LEGISLATIVE ATTEMPT TO GIVE HOLD-HARMLESS DISTRICTS MORE MONEY MAY NOT HELP HERE IN CAPE

Legislation to help address the situation faced by so-called hold-harmless school districts such as Cape Girardeau's has passed the Missouri Senate and is in the House in plenty of time for final approval before the end of the session.

Hold-harmless districts are those that would have received less per-pupil state aid under the 1993 education funding formula, but these districts have instead received the same funding they received in the 1992-93 year without any increases since then.

Other area districts in this category are Bell City, Kennett, Cooter and New Madrid.

The foundation formula is written in a manner that means that districts with significant local wealth, such as Cape Girardeau, likely won't benefit much from the bill due to growth in the local tax base. Even after this hold-harmless bill, the bias of the state funding formula against districts whose leaders are helping their communities experience economic growth will remain.

When Albert Einstein observed, "The hardest thing to understand is the income tax," it's a safe bet he hadn't seen a modern school funding formula for distributing state dollars to local districts. For now, this small step in addressing the inequity faced by hold-harmless districts is probably the best that can be expected until a comprehensive rewrite of the state foundation formula is undertaken.