majority of states signed off on it. And that was the reason we had to wait," Nixon says.
The additional money will reduce the funding cut for higher education from 12.5 percent to less than 8 percent.