Holden blames legislature while supporting education lawsuit

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Bob Holden told the state Board of Education on Friday that he supports the more than 240 school districts that filed a lawsuit this week challenging the state's school funding formula.

Holden, a Democrat, said lawmakers left districts with no choice but to go to court because they have not sufficiently funded education.

"The districts that filed this suit are right," he said. "They're taking the only course of action left to them by a Republican legislature that has turned its back on them."

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder said the governor should look beyond politics and focus on children.

The districts claim the state's school funding formula does not provide enough money for schools and distributes the money unfairly. The formula gives more money to poor districts and less to wealthier ones, but a wide disparity in spending still exists. Plus, the formula has been underfunded because of a tight budget in recent years.

Holden also said he would propose measures again this year, including increasing tobacco taxes, to provide additional money for education.

Last year, Holden asked lawmakers to eliminate some business tax breaks and to increase taxes on tobacco, casinos and wealthier Missourians to generate money for public schools and other services. The legislature ignored most of his proposals, and the fight could be even tougher this time around because it's an election year.

"School children shouldn't have to wait three years on a lawsuit the courts may or may not uphold," Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, said Friday. "Governor Holden should join the legislature now in working to fix the formula and move funding into education by reducing waste, fraud and abuse in his administration."

Holden asked the board to help the school districts and the state as the case makes its way through the court system, and to impress upon legislators the need for funding schools "is real and dire."

"Now is not the time to turn our back after so much progress," he said.

State board president Tom Davis of Kansas City told Holden the board would do what it could.

Davis was on the board when the first lawsuit on state school funding was filed in November 1990. Schools ultimately won in January 1993.

"We will be alert tirelessly to try to restore funding to education," he said.