New budget chair faces hard choices

State Sen. Rusty Black found himself in the right place at the right time when he was appointed chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Or maybe it’s the wrong time to lead this powerful Senate committee. Black, a Republican from Chillicothe, will oversee the $51 billion Missouri budget as money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) slows to a trickle.

Across the country, local and state governments are spending the final allotment of $350 billion in ARPA money ahead of a 2026 deadline. No new ARPA or stimulus dollars are rolling in to plug budget holes and fund “transitional” projects.

This means budgeting gets a lot more challenging at the state and local level. After federal pandemic funds expire, Missouri will need $421 million to continue the managed care program for families on Medicaid. Members of the St. Joseph City Council, whose first term coincided with the influx of ARPA funds, could find themselves saying “no” a lot more the second time around.

The problem with ARPA and COVID relief funds wasn’t how it was used or the mind-boggling price tag. It was how easy it was to delude yourself that the crisis was permanent and therefore the funding should be, too.

It was shocking to college graduates (and a lot of Democrats) when they learned that the emergency of 2020 had passed and it might be time to start paying off those loans. The sticking point in the federal government shutdown is whether Obamacare subsidies, which were first passed as an emergency measure in the wake of the pandemic, should be made permanent.

Black, a respected conservative who served as vice chair of appropriations, seems to understand that the firehose is about to run dry. He told KFEQ radio that federal dollars make up 45% of the state budget, a number that is expected to drop as the country goes through post-stimulus withdrawal.

In Northwest Missouri, constituents often speculate “what’s in it for us?” when a local representative or senator gets assigned to a key budget committee. In this new economic reality, there might not be anything in it for us except for hard choices – especially when the loss of federal funds collides with state capital gains exemptions and expanded property tax credits.

Make no mistake, hard choices are on the horizon -- for Black and for the rest of the state.