JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri is seeking to borrow as much as $260 million from the federal government to bail out an unemployment benefits fund that is expected to go belly up next week.
Unemployed workers should notice no difference in payments. But borrowing money from the federal government could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in additional fees for businesses.
Projections provided Monday to the Missouri State Unemployment Council show it could take until 2015 to pay back the borrowed money and until 2017 before the increased business fees expire.
The council is proposing that lawmakers raise state unemployment fees on businesses to reduce the amount of money borrowed from the federal government and to avoid some of the mandatory federal fees needed to repay the loan.