The Missouri legislature passed a $51.7 billion budget Friday, meeting a deadline that at times looked hard to reach.Included in the budget is money for the state K-12 education funding formula, a 3.2% raise for state employees and a 3% increase in funding for the state’s public higher education institutions.The House voted to pass all 16 bills that make up the budget for next year, along with a supplemental budget for the current fiscal year. The process took roughly four hours.Lawmakers had until 6 p.m. Friday to pass the budget. Up until Thursday evening, the budget bills had yet to pass the Senate. The lack of time meant the House and Senate were unable to meet in conference committee to reach a compromise budget.The inability to meet in conference, as well as this year’s budget process, drew the ire of House Democrats, who repeatedly spoke against it.“This is not normal. And it is not transparent. And it is not good government,” said Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis.House Budget Chair Cody Smith said the process this year should not be the norm.“I would posit that it would very well be a different decision next time, and so I’m concerned about the precedent,” said Smith, R-Carthage. “I do feel great about where we’re at here today. But that is not guaranteed if we start to adopt this process.”Speaking after the Senate passed the budget Thursday evening, Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, said it isn’t good policy to have a budget process in which one chamber “beats” the other in terms of priorities.“My goal here was to craft a good fiscally responsible budget with our counterparts in the House. It was not about beating them into submission, because we get the budget later, and the conference committee is heavily weighted in our favor. That’s not what it’s about,” Hough said.Hough also said considering the tight timeline, the final product is good.Sen. John Rizzo, D-Independence, said that he was happy the legislature met its constitutional deadline but that the rushed process could have allowed mistakes.“I think that a lot of times when things are rushed, you could risk a few weeks later finding out that you did something that’s going to call a special session,” Rizzo said.House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said while the budget is technically finished for this year, it is largely incomplete.“All they really did was lowball the estimated costs of several state programs that everyone who is being honest about the situation knows will require substantially more spending authority to fully fund,” Quade said.Quade said this means the legislature will have to fix the budget either in a special session this year or through a supplemental budget bill next year.The budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes $47.5 billion in operations and $4.1 billion in spending on projects funded by the Federal American Rescue Plan Act.States have until the end of this year to fully designate funding from ARPA. They will have through 2026 to spend it all.Some of that money has been used for major improvement projects at colleges and universities, wastewater improvements and local projects.Other spending within the budget included nearly $70 million for the state’s Career Ladder program, which is an optional program that provides teachers with more money, if they take on extra work that would not normally be compensated.It also includes $361 million to fully fund the state’s school transportation commitment.“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of new money, record money for public education,” said Rep. Dirk Deaton, R-Noel.One of the largest areas of spending for the upcoming year is on transportation. Last year, $2.8 billion was allocated to expand Interstate 70 to three lanes in each direction. This year, the budget contains $727 million for improvements to Interstate 44.“This piece of legislation … represents the single greatest investment in our state’s transportation infrastructure network, I think in the history of the state,” Smith said.Unlike the I-70 expansion, Parson did not request money for I-44, so it’s unclear if he will support it.House Democrats expressed disappointment over what they felt was not enough funding for the state’s department of Health and Senior Services and the Department of Mental Health.Rep. Deb Lavender, D-Manchester, brought up millions of dollars spent on a variety of projects she felt instead could have been allocated for raises for home care workers who help people with disabilities.“We’re OK to fund these projects. But we’re not willing to take people who have disabilities to provide them with the services that they need to function daily,” Lavender said.Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City, focused her comments on a lack of raises for workers in the state’s Children’s Division.“We stand here and say, ‘We care about kids, we’re doing enough here for the most vulnerable in our state.’ Well, that’s a bunch of malarkey,” Nurrenbern said.No Democrat voted for the bill funding the Department of Health and Seniors Services and Department of Mental Health.Rep. John Black, R-Marshfield, said there is a difference between one-time expenditures and ongoing spending.“We are limited in our expenditures to our income. This budget is based on the state’s anticipated income,” Black said.Quade said the legislature is spending one-time dollars on projects that should be funded through general revenue instead.“We’re doing that because the Republicans continue to cut taxes for the most wealthy in our state and our corporations, and they know that we cannot sustain it,” Quade said.The budget now goes to Parson. Last year, he cut $555.2 million. He cited financial stability as the reason for the vetoes.Speaking on Thursday, before the budget debate began in the Senate, Parson said that without any input from his office, the budget is problematic.Smith said if Parson scrutinized the budget, he would find a lot of items in the budget that have been included in prior years.“They do need to take their time, read the bills, understand the legislation. I’m happy to make myself available to explain legislative intent, as always,” Smith said.

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Washington University continues to face backlash for its handling of an anti-war protest that led to the arrests of over 100 people on April 27. The university’s response included issuing temporary suspensions to students and faculty who were arrested.Israel’s seven-month long bombardment in Gaza has sparked nationwide protests on college campuses. In St. Louis, demonstrators at Wash U who attempted to set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus grounds were met with law enforcement officers from several local police departments.The heavy police force was not justifiable, said Shanti Parikh, Chair of the African and African American department and professor of anthropology. She worries it has damaged the university’s reputation in St. Louis and beyond.“Many of us know that there was already suspicion and a bit of distrust with the community,” Parikh told St. Louis on the Air. “This is just setting it back.”Protesters demanded that the university stop investing in Boeing because it supplies weapons to Israel, which declared war on Hamas after its attack on October 7. Instead of engaging with protesters and finding common ground, Parikh said the “administration is being heavy handed so that they can show that they are supportive of Israel.”

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioSt. Louis County Police arrest a protestor on Saturday, April 27, 2024, at Washington University. Protestors marched through campus and set up an encampment in response to the university’s ties to Boeing, the supplier of many weapons to Israel used in the Gaza war.

The university maintains it has not taken a position on the war and that it remains committed to free expression and peaceful protest.”Student Affairs staff have been working with our students and faculty to facilitate dialogue about this complex issue since October 7, and we will continue to do so,” Wash U spokeswoman Julie Hail Florys said.But students like junior Andrew de las Alas see the university’s response as part of a strategy to intimidate students and shut down pro-Palestine activism.“I think what we saw on April 27 was the reality of how they will treat speech that they just don’t like,” said de las Alas, who was arrested and temporarily suspended after protesting last month.Despite the arrest and risk to his academic future, de las Alas doesn’t regret his decision to join the protest.“There’s really no place that any kind of educational institution has in reaping the benefits of Boeing or other kinds of organizations that are profiting off the suffering of many of the families and the home countries of their students,” de las Alas said.

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioPolice forces arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a rally on Saturday, April 27, 2024 at Washington University. Protestors marched through campus and set up an encampment in response to the university’s ties to Boeing, the supplier of many weapons to Israel used in the Gaza war.

In a statement, Wash U spokeswoman Flory said the tone of this protest was not peaceful and included “aggressive chanting.”“We will not hesitate to enforce campus policy when behavior threatens the safety and security of our community. Our highest priority is the safety of our students and employees,” Flory said.Wash U senior Emmett Campbell said the university is deliberately mischaracterizing the protest.“The idea that these protests are threatening to Jewish students is just incorrect,” said Campbell, who co-founded Wash U Jewish Students for Palestine last semester as a way to express his anti-Zionist beliefs.“When you go to these protests, and you realize the population of Jewish students who are there saying the same chants and the same thing that every other protester is doing, I think that that’s the clearest point — the threat isn’t against Jewish students. It’s against the Israeli government,” Campbell said.Michael Allen, a senior lecturer at Wash U who was arrested and temporarily suspended, said the school can still reverse some of the harm it caused by releasing suspensions and not pursuing charges.“A lot of people are now culpable in carrying out this plan and it’s incredibly damaging,” Allen said. “If this kind of abuse of faculty and students happens quietly and is just brushed under the rug, Washington University becomes a really toxic, dysfunctional family. These things need to be aired and acknowledged so we can heal.”For the full conversation with Shanti Parikh, Chair of the African and African American Studies department, Wash U junior Andrew de las Alas and senior lecturer Michael Allen about the protest on Wash U’s campus and its aftermath, listen to the St. Louis on the Air conversation on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or by clicking the play button below.

Students and faculty arrested at Gaza protest say Wash U is misrepresenting what happened

“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Ulaa Kuziez, Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Roshae Hemmings is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.

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Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri filed a brief on Friday in St. Louis Circuit Court opposing the state’s motion to obtain medical records from Planned Parenthood’s transgender patients.Bailey “doubled down asking for private patient records, in violation of HIPAA, even going so far as asking for any documents mentioning social media,” said Margot Riphagen, the organization’s vice president of external affairs, during a downtown rally. “It’s just broad, politically motivated overreach. So we are pushing back against that on behalf of not only our patients, but all Missourians.”The health care organization’s filing comes after lawyers from the attorney general’s office asked St. Louis Circuit Court to amend a previous ruling that barred the office from obtaining some protected health information from Planned Parenthood’s clinics.In the April 23 filing, Bailey and other lawyers argued judges are allowed to authorize the disclosure of confidential medical records through a court order and implored Stelzer to amend his decision.Planned Parenthood, in Friday’s brief, argued that the law allows disclosure of health documents only in limited circumstances and that the court should deny the state’s request to allow the release of records.Bailey earlier this year requested information about the care Planned Parenthood gave to transgender minors as part of the state’s investigation into the Washington University Transgender Center’s treatment of trans people under 18.The attorney general launched the investigation into the Washington University Clinic last year after a whistleblower, Jamie Reed, alleged providers were reckless in providing gender-affirming treatments to young patients.Planned Parenthood sued the attorney general’s office and noted in its lawsuit that it would not produce the documents, since the organization’s clinics were not connected to the Washington University clinic.Stelzer ruled in April that the attorney general was allowed access to some — but not all — patient records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protects patients’ health information, wrote Stelzer, and thus patients’ medical records were off the table.“The court agrees the [investigation and state laws] grant the defendant broad investigative powers, but [do] not grant the defendant the authority to access federally protected documents,” Stelzer wrote in the April 11 decision.“My team will get to the bottom of how this clandestine network of clinics has subjected children to puberty blockers and irreversible surgery,” Bailey wrote in a statement after the April 11 ruling. “No stone will be left unturned in these investigations.”Petyr Cruikshanks, a trans patient who attended Friday morning’s rally, said Bailey and other politicians were attacking patient rights to score political clout.“You know, the attorney general doesn’t need to know about my ovary issues or my thyroid or my muscular issues,” he said. “Our medical care shouldn’t be political. If our doctors agree that it is something that is needed for our health, we should be able to get it.”A spokeswoman for Bailey said in all cases regarding transgender patients the office has kept patient information under seal to protect patients’ privacy.“Attorney General Bailey is committed to getting to the bottom of what happened here while still protecting patient privacy,” she said.Planned Parenthood officials on Friday said they would continue opposing the attorney general’s efforts.“We are against turning over any patient records,” Riphagen said. “So our intent is to continue this fight to make sure that we don’t turn over any patient records at all.”Riphagen said the organization would fight against releasing documents even if the patient records were stripped of personal information.“This is a sham investigation,” she said. “And we know that it is politically motivated.”

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