DESEG FUNDS: DON'T FORGET THE TAXPAYERS

As court-run school desegregation programs in St. Louis and Kansas City come closer to winding down, interest is building throughout the state among school administrators and legislators over how the extra money could be used, particularly in rural areas where officials believe they have been shortchanged by the emphasis in the two cities costing billions of dollars.

Unfortunately, no one is talking any more about savings to taxpayers, once the federal judges return authority for the urban districts to local control.

When the courts embarked on their costly desegregation efforts in the 1980s by ordering Missouri taxpayers to foot the bill, it took awhile for those taxpayers to realize what was at stake. Eventually the bill rose into the billions of dollars. And the sad part is that there is little to show for the expense in Kansas City and St. Louis except for vast monuments to failure in social engineering by way of public schools.

Given all this, the federal courts are looking for ways to get out of running urban districts in Missouri. Suddenly, school administrators everywhere are eying the vast pool of state dollars being spent on desegregation programs.

In hearings and meetings around the state, school administrators have begun using new funding buzzwords. In particular, the term "categorical budget items" keeps cropping up.

In short, there are two major considerations in school funding. One is the state school foundation formula, which is a pot shared by all the districts in the state. The other is categorical funding, which is earmarked for specific purposes such as student transportation and which is shared equally by all the districts based on numbers such as how many students use the local district's transportation system.

Rural school administrators understand that if the desegregation savings -- about $160 million a year -- go back into the formula funding, they will likely get a smaller share. One major concern, of course, is the massive amounts that will have to be paid for transportation in Kansas City and St. Louis, because during the years of court-ordered desegregation plans, those expenses have been covered by the extra desegregation funding.

While all of this jockeying for financial advantage is part of the school financing scene these days, it is disappointing that not one school administrator or state legislator has spoken up at any of these hearings to say that taxpayers, who have borne the brunt of desegregation funding all these years, are entitled to relief now that those court-ordered programs are about to end.

Missouri education has had massive increases in funding from other sources, mainly through the Outstanding Schools Act and the steady growth in the state's economy. Instead of looking for ways to spend the extra money, it would be refreshing to hear the voice of common sense talk about returning those extra dollars to the taxpayers who have been held hostage by federal judges for so long.