JEFFERSON CITY — Budget writers in the Missouri Senate are siding with Gov. Mike Parson when it comes to giving state employees bigger paychecks.
With the clock ticking to approve a massive midyear budget adjustment, the Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed a plan Wednesday that would boost salaries by 5.5% and hourly wages to at least $15.
The estimated $4.5 billion plan was sent to the full Senate on an 11-2 vote.
“For the most part we’re going to take the governor’s recommendations,†said Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, who chairs the budget panel.
Although the committee action signaled progress, it remains to be seen whether the full Senate will be able to act on the spending package without another major fight breaking out between a group of hard-line Republicans and GOP senators who side with leadership.
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The upper chamber has been tied in knots over the drawing of new congressional maps. Hard-liners want to gerrymander the state’s current 6-2 split between safe Republican and Democratic seats into a 7-1 map.
On Wednesday, Senate President Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, stripped one of the hard-liners of most of his committee assignments after he participated in multiple filibusters.
Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, also was at the center of a conservative effort to oust Parson’s pick for the state health director, Donald Kauerauf. Among the committee assignments Moon lost was one that acts on gubernatorial appointees.
In response, Moon took over the Senate floor early Wednesday afternoon to filibuster legislation that would extend a college training program prized by Parson. He said his removal from the committee assignments would not quiet him.
With the threat of a snowstorm bearing down on Missouri, some tensions thawed in the evening, allowing the chamber to give preliminary approval to the college training program.
The intense and disruptive Republican infighting has resulted in no bills being fully passed out of the Senate during the current legislative session, which began Jan. 5.
Parson had wanted lawmakers to send him the money for pay raises by Feb. 1 to address an alarming exodus of workers from the state payroll. The state pays its workforce among the lowest in the U.S. and is seeing turnover rates of 26% in the past year.
That has led to service cuts at various agencies, long waits on state hotlines and a backlog of people waiting to receive mental health treatment.
The House version would shave $7 million from the $98 million price tag for the raises by targeting people in hard-to-fill direct care positions, while keeping custodians, cooks and clerks at $12 per hour.
The administration said the House version would affect an estimated 2,869 workers. Among agencies, the Department of Revenue accounted for 371 of those who would not see their pay rise to $15 an hour. The Department of Conservation and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education also have more than 300 workers who wouldn’t qualify for the boost.
Parson was briefed last week on a plan by his state agencies for a job fair in Jefferson City designed to beef up workers in the capital city. The March 16 hiring event will include onsite interviews and conditional job offers.
In addition to the pay plan, the measure includes $1.6 billion to cover the cost of adding people to the state’s Medicaid roles. Since Medicaid was expanded to include more adults on Oct. 1, more than 60,600 people have enrolled.
The legislation also includes more than $2 billion in emergency pandemic relief for schools that must be inserted into the budget by March 24 or the state will lose it.
With 15 days of session scheduled before that deadline, Missouri is the lone state that has not authorized the distribution of the money for more than 550 school districts.
Originally posted at 1:55 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16. Updated at 7 p.m.Â