Mid-Mo senator says there’s a rocky budget road ahead at State Capitol

Missouri Senate Majority Floor Leader Caleb Rowden expects state budget year 2022 to be tough but he expects the following year to be even worse. State budget leaders expect the next fiscal year to have a revenue decline of about 419 million dollars.

(as said) “It’s not fun to budget in the COVID era but the foundational stability of Missouri is functionally way better than most other states and frankly even better than a bunch of other conservative states,” says Rowden.

Rowden, a Republican from Columbia, thinks the state’s revenue projection is very conservative for the budget year beginning in July. He says budget leaders are viewing the state’s finances through a two-year lens this time around because he says the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic is still hard to know at this point.