By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph stands to benefit greatly from the Missouri state budget approved by lawmakers.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says $19 million has been allocated to Rosecrans Memorial Airport.
“I think there’s some ongoing expenses relating to the air traffic control tower,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “And so, these will make needed upgrades at Rosecrans to make sure that we are keeping the 139th Airlift Wing up to date.”
Luetkemeyer says the allocation demonstrates state government understands the importance of the Air National Guard base at Rosecrans.
“It’s critical that we make sure that the 139th Airlift Wing stays at Rosecrans in St. Joseph and so the 19 million that I was able to get in the budget this year is a part of that continuing effort to make sure that the 139th stays where it is right now,” according to Luetkemeyer.
Luetekemeyer says a strong state economy combined with an influx of federal funds from Congress, both to offset coronavirus pandemic expenses and to stimulate the economy, created a record state budget, totaling nearly $50 billion. The Missouri legislature was required to allocate the federal funds this year. Rosecrans benefited, receiving $10 million in General Revenue and $9 million in federal funds.
The state budget contains $6 million for Hillyard Technical School in St. Joseph. One million dollars has been allocated to help fund creation of the Children’s Discovery Center in downtown St. Joseph. Half a million dollars will go to the Northwest Missouri Police Foundation, which will benefit law enforcement throughout northwest Missouri through the grants it distributes.
Both Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph and Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville will receive a 7% increase in their core budgets to offset rising costs due to inflation.
State lawmakers have set aside $2.5 million to help fund the new Convergent Technology Alliance Center on the Missouri Western campus the university is building in partnership with North Central Missouri College of Trenton. Both it and the improvements at Hillyard are designed to help youth not seeking traditional four-year college degrees get the training needed for high-skill labor jobs.
Another $3 million has been authorized to make further improvements to the Kansas City Chiefs’ training camp held on the Missouri Western campus.
St. Joseph and area schools will be aided in their search to find quality teachers by the $3.6 billion investment in public education included in the budget as well as the money allocated to increase the minimum public teacher pay to $38,000.
“Missouri, at least previously, ranked at the very bottom of teacher pay relative to all of our other states,” according to Luetkemeyer. “And we need to make sure that when it comes to teachers in the classroom we’re recruiting and retaining the best and brightest teaching our kids. So that’s very important. We need to make sure that our teachers are well paid and that they are compensated for the work that they do.”
Luetkemeyer is pleased with the final budget product.
“You know, we made some historic investments in things that are going to outlive all of us who are serving right now.”
Luetkemeyer says with a record amount of money the legislature was able to fund some transformational projects.
“One of which, the one that has probably gotten the most attention, is expanding I-70 to three lanes,” Luetkemeyer says. “That’s the main artery of traffic through the state of Missouri. We’re a major shipping hub and there’s a lot of traffic that goes across I-70 to transport goods and services in and out of the state of Missouri.”
The budget also includes $2.5 million to study the feasibility of turning Highway 36 into Interstate 72.
The spending blueprint now goes to the desk of Gov. Mike Parson for his consideration.