SB 586 would lower the bar for education funding, faces gubernatorial veto
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – House Democrats today opposed legislation that seeks to shortchange local public schools by drastically lowering the bar for what constitutes “full funding” of K-12 education under state law.
The Republican-controlled House voted 116-38 to grant final approval to Senate Bill 586, which had already cleared the upper chamber. The bill now goes Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, who has indicated he will veto it.
“Basically the bill is just lowering the target for educating our kids and putting less money into education,” said state Rep. Judy Morgan, D-Kansas City and a retired teacher. “Promises have been made to school districts about their amount of funding, but these promises have been broken to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
In 2005, majority Republicans rewrote the statutory formula for distributing state funding to local public school districts so that it would take substantially less additional money to claim “full funding” than was required under the old 1993 formula. In the last 11 years, majority Republicans have consistently failed public education by refusing to fully fund the 2005 formula.
Education funding has been neglected to the point that achieving full funding for the upcoming, 2017 fiscal year would require $509 million in additional state money. Under SB 586, full funding would require just $140 million in FY 2017 – a reduction of about 73 percent.
During debate, state Rep. David Wood, R-Versailles and the bill’s House sponsor, admitted that SB 586 wouldn’t fund public schools to the level “where they need to be.”
“Instead of cooking the books to create the illusion of full funding, the majority party should finally make public schools a priority and provide the resources needed to give Missouri students a top-quality education,” said House Minority Leader Jake Hummel, D-St. Louis.
