PLANNED CUTBACKS IN KANSAS CITY ARE COMING YEARS LATE

It is enough to make a taxpayer cry. While Missourians have watched $1.5 billion (the figure is the latest estimate, give or take a few million) of their dollar go to the ill-conceived, court-ordered school desegregation program in Kansas City, they have known all along, thanks to a good portion of common sense, that the money was being wasted.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in its wisdom, agrees, the Kansas City district is facing the harsh prospect of having to cut costs just to stay in business. In an amazing display of shameless disregard for the financial havoc desegregation program has wreaked, the Kansas City school board met this week and said it might have to cut 100 administrative positions and some of its programs in order to save $30 million and preserve teacher salaries at court-inflated levels.

Any rational taxpayer, upon hearing this news, wants to cry out, "Why didn't they make these cuts before now?"

The answer, in large part, lies at the feet of U.S. District Judge Russell Clark of Springfield, the czar of the Kansas City school district since he took it over in 1984. Along the way he has consistently ordered huge expenditures on a gold-plated educational system whose social engineering was supposed to overcome the realities of urban decay. Every time any issue regarding the outrageous plan boiled down to money, Judge Clark had a simple solution: "Spend it."

In 1991 the Kansas City district faced a $10 million budget shortfall that would have required 100 staff and teaching layoffs. At the time, the school board thought it had some responsibility to the taxpayers of Missouri and the patrons of the district to make prudent spending decisions. Never mind, said Judge Clark, who ordered the state to pick up the tab.

Some supporters of the Kansas City desegregation plan -- yes, there are some, led by archliberal Arthur Benson III, the lawyer who has represented the students who brought the lawsuit that led to Judge Clark's takeover -- say Clark's plan was well-intentioned and that it was undermined by intractable, mostly white suburban districts who refused to be forced into paying for their own educational systems as well as those of neighboring Kansas City.

But the sad fact is that Clark's plan failed, and it failed miserably. Even without the recent Supreme Court decision to put a tourniquet on the cash flow to the district, the Kansas City school plan was generally recognized as a flop. The two key aims of Judge Clark -- improved test scores for minorities and an influx of white students from suburban districts -- are hopelessly in a shambles. Test scores for minority students are lower than before the desegregation plan began, and there are fewer white students than ever.

The Kansas City school district will long be remembered as an example of how far government -- and courts in particular -- can go down a road that isn't even on a map. The name of Judge Russell Clark will be difficult to forget. It may even enter the jargon of failed public policy, particularly in Missouri, where any unsuccessful program propped up by massive government spending will be said to have been Russell Clarked to death.