Bell City penalized $13,000

~ The state will decrease the school district's June funding payment to account for nonresident students.

In a rare move, the state Board of Education voted Thursday to financially penalize the Bell City School District $13,000 for illegally counting some students as residents and subsequently drawing more state aid.

The school district wrongly counted 10 students who actually were residents of a neighboring district, a state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education investigation found. The investigation found the Bell City district listed several students as living at an address that turned out to be a vacant, dilapidated house in rural Stoddard County.

The probe was launched after a complaint by the school board of the neighboring Scott County Central School District, where the students were found to reside.

The Bell City district appealed the state's findings and challenged the residency determination on two students, so state officials recalculated the number and the amount of money affected.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education initially reported that the Bell City school system illegally secured more than $19,000 in state aid this school year. But Bell City school officials said in their appeal that two of the students in question actually lived in the Bell City School District for a time.

The state Board of Education voted Thursday to decrease the district's state funding payment for June by more than $13,000 to account for the nonresidents. No one from the district addressed the state board.

Education Department spokesman Jim Morris said he can't recall another instance in which the state board reduced funding over disputed student figures and remembered only a few times in which the state audited attendance data.

The state investigation and attendance audit cost about $5,100, department officials said.

It's just the latest round in a feud between the two districts. The Scott County Central boys basketball coach is suspended from coaching during the second half of the upcoming school year, after Bell City complained to the Missouri State High School Activities Association that he was unfairly recruiting students to switch to Scott County Central. The coach, David Heeb, previously coached for Bell City.

Scott County Central superintendent Joby Holland said in May that the evidence shows that Bell City officials knew the students didn't live in the Bell City district and falsified addresses to illegally obtain state funding.

Bell City superintendent Rhonda Niemczyk did not immediately return a call seeking comment after the board's decision. In a May 26 letter to the state's education commissioner, Niemczyk said the district disagreed with the state's conclusions but offered no explanation for the miscounting. She said the district wouldn't contest the findings.

Education officials said beyond the penalty, the larger impact on the roughly 300-student Bell City district is that the lower state aid and student count will be used as its base as a new funding formula is phased in.

State board members said the action was important to send a message that districts must respect each other's boundaries, whether miscounting students happens accidentally or intentionally. Education Commissioner Kent King said miscounting students happens occasionally, but districts usually quickly resolve the dispute once they're made aware of the problem.

"The point of this wasn't financial. The point was districts need to honor other districts' boundaries," King said. "It was blatant."

Southeast Missourian staff writer Mark Bliss contributed to this report.