4 SCHOOLS IN REGION RECEIVE FUNDING

State funding for four school building and improvement projects in Southeast Missouri was assured Wednesday after Gov. Mel Carnahan signed the capital spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year.

The area projects are Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus in Cape Girardeau and Kennett Learning Center plus vocational schools in Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff.

The General Assembly forwarded the $161.8 million capital improvements appropriations bill to Carnahan on May 5. At that time the governor's staff began reviewing the measure along with the other bills comprising the state budget for possible line-item veto targets. None of the Southeast Missouri projects was expected to be hit with Carnahan's veto stamp.

The $11.95 million for Southeast's River Campus at the former St. Vincent's seminary grounds follows $4.6 million the state contributed to the project for the current fiscal year, which ends Friday. Including the state's now-completed contribution, the university expects the project to cost about $36 million. When finished, the River Campus will house a new fine-arts college.

The funding had been included as part of the proposed fiscal year 2001 state budget submitted by Carnahan in January.

Southeast also received $150,000 for planning, design, renovation and construction of classrooms at its new Kennett Learning Center, which will be dedicated Friday.

Democratic state Sen. Jerry T. Howard of Dexter added the funds, which the university didn't request but was pleased to receive, on his own initiative late in the budget process. Howard said the funds would allow for state-of-the-art classroom upgrades at the new facility.

Also added on late after months of budget wrangling was $1 million for the Cape Girardeau School District's new vocational school.

The district had wanted $1.8 million, but officials at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education inadvertently left the project out of the budget request it submitted to the governor. Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, added the full amount in committee, but it was later trimmed by legislative negotiators.

The school, already under construction, is scheduled to open in fall 2001. Funded from both state and local sources, it was originally supposed to cost $6.3 million. However, an expansion of the project raised the price to $11 million, prompting the district to seek additional state funds.

Counting the latest appropriation, the state has contributed $4.15 million to the project. Cape Girardeau schools Superintendent Dan Steska said the district will dip into its reserves to cover the $800,000 shortfall in state funding. Steska said the district hopes to recoup that money from the state next year.

Additional vocational school funding went to the Poplar Bluff School District, which will receive $750,000 toward a new facility.

The capital improvement appropriations bill is HB 1120.