DESEGREGATION SAVINGS ALREADY EARMARKED

About $344 million in added state aid would flow to Missouri's school districts once federal court-ordered desegregation programs end in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Under a new state law, all of the savings from the end of state-funded desegregation programs in Kansas City and St. Louis would go to elementary and secondary education.

The savings would put state aid to public schools on a sound financial footing for the next several years, said Tim Jones, director of desegregation services for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Jones said it would allow the state to adequately fund the foundation formula, the method by which school districts receive state aid. The formula takes into account a number of factors including enrollment, assessed valuations and local tax levies.

Beginning with this fiscal year, elementary and secondary education also gets all of the state's share of riverboat gambling revenue. For fiscal 1996, the revenue is estimated at $96 million.

Lawmakers like state Sen. Peter Kinder want to see a tax cut in the wake of the state's improving finances.

"We are definitely looking for taxes to cut," he said.

But Gov. Mel Carnahan wants the desegregation savings to go entirely to elementary and secondary education.

"It is an appropriate use for the money. It should go to all of the Missouri schools," said Chris Sifford, director of communications for the governor.

Missouri has been paying $190 million a year to fund the desegregation program for the Kansas City School District and $153.7 million a year for a similar program for the St. Louis public schools.

Over the past 15 years, the state has spent $2.2 billion on desegregation programs in the St. Louis and Kansas City school districts.,

Carnahan recently announced a tentative agreement in the long-running Kansas City school desegregation case that would end state funding in four years.

State funding of a desegregation program for the St. Louis schools could be on its way out as well. A court hearing on that case is set for February.

In the Kansas City case, the state, the school district, parents and the teachers union have until Sept. 1 to reach a final agreement.

The tentative agreement calls for the state to pay $110 million to the school district for the coming academic year and a declining amount in each succeeding year through the 1999 school year. The amounts for those successive years haven't been determined.

In this fiscal year alone, Missouri will realize a savings of $80 million that will be earmarked entirely for elementary and secondary education.

The $80 million in savings includes $22.5 million agreed to by the parties in the Kansas City desegregation case earlier this year.

Jones said it is too early to tell how much money the average school district would receive from the savings.

"We don't want to start running any projections right now. You never know what is going to happen," he said.