SCOTT CITY SCHOOLS LOOK TO MAKE CUTS

SCOTT CITY -- Serious budget reductions at Scott City schools likely will worsen next year, enough that administrators say sports and academic programs will be the next to go.

This year the district left six teaching positions unfilled to make up for a drop of almost $150,000 in state funding.

In order to keep the district above water next year, Superintendent Robert Brison said, "Programs will be next.

"We were able to offset the costs by cutting back on those positions," Brison said. "But we just won't be able to continue to do that. We're looking at a long winter and a late spring."

The picture was made even more bleak by last week's overwhelming failure of Proposition B, Brison said. But he said the proposition was merely a "last hope" for educators looking for a way to bring their districts out of financial distress.

"It was not a good piece of legislation," he said, "but educators were forced to support it because it was our only hope" for increased state funding for schools.

He said the fact that Proposition B heavily supported higher education likely made it less popular with voters. But it was the proposition itself that caused its demise, not the fact that it included funding for higher education, said Brison.

Brison said he and other educators are looking toward a statewide coalition that has decided to pursue a constitutional amendment that would guarantee public schools a minimum of one-third of the state's general revenue. Public schools now receive about 26 percent of the state's general revenue.

The proposal would not mean a tax increase.

The Coalition for Our Children's Future, the group pursuing the amendment, is endorsed by the Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals, Missouri Association of School Administrators, Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals, Missouri National Education Association, Missouri School Board Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association.

Proponents hope the amendment will be on the November 1992 ballot.

The amendment would mean taking money away from various and yet unspecified state agencies and using it to support elementary and secondary education.

Brison said it is hoped the defeat of Proposition B will mean renewed interest in the coalition and the amendment. Efforts to promote the amendment began in late 1990. The group is currently working on gathering signatures in support of the measure.

Brison said the current level of state funding is misleading. He said the large amount of money being spent on desegregation in Missouri's two largest school districts at St. Louis and Kansas City is unfair to the other districts.

"Legislators like to pretend that they're doing more for education now than they really are by including this desegregation money," Brison said. "But they are really taking money away from education."

Brison said for now, Scott City schools will cut back on supplies and classroom materials and on bus trips for students.

Unless the financial picture brightens, it will be difficult to maintain programs even marginally, he said.

The bottom line is simple, he said. "For the life of me, I can't believe (the state legislature) is going to allow schools to suffer much longer. I can't believe they would let education be damaged this way."