JEFFERSON CITY, MO - Senator Cauthorn experienced another challenging and productive week in the Capitol, helping adopt a balanced budget and advancing a number of his legislative proposals.

Drafted largely on legislation first introduced by Cauthorn, Senate Bill 299 has cleared the House of Representatives setting the bill up for signing into law. The Senate measure requires the state to utilize performance-based budgeting practices. It also would have budget officials develop and implement a system establishing goals and objectives; provide detailed measures of program and fund performance against attainment of planned outcomes; and provide ongoing program evaluation. The act would require every department and agency to conduct a performance-based budget review at least once every five years beginning in 2005.

A final look at the measure by the Senate sends the bill to the governor.

"This has been on the legislative fast track from day one," Cauthorn, chair of the Senate Governmental Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee, said. "Missouri's budget is faltering and this series of checks and balances could well prevent future general assemblies from having to deal with the fiscal hole we're in now."

A bill Cauthorn sponsored revising the structure of the Marion County circuit court clerk and recorder of deeds offices has cleared the House. Cauthorn explained that under current law, the Marion County circuit court appoints the circuit clerk, who is then considered the recorder of deeds. SB 186 makes the position of circuit clerk, and therefore recorder of deeds, an elected position again.

"This just gives the voters their voice back," said Cauthorn, who noted the first election of the position would take place at the 2004 general election.

Also on the way to the governor is SB 534, Cauthorn's measure adding important definitions for protective oversight and voluntary leave to the Omnibus Nursing Home Act.

"The added language in my bill will help close loopholes in an otherwise strong elder care protection package," Cauthorn said. "Like with any legislation, you start with a solid foundation and build on to it as needs arise."

Senators this week took up debate on the 13 House bills making up the state's annual budget, adopting the entire series over two days. Drafted ahead of schedule in a time of continuing shrinking revenues, the realistic funding plan's expenditures are balanced against anticipated revenues as required by Missouri's constitution.

"This might well be the toughest budget cycle Missouri has faced in 50 years," Cauthorn said. "We're working to meet the fiscal challenges of our state the same way Missouri families meet the challenges they face: spend less than you take in."

The state budget is the single greatest challenge facing lawmakers each year. At the crux of the daunting task is maintaining the accessibility and quality of state services and programs without deficit spending.

Earlier in the year, the governor and the House published their budget plans, the former a $19.3 billion package relying on $740 million in new revenue (much of which are taxes requiring legislative and voter approval), the latter a $18.6 billion package using no new taxes and employing substantial department-level core appropriations cuts. (The 2003 budget, which expires June 30, came to $18.9 billion.)

"Proving the point that some simply don't want to, or can't, make tough the budget decisions, the governor cobbled together a budget on a foundation of imaginary revenue," Cauthorn said. "What the Senate has done is produce a responsible, realistic funding plan balanced on real revenue projections that is on-time and on-target for the reality of Missouri's economy."

To balance the budget on actual revenues, the Senate adopted a two-tiered budget that includes line items for each departmental appropriation. The first tier balances the budget on actual revenue, while the second appropriates potential additional revenue lawmakers make be able to generate before the session ends on May 16.

Making roughly $2 in cuts for every $1 in new revenue/savings, the Senate's FY 2004 budget totals $18.8 billion, just under the current year total. If lawmakers approve a variety of measures to generate additional revenue and savings now moving through the General Assembly, the '04 budget total could increase to a total of slightly more than $19 billion.

The current Senate budget would allocate more than $4.5 billion for public schools, and more than $1 billion for public colleges and universities. Transportation programs would receive $1.7 billion, agriculture programs would receive $34 million, and natural resources would get $331 million. Conservation would receive $127 million and economic development programs would receive $274 million.

Public Safety, which includes the Highway Patrol, would receive $349 million, while the Department of Social Services the state's largest budget category would receive $5.6 billion. Mental health programs would receive $943 million and the state's judiciary would receive $158 million.

All bills must earn approval in both legislative chambers in order to become law. Now that the Senate and House have passed their respective budget bill packages, differences between the two spending plans will be ironed out by Senators and Representatives in conference committees. Missouri law gives legislators until 6 p.m. on May 9 to do so. Once "truly agreed to" by both legislative chambers, the budget package can be sent to the governor.

"It was quite a challenge to develop and adopt a workable plan for funding state programs and services," Cauthorn said. "No one likes to talk of, or make cuts, but cuts are what have to be made in situations like the one we're all in now. In the end, we put together the best plan available for Missouri and her people."

Citing displeasure with the depth and breadth of cuts adopted by the Senate to produce a workable balanced plan, the governor stated he's likely to veto the budget as written and would call lawmakers into a special session to reconsider the budget before the July 1 start of the next fiscal year.

"Rational people will note that a special session is itself a costly proposition," Cauthorn said. "And I don't see another mass meeting bridging the gaps in budget philosophy between the executive and legislative branches of state government."

The budget completed to the best of their collective abilities, Cauthorn and his Senate colleagues are now debating the raft of remaining bills still wending their way through the legislative process.