YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
While Gov. Mike Parson’s fiscal 2025 budget has statewide cuts of around $1 billion, myriad Springfield projects are among those poised to receive funding with the stroke of the governor’s pen and legislative backing.
Parson on June 28 signed a $50.5 billion budget, which includes $14.9 billion in general revenue and 173 line-item vetoes, according to a news release from the governor’s office. The Missouri General Assembly in May sent a $51.7 billion budget to Parson’s desk.
The budget includes $577.5 million for Interstate 44 work from St. Louis to Joplin. That’s down from $727.5 million in the General Assembly’s version of the budget, as Parson vetoed $150 million from the general revenue fund to be transferred to the I-44 improvement fund.
“Today, we signed a conservative and balanced budget that focuses on two priorities that we know lift every Missourian up: workforce development and infrastructure,” Parson said in the release. “By making strategic investments, using common sense and spending responsibly, we’ve maintained our AAA credit rating, achieved the lowest unemployment rate in Missouri history, added 163,000 jobs to our economy and cut income tax burdens by over 20%. We’ve done it all while making historic investments, like the Improve I-70 project, and leaving $1.9 billion on the bottom line.”
Green light
Nearly all local projects tracked by Springfield Business Journal prior to Parson’s signature were included in his finalized budget.
The Alliance for Healthcare Education, a partnership announced last year between CoxHealth, Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College and Springfield Public Schools, is set to receive $15 million from the state budget.
Shallina Goodnight, its executive director, said the state funding would kick-start the Alliance for Healthcare Education.
“If the funding had not come, we would have had lots of roadblocks that would have been difficult to move,” Goodnight said. “This funding is absolutely instrumental.”
Goodnight said the funds would be used to renovate around 30,000 square feet at Cox North – part of which hasn’t been used for decades – into educational and clinical spaces. The new square footage, she said, would attach to Cox College, which is merging its programming into the Alliance for Healthcare Education.
Cox College was renovated and expanded to the tune of nearly $7 million through a project that wrapped up just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
Goodnight said a timeline has not yet been set on the new expansion plans. A kick-off meeting is scheduled July 15, she said.
At Victory Mission and Ministry, $11 million approved in the finalized state budget will go toward the redevelopment of its men’s shelter, dubbed Victory Square, just south of Commercial Street, said Executive Director Jason Hynson. Springfield City Council in early 2021 rezoned nearly 2 acres at 1610 N. Broadway Ave. and 1701 N. Irving Ave. to a planned development from highway commercial for the redevelopment of the shelter into a two-story, modern facility, as well as the addition of three duplexes housing six residential units on the southern half of the property.
“We’ve just been holding that building together,” Hynson said of the current Victory Square facility.
The funding will pay for around half of the new development, projected to cost $21 million to $22 million, he said. The nonprofit has engaged DeWitt & Associates Inc. and Dake Wells Architecture Inc. for the work, Hynson added.
While a groundbreaking timeline has not been set, Hynson said the state funding moves the project to one that could begin within six to eight months, rather than a couple years.
“It gives us some legitimacy that this is going to happen,” he said. “It takes a capital campaign from a quiet phase to a little bit more of a forward-facing phase.”
Among the largest local projects, OTC officials said $46 million in state funding has been approved to be used for The Center for Workforce and Student Success, a $60 million, 100,000-square-foot building on the Springfield campus.
“We are grateful to Gov. Parson and value his office’s continued support of our strategic plans and commitment to students and workforce development,” OTC Chancellor Hal Higdon said in a news release. “We are excited to create a center that will be the heart of excellence and learning for our students for decades to come.”
Emily Letterman, public relations strategist at Missouri State University, said the school was approved for $47.5 million for renovations and upgrades to STEM buildings and the construction of a facility for the Center for Transformational Education for Life, Physical and Health Sciences, as well as $17.5 million for a new Judith Enyeart Reynolds complex.
The city of Springfield highlighted a handful of wins in the governor’s budget, comprising $10 million for the Springfield Art Museum expansion and renovation; $3.5 million for Hammons Field improvements; $3.4 million for LeCompte Road improvements; and $1 million for the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s Family Connects program.
“We are very grateful for the support of Gov. Parson and the work of Sen. Lincoln Hough, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Reps. Bill Owen, Betsy Fogle and Stephanie Hein; members of the House Budget Committee; and the rest of our delegation who supported Springfield-area projects,” Mayor Ken McClure said in a news release.
Partial funding and cuts
Jordan Valley Community Health Center recently received approval to operate the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly in the Springfield area. The state budget proposed by the legislature included $4 million for the project, but Parson’s budget cut that amount to $2 million, said Jennifer McClure, who serves as a spokesperson for Jordan Valley.
“We are grateful to the governor and our legislators for this investment to improve access to quality health care for some of our area’s most vulnerable seniors,” Jordan Valley President and CEO Dr. Matt Stinson said in a provided statement. “Our team is engaged in further developing plans to move forward with available funding based on the specified matching formula.”
PACE includes medical and personal care, rehabilitation, social interaction, medications and transportation, with the goal of allowing patients to continue living at home. The program, which is operating locally as Jordan Valley Senior Care, is set up in Jordan Valley’s 1720 W. Grand St. clinic.
Although the legislative budget included $2 million for the construction of a public safety training facility by the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Jim Arnott said via email that his office was not approved for the funding in Parson’s budget.
Arnott said Sheriff Arnott’s Distinguished Posse, a 501(c)(3) he founded, planned to use the funding for a regional training center that includes a firing range for law enforcement. The project is about halfway completed, he said.
Parson’s vetoes also included $5 million from the budget stabilization fund for a cultural center focusing on the history of the Ozarks in West Plains and $1.34 million from general revenue for expansion of the Nursing and Allied Health Program at MSU-West Plains.
“The use of the veto pen is not something I do eagerly, but today these vetoes represent the elimination of unnecessary pet projects and the protection of the taxpayer dime,” Parson said in the news release announcing his budget. “We have obligations both this year and in future years that must be accounted for today to avoid future budgetary pains tomorrow.”
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