School funding cuts

Gov. Bob Holden's approach to balancing Missouri's budget for the current fiscal year leaves a lot to be desired.

Nobody is denying times have been tough in the state, just as they have been in the rest of the nation. An era of budgets flush with cash as state government grew in jobs and programs came to an end with the economic downturn. As a result, the state has been struggling for three years.

But what doesn't make much sense is how Holden withheld $197 million from legislative appropriations. While the governor may have been prudent to withhold funds until revenue trends for the year were established, there continues to be a nagging question over why he chose to take all the withholding from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

That's money the public schools in this state depend on to educate Missouri's children. The decision caused the Jackson School District to eliminate 15 teaching positions this school year through attrition. In Cape Girardeau, superintendent Mark Bowles is readying a presentation for the school board on how to cut $2.2 million out of next year's budget, due in large part to the governor's withholdings in anticipated state funding.

The withholding would have had less overall impact on state operations had a small percentage of appropriations been set aside in every part of state government across the board. Even such small withholdings would have been tough, but it would have been far more equitable. School districts still would have felt a funding pinch -- but not nearly as much public schools are dealing with now. DESE apparently was the governor's quick solution because so much of the state's discretionary general revenue goes to that department.

Another reason might have been the governor's desire to embarrass the Republican leadership of the Missouri Legislature, which refused to cave in to the governor's demands for higher taxes and even more state spending in the face of hard economic times.

Now it appears that there may be some breathing room in this year's state budget. Revenue is coming in at a better-than-expected rate.

House Republicans, including House Speaker Catherine Hanaway of Warson Woods, Mo., and state Rep. Jason Crowell of Cape Girardeau, were at the Cape Girardeau School District administrative offices this week to call on Holden to release some of that $197 million withholding. State revenue is up 5.1 percent over last year, Hanaway said.

Holden argues the state's $19.1 billion budget was underfunded by Republican lawmakers to begin with. His budget director, Linda Luebbering, says gross general revenue would have to grow by 6.9 percent for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, for the state to meet its budget.

At a minimum, the stance of Hanaway and other Republicans' draws attention to Holden's use of the state budget as a political tool. Unfortunately, that philosophy is hurting this state's school districts.

Republicans are making a good case that the state's finances aren't as bad as Holden would have Missourians believe.