By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer denies having anything to do with an effort to strip $3 million in state funding from Community Action Partnership of St. Joseph.
An amendment added to the state budget seemed targeted at former CAP St. Joe Executive Director Whitney Lanning and is widely seen as playing a role in the board declining to renew her contract.
Luetkemeyer, vice chair of the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee, says he had nothing to do with the amendment that targeted only the St. Joseph Community Action Partnership.
“So I did not sponsor that amendment in the budget,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview. “Whenever that amendment came to light in committee, I had a separate conversation with some folks on the committee and asked that that money be added back into the budget which ultimately did happen. That money was added into the budget and was ultimately part of the budget that we pass.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee removed the amendment and restore the funding to CAP St. Joseph before approving the $51 billion state budget.
The amendment to the Department of Social Services budget targeted only the St. Joseph Community Action Partnership, no others in the state. The CAP St. Joseph board fired Lanning in early May. Lanning had been with the St. Joseph agency for 11 years, nine as executive director.
Lanning, in an email to KFEQ/St. Joseph Post shortly after the board’s decision, specifically cited the amendment as background information for the board’s decision. Lanning stated then that if the amendment had been adopted social services for 3,000 low-income children would have ended as well as utility assistance for 5,100 households in the St. Joseph area. Lanning also stated the Heartlander, a subsidiary of Herzog of St. Joseph had been calling for her resignation.
When asked in the interview, Luetkemeyer claims to not know who sponsored the amendment.
“I don’t know the answer to that question.”
Was it aimed at Whitney Lanning?
“I don’t know the answer to that question, either.”
Luetkemeyer says he didn’t spend time attempting to find out who was behind the amendment.
“The conversations that I had after that amendment came to light really focused not on the reasons for why it was in there, but making sure that that money was secured for St. Joe,” Luetkemeyer tells us.
Luetkemeyer says he did not ask for that provision to be put in the budget, but did ask for the funding to be restored.
Still, Luetkemeyer says he’s glad Lanning is out at CAP St. Joseph and hopes she will resign from the St. Joseph School Board as well.
“That’s her decision to make. There’s no mechanism for removing her from the school board. So, she would have to do that of her own volition. But I hope that she will,” Luetkemeyer says, noting he called for her resignation after her confrontation with fellow school board member, Isaura Garcia. “She has been an unnecessary distraction to the school board. The school district, of course, has had issues over the years and I think we need to have the strongest leadership possible in place and I don’t think she’s that person.”
Luetkemeyer accuses Lanning of showing a lack of professionalism in her confrontation with Garcia.
This article has been updated since first published.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.