If signed by the governor, an education bill approved by the Missouri legislature causes a cloudy future for state funding to the state’s public schools.
While Senate Bill 727 has some intriguing features that could benefit Springfield Public Schools, administrators also see the possibility for some significant funding challenges.
The main goal of SB 727, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, was to expand a private school scholarship program and open Boone County to charter schools. In the process of the bill’s passage through the General Assembly, more than 100 pages of add-ons helped the bill pass with bipartisan support. Those extras include increasing Missouri’s minimum teacher salary to $40,000 annually, and the creation of a literacy fund.
Springfield Public Schools Superintendent Grenita Lathan called the bill “a complex piece of legislation,” with potentially harmful drawbacks on state funding to public education in the future.
“One of the primary issues is the potential negative impact on the State of Missouri’s ability to sustain adequate funding for K-12 public education in the long-term,” Lathan said in a statement. “We depend on sufficient state funding to meet the needs of our 24,500 students. We are concerned that SB727 will create significant fiscal challenges for Missouri, and for public schools, in the years to come.”
While SPS is taking a wait-and-see approach, other school districts are asking Gov. Mike Parson to veto it. Parson has about two weeks to either sign it, let it become law with no action, or veto it.
Howard Benyon, superintendent of Cape Girardeau Public Schools, leads one of the districts asking for Parson to reject the bill.
“If people put pressure on (Parson) to really look at this bill and how detrimental it is to public education — he needs to veto this bill,” Benyon said in an interview with the Southeast Missourian. “The only saving grace that we have currently is just for people in our community and across the state to start emailing him and start sending him letters that they do not agree with this bill, and we would want him to veto it.”
Springfield area representatives and senators voted largely on party lines, with Republican Reps. Bishop Davidson, Bill Owen, Melanie Stinnett and Alex Riley approving it and Democratic Reps. Crystal Quade, Betsy Fogle and Stephanie Hein opposing it. Republican Rep. Darin Chappell voted “present” and Republican Sen. Lincoln Hough was absent during the Senate’s vote.
“This is a bill that has some great, shiny things that we like in exchange for some really bad (things),” Quade, House Minority Leader, told the Missouri Independent. “But as we’ve talked about, the real problem with this bill is the amount of money we have.”
Foundational change for state funding formula
One of the bill’s provisions would adjust the state formula used to divide money between public school districts.
Instead of using a multiplier for attendance, the formula would have a multiplier for enrollment. SPS stands to benefit financially from such a change.
A state report from 2023 recommends the change, saying school districts with larger minority student concentrations and higher child poverty rates usually produce lower average daily attendance rates. According to the most recent numbers available, 56.1% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
SPS set a goal for the 2023-2024 academic year of improving its district-wide student attendance. While it appeared on track to meet that goal at the end of the third quarter, district officials said their target of a 2% increase would not be enough to meet the state’s target.
The state government measures a different attendance figure: It tracks the percentage of students who attend school at least 85% of the time. Last year, SPS came in at 75%, below the state average of 81.4%.
Because SPS is the largest public school district in the state, with an enrollment of more than 24,000 students, it stands to benefit from the multiplier for enrollment.
SPS teacher salaries already above proposed minimum
Springfield Public Schools faces steep competition to recruit and retain teachers, and salaries affect that — teacher pay is already above the $40,000 statewide minimum proposed in the bill.
A first-year teacher in the 2023-24 school year, with a bachelor’s degree, starts at $43,200 annually. That amount grows each year the teacher remains with SPS, and can also increase if a teacher earns master’s degrees or doctorates.
Upon SB 727’s passage, Springfield school district officials said its package of teacher salaries was on pace with Joplin, and only one district in the eastern part of the state offered more pay for starting teachers.
Other educational opportunities carry price tag for taxpayers
SPS also finds itself surrounded by growing educational alternatives. A recent demographics study found that attendance is projected to grow only minimally over the next 10 years.
About 75% of Springfield’s school-aged children are enrolled in SPS, according to the study.
If SB 727 is signed into law by the governor, then a much larger number of students would be eligible for tax credits for attending some private schools that qualify as a “family paced education school.”
The expanding pool of students translates to an increasing demand on an already stretched budget. Springfield students are already eligible for the MoScholars program, because of the city’s population.
According to the bill’s fiscal impact estimate, the bill will cost the State of Missouri more than $107 million for fiscal year 2025. That cost will escalate annually until full implementation, expected to be more than $467 million by fiscal year 2031.
The expansion was criticized earlier in 2024 by a diverse group of people in the education community, representing public, private and home schools, according to a report from the Missouri Independent.
State funding for elementary and secondary education is one of the biggest demands on the budget each year.
The Springfield Board of Education is also preparing its budget for the 2024-25 school year. According to preliminary figures, the district is anticipating more than $291 million in revenue from local, state and federal sources. That estimate is about $11 million below the current year’s budget, as about $21 million in COVID-related federal aid ends.
And those estimates may change according to the budget that makes it out of the Legislature, which is working to approve a more than $50 billion budget for the next year by a May 10 deadline.
