Lake Representative Dr. Lisa Thomas Speaks About Missouri’s Finances

You can’t always judge a book by its cover especially when it comes to finances for the State of Missouri.

That’s according to lake area State Representative Doctor Lisa Thomas who says, what appears to be a healthy stream of revenue, can be very misleading.

“A lot of that is ARPA money and covid related stuff, tax relief. But those are not funds that are going to continue. So it’s not like we can or would even want to go on a spending spree. We need to be very judicious about that.”

Dr. Thomas also says, when the basics are funded and taken care of, one consensus in the State Capitol is to make sure taxpayers are also taken care of.

“If there is access at this point, who spends it better than the people it came from in the first place? So returning money to taxpayers remains a top priority. We’ve already done some of that, and we intend to do more.”

Other top priorities, according to Thomas, include adequately funding education and teachers along with continuing health care needs as we come out of the pandemic.