LOOPHOLE IN SB 380 THREATENS SCHOOL FUNDS

Laws and sausages are two things the public should not see being made.

19th century German General and statesman Otto von Bismarck

The defeated bond issue proposal for new school buildings, narrowly rejected by Cape Girardeau voters this past Tuesday, was constructed around a loophole in this year's Senate Bill 380. That loophole allowed school districts to receive increased state aid by financing or refinancing school buildings on a lease-purchase basis. Essentially, a local district could use the attractive lease-purchase option to leverage greater state funding to build buildings. State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education officials coached Cape Girardeau officials, and other superintendents across the state, on how to exploit the little-known loophole to leverage greater state funding.

Now, it seems, the passage of Senate Bill 380 is confirming Bismarck's wisdom, quoted above, just as it reconfirms the ever-present Law of Unintended Consequences. Consider the following excerpts from a Springfield N ews Leader article published Wednesday, October 6:

"`It (the loophole) could throw the whole formula out of whack,' says Sen. Harold Caskey, D.-Butler, the measure's chief architect." Caskey is chairman of the Senate Education Committee and co-chairman of the special House-Senate task force that wrote the new foundation formula implemented in Senate Bill 380.

Continuing, from The News Leader:

"Depending on how many school districts take advantage of the opening, State School Finance Director Vic Slaughter estimates it could shift about $200 million in state aid to school districts that otherwise would not receive the money. That would use up more than half the $360 million annual increase the state plans to pour into the new (Senate Bill 380) formula.

"Sen. Caskey says lawmakers never intended for school districts to be able to increase their state aid that way. He is working with the governor's office and the education department to close the loophole and plans to introduce a bill during the legislative session beginning in January." (Emphasis added.)

Greenville superintendent Gene Oakley, co-chairman of a group of 100 school districts that sued the state over the old school formula, is pressing for court action even before the legislature reconvenes next year. He wants to go to Cole County Circuit Judge Byron Kinder now and get an injunction to stop other school districts from doing what Cape Girardeau officials just tried to do. The article continues:

"Alex Bartlett, the group's attorney, says a (court) injunction is one option, but he would prefer a legislative solution. He's hoping that school districts will be deterred from using the loophole once word gets out that the legislature is likely to change the law."

During the session's waning days, some of us stood on the floor, making the following arguments: that we were proceeding too hastily; that not enough members even knew what was in Senate Bill 380; that even those who did were insufficiently aware of its complexities and ramifications; and that the entire, enormously complex matter of school finance was sufficiently important that we should return to deal with it in a special session called for that purpose.

Those of us who voted no, for a host of reasons, were defeated, as those who favored haste won the day. All headed home as a chorus of Big Media praise echoed across the state, with Missouri's three largest newspapers joining with the education community to cheer the governor and legislative leaders for passage of Senate Bill 380.

You haven't heard the last of this one.

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Debacle in Somalia

In the past week, it has transpired that President Clinton and Defense Secretary Les Aspin flatly denied a request from the American field commander in Somalia that he be provided more artillery to safeguard the lives of his troops.

Result: Our elite Army Rangers found themselves caught in a vicious firefight that produced 15 new sets of grieving widows, parents, brothers and sisters, not to mention children. An Army chopper pilot now languishes in captivity, after angry Somalis stripped him and dragged him through their godawful streets. And that was after Somalis had dragged the corpse of another of our Army Rangers through the streets in one of the most degrading and heart-sickening scenes ever.

Where commanders-in-chief are concerned, I prefer the example of President Bush and his Joint Chiefs Chairman, Colin Powell. Their prescription for armed strife: Commit overwhelming force, and use it swiftly to annihilate resistance quickly and with minimal loss of life.

It's hard to resist observing that the Somali debacle is what happens when Age-of-Aquarius flower children and aging '60s war protesters run America's national security. Speaking of national security, what on earth does our being in Somalia have to do with it? Is our mighty military to be made over into an international police force under United Nations not American command?