Senate pulls marathon debate on education funding

By Marc Powers

Nevada Daily Mail

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- When lawmakers began tackling the thorny issue of overhauling Missouri's system for distributing public funds earlier this year, Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons feared the effort inevitably would deteriorate into the legislative equivalent of a food fight. To his pleasant surprise that hasn't happened.

As the Senate debated legislation on Tuesday to rewrite the states education funding formula, however, civil differences of opinion emerged on how to best provide for Missouri's students and ensure funding equity for all school districts.

After about nine hours of discussion that ended minutes before midnight, the Senate gave the bill preliminary approval on a voice vote. A second vote is needed to send the measure to the House of Representatives.

The current formula, which resulted from the 1993 Outstanding School Act, is driven by local property tax levies. To account for massive statewide disparities in local property values, the formula aims to assure that districts with the same levy receive the same amount of funding from combined state and local sources per penny of tax. In general, the formula rewards districts for setting higher local levies.

"I would argue that formula is not based on the characteristics of students in a district but the characteristics of taxpayers in a district," said Senate Majority Floor Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, and the bill's sponsor.

The proposed formula aims to allocate funds based on what it takes to adequately educate students in a given district. To reach full-funding would require the state to pump an additional $687 million into the system. The new money would be phased in over five years.

To achieve the bill's goals, its drafters essentially established as a funding base the average of per-pupil spending by the 111 districts that earned perfect scores on their last state performance evaluations. The new formula would allocate extra money to districts with high numbers of low-income, disabled and non-native English speaking students --groups that are more expensive to educate.

The bill would establish a minimum funding level of $6,117 per student, although many districts would still spend more when local revenues are taken into account. Under the current formula, per-pupil spending ranges from a low of $4,771 to a high of $13,379. There is nearly uniform agreement that the existing formula is unconstitutional because of inequities in the system.

All but 41 of the state's 524 public school districts would receive additional state aid under the bill compared to what they are getting this year. None would lose any money.

However, a competing analysis shows that by plugging the same amount of additional money the bill calls for into the existing formula, many school districts, particularly those with higher tax levies, would get more state funding than under the new formula. State Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee's Summit, said comparing how districts would fare under the two formulas provides a more accurate view of the bill's impact.

"The net effect is we are moving money from higher-levy districts to lower-levy districts," Bartle said.

Shields said that analysis is based on flawed assumptions that don't take into account changes in tax assessments.

One new feature of the bill not present in current law would give extra money to districts in counties where wages exceed the statewide average. The primary beneficiaries of that provision are in urban and suburban areas.

The bill establishes a dollar value modifier based on wages in a given county that can increase how much a district receives. A factor of 1.0 is set as the floor to ensure that districts won't lose money.

Originally, the bill would have capped the modifier at 1.10. However, Gibbons, R-Kirkwood, successfully attached an amendment removing the cap, which he said was more fair to districts in high-cost regions. The amendment wouldn't shift money from other districts but adds $18 million to the bills price tag.

Another key amendment would funnel more money to very small rural districts. Of the 41 districts that would receive no funding increase from the new formula, all but one have enrollments of fewer than 200 students.

Shields attempted to provide some relief by setting aside $5 million for grants to districts with 500 or fewer students. An amendment by state Sen. David Klindt, R-Bethany, doubled that amount.

While acknowledging that some geographically isolated districts are small by necessity, state Sen. Tim Green, D-St. Louis, noted that others easily could merge with nearby districts and ought to be urged to do so.

"We can't keep subsidizing these small schools without talking about consolidation," Green said. "It's inevitable. There's not enough money to go around."

The bill is SB 287.