CAPE SCHOOLS WON'T GET NEW STATE FUNDS UNTIL AT LEAST 1998

Cape Girardeau public schools will get no new state money for next school year, and the school system predicts it won't get new state money through at least 1998.

It could be worse. Without a provision in the school funding law called "hold harmless," the school district would be losing state money per pupil every year.

Superintendent Neyland Clark said the trouble is neighboring districts are getting big increases in state money while Cape Girardeau remains stagnant.

The Outstanding Schools Act of 1993, also known as Senate Bill 380, changed how the state distributes its tax dollars to school districts. The new calculation is based on the number of students in a school district and the school's tax rate.

In general, school districts with growing enrollment and whose tax rates have increased since the law was passed, are winners in the equation.

Cape Girardeau's enrollment dropped by 114 students this year, and the district's tax rate hasn't increased.

The Jackson school district, on the other hand, expects to gain almost $800,000 in state money next year. The district's enrollment grew by about 100 students last year, and Jackson voters had approved a 12-cent tax increase by approving a partial waiver of the Proposition C property tax rollback in 1993.

Cape Girardeau voters turned down a waiver of the Proposition C tax rollback last June. The increase wouldn't have been enough to offset the hold harmless clause, but Clark said the additional local money would have helped Cape Girardeau keep pace with neighboring schools.

Cape Girardeau does get to keep local property growth, district business manager Larry Dew said. The district has had growth in assessed valuation of about $10 million, giving the school an additional $300,000.

However, the district is losing $611,000 from state assessed utility taxes. Prior to Senate Bill 380, taxes paid by utility companies were considered local tax dollars and stayed in local communities.

Since the law, utility taxes become state money to be distributed through the funding formula.

Because the district won't get additional money from the state formula, it loses those funds. The $611,000 is what a 22-cent tax increase would generate in a year.

"We're called hold harmless, but we've been harmed," Clark said.

Dew said he and newly hired business manager Steve DelVecchio will meet with school officials from other districts in the same category this week to plot a course of action.

"We will work through the legislative process first," Dew said. "If that doesn't work, we will go through the legal system."

The law's hold harmless clause was added so no school district would be harmed by the funding change. The law says no school district will receive less state money per pupil than it received in 1992-93. For Cape Girardeau, that means the school district will always get at least $739 per pupil.

If the hold harmless provision weren't in the law, Cape Girardeau's payment per pupil would drop. When calculating the formula, Cape Girardeau would be getting just $644 per pupil from the state next year without the provision.

Statewide, 81 of 530 school districts are in the hold harmless category. In Southeast Missouri, there are nine of 62 districts.

Dew said districts held harmless are those with local wealth like Cape Girardeau and Nell Holcomb and poor school districts like Bell City or Cooter that were receiving top state funding prior to the change in the law.

AT A GLANCE

Anticipated new state money for 1995-96

Cape Girardeau, $0

Jackson, $794,826

Sikeston, $1,126,690

Poplar Bluff, $1,323,183

Scott City, $110,713

Hold Harmless schools in Southeast Missouri for 1995-96

Cape Girardeau

Nell Holcomb

Bell City

South Iron

New Madrid Co. R-1

Cooter R-IV

Pemiscot R-III

Centerville

Lesterville