JEFFERSON CITY — Attorney General Eric Schmitt will be sworn in as Missouri’s next U.S. senator in January, but he has some unfinished business back home before he departs.
According to Gov. Mike Parson’s budget office, Schmitt has not submitted a spending plan for the next fiscal year.
Typically, state agencies and elected officials send a wish list to the governor’s budget office by the end of October as part of the budget-making process.
As of Nov. 15, budget documents for Schmitt’s office and the General Assembly had not been posted to the office’s online budget portal.
“They have not submitted a budget proposal,†said Office of Administration spokesman Chris Moreland, who would not speculate that Schmitt’s successful run for the seat against Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine may be the cause of the delay.
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“I don’t know if that played a part in it,†Moreland said.
To add to the confusion, a spokesman for Schmitt said a bare bones spending outline has been turned over to the budget office.
“We have submitted our core budget, and as is standard practice and as a courtesy, the new attorney general will submit any new budget items,†Nuelle said.
For now, the new attorney general is a mystery. Parson has the power to name a successor and has interviewed potential appointees. But the governor, who appointed Schmitt to the post in 2018, is on an overseas trade mission and won’t be back until Sunday.
The incident is the latest dust-up Schmitt has had over his agency’s $27 million budget, which includes funding for 380 employees and his $121,000 salary.
In May, the Republican-led Legislature axed a request for $500,000 to hire more attorneys after lawmakers said he had politicized the COVID-19 pandemic for political purposes by filing multiple lawsuits against Missouri school districts that had imposed masking requirements on students and staff.
The money was for five additional attorneys in the solicitor general unit, which handles appeals of lawsuits and other litigation.
In 2021, Parson vetoed a similar funding request from Schmitt, saying the office had “sufficient†core funding.
Schmitt has been in the nation’s Capitol this week and was on the losing side of a vote Wednesday to keep Sen. Mitch McConnell in his role as Senate minority leader.
A spokesman for Schmitt’s campaign did not respond to requests for information about the transition.
Senators will be sworn in on Jan. 3.