The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), one more once - 1st round of approval along party lines on TABOR.

AND ABOUT SCHOOL FUNDING – say, if the state is ‘breaking the law’ by “… no longer meeting the funding requirements of its own funding law”, why not put the House under ‘house arrest’ until they pass something that would bring us back within the law and properly fund our children’s learning opportunities?

Missouri NEA Legislative Update Week 3, No. 3, January 18, 2012
By Otto Fajen MNEA Legislative Director

TABOR

The House gave first round approval (Perfection vote) to HCS/HJR 43 (Eric Burlison) on January 18 by a nearly party-line vote of 100-53.  The HJR was debated for several hours and one amendment was adopted.  Rep. Chris Kelly, the only member of the minority caucus to support the measure, added a technical amendment concerning the language that postpones the effect of the measure until the state’s net general revenues once again exceed the FY 2008 amount of $8.0 billion, the highest annual figure.  Rep. Genice Montecillo offered an amendment to Kelly’s amendment to exempt from the prior-year constraint on spending any amount needed beyond current levels to fully fund the school formula. Both amendments were adopted prior to conclusion of debate.  A final approval vote (Third Reading vote) is expected on January 19.

HJR 43 is a constitutional spending limit similar to the Colorado provision known as “TABOR”, or the so-called “Taxpayer Bill of Rights,” in that it contains a prior-year constraint on the state’s spending.  Missouri NEA strongly opposes this unneeded restriction.  The HJR would impose a permanent, constitutional spending limit on state government and would limit annual growth in state appropriations to a cost of living adjustment factor plus a population growth factor.  The HCS version provides that the measure would terminate after five years unless reauthorized by the legislature.

SCHOOL FUNDING FORMULA

Both House and Senate committees heard school funding formula bills on January 18. The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee heard HB 1043 (Mike Thomson) and the Senate Education Committee heard SB 454 (David Pearce).  The two bills are very similar and address similar issues regarding how the formula will distribute funds to districts in the case where the formula is underfunded.

Our school foundation formula funding has now been flat for three years running, and the formula has been underfunded for each of those three years. The state is no longer meeting the funding requirements of its own funding law, and without any legislative guidance to specify how to proceed, DESE has uniformly reduced or prorated state payments to all districts by a uniform percentage.  In the 2012-13 school year and beyond, the sole impact of the shortage could fall on the most vulnerable, the so-called “formula” districts, depending on how the law is interpreted and how the funding is distributed.  This would be the worst possible distribution policy, harming the students most at risk and placing the legislature most at risk of violation of its constitutional obligation to fund schools adequately and equitably.

The bills would eliminate the language allowing the per pupil base amount to be lowered to meet appropriations and put a structure in place to prorate payments to ensure that the impact of underfunding is shared among all districts, rather than just falling on the most vulnerable.  SB 454 would reduce non-formula district payments by 50% of the proportion that formula payments are reduced, while HB 1043 would reduce non-formula district payments by one-third of the amount that formula district payments are reduced.

The bills also provide proration targets for appropriations beginning in fiscal year 2014 that increase and continue until fiscal year 2017. While any formula revision without additional funding will shift funding among districts, the Association supports both bills, as they seek to seek to limit the most radical and harmful funding shifts in the short term and to set the state on a long-term course to again fully fund the formula.

SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE EXECUTIVE SESSION

The Senate Education Committee also held an executive session and voted to approve three bills on January 18:

1) SB 450 (Scott Rupp) to specify that any St. Charles County school district that becomes an urban school district because of the 2010 federal decennial census will continue to have terms of three years for its school board members.  Without specific language to the contrary, the default school board term length for an urban school district is six years.  The bill applies to the Fort Zumwalt school district because it contains more than half of the population of O’Fallon, and that city now meets the urban district population criterion.

The bill was approved as a Consent Bill, meaning it will be placed on a special calendar and, unless removed by timely objection by a Senator, will not be subject to amendment when taken up for floor debate.  However, in recent years, bills placed on the Consent Calendar have consistently been removed by objection, so the bill may well end up on the regular Perfection Calendar.

2) SB 482 (Bill Stouffer) to increase the statutory award amount for Alzheimer’s disease research projects funded by the University of Missouri Board of Curators.

3) SB 455 (David Pearce) to revise the duties of the Coordinating Board for Higher Education, including creating standards for course transfers and awarding of associate’s degrees.