NIXON SEES ADDED SAVINGS IN DESEG PLAN

A plan to end state-funded desegregation in Kansas City not only would eliminate taxpayer financing of the failed program but would also end costly litigation challenging the federal mandate, Missouri's attorney general says.

The plan also would allow the school board to take back control of their district, said Attorney General Jay Nixon.

U.S. District Judge Russell Clark ruled in 1984 that the state should fund the desegregation program in Kansas City public schools. Since then, the state has spent $1.7 billion on the desegregation program. In addition, lawyers in the attorney general's office have been in all levels of the federal court system challenging the mandate, especially as officials began realizing the program was a failure.

"But we have combined forces with the board of education in Kansas City and developed this plan," Nixon said of the plan. "It's apparent that the board is ready to act and ready to take back control of their district."

Not only has the federal mandate forced state taxpayers to fund the desegregation program, but Nixon said the federal courts also closely supervised and directed the program within the Kansas City school system. With the agreement, which must be approved by Clark, the school board can take back control of their district and rid themselves of federal interference, he said.

Meanwhile, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the desegregation case, Arthur Benson II, said he will fight the plan, which was announced Wednesday by the state and the school board. The plan would end payments in three years.

"This is an agreement that politicians love, and parents, students, teachers and educators detest," he said. "It's my intention to convince the court that desegregation should not end until we've eliminated every vestige of segregation."

Nixon said he understands why Benson, the chief critic of the plan, wants to continue the program and the costs associated with the litigation.

"He doesn't want to see it end," he said. "He's made about $5.2 million off of this. He wants us to spend a couple of billion dollars more."

State taxpayers paid about $190 million last year for the program. For the first year beginning June 1, the state will send to Kansas City schools $110 million set aside by the General Assembly. For the fiscal year beginning June 1, 1997, $105 million will be sent to Kansas City, and $99 million will go to the desegregation program in 1998-1999.

The desegregation program was designed to attract white students to traditionally minority schools by creating magnet schools in the Kansas school system. Instead of 10,000 white students enrolling in the magnet schools as anticipated, only about 1,000 white students from suburban Kansas City attended the schools.