HOLD-HARMLESS FUNDING HURTS LOCAL DISTRICTS

When 1993's Outstanding Schools Act changed Missouri's funding formula for public schools, the goal was to make spending on students equitable around the state. Some districts with large tax bases or whopping taxes -- or both -- were able to spend lavishly on students under the previous formula. Now the state wanted to make sure any student in one area would have the same tax dollars spent on him as a student in another area.

This all sounds OK, if you don't account for the fact that voters in some districts were willing to spend more on their students. The state said districts could raise their local taxation if they wanted, but this would result in less state funding. Equalization was the byword.

As a result of the 1993 law, some districts were caught in a school-funding-formula bind: They would be receiving less money from the state because of local conditions such as tax rates, assessed valuations and participation or lack of participation in certain programs. This squeeze caught the Cape Girardeau School District in 1994-95 school year.

But the 1993 law, again trying to be everything to everyone, said that districts caught in the state-funding bind would be held harmless. In effect, the state said no district would receive less state funding than the amount handed out when the Outstanding Schools Act went into effect. This sounded like a good safety net to some districts that were pleased they wouldn't be losing state funding on a per-pupil basis.

But the hold-harmless provision worked the other way too. While hold-harmless districts, because of circumstances, were protected from receiving less per-pupil funding, they also were prevented from receiving any increases in state funding. As school expenses rose each year, hold-harmless districts were forced to find more local funding to keep up. Or they could do without, because state funding was frozen at 1992-93 levels.

There are ways to get off the hold-harmless list. The Nell Holcomb School District north of Cape Girardeau did it by doing certain things that are rewarded by the 1993 law. But Cape Girardeau, which receives the least state funding of any hold-harmless district in this area, is still getting the same amount of state funding as it received five years ago. Meanwhile, the cost of operating the district has creeped higher.

Don't confuse the Cape Girardeau's district's spending on operations with recent spending on new buildings and renovations. A bond issue is paying for the improvements, while local taxes and state funding are paying for salaries, textbooks, utilities and all the other things required to run a school.

While the new funding formula and its hold-harmless provision may have had good intentions, the fact is that some districts are suffering inequitably. An interim House committee is looking into this situation, and it can only be hoped that common sense and logic will prevail.