The state of Missouri is nearing a fiscal cliff, a report from State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick warns.
Budget surpluses during the years of pandemic-related federal funding allowed the state to maintain a substantial reserve. Now, after half a decade, that revenue is going away.
Officials disagree about the severity of the problem, and what the state’s leaders should do about it. But Fitzpatrick's report portrays the situation in the most dire terms.
He told KCUR's Up To Date on Wednesday that Missouri is going to run out of money in 16 to 18 months if elected officials take no action.
"We're going to spend about $2 billion more this year than we collect," he said. "If you end the year next year with $600 million and a $2 billion deficit, that only gets you about a third of the way into the year before you run out of money, and so that's kind of the warning that we're putting out there.
Missouri eliminated capital gains taxes last year and voters in the state will decide in August whether to get rid of the state income tax. But Fitzpatrick, a Republican running for reelection, believes that government spending is the root cause of this problem.
"When you grow 53% in five years of spending as a governmental entity, that is not a sustainable path," he argued. "So, I want to make sure that it's understood that I view this at least as a spending problem, not a revenue problem. We've grown revenue significantly, we just are spending more than we've grown."
