Amendments Sink Scholarship Bill

On Monday, April 11, The Missouri House of Representatives shelved consideration of legislation that would give school children in failing public school districts the option to attend private schools. Representative Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) put HB 639 aside after lawmakers adopted amendments the bill’s proponents, including the Missouri Catholic Conference, considered hostile to the bill’s purpose.

HB 639 proposed to offer state income tax credits to businesses and individuals who made charitable donations to private charities. The charities would use the donations to provide scholarships to needy students, including those performing poorly in public schools. The scholarships could be used to attend private schools, including Catholic schools. The scholarships would be offered in school districts designated by the state of Missouri as failing students’ needs.

Mike Hoey, the assistant director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, said HB 639 would have offered new educational opportunity for school families. “This bill offered the children of the poor a ticket out of poverty by providing options to attend quality schools.” Hoey said the bill could be resurrected later or offered as an amendment to another bill but its chances for passage were not good at this point.

Representative Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) called the amendments adopted by lawmakers “killer amendments.” An amendment offered by Representative Bob Johnson (R- Lee’s Summit) required private schools participating in the scholarship program to administer the same statewide test used by public schools. A second amendment offered by Representative Sara Lampe (D-Springfield) said that the scholarship program could not reduce appropriations to public schools. A third amendment offered by Representative Michael Corcoran (D-St. Ann) stated that the scholarship program would not be implemented until the formula that distributes money to public schools was fully funded.

The public school formula has not been fully funded since fiscal year 2001. Governor Matt Blunt has recommended a $171 million dollar increase in funding for public schools. However, to fully fund the formula would require an increase of over $600 million dollars. “It is clear that lawmakers did not want to vote on HB 639,” Hoey said. “But, in effect, a vote for the amendment to fully fund the formula was a vote to defeat HB 639.”

Hoey said it could be several years before Missouri’s budget situation improves sufficiently to fully fund the public school formula. “As a result of this amendment,” Hoey said, “school choices for poor families in failing school districts cannot be offered now or any time soon.”

The formula is a complicated calculation of how much money is needed to create equity between school districts and adequate funding. “But the formula does not guarantee children will receive a decent education,” Hoey said. “Millions of state dollars have been poured into urban districts like the City of St. Louis and Kansas City with only limited success. Obviously, money alone does not ensure that students in urban school districts receive quality education,” Hoey said.

HB 639 would have allowed up to $40 million in tax credits to be claimed annually by taxpayers. Opponents of HB 639 argued the state could not afford to offer the tax credits when the state was in a severe fiscal crisis. Supporters of HB 639 said the bill would save the state more than the cost of the tax credits because of students transferring from public to private schools. State aid is based partly on a count of students attending a school district. The bill would prohibit districts from counting students who had transferred to a private school using one of the scholarships. Under current law, in certain circumstances public school districts can count students that no longer attend school.

Rep. Cunningham put the bill aside after lawmakers adopted the amendment to postpone implementing the scholarship program until the public school formula was fully funded. “It was obvious at that point that lawmakers were not serious about wanting to pass the bill,” Hoey observed.

To see how your Representative voted on Amendment 4 to HB 639 please click on one of the link belows: