Missouri GOP looks at education

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A majority for the first time in about a half century, House Republicans are pledging to make education their top priority. Democratic Gov. Bob Holden is promising the same thing.

While their vocabulary may sound the same, their definitions are different.

For Holden and Democrats, making education a priority has meant attempting to provide the full amount called for under a formula that distributes money to public schools.

For House Republicans, making education a priority means removing casino tax revenue from that formula and giving gambling money to schools on a per pupil basis. That's what voters wanted when approving casino gambling 10 years ago, the GOP says.

To accomplish anything, "we're going to have to start speaking the same language over here," said Rep. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, the newly nominated House majority leader. "Once we can get our vocabulary together, we can determine if those are really loopholes or tax increases."

Republican Rep. Carl Bearden, the next House budget chairman, said he intends to insert the Republican education plan into the budget.

"That would be our priority," said Bearden of St. Charles, "because we believe that's an important promise that we have to start to keep."

This year, more than $200 million in casino tax revenue is going into the $2.1 billion school formula, which distributes money based on such factors as a school district's property tax rate, the assessed valuation of property, student enrollment and the poverty rate among students.

Generally, poorer districts with higher local tax rates get more money from the state while wealthier districts have their funding capped at about the same level year after year. The intent is to create equality in the amount of money available to schools.

If Republicans remove gambling money from the formula and distribute it on a per pupil basis, schools whose state funds currently are capped would benefit. Those schools generally are wealthier districts with rising enrollments.

Holden, who can block budget bills with a veto, already has expressed opposition to the Republican plan.

"The concept I've seen, where they move money from some schools to help other schools, I would not support," Holden said, "because it diverts funds from these rural schools in the state, and they have less money, and that compromises their education."

Democratic Sen. Ken Jacob, the newly named Senate minority leader, pledged to personally stop the Republican plan, describing it as "an over-my-dead-body issue."

"It's a bad idea with a nice little name," Jacob said.

Republicans say Holden and other Democrats are misunderstanding their plan. The gambling money would be phased out of the school formula over five years or so, Bearden said. And Republicans would replenish the school funding formula with money from elsewhere in the budget, he said.

That would mean cuts from some still-unidentified place, Bearden said. But it also would mean no schools would be harmed, and the per-pupil payout of the gambling money would be a bonus to all districts, he said.

Finding the money to replenish the school formula could be the biggest problem. Because lawmakers used many one-time funding sources for schools in this year's budget, they need to come up with about $160 million just to keep pace next year, according to the Senate appropriations office.

Another $240 million would be needed if lawmakers were to fund the full amount called for under expected growth in the formula.

Bearden acknowledges that would be tough. But even if the full school formula cannot be funded, Bearden said he remains committed to begin phasing in the Republican's plan for casino tax revenue.

"Making education our number one priority will be exactly what we will do," Bearden said. "But the devil is sometimes in the details."