Most schools' bonds, taxes gain approval

Most Missouri schools are looking to get funding increases based on results from state elections and good tax revenue reports.

About 79 percent of school funding proposals on Tuesday's ballots -- property tax increases or bond issues -- were approved, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reported Wednesday in an unofficial survey of the 114 districts holding elections.

"It was a great day for Missouri's kids," said Kent King, the state commissioner of education.

King said the sheer number of revenue proposals -- 138 statewide -- reflected the financial crunch facing local schools, which have gone three straight years without full funding of the state's education formula.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Revenue reported Wednesday that tax revenue has continued to rise for the month and the year. Net general revenue for March rose 3.7 percent compared to March 2003. For the first three-quarters of the fiscal year, which began July 1, net general revenue has increased 5.2 percent, the Revenue Department said. That figure excludes a one-time $95 million grant from the federal government.

The revenue report was released just several hours after the House gave initial approval to an $18.6 billion state budget plan that would provide more money to public schools than Republican legislative leaders originally had proposed.

GOP leaders cited an improving economy and rising tax revenue as their reason for boosting school funding. They also repeated their calls for Gov. Bob Holden to release about $157 million he has withheld from public schools and other programs this year on grounds the current budget was underfunded.

Holden's budget director, Linda Luebbering, said the administration wants to wait until after the April 15 income tax deadline to determine if the state can afford to release the money.

Local administrators said that after years of uncertain state support, they had to plow ahead on seeking more funding locally.

Some districts had multiple proposals on the ballot, and while there is no official record, veteran school administrators said they had never seen so many local school revenue proposals in a single election.

Of 71 proposed property tax increases, the education agency reported that 55 passed and 16 failed.

There were another 30 proposals to allow districts to boost property taxes by setting aside a 1982 rollback, in which property tax revenue was replaced by a state sales tax. The department said 24 of those rollback waivers passed.

Of 37 bond issues proposed, 30 passed.

In some districts, the margins were narrow. In other communities, approval was lopsided.

Brent Ghan, a spokesman for the Missouri School Boards' Association, said the passage of most of the proposals "reflects what we have been saying for a long time, which is that many Missourians are willing to pay more in taxes to support their local schools."

In the Hazelwood School District in St. Louis County, a $65 million bond issue received more total votes than a 98-cent property tax increase. But the bond issue failed to meet the 57 percent requirement, while the tax boost was enacted by a simple majority.

The outcome frustrated superintendent Chris Wright, whose 19,500-student district has 2,000 new homes under construction, and had hoped to use bond proceeds to build four new middle schools to accommodate growth.

"Everywhere else in America, a simple majority rules and it just seems unreasonable that the will of the majority in this case does not prevail," Wright said of the bond failure.

In southern Missouri, the results showed a handful of votes matter: 200 to 199 was the unofficial tally by which voters rejected giving the Southern Iron County School Board flexibility to adjust the property tax rate from the current $2.81 per $100 of assessed value, up to a ceiling of $3.20, said board secretary Glenda Tucker.

"We have been making cuts continually the last few years," Tucker said from the school office in Annapolis. "And we have just watched our reserves keep going down."