Cape public schools to benefit from new funding formula

Cape Girardeau public schools will receive an estimated $480,000 more in state aid next school year, the first boost in state funding for the district in more than a dozen years.

Cape Girardeau school officials and state Sen. Jason Crowell welcomed the increased funding under a new state funding formula that will be phased in over the next seven fiscal years.

Lawmakers approved a new state funding formula last year. But the new plan doesn't take effect until the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

Even then, it will be fiscal 2013 before the new formula is fully funded, Crowell said.

In that year, the Cape Girardeau School District stands to receive more than $9.1 million annually in state aid, more than $3 million over what it stands to receive in the coming school year, Crowell said.

The Jackson School District would receive more than $16 million in state aid in fiscal 2013 or $5.5 million more than it's slated to receive in the coming school year.

Current projections indicate that the Cape Girardeau district will receive $5.89 million in state aid over the next 12 months while Jackson will receive more than $10.5 million in state funding.

Crowell said the difference in funding is partly because Jackson has more students and partly because it has less local tax funding than the Cape Girardeau district.

More for Jackson

That has resulted in more state funding for the Jackson schools, the Republican state senator said.

State aid to Jackson is expected to increase by more than $600,000 in the coming school year, Crowell said.

The Cape Girardeau schools, on the other hand, will receive nearly half a million dollars in added state aid. "It is the first new state money that the district has received since 1993," Crowell said.

Brenda McCowan, director of finance for the Cape Girardeau public schools, said the new funding is vital to district spending plans.

"We are basing budgets and raises and everything on that new money coming in," she said.

The new funding law scrapped the "hold harmless" provision that prevented some school districts like Cape Girardeau from getting increased state aid.

The old formula factored in a district's assessed valuation. Districts with higher assessed valuations received less state aid under the theory that they had a larger local tax base to draw upon.

The new formula takes into a district's average daily attendance and adjusts it based on extra needs of students. Such factors include the number of students receiving free and discounted lunch, special education and the number of students who aren't proficient in English.

While the Jackson School District also will benefit from the state funding plan, it won't see as dramatic a change as the Cape school system, said James Welker, the district's assistant superintendent for finance and support services.

That's because Jackson wasn't a hold-harmless district. As it result, it received increased state aid under the old formula, Welker said.

The new formula calculates that a minimum of $6,117 should be spent on educating every Missouri student. The formula assumes a minimum school levy of $3.43 per $100 assessed valuation with state aid providing the difference to meet the per-student funding threshold.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

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FUNDING FACTS

Projected state school funding under the new formula by fiscal year *

FY 2007

Cape Girardeau: $5.89 million

Jackson: $10.55 million

FY 2008

Cape Girardeau: $6.07 million

Jackson: $11.32 million

FY 2009

Cape Girardeau: $6.56 million

Jackson: $12.14 million

FY 2010

Cape Girardeau: $7.10 million

Jackson: $13.02 million

FY 2011

Cape Girardeau: $7.71 million

Jackson: $13.98 million

FY 2012

Cape Girardeau: $8.40 million

Jackson: $15.01 million

FY 2013

Cape Girardeau: $9.11 million

Jackson: $16.08 million

* Numbers rounded up