Missouri General Assembly Convenes to Pass Supplemental Budget Bill for FY 2020

While taking necessary social-distancing precautions, the Missouri Senate and House convened at the Capitol this week in order to pass the supplemental budget bill for FY 2020, authorizing over $5.7 billion in additional funding for FY 2020, and into FY 2021. The $5.7 billion number is a best-case scenario. Not all of the funding is expected to materialize. The hope of budget policy makers is to give the Governor the maximum authority possible to allow flexibility to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.  
 
Most of the funding appropriated was federal funding made available through the recently passed CARES Act. Almost $3 billion will go to local governments and to the Department of Public Safety to address local tax revenue shortfalls and to provide funding for local responses to the medical crisis. In addition, $1.5 billion dollars is earmarked for public schools to help sustain them as well.  
 
The supplemental budget includes funding to provide medical treatment coverage for those who qualify under the Missouri Medicaid program, funding for rural hospitals, community block grants, domestic violence programs, mental health programs, social services, corrections, and food distribution programs. More guidance on specifically how the money can be spent in the coming months is expected to be provided by the federal government agencies overseeing the distribution of the funding. HB 2014, the supplemental budget bill, can be found here.