Gov. Parson requests $2 million to send National Guard to Texas

by Quinn S Coffman

Missouri News Network

Missouri House members questioned National Guard leadership and Parson administration officials Monday over a $2 million request for funding for guard members being deployed to Texas’ southern border.

Last week, Gov. Mike Parson announced he would be deploying the Missouri National Guard to the southern border to participate in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

The governor’s announcement included a budget request to the Missouri General Assembly of over $2 million to supply the National Guard as they “help secure the border, prevent illegal immigration, and stop illicit drug and human trafficking.”

General Levon E. Cumpton of the Missouri National Guard said that these duties will be mainly focused on placing barriers and providing security to Texas guard members.

“Our first unit will arrive in Texas by mid-March,” Cumpton said. “The states of Missouri and Texas continue to work together to solidify the details of the deployment. What they will be doing, as we understand it today, is helping secure the border and preventing illicit trafficking.”

Up to 200 guard members might be eventually deployed to the border, working in three-month shifts of 50 guard members before being relieved.

Gov. Parson’s office has authority to use $4 million from the state budget for emergency deployments from the National Guard. None of this money has been used in the 2024 fiscal year, which ends June 30.

The $2 million being requested by the governor would not be taken from this National Guard allowance, but would be taken from the General Revenue fund instead. Parson’s announcement said the additional funds would then be used to “backfill the governor’s office’s emergency response fund.”

Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, questioned the need for this $2 million backfill when the fiscal year is already more than half over.

“It just seems to me that this is the point of (the governor’s) funding,” Merideth said, “if we just come in here anyway for emergency supplementals then why do we have that there?”

Budget Director Dan Hoag responded to Merideth, saying he believes topping off the fund is responsible in case it’s required for disaster relief later in the fiscal year.

“If something were to happen: a tornado, a flood, a whatever, and the governor needs to deploy the guard, if we were out of authority we wouldn’t be able to do that,” Hoag said. “So, I think (the bill) is prudent.”

He included that calling together legislators after the session to approve funding for an emergency response would be more difficult than approving it now.

The governor’s office would still have the authority to deploy guard members regardless of whether the budget supplemental is passed by the assembly. Past budget supplementals have been used to fund responses to emergencies like the 2011 Joplin tornado.

If no emergency funds are spent, or if some are left over at the end of the fiscal year, they will just remain in the General Revenue fund.

Merideth also speculated if the hearing was called mainly for the purpose of pontificating about border issues. However, there was little saber-rattling from Republican representatives during questioning.

The Missouri Highway Patrol will also provide 11 officers to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety. The budget bill heard today also accounts for these officers’ labor, transportation, food and lodging — for an additional $206,757.

Both the National Guard and the Highway Patrol are being deployed under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a federal law allowing governors to request resources from other states during declared states of emergency.

In addition, some amount of Missouri National Guard has been present at the border since 2019, when they were federalized to assist in similar border-security duties. These troops act under federal authority and are paid out of the federal budget.

Currently, there are still 250 of these federalized guard members on the border.

Operation Lone Star has been characterized as a confrontation between the federal government and Texas state government over how the border should be secured.

Many legislators questioned Cumpton over hypothetical conflict between National Guard personnel under federal orders and those under Texas’ orders.

“What I keep coming back to is, we should be very confident in the professionalism and discipline in which your guardsmen and women will execute their duty,” Cumpton said.

He added that he believes there is no risk of Missouri guard members facing opposing orders or being in conflict with each other.