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After delays, conference committee advances budget

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — After two weeks of negotiating, House and Senate lawmakers advanced the state’s $26 billion budget despite initial tensions over lump-sum budgeting and language on a proposed NFL stadium.

Republicans are now one step closer to putting a budget on Nixon’s desk ahead of a self-imposed deadline that would give them enough time to override any line-item vetoes before they break for the summer. But the step comes after a series of setbacks, largely over in-fighting on Sen. Kurt Schaefer’s lump-sum budget proposal for social services spending and a move to widely expand managed care in the state.

Ultimately, lawmakers reverted back to a line-item form of budgeting rather than Schaefer’s lump-sum proposal, but largely maintained the 4-6 percent in overall cuts he had proposed. Managed care will still be expanded, but in a much more narrow fashion. The conference committee language would put some TANF recipients and children on managed care, but exclude aged, blind and disabled individuals.

House and Senate members have spent the last two weeks negotiating largely behind closed doors on how to reconcile the lump-sum and managed care differences between their two budgets, along with the more common wrangling over individual legislator’s line-item priorities. Conference committee meetings were repeatedly cancelled during the last several working days as officials worked to close the gaps.

One of the biggest hurdles came during the hearing, when Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, who is Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, refused to sign the committee report for HB5 and worked to rally a few Democrats against the bill as well. House Budget Chairman Tom Flanigan removed language from Silvey that would have required a vote of the people before Gov. Jay Nixon authorized any new bonds to build a proposed NFL stadium in St. Louis.

House Speaker John Diehl opposed the language and, after long negotiations, earned the support of enough Democrats to move the bill out of conference.

House lawmakers as a whole will be able to vote on the committee reports as early as tomorrow.