The Missouri Senate has approved next year’s state budget totaling roughly $50 billion.

The first bill the chamber passed on Wednesday funds public schools at roughly $4.2 billion dollars. Chillicothe Republican Rusty Black, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, says they made some adjustments to make sure that funding will be adequate.

“I worked on some different things to try to help shore up some funding within the foundation formula. There were three buckets that even this year are going to be a little short of funds. We worked together and come up with some place that we think those funds will be adequate. The bucket will be filled back up.” Black says

 On higher education, the Senate reversed the House’s proposal to fund universities based on their enrollment.

Clay County Democratic Senator Maggie Nurrenbern says that would have devastated her alma mater, Truman State University:

 “It would have cut the funding for Truman State from about 51 million down to 23 million dollars a year,” Nurrenbern explains

It would have also slashed Harris-Stowe State University’s funding by 40% and Lincoln University’s by 38%.  Missouri Western State University was at risk of losing $6 million in funding  with the proposed plan.

The proposed state budget now goes back to the Missouri House for more work.  Lawmakers have until May 8th to send the completed budget to Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe.

Missourinet contributed to this report