Missouri School Boards Association president says boards 'under attack'

With bills passed or pending in the Missouri Legislature on taxes and vouchers, Missouri School Boards Association president Phil Hutchinson said it was not overstating things to say that public education and local school boards are "under attack like never before."

Hutchinson, a Grain Valley School Board member, spoke Thursday night at the Region 13 MSBA spring meeting in at the Career and Technology Center in Cape Girardeau. About 35 officials from districts around the Cape Girardeau region attended. Region 13 includes Iron, Madison, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, Bollinger and Cape Girardeau counties.

"Well-funded and well-organized critics are actively undermining public schools and are seeking to diminish, and even eliminate, local school board governance," Hutchinson said. "Just this spring, we saw an example of this when a group called the Missouri Club for Growth, financed in part by billionaire Rex Sinquefield, spent thousands of dollars to defeat a local bond issue in Nixa," he said.

"Unfortunately, outside groups such as this may be coming to your community in the future when you have important school issues on the ballot," he said.

Hutchinson said the legislature has continued to reduce revenue to fund public schools and other essential services. He said lawmakers seem to think they are the "super school board" and that they know what's best for "our students and our communities."

Earlier Thursday, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed Senate Bill 509, a tax-cut bill that Hutchinson said would reduce state funding by $620 million to $800 million when fully implemented, a move the MSBA head said would jeopardize the state's ability to fund its foundation formula and other education programs for "many years to come."

Voted into law in 2005, the foundation formula for funding schools was enacted in 2006-2007 to provide equity and adequacy to all Missouri schools. But it has not been fully funded.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the law would gradually reduce the state's top individual income-tax rate -- currently charged on all income over $9,000 -- from 6 percent to 5.5 percent. It also would phase in a new 25 percent deduction for business income reported on personal tax returns, the AP reported. The tax cuts would begin in 2017, but only if annual state revenue keeps rising by at least $150 million over its high mark from the previous three years, the AP reported.

Hutchinson said the impending House vote to override the veto of SB 509 would be "very close." He thanked school officials and board members attending the 6:30 p.m. meeting here for the contacts they had made with legislators on the issue.

Another concern, Hutchinson said, is Senate Bill 493, which was originally designed to deal with state intervention in unaccredited school districts and student transfers. He said it has now become a voucher bill.

The version of that bill that was passed in the House Wednesday "contains a greatly improved version" of the voucher provision, but "it still represents a potential public subsidy of private schools and MSBA remains strongly against the bill," Hutchinson said.

"For voucher supporters, this could be the beginning of attempting to implement a much broader voucher plan for the state. It now will be up to the House and the Senate to work out their differences before sending the bill to the governor's desk," Hutchinson said.

He urged those attending to contact their legislators and urge them to vote "no" on SB 493 as it stands now.

"It is up to us to ensure that our public schools, our community schools, remain fundamental to our democracy and give every child the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential," Hutchinson said. "We must leverage the power we have as locally elected school board members to preserve the promise of public education for this generation of students and for the generations to come.

"It is more important than ever that our association has the structure and mechanisms in place so that we can be effective advocates for public school districts and for public ed in general," he added.

In other business, officials were introduced to Alex Stark, a senior from Arcadia Valley High School in Ironton, Missouri, who won the MSBA's John T. Belcher scholarship.

Stark now has a chance to win the national version of the scholarship, officials said.

"Thank you very much for the privilege of this scholarship," the Stark said, adding that the $750 will come in handy for his studies at the University of Missouri.

Stark said he plans to become a pediatrician.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

1080 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, MO