State education funding forces local budgets to be slashed

By Bruce Wallace
Friday, February 5, 2010 9:13 AM CST

The Southern Boone Schools R-1 District is continuing to work through the budgeting process for the 2010-2011 school year with a number of budget reduction considerations to be presented at the upcoming regular monthly meeting on February 15.

While the local school district has put staff reductions on the table at the January meeting, the State of Missouri has added to the potential budget cuts since then.

K-12 schools, though spared from cuts in their basic state aid, will still be required to make cuts because of Gov. Jay Nixon's plan to provide barely one-sixth of the funding increase needed to meet the state's financing formula, said Brent Ghan, a spokesman for the Missouri School Boards' Association last week.

"That's a petty dramatic shortfall, Ghan told the Associated Press. "The funding situation from the state is going to have an impact on schools statewide - there's no doubt about it."

Gov. Nixon's office recommended an $18 million increase to the $3 billion in basic school funding for Missouri schools. But that is well under the nearly $106 million boost called for under the funding formula.

State Rep. Chris Kelly says that school districts across the state are scrambling to figure out how they will budget for the 2010-2011 school year and the State is up in the air on the issue as well.

"Some of the money is dependent upon Congress," Kelly said. "There is $300 million in funding (for Missouri) that we don't know if it will pass, however the (State) administration is positive about this because the funding has bi-partisan support and it looks like it will pass.

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