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Top Missouri House Democrat contends governor’s budget restrictions will impact K-12 classrooms

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Representative Gail McCann Beatty (D-Kansas City)

Governor Greitens (R) says Missouri’s budget is being drained by special interest tax credits and the faster-than-projected growth in healthcare spending, partially from Obamacare. Greitens is withholding more than $146 million in the current state budget.

“I’m protecting our priorities, like K-12 education and public safety. For instance, not a single penny will be coming out of K-12 classrooms,” says Greitens. “The fact is, more hard choices lie ahead. But as Missourians, I believe we must come together, tighten our belts, be smart and wise with our tax dollars, and work our way out of this hole by bringing more jobs with higher pay to the people of Missouri

House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty (D-Kansas City) doesn’t agree with Greitens restricting $8.6 million in elementary and secondary education busing expenses. She says the move will have far-reaching effects.

“Our districts where we have seen some improvement, and if dollars are going to have to be diverted to make up that shortfall, that could hamper our districts continuing on the course of improvement,” says Beatty. “If they’ve got to cut from transportation, that money has got to be made up somewhere because we have to the kids to school. So, it’s going to ultimately have to impact the classrooms.”

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (Photo courtesy of Bill Greenblatt/UPI)

Other budget withholdings from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education include $2 million in performance-based assessments, $181,000 for scholars and fine arts academies, $50,000 for training grants and $44,500 for a new dyslexia training program.

Beatty argues that $90 million of the governor’s $146 million in budget restrictions are in education spending – mostly higher education.

“Weakening public education won’t grow Missouri’s economy or create jobs,” says Beatty.

Beatty agrees with Greitens that Missouri has given too many special interests tax breaks. As a result, she says vital services have been cut.

Gov. Nixon withholds more education spending, cites lottery and gaming revenue shortfalls

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Governor Jay Nixon (D) says he will freeze another $35.1-million in education spending due to a continuing decline in revenue from lottery and gaming. Nixon says he will restrict the spending of $10.5-million for four-year higher education institutions and $24.6-million from the K-12 education funding formula.

Lottery and gaming revenue are directed to education by Missouri law.

This latest action is in addition to $22-million he restricted in higher education and K-12 spending in April. Nixon had asked the legislature to provide $44-million in a mid-fiscal-year supplemental budget to make up for lottery and gaming revenue falling short. Legislative budget makers thought $22-million was enough and provided that amount instead. Nixon then withheld $15.6-million from K-12 schools and $3.2-million each from community colleges and four-year universities.

Nixon says he remains concerned that the legislature didn’t account for lottery and gaming revenue trending lower in its fiscal year 2015 budget, sent to the governor less than two weeks ago.

Read the statement from Gov. Nixon’s office

Gov. Nixon wants ‘private option’ out of transfer bill, House sponsor says won’t pass Senate without it (VIDEO)

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Governor Jay Nixon (D) has called on House and Senate lawmakers who have worked on a proposed fix to Missouri’s transfer law to remove language that would let local tax dollars pay for students to transfer to private schools.

The legislative conference committee updated the so-called “private option” so that after three years of a school district being unaccredited, private schools would become one of the places its students could transfer, though a public vote could result in that happening earlier.

Nixon says keeping public funds in public schools is a core state belief and is written into Missouri’s Constitution.

He says the legislature’s current proposal, “would destabilize the strong foundation on which public education has stood for generations and open the floodgates to even more radical voucher schemes down the road.”


The House sponsor of transfer legislation, Representative Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood), says he doesn’t think a bill will pass the Senate if it lacks the private school language.

He disagrees with Nixon’s assessment that the Missouri Constitution bars the use of public money in private schools.

“The Constitution says we cannot spend public dollars on religious institutions … religious schools,” says Stream. “I don’t believe that the Constitution says we cannot spend public dollars on private companies or private schools that are nonsectarian. We do that already in the budget. About a third of our budget is public money going to private providers.”

Stream says Nixon has failed to lead on the transfer issue.

“Since this problem started back in June with the last Supreme Court decision the governor has pretty much been out of the picture. He hasn’t offered any solutions, given any advice other than to say once the Senate passed overwhelmingly a bill that had the private option in it that he was going to veto it,” says Stream. “I think the students, the children of those two school districts deserve a little bit more than that from the Governor.”

The House-Senate committee’s proposed law is still being published ahead of being taken up by both chambers to consider passing it to Nixon. They have until Friday evening, the end of the regular session, to pass it.

House Budget Committee approves two-tiered budget plan

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The state House Budget Committee has voted to send to the full chamber its proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The plan keeps Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream’s (R-Kirkwood) plan to create a new surplus revenue fund and put in it all revenue that comes in above the legislature’s estimate of revenue for the new year. Money in that fund could go to projects and programs that Governor Jay Nixon (D) proposed funding for that legislative budget makers don’t project there will be enough revenue to support.

The committee didn’t change Stream’s proposals for K-12 education funding. He suggests a $278-million dollar increase, with $122-million of that coming from General Revenue and the remaining $156-million coming from that surplus revenue fund.

The committee did adopt amendments that would raise the proposed increase in performance funding for two-year and four-year institutions from 2-percent to 3-percent.

The budget bills must go through the House Rules Committee before they would be available for floor debate, which is expected to take place the week after next week’s legislative spring break.

Governor, lawmakers disagree on emergency $44-mil for K-12 education

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Governor Jay Nixon (D) has issued a letter to members of the House Budget Committee regarding its vote to take $44.1-million in general revenue for K-12 funding out of the Fiscal Year 2014 supplemental budget.

Nixon says the budget for the current fiscal year overestimated the revenue available from riverboat gambling, lottery and other revenue that goes to the school foundation formula. That is why he requested $44.1-million in the supplemental budget to make up for the shortfall.

Nixon says the committee’s vote will leave schools short in the current fiscal year.

“Cutting $44.1 million from this year’s budget will leave our local schools with less money than was promised to them for the current school year,” Nixon writes to House Budget Committee members. “When this measure comes to the floor, I urge you to restore this $44.1 million to ensure that our schools receive the resources upon which their budgets are based and upon which they are depending.”

See Governor Nixon’s Letter to House Budget Committee Members

House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream (R-Kirkwood) says the projection that those revenues are going to come up short is just an estimate, and gaming officials have told his committee that the projections used to craft the Fiscal Year 2014 budget will be met.

Stream says the Governor is taking money out of the Fiscal Year 2015 budget where the legislature would normally put it, and putting it into the supplemental budget for 2014.

“I think our method is the right way to do it,” says Stream. “We’re basing our decisions on facts, not just estimates.”

Representative Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) is a member of the House Budget Committee and has responded to Nixon’s letter.

Kelly tells Nixon, “I am surprised that we are even discussing a supplemental bill because last year, for the third year in a row, your office told us that we would not need a supplemental budget for 2014. We asked specifically if you were sure of that and we were given assurances from your office no supplemental would be needed.”

See Representative Kelly’s letter to Governor Nixon

Kelly notes the budget committee last year based its appropriation of riverboat gaming proceeds on an estimate from the Nixon administration, and he concurs with Stream that the administration for riverboat gaming and lottery still says that estimate will be met.

Kelly says Nixon’s office was, “incorrect regarding its assertion regarding the need for a supplemental budget and was incorrect with regard to its estimate of available money. Given these facts,” Kelly continues, “I suggest that it is more reasonable for you to engage in rational conversation with House Budget Committee members instead of throwing incendiary press bombs from 10,000 feet.”

Kelly says he believes members of the Budget Committee would like to talk to the Governor and his staff about how to work out differences.

House Committee recommends $100-million increase for K-12 education

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The House Appropriations Committee on Education has proposed less than half of the $278-million for the foundation formula for K-12 education that Governor Jay Nixon (D) recommended in his budget proposal.

Representative Mike Lair (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Mike Lair (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The Chairman of that Committee, Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe), says the reason is simple.

“Because the Governor’s $278-million was smoke and mirrors. It didn’t exist,” says Lair.

Nixon’s budget proposal was based on a budget estimate that is higher than that agreed to by House and Senate budget leaders, and based on that higher estimate Nixon budgeted the $278-million figure as part of an overall proposed $489-million increase for education overall.

Lair says after being a teacher for 40 years, he is willing to put in the budget for K-12 education what he thinks is available and would include more if he could.

“I just can’t in good conscience spend money I don’t have,” says Lair.

What he thinks is available is $100-million, which is what the committee has included in its recommendation.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Lair says of that amount of an increase.

The committee also recommends $43-million dollars for a 5-percent performance-based increase for 2-year and 4-year higher education institutions. Governor Nixon had proposed $42-million for performance-based increases of 5-percent for 4-year colleges and 4-percent for 2-year colleges.

The budget bills the committee has advanced are HB 2002 and HB 2003.

Bryce’s Law, meant to help get treatment for autistic children, sent to the Governor (AUDIO)

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Legislation meant to help the families of children with autism and other disorders has reached the Governor’s desk, in the eighth year it has been offered.

Representative Dwight Scharnhorst (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Dwight Scharnhorst (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Dwight Scharnhorst (R-St. Louis) named Bryce’s Law for his grandson, who died in 2007 of complications related to autism and epilepsy. It would create a grant program that parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, Angelman syndrome or cerebral palsy could apply for to help cover the cost of specialized educations that meet their unique needs.

“It’s somewhat of a mandate to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to seek and secure federal and state, and I will be seeking on my own private foundation money, to form a pool of money for parents who decide they want to move these children out of a public school and put them in the institutions that could probably best suit improving their quality of life as well as their family.”

The bill had met resistance in earlier versions because it would have created a tax credit program for those parents, which opponents had likened to school vouchers. Scharnhorst says converting it to a grant program removed any impact it would have on state funding for public schools.  He says prior to this year, the proposal had not received a positive vote in a legislative chamber.

Scharnhorst says the program would only provide one piece of the puzzle to those parents, who might have to make difficult decisions include relocating to get their children into such a program.

“Some parents are going to have to go to a lot of trouble to make this happen, but I know these kind of parents will do whatever it takes to help their child.”

House Speaker Tim Jones says the passage of Bryce’s Law is a milestone.

“Republicans have always stood for helping the truly needy. Young children with autism, I can’t think of more deserving folks. More options, more hope for those parents who struggle every day.”

The language was passed as part of a larger education bill, SB 17, that also includes provisions that would also create advisory councils to consider rules and policies regarding the education of gifted and talented children and to consider management of career and technical education and would allow the use of religious books in elective literature and history courses in public schools.

The bill is now awaiting action by Governor Jay Nixon.

AUDIO:  Dwight Scharnhorst speaks about Bryce’s Law prior to its passage out of the House, 1:57

Mizzou fares well in NCAA academic report

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The University of Missouri has a graduation success rate (GSR) of 84% for all sports,  up from 81% a year ago in a report released by the NCAA. That rate ranks Mizzou third in the Southeastern Conference, behind only Vanderbilt (1st – 91%) and Alabama (2nd – 85%).  Missouri led the SEC in five different sports, including men’s golf (100%), women’s golf (100%), women’s swimming & diving (100%), tennis (100%), and wrestling (67%). Mizzou’s football team had a 73% rate, while the men’s basketball team came in at 67%, both of which ranked as fifth-best in the SEC. This is the sixth consecutive year that MU’s overall GSR rate has increased, and it also marks the third straight year in which Mizzou had at least four programs with a perfect GSR.

[Read more…]

House advances changes to teacher layoff criteria (AUDIO)

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The House has given initial approval to a very stripped down bill dealing with teacher layoffs.

Representative Scott Dieckhaus (photo courtesy: Missouri House Communications)

Language dealing with teacher tenure was stripped out of the proposal. What remains is a change to what is often called “last in, first out.” The proposed new policy would require administrators to decide what teachers to cut based first on performance, as well as training and certification, but not on salaries or seniority.

Elementary and Secondary Education chairman, Republican Scott Dieckhaus (R-Washington), says the bill, HB 1526, was the result of a compromise within his caucus. “They had some concerns about some of the other provisions that were in the bill and I asked them, if we were able to work some of those provisions out between now and next session and work on those down the road but press on with the (last in, first out) issue, if they could be supportive. Clearly there was a large number of my colleagues that are supportive of that.”

The vote on the bill was close; 80-78 on perfection. To advance to the Senate it will have to get 82 votes on third reading. That vote will likely happen today.

AUDIO:  Representatives Scott Dieckhaus and Jason Holsman (D-Kansas City) discuss the bill, 13:03

Education bill might move this week

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After a month without action, some movement might happen this week on a comprehensive education bill in the House.

Representative Scott Dieckhaus

Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones (R-Eureka) and Elementary and Secondary Education Committee Chairman Scott Dieckhaus (R-Washington) both suggest the package sponsored by Dieckhaus might pass out of the House Rules Committee this week. The bill includes fixes for the Foundation Formula and the Turner Decision.

House Democrats are critical of the bill’s inclusion of tuition tax credits, otherwise referred to as “passport scholarships.”  Dieckhaus says they are needed to let the legislation benefit all of the students in the St. Louis City public schools.

He says if surrounding St. Louis County school districts cap capacity at 8,300 students, that won’t be enough. “We need to serve 15,740 students … the passport scholarships could help us serve an additional 8,000 students, so we can actually serve that full number of students.”

Dieckhaus says that language is more specific to St. Louis, while a different approach is needed for students from Kansas City-area schools. A proposal that is being considered, but has not yet been added to the bill, is based on what has worked in New Orleans schools. “The top performing schools became the New Orleans Parish School District, and the rest of the schools were chartered and they’ve seen really tremendous progress by doing that and we’re wondering if we can replicate that.” Dieckhaus says such a plan might be considered when the bill reaches the floor.

His proposal also includes scaled back language dealing with teacher tenure. Seniority-based layoffs were removed, decisions about salaries are returned to local school boards, and tenure is eliminated for teachers hired for the 2013-14 school year or later.

Look at Dieckhaus’ bill, HB 1740