Governor vetoes school formula legislation
Gov. Jay Nixon
Claiming that public schools will miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding, Gov. Jay Nixon on Wednesday vetoed Senate Bill 586, which he said would cut the target for fully funding Missouri’s K-12 foundation formula by approximately $456 million.
In a teleconference Wednesday afternoon with reporters from across the state, Nixon severely criticized the General Assembly for scaling back the formula while considering tax cuts and other measures he said would create “a slate of special interest giveaways that would reduce state revenues by more than $1 billion annually if passed and fully implemented.”
Nixon said “cheapening” the foundation formula amounted to “a broken promise to our local schools and the students they educate and cannot receive my approval.”
He continued: “Senate Bill 586 would provide cover for legislators to turn their backs on our local schools by passing even more reckless tax breaks that will further erode funding for education and require local taxpayers to shoulder more of the financial burden to provide our children with a quality education.”
Estimates compiled by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and released by the governor’s office earlier this week estimate the Maryville R-II School District would loose nearly $800,000 a year under the vetoed legislation compared to full formula funding as currently established by law.
The Savannah R-III School District would lose an estimated $1.3 million annually according to the same projections, while the negative impact on St. Joseph Public Schools would exceed $7 million.
It should be noted, however, that the General Assembly has failed to fully fund the formula for years, and that the new guidelines established in SB 586 simply narrow the gap.
Nixon acknowledged Wednesday that he sees fully funding the formula as a process and not something that is immediately practical given existing revenues.
Even with a proposed $70 million increase for basic aid to K-12 schools written into the proposed state budget for the upcoming fiscal year, foundation formula funding, as currently structured, will fall more than $400 million short.
Under SB 586, which passed both houses with enough votes to override Nixon’s veto, the difference would be only about $54 million.
“While the funding obligation contained in this legislation might be easier to meet,” Nixon wrote in his veto message, “the General Assembly has already failed an initial test, missed the new, lower target, and in so doing revealed its sincere lack of commitment to our public schools.”
The governor also criticized lawmakers for moving the legislation to his desk only days before the 2016 session ends on May 13.
Nixon said he believes the timing was planned in order to prevent parents, teachers, and school officials from campaigning against the measure and applying political pressure to senators and representatives.
The new legislation doesn’t technically cut spending for public schools, but rather limits the growth of the state’s “adequacy target,” a per-student dollar estimate used to determine how much money schools should receive from the state
When the current foundation formula was created in 2005, the Legislature included a 5 percent cap on adequacy target growth. But lawmakers dropped that limit in 2009 in hopes of receiving more revenue from riverboat gambling and lottery proceeds.
Thanks in large measure to the Great Recession, those funds never materialized.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
