JEFFERSON CITY � Under the Missouri Constitution, a governor must submit a budget within 30 days of the beginning of a legislative session and lawmakers must finish their appropriation duties a week before other legislative action ends.

This year, those dates are Feb. 6 and May 8. Nixon will follow his normal schedule and deliver his budget with the State of the State address on Jan. 21; Republican legislative leaders said they want to beat their deadline by as much as two weeks to force a confrontation over vetoes and withholding during the final week of the session.

�We are probably going to file budget bills the first week of the session, and we are going to begin the budget hearings before the governor gives his State of the State,� incoming House Speaker John Diehl said. �One of the things that has kept us at a disadvantage is allowing the governor to dictate the budget schedule.�

With that early schedule must also come spending restraint, Diehl said. An unexpected drop in state revenue last year left a $241 million shortfall in the budget year that ended in June, which Nixon filled with surplus funds from the year before. Since both Nixon�s budget and the legislative plan took no notice of the revenue drop, however, the gap also became a problem in this year�s budget.

Nixon is withholding $245 million in general revenue from operating budgets and another $203.9 million from capital improvements spending. Revenues would need to climb 8.2 percent this fiscal year, instead of the anticipated 4.6 percent, to cover only the operating budget shortfall.

�The amount he is withholding, with the consensus revenue estimate, lays bare the fact that we substantially over-appropriated last year,� Diehl said.

Boone County�s economy is closely tied to the state�s financial health, with nearly one in six jobs dependent on state revenue. A good year can mean larger raises, more student aid and reduced pressure on local taxes. Early action on the budget, lawmakers said, provides certainty for programs that time their fiscal year to the state�s July 1 start.

And it puts the legislature back in charge of spending, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, said.

�What the governor has done by putting budget withholdings restrictions on steroids is it really doesn�t matter what you want to spend money on,� Schaefer said. �Earlier passage gives us the ability to turn that back and put it in legislative control.�

Nixon will not speed up his schedule to match the legislature�s approach, said Linda Luebbering, state budget director. She would not talk about where Nixon might apply an increase of about $300 million of general revenue in the coming year.

�I don�t want to speculate what may or may not be in the governor�s budget,� she said. �Obviously, given the revenue situation, the budget is going to be challenging.�

Missouri took in about $8 billion in general revenue in the year that ended June 30. It is the money lawmakers have the most control over. Missouri also spends almost $19 billion from other sources, including fuel taxes dedicated to roads, sales taxes dedicated to schools, conservation and parks or federal grants and matching funds.

Each new budget works at the margins. A 5 percent increase in funding for colleges and universities, for example, costs $47 million. Every spending decision to increase one area more than the expected growth rate creates pressure for limits on other sections of the budget.

Withholding by Nixon of spending lawmakers have approved twice, once in regular session and once in veto session, will put pressure on the budget as well.

�A lot of what we will do is take the 2015 budget and those things that did not get accomplished, that fell off because they were restricted or vetoed,� Schaefer said.

Lawmakers asked for and voters granted a shift in budget authority by passing Amendment 10 in November. If Nixon withholds money from an appropriation, he must formally notify lawmakers, giving them the opportunity to reverse the decision.

Putting Nixon in a position where he cannot argue whether the money is available for legislative priorities is the main goal for this year�s budget, Diehl said. �I think you will see us enter an era where we are under-appropriating rather than over-appropriating,� he said.

Luebbering said she is glad she is not trying to write a budget for Kansas, where large tax cuts are causing revenue to fall and a court has ordered more spending on schools to meet state constitutional requirements for adequate education. Still, she said, when the budget is reported at $27 billion, people wonder why some programs cannot be funded.

�I think here people�s expectations of what we may be able to afford are way too high,� she said. �We are not Kansas, and we do not expect declines in our revenue stream, but there is not going to be a lot of money for investments in Missouri.�