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Sponsor of school bus hardship bill frustrated by veto

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The sponsor of a school bus hardship bill says Governor Jay Nixon’s decision to veto it means an opportunity has been missed, to help some Missouri school children.

Governor Jay Nixon (photo courtesy, the Missouri Governor’s Office) and Representative Rodney Schad (photo courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Rodney Schad’s (R-Versailles) legislation would have required the Commissioner of Education to reassign students to a different district if their drive to school is longer than 17 miles, takes more than 45 minutes or has to go around natural barriers. The Senate changed the bill so that it would only have effected the St. Albans, St. Elizabeth and Gravois Mills areas.

The Governor says a system is already in place to reassign students, but Schad says it doesn’t work.

“Even though (students) apply, the powers that be find it unnecessary to approve it and allow these kids to go to a school that is much closer and allow them to engage in extracurricular activities within their communities.”

Schad says during testimony on the bill, lawmakers heard stories of students he says are at a disadvantage because of where they live.

“I just want to help a few kids across the state that are forced to ride a school bus an hour-and-a-half in the morning and then an hour-and-a-half back home and then jump in the car with mom and dad and drive 22 miles back to school for any other school function, when a closer school is 4 or 5 miles away. These holy boundaries are a problem.”

Schad says another problem with existing statute is that “educational harm” is not defined in existing statute. Nixon points to the lack of a definition in Schad’s bill of “attendance center.”

Nixon also says the legislation violates the Constitution by creating an unfunded mandate for schools whose students transfer to other districts, by making those schools pay tuition to the receiving district.

The legislation passed the House with 83 votes, well short of the number needed for a veto override. Schad says there won’t be an attempt to find the needed votes. He is term-limited out of the House at the end of his term. He doesn’t know who might carry this issue next year, but he has some possible people in mind.

“I will work on that a little later.”

Read the Governor’s veto message here.

House lawmakers plan to revisit sex offender registry changes in 2013

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Legislation in the 2012 session that would have made significant changes to the state’s sex offender registry won broad and overwhelming support in the House, but was blocked in the Senate. Lawmakers in both parties now say they’ll support the issue again in 2013. 

Representatives Chris Kelly and Rodney Schad (photos courtesy; Missouri House Communications)

The proposal would have removed some people guilty of minor offenses from the registry altogether, and established a tiered system by which those convicted of more serious crimes could apply to be removed from it with a judge’s approval.

The bill never went to a hearing in the Senate. Attempts to amend it to other legislation also failed.

Democrat Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) says he will bring it back up next year. “I hope that we’ll be able to make progress on that both in terms of fairness to some of the people that are on there charged with very minor offenses and in terms of saving the state a lot of money.”

Kelly says being on the registry makes it hard for people to get jobs and earn a living.

“There’s everything on the list, you’ve got to remember, from people how are charged with sex trafficking to the 17-year-old kid and the 15-year-old kid … it’s wrong for those kids to have sex, but it’s not a sex crime and they don’t need to be on the register for the rest of their lives.”

House Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones (R-Eureka) agrees, the bill will be back next year. “I think it may have been one person who had a problem with that in the Senate, and so I definitely view that coming up (again). Another good criminal justice reform.”

This year the bill was carried by Representative Rodney Schad (R-Versailles), who will not be back in the House next session due to term limits.

House approves plan to shorten some pupils’ bus rides (AUDIO)

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The House has approved a proposal to make it easier for students who face a long bus ride to school to change districts.  Some oppose the bill, calling it a first step toward open enrollment.

Representative Rodney Schad (picture courtesy, Missouri House Communications)

It would require the Commissioner of Education to reassign students to a different district if their drive to school takes too long, goes too far or has to go around natural barriers, if certain conditions are met.

Some lawmakers, like Margo McNeil (D-Florissant), said the bill leads down a path they don’t want to take. “This is a defacto open enrollment bill, and I don’t know that we are ready to go there yet.”

McNeil says there is already a process in place to apply for hardship transfers. “It takes a while, but it works.”

The measure’s sponsor, Representative Rodney Schad (R-Versailles), disagrees that the process works. He says those applications go before board of arbitrations made up of current or retired school administrators that always deny the applications.

Schad’s proposal requires the Commissioner to approve applications when the driving distance from a students residents to his or her home district is ten miles or more, but another district’s school is at least five miles closer. The transfer can not put the receiving school’s classroom over the number of students per class set by school improvement standards.

The bill also removes language in statute that an application can be denied if it will result in “educational harm.” Schad says that term is not defined.

Schad also disputes the claim that the legislation is a step toward open enrollment, and says he does not support that concept.

Look at the legislation, HB 1789

Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) reminded his colleagues of what parents said in a committee hearing.

“We heard testimony from a parent whose child had accidents on the way to and from school that left them subject to ridicule from other kids because the bus ride was so long. We heard another parent testify that the roads and the length of the travel required to get to the school were so difficult and the roads were so dangerous that he was afraid every single day that his children left on the bus to go to school.”

Barnes accused opponents of the plan of putting school administrators ahead of children. “It seems that arbitrary geographical boundaries, to the opposition, have more importance the vast, detrimental effect of one hour trips each way to school have on children.”

The bill narrowly passed, 85-72 and now goes to the Senate for consideration.

AUDIO: Representative Rodney Schad presents his bill, 2:23

House advances budget with few changes, blind cuts not restored (AUDIO)

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If funding is to be restored to a supplemental pension program for more than 2,800 blind in Missouri, it will likely have to happen in the Senate.

House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey (photo courtesy, House Communications)

The House spent more than five hours debating the 13 bills that make up the $24 billion Fiscal Year 2013 budget on Tuesday. In the few changes that were made, the $28 million dollars in the supplemental program for the blind was not restored.

Representative Sara Lampe (D-Springfield) offered an amendment to take more than $1.1 million from drug testing for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients and put it toward the blind program, but that was defeated.

House Republicans opposed the amendment and it was defeated. Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) said, “It’s often said in the appropriations process that if you lose the fight on the policy, you can always go after the money and de-fund it … This appears to me to be a second crack at defeating something that was overwhelmingly approved and signed by the Governor.”

Other amendments had been drafted that would have restored the funding for the blind by other mechanisms, but none were offered.

Among changes that were made…

An amendment was adopted to take $3 million out of a fund in the budget for the Department of Corrections that some lawmakers said was being misused.

Representative Rodney Schad (R-Versailles) offered the amendment. He said that money was supposed to be used to support vocational enterprises in the corrections system, buying things like farm equipment and seeds and maintaining buildings, but that’s not what it’s been used for.

“We have spent $305,400 on uniforms and clothing, $303,000 for custodial supplies, $781,000 for clothing supplies, $53,000 for laundry and linen supplies, $2,040 for personal care items. Nowhere in the statutes is that allowed.”

Schad says his amendment will require all funds generated by Missouri vocational enterprises stay in that fund.

Mamtek reaches the budget debate

Another amendment was adopted that stemmed from the failed Mamtek project in Moberly.

Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) offered the proposal to shuffle around $50,000 of federal money in the Department of Economic Development’s budget to create a position, who would be responsible for making sure it is conducting due diligence investigation into applicants for tax credit benefits.

Barnes, who headed up the House Committee that studied the Mamtek deal, said he doesn’t believe the Department will create such a position on its own. “They haven’t necessarily taken the responsibility for the shortcomings involved in Mamtek that I would have hoped they’d take.”

The House is expected to vote on the budget on Thursday.

AUDIO:  Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey’s statement closing budget debate on the House Floor, 6:05

AUDIO:  Representative Sara Lampe’s statement opening budget debate on the House Floor, 2:43