Cape schools join group seeking role in lawsuit

A coalition made up of 65 school districts -- including Cape Girardeau's -- has filed a petition to intervene in a lawsuit against the state filed by more than half of Missouri's 524 school districts, who are challenging the state's method of funding education.

The 65-district-backed Coalition to Fund Excellent Schools says it has certain goals in common with the larger Committee for Educational Equality, but does not share all of the latter's priorities.

The Cape Girardeau School District is among the mostly hold-harmless districts aligned with the so-called coalition group. Hold-harmless school districts receive more state money than they are entitled to under the complex foundation formula currently used to distribute education funds. However, their funding level hasn't increased since 1993, unlike schools not categorized hold-harmless.

If the petition for intervention, scheduled to be heard Monday, is approved, the 65-district coalition will be allowed to offer its concerns and question witnesses during the trial.

"We don't want to be a part of the lawsuit, but we do have a strong vested interest in the outcome," Cape Girardeau superintendent Mark Bowles said.

Both groups see the petition for intervention as a positive matter, not an adversarial one.

"We all want the foundation formula to be revised," Bowles said.

"The basic issue comes down to adequacy and equity in funding," said Tyler Laney, who heads up the Committee for Educational Equality. "I'm pleased they are part of the effort to change the system of financing public schools in the state of Missouri."

Equality committee attorney Alex Bartlett, who represented school districts in the early 1990s when they sued the state over education funding, said he was happy to see the petitioners intervene on the current suit. He said it shows unity among school districts across the state, even though they differ on some issues.

Similarities and differences

The two groups both agree on the issues of funding adequacy. They also agree that the Hancock Amendment has been violated, saying that the state did not provide funding to cover increased costs of such legislative initiatives as No Child Left Behind.

Where they differ is on local costs and income factors and on consistency of property assessments, said Diane Stewart of the Parkway School District and a member of the 65-district coalition.

The larger group's lawsuit contends that for funding to be equitable, all students should receive the same amount of state aid regardless of the amount of local property tax revenue to fund schools.

Stewart said that the smaller coalition believes that local costs of living are sufficiently different across the state, so dividing "the whole education pie" across the board is not equitable.

The 65-district coalition also alleges that local property tax dollars do not come from equally assessed property, which causes some property to be undervalued and thus widens a disparity that would otherwise not exist. Stewart said that the fact that some assessors in the state are elected and others are appointed makes a difference in fairness.

Bartlett said the differences are not insurmountable; the big issue is that now 65 school districts representing more than 200,000 students have petitioned to join in with 253 school districts representing 368,000 students against the state to force the state to do what the Constitution mandates: Adequately fund public schools. The differences, he said, can be ironed out in the court settlement.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160