JEFFERSON CITY — A day of closed-door negotiations produced signs of progress Wednesday as House and Senate budget writers worked to end an impasse over the state’s more than $50 billion spending plan.
Leaders on both sides of the Missouri Capitol said they remained hopeful lawmakers could still finish their work on the massive spending package by a 6 p.m. Friday deadline.
“I think we’re making progress and we’re cautiously optimistic and we’ll know more tonight,†House Majority Leader Jon Patterson, R-Lee’s Summit, told the Post-Dispatch Wednesday afternoon.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, said the Senate could begin taking up individual budget bills as early as Wednesday evening, but the Senate adjourned at 8 p.m. with plans to return at 9 a.m. Thursday.
“We have been working for the last week with members of the House to try to pass a responsible, conservative budget,†Hough said. “I think both the House and Senate will be very complimentary of the end product.â€
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At issue is an ongoing battle in the Senate that has pitted five members of the renegade Freedom Caucus against the 19 other Republicans who control the chamber.
The hard-right splinter group has held up passage of the budget and other legislation in an attempt to force a vote to make it harder for voters to change the Missouri Constitution.
The group, led by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring, staged a 41-hour filibuster last week and threatened another slowdown this week.
“I know the budget process has been different this year but that’s because the scenario in our chamber this year has been considerably different,†Hough said.
The Senate chamber was empty much of Wednesday morning and afternoon as House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage, and Hough spent time in Senate President Caleb Rowden’s office attempting to hammer out differences between their budgets.
Parson administration officials, as well as a pack of lobbyists whose clients have a stake in the spending plan, were camped outside Rowden’s office on the third floor, while others waited in the Capitol rotunda for the logjam to break.
Without a Friday night resolution to the budget battle, the Legislature will have to go into a special overtime session to work out a deal.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat who is running for governor, said the 11th-hour deal will likely leave little time for lawmakers to digest what’s in the spending blueprint when and if it hits the House floor this week.
“It’s really hard to know how to vote or what strategy to use when we have no idea what’s in the budget,†Quade said.
Before the last-ditch talks got underway, the Senate budget was $2 billion larger than the House plan. By Wednesday that gap had narrowed to about $300 million, according to negotiators.
Differences have included spending increases for higher education, money for transportation and a slew of various construction projects across the state, including a $25 million engineering school at the University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Both versions would boost base pay for teachers from $25,000 to $40,000 at a cost of $4 million and increase salaries for state workers by 3%.
“It does make those key investments in education, teacher pay, behavorial health, mental health and things like that,†Hough said.
In order to muscle the package of 17 bills through the Senate in a rapid manner, leaders may have to employ a rarely used parliamentary maneuver to silence the Freedom Caucus.
The motion to cut off a filibuster requires the signatures of 10 members of the 34-member Senate and 18 votes.
While the rule is used daily in the House to cut off debate, it is seen as a last-resort option in the upper chamber, especially against members of the majority party.
The breakaway group had threatened to go through the budget line-by-line, slowing down the momentum needed to get the Senate budget to the House in time for them to finish work.
Also hanging in the balance is a vote to renew a health provider tax worth more than $4 billion in funding for the state’s Medicaid program. The Freedom Caucus has sought to use the renewal as leverage to fast-track the constitutional changes.
Quade blamed Republicans for failing to use their super-majorities and the governor’s office to keep the legislative session operating smoothly.
“Here we are coming up on the deadline and nobody knows how we’re about to be spending these billions of dollars,†Quade said.