Nixon, Blunt clash on MoHELA

Tim Hoover
The Star

JEFFERSON CITY | Attorney General Jay Nixon on Tuesday called on Gov. Matt Blunt to veto a bill that would authorize using student-loan proceeds to finance a building boom on Missouri’s college campuses. 

Signing the bill “will do serious and lasting damage to the ability of Missourians to access low-cost student loans,” Nixon wrote in a letter. The project list, he said, “consists largely of ‘deferred maintenance’ and down payments on construction projects for which there are no final plans or full financing.”

Blunt plans a fly-around tour of the state to sign the bill, starting today in St. Louis. Jessica Robinson, a spokeswoman for the governor, confirmed that Kansas City was not one of the cities Blunt would visit, though he will go to St. Joseph later today.

The bill would authorize the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority to pay $350 million over six years to the state, most of which would go to buildings at public colleges and universities. In exchange, the loan agency would get a 15-year pledge of tax-exempt bonding power, which it could use to finance more student loans.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City would receive $3.4 million to buy equipment for its dental school, but it failed to get $15 million to finish the pharmacy and nursing building on its Hospital Hill campus.

Republicans cut the Kansas City project and projects in Columbia after Sen. Jolie Justus of Kansas City and Sen. Chuck Graham of Columbia tried to filibuster the bill. The Democrats said they thought that using student-loan proceeds to finance university building projects was bad public policy.

In his letter, Nixon said, “Every penny MoHELA has is from students, and every penny should be used to benefit students in the form of low-cost loans.”

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