Over half of Missouri’s school districts harmed
by error in new school funding formula

The Missouri National Education Association has discovered a significant but little known provision in the new school funding formula bill recently passed by the Missouri legislature and now awaiting Gov. Matt Blunt's signature. The provision will shift $20 million per year in Proposition C funding among districts in ways that were not disclosed to legislators voting on the bill.

“The effect of this change is much like the effect of the entire bill: creating more winners and losers, rather than providing the adequate and equitable funding all students need,” says Greg Jung, president of MNEA.

The Proposition C provision will increase funds for some districts, including the St. Louis City and Kansas City School Districts. However, the change will hurt 290 of Missouri’s 524 school districts. For school year 2006-07, the first year the new formula will be effective, it will result in 24 districts receiving less money than they did the year before, even if the new formula is fully funded. Those districts being cut are located throughout the state, ranging from Green Ridge, a small district in Pettis County, to Parkway C-2, a large district in St. Louis County.

In November 1982, Missouri voters approved Proposition C, an initiative petition establishing a one-cent sales tax for local schools. Currently, this money is distributed based upon the pupil attendance count used to determine state formula aid. When the new formula takes effect in school year 2006-07, these sales tax funds will be distributed using a new weighted pupil count method. This count gives added weight to some school districts educating students with certain characteristics, such as poverty or disability.

The effects of this new distribution were not debated in the legislature, nor did the bill's sponsors include this redistribution in any simulation provided to explain the bill's impact.

“While we believe this is an unintended consequence of haste, it is symptomatic of the problems seen all session long as political pressure to pass a bill took priority over the complex challenge of crafting a formula that meets the needs of all Missouri children,” adds Jung, a teacher in the Ritenour School District in St. Louis County. “This redistribution of Proposition C funds significantly changes the overall effect of the new formula and must be addressed.

“The governor and bill sponsors assured legislators that no district would lose funds under the new formula. We now see that this promise is not being kept. The legislature needs to fix this problem. If it fails to do so, the courts will hold it accountable, just as students and teachers are held accountable every day,” says the MNEA president.

The 32,000-member MNEA represents teachers and other school employees, students studying to be teachers and those retired from education, in school districts and on college campuses across the state. It is the Missouri affiliate of the 2.7 million-member National Education Association.

Note to Editors: The 24 districts that will receive less foundation formula funding for school year 2006-07 than the year before due to the previously undisclosed Proposition C redistribution, together with the amount of the reduction: Tarkio R-I ($3,066), Salisbury R-IV ($22,531), Trenton R-IX ($13,203), Monroe City R-I ($5,085), Maryville R-II ($57,911), Camdenton R-III ($44,380), School of the Osage R-II ($26,007), Ladue ($106,524), Brookfield R-III ($40,347), Green Ridge R-VIII ($9,338), Kirkwood R-VII ($93,838), Lindbergh R-VIII ($105,664), South Callaway County R-II ($9,226), Parkway C-2 ($251,636), Carrollton R-VII ($17,605), Clayton ($15,190), Pattonville R-III ($61,853), Shelby Co. R-IV ($3,758), Brentwood ($3,859), Webster Groves ($34,788), Princeton R-V ($3,525), Boone Co. R-IV ($9,955), Van-Far R-I ($3,008), East Buchanan Co. C-1 ($1,595).

For further information:
Carol K. Schmoock
573-634-3202

May 27, 2005