BILL PROMPTS ELECTIONS FOR 50 SCHOOLS IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI

Fifty Southeast Missouri school districts will ask voters Oct. 5 to waive a property tax rollback in an effort to retain local tax money.

Without the waivers, an estimated $12.5 million would be taken from the Southeast Missouri schools and redistributed to schools with higher tax levies, said Robert Buchanan, Sikeston superintendent.

The change is part of Missouri's new education law.

In addition, four Southeast Missouri districts have measures on the August ballot asking voters to raise the tax levy to $2.75 per $100 assessed valuation. In two years, all districts will be required to have a $2.75 minimum levy.

But Arnold Bell, superintendent at Caruthersville schools, said the law benefits districts with higher tax levies as of Sept. 1.

Voters in Caruthersville, South Iron, Senath-Hornersville and Southland districts will decide in August.

The new funding formula uses a base-year tax rate to calculate additional state funding "forevermore," Bell said.

If Caruthersville raises its levy to $2.75 before Sept. 1, it means an additional $1,000 per child over the next four years.

If voters don't approve the measure, he said, the district will be held harmless and will receive no new state aid.

"Senate Bill 380 requires a $2 minimum levy this year. The board must vote it and next year it must be $2.75," Bell said. "We are asking voters to vote it now so we can generate more state aid."

Several other school districts are in the same situation, but didn't get a measure on the August ballot.

"Our southeast region was not informed of need for an election until June 8 at a meeting in Cape Girardeau," Bell said. June 8 was the deadline to file something for the August ballot.

"I had some inkling we might need to vote on something, so I set up a special meeting of the school board. I left that meeting in Cape Girardeau, met with the board and took something to the clerk's office that day."

Buchanan said the 50 districts will all place their issues on the Oct. 5 ballot, asking voters to waive the Proposition C property tax rollback.

"Everybody has got the same problem," Buchanan said. "We felt it would be less complicated if we all did on the same day. This way we can explain the problem to voters."

Part of the new funding bill penalizes districts with low tax rates. The state recoups tax money districts had been receiving through Proposition C.

Voters can waive the property tax rollback, which allows the money to remain in the local districts.

"A yes vote or a no vote will not increase the levy," Buchanan said. "It will be at $2.75. The difference is, will we be able to keep the money in the local districts?"

Sikeston, for example, stands to lose $1.18 million in Proposition C money each year if the waiver is not approved by voters.

"That's a lot of money," Buchanan said.

"The waiver will permit school districts to retain Prop C sales tax revenue that they have been receiving since 1982," Buchanan said.

"It's a penalty for having a very low levy, below $2.75. The purpose is to make you have a higher levy," he said.