Lawmaker aims to end college tiff by year's end

Poplar Bluff state Rep. Gayle Kingery hopes to use his legislative power to broker a solution over education centers.

A Poplar Bluff lawmaker will intervene to resolve the dispute between Southeast Missouri State University and Three Rivers Community College.

State Rep. Gayle Kingery, who chairs the higher education committee in the Missouri House, said state higher education officials appear to have little power to force the schools to settle their differences.

Kingery hopes to use his legislative power to broker a solution.

Kingery is scheduled to meet with Missouri higher education commissioner Gregory Fitch and the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education in Springfield today.

The coordinating board will hold its regular session Thursday at the Ozarks Technical College.

Kingery said he wants the dispute between the Cape Girardeau university and the Poplar Bluff college resolved before Christmas. The Republican lawmaker doesn't want the lingering controversy to carry over into next year's legislative session and burden his committee.

"Both schools are good schools," the lawmaker said. Kingery graduated from Southeast. TRCC is in his legislative district.

Kingery said he may have a proposed solution as early as next week.

The dispute over the operation of Bootheel education centers shows that the commissioner and the coordinating board have little power over the state's public colleges, he said.

"Dr. Fitch doesn't carry a lot of clout," Kingery said. "The coordinating board is more or less just kind of a clearinghouse."

Said Kingery, "I think going into this, both schools knew the coordinating board didn't carry much weight."

But Fitch said Missouri's higher education department can withhold tax dollars for TRCC if there's reasonable cause. But it can't withhold tax money for Southeast because four-year public colleges operate under a different statute, he said.

Fitch said he doesn't want to withhold funding for any school. "When you do that, the true penalties are assessed to the students," he said.

Last month, Fitch said he would review all nine Bootheel education centers in an effort to address what's become a bitter dispute.

The commissioner said he will review the establishment of TRCC's six new education centers as well as Southeast's three centers.

But Fitch said Tuesday he's still waiting for both schools to answer questions he's raised about the centers including their finances.

If they don't respond soon, Fitch said he will set a deadline by which he wants a response.

At this point, Fitch said he isn't ready to make any recommendation to the coordinating board on resolving the dispute.

After this week's meeting, the coordinating board isn't scheduled to meet again until December.

Southeast and Three Rivers had a long-standing partnership in which both schools taught classes at Southeast's Bootheel education centers in Kennett, Malden and Sikeston.

But the partnership dissolved after Southeast announced in February that it would take over teaching of all classes at the centers at the end of the spring semester.

TRCC officials accused Southeast of breaking an agreement in which the community college paid rent to teach classes at the three centers. TRCC sued Southeast in March. The case is still pending.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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