JACKSON SCHOOL PATRONS GET UNSETTLING NEWS

After Jackson School District voters on April 4 resoundingly rejected an operating-tax levy increase and bond proposal for additional operating funds and school improvements, they now learn that the school district is treading on shaky financial ground.

News of the district's financial plight has come to light in a series of community meetings school officials are holding to inform voters of the situation. The district, voters learned, has overspent its budget for the past two years, and more deficit spending is projected as increases in expenses outpace increased income generated from new homes and businesses in the growing school district.

School officials have said the district could be dissolved or even taken over by the state if financial concerns aren't addressed within the next three years. Missouri law requires school districts to maintain balances of 10 percent or more of budgeted expenditures to maintain adequate cash flow. If the Jackson district continues to overspend and balances drop to 3 percent or less of budgeted expenditures, the state can designate the district financially stressed. The district then could waive its state-mandated tax rollback without a vote of the people, but it would have to freeze salaries and administrative costs until it again can build up a 3 percent reserve in its operating fund.

Under the worse scenario, if the situation still didn't improve, the district could be declared insolvent, and students could be distributed to neighboring districts. With the number of students at Jackson, that would be a serious hardship on every other school district in Cape Girardeau County.

That, of course, is most unlikely to happen considering the caliber of administrators and school board members at Jackson and a base of school-district patrons who have always come to the aid of the district, whether it has meant increasing their taxes for operating funds or bond authorizations for new and renovated schools.

School officials say the district needs more money to operate and, because of steadily increasing enrollment, needs a new elementary school and classrooms and renovations at R.O. Hawkins Junior High School. They also want to increase teachers' pay.

Until this year, the school officials have had no problem getting issues approved at the polls. But voters showed in April that they won't rubber stamp everything school officials ask for.

For voters to make informed decisions they must know all the facts, and they didn't know them they last time around. It's good that school officials are laying them out this time so voters can decide in what direction they want their school district to go.