Former state Sen. Wayne Goode, D-Pasadena Hills and among the best examples of the downside of Missouri’s legislative term limits, will unveil to reporters Tuesday what he’s found during his latest examination of state budget spending.

Goode’s probe is part of his latest role as the deputy transition director for budget review for Gov.-elect Jay Nixon.

Goode, 71, involuntarily retired from the State Senate in 2005 because of term limits after decades as arguably the Legislature’s unofficial fiscal expert, aka “budget brain.” He was first elected to the state House in 1962, and went to the state Senate 20 years later.

He sponsored the bill creating the University of Missouri-St. Louis (a bronze statue of him was erected on campus two years ago) and often was considered among the few legislators (along with former Sen. Harold Caskey, D- Butler) who really understood the state’s “foundation formula” for funding public schools. Goode and Caskey were key players in writing the formula.

(Addendum: A reader rightly noted that Caskey was the architect of the 1993 rewrite of the formula. Since this post is about Goode, I didn’t get into it. But since our readers are so knowledgable, it’s apparently best that I do.)

In any event, Goode’s conclusions about the state’s current budget situation could be extremely influential in determining what Nixon does, and does not, when it comes to state spending after he takes office in January.