Governor lays out State of the State priorities

(AP) — Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Parson in his State of the State address Wednesday proposed spending hundreds of millions of dollars to boost child care services and teacher wages as the state battles the latest COVID-19 surge.

Parson asked the GOP-led Legislature for $722 million to prop up child care centers and close to $22 million for matching grants to raise teacher salaries to a minimum of $38,000 a year.

His total budget request to lawmakers is a whopping $46.7 billion bolstered largely by federal funding, including roughly $2.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act coronavirus relief aid. The current fiscal year budget is about $35 billion.

Parson’s top priorities for the 2022 legislative session also include a 5.5% pay raise for state workers to be implemented as soon as February, another budget proposal supported by Democrats.