Mo. school funding fight costs taxpayers $4.6 million

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A court fight over whether Missouri spends enough money on public schools has cost taxpayers more than $4.6 million, and that tab is likely to keep growing.

The taxpayers could be viewed either as winners or losers in this case. Tax dollars have paid for both the successful defense of the current system and the so far unsuccessful challenge of it by about half of the state's 524 school districts.

Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan in late August rejected most of the suing school districts' claims that Missouri is spending too little on schools and distributing that money unfairly.

He is expected to dispense with the lone lingering issue soon. That will clear the way for schools to appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court, where the costs would continue to mount.

Schools already have spent more than $3.2 million on attorneys fees, expert witnesses, research studies, depositions, document copies, conference calls and other items, according to figures provided to The Associated Press by several groups involved in the lawsuit. Schools are funded with state, local and federal taxes.

The state, meanwhile, has paid more than $1.4 million to an Atlanta-based law firm with expertise in school funding issues to help defend against the lawsuit, the attorney general's office said Tuesday. That money also comes from the taxpayers, and it does not include additional work by the attorney general's own staff.

The defense of Missouri's school funding system also has been aided by about $700,000 in private attorney expenses by retired investment banker Rex Sinquefield, who intervened in the lawsuit along with two other taxpayers. That brings the total cost of the lawsuit to more than $5.3 million.

Sinquefield's attorney, Joshua Schindler, recently sent open-records requests to all of the school districts in the lawsuit seeking an accounting of how much money they spent. Representatives of the schools shared those figures with the AP.

Sinquefield said Tuesday that the point of the Sunshine Law request was to encourage local residents -- after seeing the costs -- to pressure their school boards to pull out of the lawsuit without appealing.

"Our victory was total, it was overwhelming," Sinquefield said."They have a right [to appeal], but you wonder where's the economic justification, given the nature of Judge Callahan's decision."

Leaders from the suing school districts defended the costs as a tiny portion of their total school budgets and a worthwhile expense for the chance to gain additional state money. They said an appeal remains likely.