By Kurt Erickson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — After hitting an initial roadblock, the Missouri Senate approved plan Tuesday to offer free college tuition to police and other first responders.
The proposal, which had been derailed Monday over procedural objections, moved to Gov. Mike Kehoe’s desk on a 29-2 vote.
The culprit in delaying Monday’s vote, Sen. Mike Moon, R- Ash Grove, voted “no.” He had said the measure contained too many unrelated provisions and raised questions about its constitutionality, but dropped his blockade Tuesday.
“We’ve had several discussions over the last 12 hours or so. I’m not comfortable with every piece of this,” Moon said.
The free tuition for cops and firefighters is part of the latest Republican effort to keep crime as a focal point in the Missouri Capitol.
Even before Moon objected, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. David Gregory, R- Chesterfield, said he fended off a number of attempts to add amendments to the measure in hopes of avoiding hitting a snag in the legislative process.
“We tried to keep it as noncontroversial as possible,” Gregory said.
The measure, which earlier was approved in the House, would apply to any police officer, firefighter, paramedic, telecommunicator first responder, emergency medical technician or advanced emergency medical technician.
The 100% tuition waivers to the state’s colleges and universities would be available to any of those workers after six years of service and waivers would be available to their dependents after 10 years of service.
The projected cost to Missouri taxpayers is pegged at $3.4 million by legislative analysts.
The free tuition program is viewed by police and business officials as a way to bolster the ranks of police departments grappling with fewer recruits.
In St. Louis, the police department budgeted money this year to pay about 1,220 commissioned officers. But the actual number of officers remains below 1,000.
The legislation also includes a separate provision that boosts the amount of money the state gives families if a public safety officer is killed in the line of duty. The current $25,000 amount will rise to $100,000 and will be adjusted for inflation annually.
Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, D- Kansas City, said even with the increase, the state needs to do more to help families of first responders who die on the job.
“I’m hoping we can do a lot more,” Nurrenbern said.
Kehoe, who has already signed a bill to have a state-appointed board oversee the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, has pressed lawmakers to help him fight crime.
There also is money in the proposed state budget offering raises for members of the highway patrol, grants for new police training facilities and an earmark for recruiting minority officers for the St. Louis police department.
“I think this is a good piece of compromise legislation,” said Sen. Tracy McCreery, D-Olivette.
The legislation is Senate Bill 71.
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