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Committee hears 48-page statutory cleanup to update higher‑education and workforce language
Summary
Representative Willard Haley presented House Bill 606, a statute-cleanup bill that removes outdated programs and renames workforce units to reflect current governance; the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development supported the measure.
Representative Willard Haley presented House Bill 606 to the Missouri House Committee on Higher Education and Workforce Development and described it as a large but straightforward statutory cleanup.
"I doubt if you've ever heard that there's a 48 page simple easy bill," Representative Willard Haley said, explaining the measure updates agency names and repeals statutes for programs that no longer operate.
Haley said the bill renames the Division of Workforce Development within the Department of Economic Development to the Office of Workforce Development and updates references to the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development to reflect current governance. He said the measure would repeal statutory references to several programs that are no longer funded or active, including the career readiness course task force, the Missouri guaranteed student loan program and lender-of-last-resort revolving fund, the Vietnam Veterans Survivor Grant, the Marguerite Ross Barnett Competitiveness Scholarship Program, and the Pilot Project Youth Services and Conservation Corps Act. Haley said one paragraph (section 173.120 regarding the state guaranteed student loan program) would remain in the committee substitute because some funds remain in the account; he plans to remove those 16 lines in the next committee substitute once accounting is complete.
Leah Strid, appearing for the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, said the department "is very much in support of this bill to clean up the existing language and just remove references to programs that no longer exist," noting some programs have not been funded in about 20 years.
Committee members asked only clarifying questions. The committee received no opposition testimony and concluded the hearing on House Bill 606. The transcript records prior committee and floor actions from the previous session: the bill had passed out of a related committee and reached third reading on the House floor last year but died in the Senate.
