Preparing to Care absent from initial House budget
Published March 11, 2008
An initiative to increase Missouri’s supply of health care professionals was not included in a first draft of the Missouri House of Representatives’ higher education budget for next year.
The Preparing to Care program, which was proposed last year to increase the number of students graduating into the health care profession, was absent from a draft of next year’s budget introduced last week.
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Allen Icet, R-Wildwood, said a less-than-optimistic outlook for the Missouri state budget in future years has discouraged the addition of any new expenditures.
“The last thing that I want to do is spend money on new programs,” Icet said.
Icet said increases in higher education funding in upcoming years should provide Missouri colleges and universities with enough funds to finance the program without state assistance.
“They’re receiving new money,” Icet said. “I don’t understand why they need more money than they already have.”
UM system Executive Vice President Gordon Lamb, who backed the initiative while he was serving as interim president of the UM system, said he hopes the program will be reintroduced into the budget.
“I think we’ve got a true health need in this state,” Lamb said. “I think it’s a very important program, and we’re hopeful they’ll put it right back in.”
Missouri’s public two-year and four-year colleges and universities originally requested $38 million from the state legislature to fund the program, and last December, Gov. Matt Blunt recommended that the legislature allocate $13.4 million to fund the program.
Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, who serves as the vice chair of the House Budget Committee, and Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, both said they would propose amendments today in a hearing before the budget committee in an attempt to reinsert the program into the budget.
Robb said Missouri higher learning institutions aren’t producing enough health care professionals to keep up with demand.
Baker said while she would introduce an amendment to allocate the amount of Blunt’s recommendation, she would like to see it fully funded.
“It’s still woefully inadequate to the need,” Baker said.
Baker said that “critical underfunding” of higher education by the state in recent years has contributed to the shortage in health care professionals. She said Missouri colleges and universities do not have the capacity to take in new students in health-care related disciplines.
Icet said he would argue against an amendment that would reinstate funding for the program.
“If that change is offered in committee, I will outline why it’s a bad idea,” Icet said.