State Rep. Jay Barnes voted against one of the 13 budget measures the House passed Thursday and sent to the Senate.
"I voted no on House Bill 5 because this budget does not include a much-needed pay raise for Missouri state employees," Barnes, R-Jefferson City, explained. "We remain in the basement of national rankings for state employees.
"I'm disappointed that neither the governor nor the House added money for state employee pay raises."
Barnes acknowledged his vote largely was symbolic.
"I'm not going to vote no on every single budget bill, when I agree with most of the budget bills," he explained. "House Bill 5 includes fringe benefits for state employees, and it is the most appropriate place to register objection to the lack of a state employee pay raise in the budget."
But Rep. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City, noted that bill also contains a $300,000 line item to pay for a long-discussed "salary commission study," intended to compare Missouri government employees' total salary and benefits package with those of other states' workers and with the private sector.
"I wouldn't have wanted to vote against that," Bernskoetter said Thursday afternoon. "I've been talking with the budget chair (Rep. Tom Flanigan, R-Carthage) and his staff all session, that we need to get a pay raise for state employees, and we weren't able to.
"I'm not happy."
With the House passing the 13 bills that make up the state's operating budget, it soon will be the state Senate's turn to debate the budget.
Bernskoetter hopes "the Senate will be able to find something in their budget" to benefit state employees.
"I think that, and funding for Kindergarten- through 12th-grade education and any additional funding for higher ed are all things that we're looking at," Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, said Thursday, "but as we go through the budget that the House passed, and we've already started going through it - there's not a lot of carry-over left."
He expects the Senate will have to add at least $10 million to the House-passed version of the formula that distributes state aide to elementary and secondary public schools around the state.
He didn't mention any target for state worker raises.
Sen. Mike Kehoe represents perhaps the largest sector of those government employees.
"It's unfortunately, the same thing every year," the Jefferson City Republican noted. "We're trying to find them some help. ...
"I will join Sen. Schaefer to see what we can do, to try to find a path to get something in (the budget) on our end."
Schaefer expects the Senate will begin debate on the budget bills in the first or second week of April.
Once the Senate passed the 13 bills, any differences between the House and Senate bills must be worked out in a conference committee and both chambers must approve the same language before any of the budget pieces can become law.