SB380, HANCOCK CLASH

State Auditor Margaret Kelly stepped forward last week to declare that 88 Missouri school districts have been hit, courtesy of Gov. Mel Carnahan's Senate Bill 380, with $10 million in unconstitutional tax increases. The conflict is between the Hancock Amendment limiting tax increases and a provision of SB380 requiring local districts to have minimum property tax levies of $2.75 per $100 of assessed valuation, combined with a law passed last year that allowed school boards to waive earlier property tax rollbacks without voter approval. Kelly says that violated the Hancock Amendment to the Missouri constitution.

"Through the new finance law, the state has pushed districts to levy unconstitutional tax increases," Kelly said. "School officials have been placed between a rock and a hard place. The law requires them to keep taxes at a certain level or face the possibility of losing out on additional state financing, and possibly even face closing by the state. But the constitution says that tax revenues cannot increase without a vote."

Kelly is right. Looks like this one could form the basis for yet another constitutional challenge to Mel Carnahan's ill-considered education "reform" law.