SUIT CHALLENGES ASHCROFT CUTS

A coalition of teachers and four Missouri school districts, including Sikeston, have filed a lawsuit challenging Gov. John Ashcroft's planned cuts in public school spending.

The 32,000-member Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA), along with Sikeston, Doniphan, Monett and Trenton school districts, filed the lawsuit Friday in Cole County Circuit Court.

The suit seeks to block Ashcroft from cutting $34.5 million in payments to state school districts as part of $71.4 million in state budget cuts designed to pay federal court-ordered school desegregation costs in Kansas City.

"It's more than a question of bankrupt school districts and insufficient funds to adequately educate this state's children," MSTA president Betty Beal said.

"There is a legal question here: Does the governor have the right to reduce appropriations for education? We contend that the state constitution specifically forbids this," she said.

The MSTA suit follows a similar suit filed Wednesday by the 23,000-member Missouri National Education Association.

In June, Ashcroft withheld more than $200 million from the state budget, including $40 million from elementary and secondary education, because state revenues did not meet budget projections.

The latest round of budget cuts comes at a time when many school districts are facing financial problems. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education estimates that from 15 to 50 school districts may be forced into bankruptcy before the end of the current school year.

"The crisis is now," said Kent King, executive director of the MSTA, headquartered in Columbia. "I don't think the public's aware that things are this bad."

Said King, "Educators have gotten a bad rap, because they have said, `We've got a problem coming, we've got a problem coming.'"

While some schools are in better shape than others, King said Monday that funding cuts have hurt all school districts.

"If you cut off the oxygen supply slowly to a large man over a period of time, eventually that will bring the man to his knees," he said.

Ashcroft's spokesman, Bob Ferguson, has defended the actions of his boss.

"The constitution requires the governor to balance the budget and he's done that," Ferguson said last week.

"The governor has, in the past, spared education from budget reductions as much as possible. But now he must take whatever actions are necessary to let us live within our means," said Ferguson.

But King argued that the state constitution doesn't allow the governor to withhold money from education because of a mandate by a federal judge.

"This has nothing to do with revenue projections," said King. "This is a court order out of Kansas City."

U.S. District Judge Russell Clark has ordered Missouri to pay for building projects designed to help desegregate Kansas City schools.

The Sikeston public schools stand to lose $605,000 in state aid this year as a result of the June budget cuts and the latest planned cuts, said Sikeston Superintendent Robert Buchanan.

He said the school system will make up for the funding decline by drawing down its funding reserves. By the end of the fiscal year, the teachers' fund balance will be at zero, while the general fund will have a balance of about $500,000, he said.

"You have no way of returning that money (making up for cuts) unless you have sufficient balances or a tax increase," said Buchanan, whose district in the past has depended on state aid to fund about 45 percent of its budget.

If the funding situation doesn't improve by next fiscal year, he said, the Sikeston district will have to consider reducing programs and personnel. That, he said, will mean larger class sizes and reductions in the purchase of new equipment and textbooks.

Instead of 5-year-old textbooks, students may be using 6-, 7- and 8-year-old books in the future, said Buchanan. Schools won't be able to purchase new computers and the repair of buildings may be postponed, he said.

"Many of those things will be occurring unless something changes," Buchanan said. "Without Proposition B (the tax-and-reform measure for education), we're looking at some hard, hard times."

King said it's the students who are ultimately affected by the cuts in school funding.

"It isn't about a salary increase, it's about keeping the schools open," said King. "This issue is basically can some schools stay open."

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.