CAPE DISTRICT FACES TOUGH CHOICES FOR VOTERS

Next April, the Cape Girardeau Board of Education will ask voters to approve the second phase of ongoing school-construction projects. The board has kept its word: The $18 million in bonds needed for phase two can be retired without a tax increase. A key project of the next phase will be construction of a new high school.

But the board has also muddied the waters with a second tax request that will be on the ballot sometime next year. Voters will be asked to raise the district's operating levy to improve salaries. No exact figure has yet been decided.

The board has good intentions to boost pay for staff and faculty. But will having two votes, one for the construction bonds and another for higher salaries, mean trouble for passage of either issue?

District officials say noncompetitive salaries have created hiring and retention headaches. Just over 40 percent of the staff has left the Cape Girardeau district in the last three years.

Compared with 19 school districts in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois, Cape Girardeau ranks in the bottom three for its minimum teacher salary of $21,005.

Many businesses are being forced to raise salaries in this robust job market where unemployment is minimal. The district has been losing janitors, maintenance workers and secretaries to the private sector.

But approving a tax increase for any reason will prove difficult. It took Cape Girardeau three tries to approve the long-overdue first phase of the current construction program.

Cape Girardeau's beginning teacher salaries may not be competitive with other districts, but average teacher salaries are comparable or better than many private sector jobs.

One reason the district's finances are in a bind is the so-called hold-harmless designation in the state funding formula. This designation freezes state revenue for the district at levels of several years ago. It has cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years -- money that could have been used for salaries.

The district should be a leader in the fight against this hold-harmless stranglehold. Some 50 odd districts are affected statewide out of the 535 schools -- 170,000 students out of 800,000.

If this matter could be resolved in the next legislative session, it would mean a real boost in district finances. And it could go a long way to solving problems with competitive salaries in the Cape Girardeau district.