By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri lawmakers are meeting in special session, once again.
This time, Gov. Mike Parson has called legislators back to Jefferson City on budget matters.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville says the legislature dealt with federal funds allocated Missouri in both the fight against COVID-19 and to help stimulate the economy in the regular session which ended in May.
“We have received additional money since we appropriated that money from the federal government, and so the governor has called us back to give additional spending authority to allow that money to get out and start doing the important good that it’s intended to do,” Luetkemeyer tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “While we are there, one of the other things that we’re going to do is we’re going to fund the state witness protection fund.”
COVID-19 interrupted the legislative session this year, forcing lawmakers out of the Capitol in March. They returned in May to wrap up some business, including appropriating approximately $3 billion in CARES Act money, the money given to the state by Congress to help in the fight against the coronavirus and to help a wounded economy. Missouri has received a bit more than $1 billion more in CARES Act money that has not been appropriated by the legislature.
The General Assembly created a Witness Protection Program during the previous special session earlier this year, created to help address violent crime in Missouri. Lawmakers did not appropriate any money for it. The governor is asking for an initial two million dollars.
“And so, as a part of the special legislative session from September, we passed a bill creating the Witness Protection Fund,” according to Luetkemeyer. “At that time, it was not funded and so, as a part of this new special session, in addition to getting the CARES Act money out, we’re also going to appropriate money to fund the Witness Protection Fund.”
Luetkemeyer says lawmakers hope the witness protection program will encourage more witnesses to violent crime to come forward and testify.
Budget worries could dominate the upcoming legislative session.
At present, the budget is sound, according to Luetkemeyer, who says the federal funds helped and Missourians also spent more than anticipated during the coronavirus shutdown as they stocked up on necessities.
“Right now, the state’s budget is in relatively good shape it looks like at this point in time. Now, we don’t know projecting into the future, is there going to be another round of shutdowns? I certainly hope that is not the case,” Luetkemeyer says. “But, if it were, that’s going to have a dramatic impact on the state’s budget. And so, I would just say for right now, I’m cautiously optimistic that we are weathering the storm, but it’s just very difficult to predict where we we’re gong to be in January when we go back into session.”