SCHOOL DISTRICT KEEPS ITS FINANCES IN ORDER

If an August audit bears out what Cape Girardeau School District leaders believe, the district narrowly will escape the humbling "financially stressed" status followed by a takeover by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

To avoid the financially distressed status, school districts must maintain a balance of at least 3 percent of their annual budgets. Cape Girardeau's balance sits at an estimated 3.3 percent.

This feat was remarkable.

It wasn't even supposed to be possible.

District expenses not only came in under budget but came in under last year's. And that's with the skyrocketing cost of natural gas over the winter and a 20 percent increase in medical insurance payments.

But Cape Girardeau teachers, administrators and everyone else sucked it up and managed to save the money. They only washed full loads of dishes, copied on both sides of paper, shut off lights in empty rooms and enacted many other penny-pinching measures to save money.

If the audit shows the district is financially stressed, good luck to state bean counters in finding where to cut more.

Interestingly, the state is much of the reason the district is even facing this potential crisis.

Gov. Bob Holden let the deadline for releasing $1 million in promised state funds for the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center come and go last week.

The story began during the 2000 legislative session, when the district asked the state to contribute more than $1.8 million toward the $11.3 million construction project.

Lawmakers last year included $1 million for the center in a capital improvements appropriation measure.

The money was held back due to lawsuits but wasn't released once those were resolved.

Then, in the 2001 session, lawmakers put the remaining $832,000 sought by the district in the budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Now that funding won't be released because of tight state finances.

Meanwhile, the district will have to deal with the textbook purchases and maintenance issues delayed so that construction bills on the center could be paid.

District officials, who drew from the reserves to stay solvent, are to be applauded for honoring their debts.

The state, which helped cause the problem, needs to take note if it comes to handing out any punishment.