Keathley: word of administration's accomplishments not getting to outstate

Mike Keathley wants to get the word out.

That is, the director of the state Office of Administration wants to make sure people in out-state Missouri understand there is more going on in the state executive branch than airplanes, fee offices and Medicaid. "A lots has happened in the last year," Keathley said Monday morning. "But a lot of the word is not getting out.

Keathley said that for one thing the state is in good financial shape, and it had happened a lot more quickly than expected. "It's about a year earlier than any of us expected it would happen," he said.

"So there are going to be some options in Missouri this year that we haven't had in the past."

Now, he said, the state is in a position to ask: "What do you want us to do for you?"

Of course, that option always existed. But when the current administration assumed the reins of power in Jefferson City, "it wouldn't have mattered what anybody said," Keathley said.

"That's because there wasn't any money."

Keathley said based on news coverage, no one in the state could have been aware of just how bad things were fiscally in the state of Missouri in January 2005. "But we are at a point now where we have some flexibility and can look at some options," he said.

As an example of how bad things had been, Keathley said, at one point, when the Blunt administration was preparing to take over from that of Bob Holden, budget personnel exchanged information to the effect the state was see budget shortfall of $300-500 million. "But when we got there," he said, "we found it was more like $1.1 billion."

The shortfall, he said, was in the general revenue fund, which he said was meant to cover general revenue fund expenditures of $7 billion. Total state expenditures, he said run about $21 billion.

Worse, Keathley said, while the transition team had managed to trim the shortfall by about $300 million through November and December 2004, increased Medicaid enrollment and declining revenue projects had added that amount back into the budget,. "That was the most grueling period of my entire life," he said. "I know that because I did the budget."

Keathley said in his view, having prepared that budget, anybody of either party that claimed to have opposed the Medicaid cuts the first year of the administration, would have obliged the state to cut core funding to elementary education, to close the state prison system, to close very mental health institution in the state, or to raise taxes. "There is no other choice to balance the budget," he said.

"And I'm okay with that -- if the voters decide that 'no, you did wrong to cut Medicaid' then we need to go home."

Keathley also noted what had actually happened to Medicaid in its first year of the Blunt Administration. "Now, it's true there are fewer people on Medicaid," he said. "But any cutting was a 'Washington cut.'"

Keathley explained he meant the "cut" was to the amount of increase in projected Medicaid spending, rather than in comparison to the previous year. "The year before we got there [FY 2004], the state spent $5.7 billion on Medicaid," he said. "The first year we were there [FY 2005], we spent $5.75 billion.

"This year [FY 2006] it's $5.96 billion. Where's the 'cut/'"

In addition, Keathley said, for all the ballyhoo about Medicaid, fee offices and airplanes in the news media, there were many accomplishments of which almost no one was aware.

Consequently, Keathley said, people likely had not heard that:

* nearly $331 million in additional spending was going into spending for elementary and secondary education, plus $1.8 million more for A+ Schools, another $1 million for Parents as Teachers and nearly $20 million in added spending for public colleges and universities.

* An added $400 million is being spent for road and bridge construction and maintenance.

* About $55 million more for in-home care services, $6.5 million more in funding to residential healthcare providers looking after what information he had provided termed "the state's most vulnerable children," and $162,224 more for providers of services alternative to abortions.

* a 4 percent pay raise for state employees, who now number less than 60,000 for the first time in eight years.

* creation of a Healthcare Technology Fund with $25 million in it to start.

* Establishment of the Guard an Home Program and the Missouri Military Relief Program, with $550,000 for Missouri service personnel in need.

* an increase of $625,000 for ethanol production incentive payments and creation of a biodiesel production incentive program with $5.25 million in it to start.

"When I got to Jefferson City 4-1/2 years ago," he said, "I used to think the major media outlets were unbiased and impartial.

"Now -- to be as polite as I can -- I don't think so."

Part two of this series will address what Keathley was hearing in outstate Missouri as to what constituent concerns are.

gexelby@dailystatesman.com