South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Parents lobby for changes in education funding formula

By SCOTT MILLER

Staff Reporter

State funding increases unfairly have eluded the Mehl-ville School District for more than a decade, a group of parents told several state legislators and legislative candidates at a recent public forum at Mehlville Senior High School.

A group of about 12 district parents, called Families for a Fair Formula, joined to lobby lawmakers to nix the state funding formula for one that gives more funding to Mehlville, or at least revamp it so Mehlville no longer is a hold-harmless district, meaning its state fund-ing no longer would be frozen at 1993 levels.

“We’re growing,” Andrea Keller, the group’s president, told the Call. “We started out with about five or six parents in the district and as we kept meeting, more and more people expressed interest in helping. Our goal as a group is to keep educating parents on what the issues are and then hopefully as legislation gets introduced, we’ll be all over that and letting them (lawmakers) know (our opinions).”

Keller said a representative of the group would go to Jefferson City to lobby during the next legislative session.

The group invited local state lawmakers and their challengers in the upcoming election to a breakfast last Friday, expressing their concerns and wishes regarding education funding at Mehlville.

All candidates expressed optimism that the formula would be changed to ensure more cash for hold-harmless districts as more lawmakers of such districts band together.

“I do not represent Mehlville, but I’m here to show my support,” said state Rep. Pat Yaeger, D-Lemay. “I will be one of the people working to improve this because I also have a hold-harmless district in my legislative district.”

Many benefitting school districts, particularly out-state districts, will oppose any changes, however, and will fight to keep the current formula.

If the formula is changed, “the losers are going to take it to court,” said state Rep. Walt Bivins, R-Oakvllle, a former Mehl-ville Board of Education member. “Any formula that we try to implement is probably going to take some time to really be implemented. In the legislature, when all is said and done, more is said than done.”

More than 50 parents attended the breakfast, listening to explanation of the formula from former Mehlville Superintendent John Cary and watching a presentation from the group regarding Mehlville’s state funding.

Mehlville receives 12 cents from the state for every dollar local revenue generates, according to the presentation. By comparison, the state average is 35 cents from state coffers for every dollar of local revenue. In addition, Mehlville receives $771 per student each year from the state, the same amount it received in 1993. With state and local revenue, Mehlville spends $6,533 per student compared to the state average of $7,345.

Explaining the complex formula, Cary said the district particularly gets hurt be-cause it does not have the commercial property of districts like Lindbergh or Rock-wood, meaning less local revenue. In the meantime, state funding is stagnate. The state formula does not account for cost-of-living increases. And, he said, the state can’t entirely fund the formula as it is.

In addition, Cary said, not all districts in the state are equally assessed. As a result, many suburban school districts in Kansas City comparable to Mehlville are not hold-harmless districts.

“They’re under assessed,” he said. But, he added, “We don’t want to pull the top down to make the bottom look better.”

If the state revamps the formula, Cary said, “The No. 1 point that (lawmakers) need to look at is the cost of education, that it’s more expensive to run a school in St. Louis than it is anywhere else in the state, and that needs to be a part of the formula.

“The No. 2 thing, I think, is that our legislators need to understand the formula and understand the proposal,” he added, ex-plaining the complexity of the formula and the fact area lawmakers favored the formula when implemented in 1993, not realizing its negative impact on districts like Mehl-ville.

But Cary said, “There’s never going to be a perfect formula.”

The Mehlville School District is a member of the Coalition to Fund Excellent Schools, which this summer was granted permission to intervene in a lawsuit filed by another group of school districts — the Committee for Educational Equality — against the state. That suit alleges the formula is not constitutionally adequate or equitable. The Coalition to Fund Excellent Schools supports the lawsuit, but disagrees with some changes the Committee for Edu-cational Equality is pushing.

More to Discover