PACT GIVES KC SCHOOLS CHOICES

Copyright 1995 Southeast Missourian

Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring state payments for teacher salaries in Kansas City, an attorney for the district said Friday that part of Missouri's $110 million in fiscal 1996 desegregation funds would likely be spent on teacher salaries.

Bill Dittmeier said an agreement between the Kansas City district and the state that reduced the state's desegregation payments to $110 million from the budgeted amount of $190 million in the fiscal year that began July 1 has been approved by U.S. District Judge Russell Clark.

"The one-year agreement doesn't specify what the money can go for," Dittmeier said. "It gives us maximum flexibility in our operating and desegregation budgets."

The lawyer said some of the money might be spent on teacher salaries.

He said the Supreme Court barred the district from applying state money earmarked for teacher salaries toward the desegregation plan. Money not specifically earmarked, like the agreement for $110 million, could be used for any of the district's expenditures, including teacher salaries.

As for the payment June 30 of $5.4 million approved by Gov. Mel Carnahan and earmarked for teacher salaries, Dittmeier said he felt the school was owed that money because of the prior agreement between the state and the district.

The June 30 payment was made hours before the state received the official mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court barring the payment. Officials with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the governor's office and the attorney general's office said they didn't know the mandate was being issued that soon.

Chris Sifford, chief spokesman for the governor, said Friday that the latest agreement reached between the state and the school district will save at least $80 million. "And it's up to them to make their budget decisions," he said.

Sifford wouldn't go as far as to say that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision was moot, but he said the school district might be able to apply state money to teacher salaries. "That's their decision," he said.

At least one Republican leader is calling the June 30 payments inappropriate and feels the latest agreement was another attempt to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling.

"There was a court order and they snuck around it to pay millions of dollars to where it shouldn't go," Sen. Franc Flotron, R-St. Louis, said. "Now they've got their own bureaucrats doing the things that they blamed federal judges for in the past."

Flotron called the June 30 payment and the latest agreement a violation of the public trust. He said the actions run "counter to the will of the people of the state."

Flotron and Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, went so far as to say the state should demand the return of the $5.4 million check for teacher salaries.

"There is no reason for this money to have been sent after the Supreme Court's ruling," Kinder said. "We might have to make this an issue for the courts to decide."

But Sifford said the $5.4. million improved the negotiating atmosphere between the state and district officials. He said state officials have saved Missouri's taxpayers money and would continue to make progress in negotiations with Kansas City's public school district.

"We're making significant progress to get those payments down to zero," Sifford said.

Carnahan told The Associated Press Friday that the money covered salaries for Kansas City teachers during the just-ended school year.

Carnahan, a Democrat, said it wouldn't have been responsible for the state to cut off money owed for services already rendered "just to gain some political posturing."

"At the time the payment was made, we were still under the previous court order," the governor, who is a lawyer, said in a telephone interview.

"It would have been a show of bad faith to not make the payments, and the negotiations would have been disrupted. We once again would have been in court," he said.

Negotiations are scheduled to end Sept. 1.