Ed Pfueller photo

Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives toss papers into the air in a traditional celebration of the Missouri General Assembly marking the close of the legislative session last night in Jefferson City.

JEFFERSON CITY - In the General Assembly’s final hours, Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, used his power to prolong debate to block legislation giving a state board the power to punish universities for not cooperating on programs.

Graham said he decided to talk endlessly about the bill yesterday because he had concerns it would allow the Coordinating Board for Higher Education to withhold state funds from public universities. Graham said the Mizzou Flagship Council, which represents University of Missouri-Columbia interests, opposed the bill.

The bill was the top priority of state Sen. Gary Nodler, a Joplin Republican and chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Nodler tried to bring it up in the Senate three times yesterday.

Each time he was blocked by Graham, who said he was prepared to give the Senate a treatise on the art of filibustering. Nodler supported the bill because it would give more enforcement power to the board, which is supposed to eliminate duplication in higher education programs.

The bill gave the board the power to arbitrate disputes between public colleges. Universities that were found to be violating the board’s policies could be penalized with the loss of 1 percent of that school’s state appropriation.

The legislation also contained tuition waivers for college students who had been cared for in the state’s foster-care program or who were survivors of military personnel killed in combat.

Graham said he was strongly motivated to block the bill because Republicans who controlled the Senate had used a rarely employed parliamentary maneuver to cut off debate and force passage of a bill that requires voters to have a photo identification to cast a ballot.

Nodler’s bill was one of several higher education measures left among the wreckage of the 2006 legislative session. Other bills that did not pass would have doubled the amount of the Bright Flight scholarship from $2,000 to $4,000, changed the way public colleges were funded by shifting more money into scholarships and provided for $300 million in college building construction from the sale of student loans.

In the end, the only significant higher education-related measure the legislature approved was a 2 percent increase in the state budget. "It’s not much," said House Higher Education Committee Chairman Gayle Kingery, R-Poplar Bluff. "It’s better than nothing."

Public higher education officials were glad to get the increase after years of having flat or reduced budgets. University of Missouri system President Elson Floyd thanked the legislature and Gov. Matt Blunt for the increase, which raises the system’s funding by about $8 million a year.

In addition to the operating budget increase, the legislature also provided an additional $200,000 for a new ethics center on the university system’s St. Louis campus, $750,000 for an anesthesiologist assistant program on the Kansas City campus and $2 million more for UMSL in an attempt to balance funding inequities.

"We made the first step in the strategy to restore funding for institutions of higher education," said Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia. Robb had proposed the bill that would double the Bright Flight scholarship amount. He said he would like to see the legislature make the same commitment of support for higher education that it does for elementary and secondary education.

Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, said higher education is being shortchanged. She said state revenue was increasing at an 8 percent rate while universities only got a 2 percent budget increase.

"I think if you are going to say higher education is one of your priorities, you’ve got to show it in the budget. That’s a statement of values," she said.