School groups tentatively on board with education bill

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- After some initial opposition, many of Missouri's leading education groups now support legislation to revamp the state's system for funding public schools. That support, however, could easily evaporate depending on how the legislative process unfolds.

Similar bills in the Senate and House of Representatives would radically restructure the formula for distributing state aid to school districts. Instead of being driven by local property tax levies, the proposed formula aims to establish funding based on what it costs to adequately educate students in a given district.

Although it would pump another $700 million into the system, the new money would be phased in over seven years before being fully funded. The existing formula is $900 million below full funding.

Several education lobbyists said that while some concerns with earlier drafts have been addressed, others remain. Chief among those is the lack of an annual growth factor during the phase-in period.

"Seven hundred million dollars today isn't the same as $700 million seven years from now," said Rowena Conklin, who represents a collective of Kansas City-area districts.

Another concern is how the new formula treats the smallest rural districts, said Mike Wood of the Missouri State Teachers Association.

"Students that happen to be in small school districts are not getting what they should under this formula," Wood said.

"That indicates to us that there is something built into this system that is a bias against very small districts," Straub said.

The Senate bill has cleared committee and is awaiting chamber debate. Since it is slightly further along in the process, lawmakers intend to pursue it over the House version.

Blunt referendum

Both Republicans and Democrats framed Tuesday's three special elections to fill vacant legislative seats as a referendum on the administration of Gov. Matt Blunt. With the results in, both parties are claiming voters spoke clearly as to their views of the new Republican governor's policies.

It is the outcome of a four-way Senate contest in northern Jefferson County that prompted both parties to claim victory in the so-called Blunt referendum.

According to final but unofficial results, Republican Bill Alter narrowly beat Democratic state Rep. Rick Johnson by 66 votes. However, the race featured two candidates running as independents, including state Rep. Harold Selby, a Democrat.

Together the two Democrats claimed 57.3 percent of the total vote, compared to 30.1 percent for Alter, a former state representative.

Once the election results are finalized, Johnson intends to request a recount, which elections officials are obligated to grant when the margin of victory is less than 1 percent.

Tax holiday

A bill to establish sales tax holidays every August cleared the House on Wednesday 129-22.

Last year, Missouri experimented with a three-day holiday that won rave reviews from consumers. During the holiday sales taxes on clothing, computers and school supplies were waived.

Groups that represent counties and municipalities, however, complained that the original holiday law made them out to be bad guys because in order to avoid losing local tax revenue they had to opt out of participating. For this year's bill, those groups wanted local governments to be able to opt-in to participating.

As approved by the House, however, the measure limits the ability to opt-out in 2005 only to those cities and counties that did so last year. The bill now heads to the Senate.

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