Nixon cuts higher education projects
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Nixon cuts higher education projects

Date: January 28, 2009
By: Theo Keith
State Capitol Bureau

Intro: Governor Jay Nixon sent letters to universities across the state Wednesday terminating a three-hundred million dollar higher education spending program initiated by the former governor.

Theo Keith has more from Jefferson City.

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Nixon eliminated the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, a split from former Governor Matt Blunt who started the program in 2007.

It drew funds from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, MOHELA, but now the governor says even that agency is in a funding pinch.

14 state universities and one community college governing board will lose out on state money and Columbia Democratic Representative Chris Kelly says the initiative was bound to fail.

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Description: This is probably, although nobody will admit this, probably the death-knell of the MOHELA deal, the whole Lewis and Clark fiasco.

Columbia's Ellis Fischel Cancer Center expected more than 30 million dollars from the initiative but those funds are now gone.

Reporting from the State Capitol, I'm Theo Keith.

 

Intro:  Governor Jay Nixon canceled construction of the new Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia because the program that would provide the funds doesn't have the money.

Theo Keith has more from Jefferson City.

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Fischel officials planned on 30 million dollars from the state to build a new facility near University Hospital on the MU campus.
 
The cancer center is one of 12 MU projects under the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, funded by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.
 
Funding problems led Nixon to cancel all Lewis and Clark projects as of Wednesday.
 
Fischel medical director Charles Caldwell says the 70 year old facility will have to make due for now.


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Description: We can still take exceptionally good care of the patients that we have. It just doesn't allow us to increase our capacity to take care of many more additional patients from around the state.

Caldwell says he plans to find an alternative to fund the new center.

The MU projects would have cost more than 50 million dollars.

From the State Capitol, I'm Theo Keith.