Some changes likely for school funding

Administrators and lobbyists for Missouri's 62 hold-harmless school districts descended on St. Louis last week to discuss a strategy for what they consider the most important issue of the upcoming legislative session: booting their hold-harmless status for good.

The concept is complex but boils down to this: In 1993, Missouri saw a wholesale change in the way it funds public schools. Under the new school foundation formula, certain school districts would have lost money because of high assessed valuations of local property. So they were dubbed hold-harmless districts, and their funding wasn't cut but was tied to the 1992-1993 levels, the last year before the formula was rewritten.

The next legislative session will be the 10th since the rewrite, and those 62 districts are looking for a change. They include the Cape Girardeau School District.

The problem: Tying the funding to 1992 levels worked very well a decade ago. Since then, other districts have seen their per-student state funding soar. Cape Girardeau's, for instance, has gone up 20 percent since the change, while neighboring Jackson School District, which isn't a hold-harmless district, rose 81 percent.

And because the tax assessments in Cape Girardeau School District are high, local residents are asked to fund the rest of the district's budget -- 70 percent of it.

So little wonder such districts are ready for a change. There are only so many times they can tap taxpayers for money before the wallets clamp shut.

But hold-harmless districts can't just lose their funding status. The school foundation formula must be rewritten so losing the status doesn't hurt them.

And that's where the problem lies, at least this year. When the state budget is tight and everyone is concerned with getting what they can from the diminishing revenue, lawmakers are loathe to tinker with a system that's working. As Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau points out, rewriting the formula would mean sending extra money to some districts to convince them they aren't losing anything.

Does this mean the formula should never be changed? No. There's room for improvement. And that's why there will likely be committees to study the issue this year, says newly elected House Majority Leader Jason Crowell, also of Cape Girardeau.

He believes the Republican caucus will introduce just the tiniest bit of tinkering with the formula: removing all of the state's $216 million in gaming revenue from the formula and distributing that money on a per-pupil basis across the state. Hold-harmless districts would get as much of those funds as any other district.

"I don't know that changing the formula wholesale is something that we're going to be able to do this year," Crowell said. "I think you'll see some interim committees appointed and people putting their brains into rewriting it, and it's something we could see next year. It's something we've got to have the cooperation of the administration in, and Governor Holden hasn't indicated that he's interested."

A commonsense approach is needed to produce a school funding program that's fair for every student in every district in Missouri.