School Board pursues additional financial support from state

Missouri legislators representing the Columbia area met for the fourth year in a row with city school district officials to discuss 11 of the district’s top priorities. Priority No. 1: getting more money.

The Columbia School Board and administrators asked the legislators to use a funding plan that would give the district more money than the state currently plans to provide. The board wants the state to kick in additional money so the district does not continue to deplete its reserve funds.

Judy Baker, a Democrat from Columbia’s 25th district, asked if the district plans to propose any ballot initiatives to the community to raise more money.

“At some point, we would probably have to do that,” Superintendent Phyllis Chase said of proposing bond referendums on future ballots.

But she said the state funding formula still needs to change because the district is projected to lose at least $7 million over the next seven years under current funding formulas.

For the 2006-07 school year, 62.4 percent of the district’s budget will come from local funding, with 29.4 percent coming from the state and 7.8 percent from the federal government, according to the school board.

Whether the legislators will lobby the state for more money on the district’s behalf remains to be seen.

“They generally appeared to be receptive to our explanation of the situation, but there weren’t any definite answers,” board member Chuck Headley said. “We’ll have to see the results when their legislative plans are drawn up.”

If the state used the fully funded plan last year, the district would have received $57,408,000 from the state instead of $44,248,920. Figures for this year were not available at the meeting.

The board said the fully funded formula would guarantee all districts sufficient resources to meet state accreditation standards and the federal No Child Left Behind Act guidelines.

Another priority discussed was supporting funding for special education as originally promised in 1976 federal legislation to cover 40 percent of costs. For the 2005-06 school year, the Columbia School District received 18.3 percent of federal funding for special education, and it is budgeted to be the same amount this year.

“There is more spent on instructional special education as there is for the instructional high school budget, so it is quite a sizeable expenditure,” Headley said.

This year the district will spend $18.9 million on special education instruction and $13.9 million on high school instruction, according to the district’s 2006-07 budget.

Other priorities included resuming the state’s funding of Advanced Placement tests for students who score “proficient” or “advanced” on the Missouri Assessment Program test and supporting the district’s accountability for No Child Left Behind by using a “growth model” measuring students’ progress, which would exempt the district from the No Child Left Behind testing standards. Ten other states have been granted exceptions from the standards through the growth models, Chase said.

District representatives also voiced their opposition to any legislation authorizing tuition tax credits or vouchers for private schools.