Icet's "artistic" budgeting

House Budget Committee Chairman Allen Icet presented his plan for distributing federal recovery money to colleges and university yesterday, and it didn't go quite as he'd hoped.  Here's a summary of the Icet plan from the News-Leader's Chad Livengood:

Under his proposal, Icet took a standard formula for funding the universities based on size and cut University of Missouri's four-campus system by 30 percent, totaling $14.6 million.

Icet then redistributed that money to the other 10 universities. Ten of the schools got a 45 percent increase in funding. For MSU, it means about $4.4 million more.

But Icet's plan proposed giving Southeast Missouri State University 144 percent more, nearly tripling its share of the stimulus from $4.8 million to $ 11.7 million.

This plan to shift the money away from the MU system didn't sit well with Rep. Steve Hobbs (R-Mexico) and other members of the committee, who didn't understand Icet's unilateral decision to shift the cash. Livengood's whole story on the meeting is worth a read, but his Twitter message from the meeting tells you everything you need to know: 

Rep. Icet has no real explanation as to why he took from University of Missouri and gave to SEMO State.

When pressed, Icet said the funding equation was done in an "artistic" manner. Right.

This is a crazy suggestion, but if Allen Icet solicited more advice from other legislators and the public -- and less from lobbyists -- his life might be a little easier, and the people of Missouri would be better served.