JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KY3) – As the Missouri legislature works through the state budget, one challenge they have to work through is funding education.
The governor’s proposed budget does not include fully-funding public education. Gov. Mike Kehoe issued an executive order to rewrite the K through 12 education foundation formula, after proposing a budget that falls $300 million short of fully funding it.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are looking over budget requests right now. They will hold public hearings over the next couple of months where people for and against can speak. The budget has to be finalized on May 9.
About 30 miles west of Jefferson City, SuperintendentTerry Robinson, PhD, oversees the Tipton R-6 School district. But in a small town like Tipton — the public schools rely on state funding to serve the town. Something they may be getting less of if the legislature sticks to the governor’s proposed budget.
“We’re going to have to raise local taxes if the state is unwilling to fully fund the foundation formula,” Robinson said.
Kehoe and Republican leadership say public schools are not performing, they’re proposing rewriting the formula to make it more merit-based.
“We really do need to address it. It’s 20 years old. Funding schools in the future, we need to modernize that,” said Republican House Speaker Rep. Jon Patterson.
Matt Michelson with the Missouri State Teachers Association explains to me that the foundation formula is what schools use to fill in gaps for teacher pay, transportation and other student needs.
“To underfund that is essentially not fulfilling the promise that past legislatures made, and I think it puts the legislature in a position where they can possibly not fund it in the future,” Michelson said.
The state is predicting a 0.6% decrease in revenue this fiscal year; that comes as one-time federal funds from the pandemic are no longer in the mix. The non-partisan research group Missouri Budget Project also attributes falling revenue to income tax cuts put into place a few years ago.
Kehoe’s proposed budget is about $53.7 billion dollars, which is about $500 million more than last year’s budget. Kehoe left $1.5 billion unspent in his budget plan.
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