MARQUAND AVOIDS TAKEOVER BY THE STATE

The good news is that the Marquand-Zion School District in southeastern Madison County passed a 30-cent tax increase this week, which will generate much-needed funds for the tiny district.

The district had sought relief under Missouri law that allows school that are "financially distressed" to increase taxes without a vote. This would have been accomplished by not rolling back taxes as required by other state laws.

Voter approved the increase after the proposal had failed twice before. The winning edge probably was provided by the bad news of this good news-bad news scenario.

The bad news is that there is little doubt about who is running local school districts these days, thanks to the Outstanding Schools Act, which has taxed Missourians to the gills and has poured millions of new dollars into elementary and secondary education -- with results still to be determined.

The plain fact is that unelected bureaucrats in Jefferson City now have every school district in the state by the throat. Had Marquand's tax increase not passed, it would have had the option of increasing its taxes without a vote -- but with some pretty tight strings. Some might even call it a noose.

In effect, distressed districts that are granted relief -- only two in Missouri so far -- must also freeze all salaries until the district has a reserve in its funds for teachers and incidentals. This means struggling districts would be hard-pressed to keep teachers or attract new ones, since their salaries already tend to be quite low.

Failure to meet these stringent guidelines would have a hard-nosed result: The district would be dissolved -- by the bureaucrats and without any say on the part of locally elected board members or taxpaying patrons.

The threat of disbanding the district no doubt played a part in Tuesday's passage of the tax increase. Jefferson City officials might say the threat contained in the state law had the desired effect.

But local board members and administrators say they could have found other ways to overcome the deficits of the past two years -- $2,700 and $8,500 respectively -- if they hadn't had to comply with rules that leave key decisions to Jefferson City.

Eventually, the worst-case scenario will become reality for some hard-pressed district. Fortunately for the Marquand district, the voters demonstrated they aren't quite ready for a centralized state authority to make that decision.