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By Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal
Missouri House of Representatives, District 72
University City, Missouri
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
The 2005 legislative session has provided many ups and downs.
Together, we have come through some of the toughest and roughest
times in the history of the Missouri House of Representatives.
WE will continue to strengthen ourselves for even tougher times
in this Republican-led House and Senate. There are many of you
that have called with your concerns about First Steps, Medicaid
cuts and Anti-Choice legislation. I share all of those concerns
with you and will keep on doing my best in fighting other bad
legislation, such as state tax credits/vouchers for education
and public funding for stadiums. As this is the final regular
weekly until the next legislative session, I wanted to provide
some updates on important educational issues that impact our community.
THE NEW EDUCATION FORMULA
This session, several of my colleagues have been working on a
new formula for public school funding due to a lawsuit filed by
over 250 schools claiming that the current formula is inequitable.
The original intent of this bill was to transition the state away
from a tax-driven education funding formula to a student needs-based
education funding formula. After ten straight hours of debate,
we passed Senate Bill 287 (Conference Committee Substitute for
House Committee Substitute for House Committee Substitute for
Senate Substitute for Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Bill
287). The details of the bill are complex; it deals with the way
the state of Missouri is going to fund all of its public schools
across the state; urban and rural, rich and poor, big and small,
gifted programs and special education included.
As Kelly Wiese reported in the Kansas City Star, the new plan
sets a minimum spending amount per student, $6,117, based on the
current spending by districts that do well on a state performance
report. University City will receive $8.25 million in FY06 from
the state, eventually receiving a total of $8.46 million in FY14.
Wellston will be receiving $4.4 million in FY06, eventually receiving
a total of $4.8 in FY14 from the state. While this will help those
schools that are currently operating below that level, the problem
is that this formula will not be in full affect for another seven
years. On top of that, I am concerned because this plan will cost
about $940 million a year when fully phased in over the next seven
years on top of the $2.4 billion the state already spends for
basic aid for schools. We are currently unable to adequately fund
the existing formula and although Democrats have asked time and
time again, we have still not received an answer on where this
money will come from.
While I may have a few concerns with the legislation, I have
nothing but respect for the men and women who served on the Special
Education committee to craft the bill. I appreciate their hard
work and all they have done to protect our schools statewide.
That being said, there were a few interesting amendments to the
bill offered during the marathon debate.
House Amendment (HA) 2 specifies how a fifteen million dollar
grant set aside in the legislation will be distributed. It was
decided that this money will be used for school districts with
an average daily attendance of 350 students or less, and a school
tax levy of at least $3.50 per $100 of assessed valuation. This
money can be used for, but not limited to, distance learning,
extraordinary transportation costs and student learning activities
not available within the district. This means that the funding
could pay for the transportation costs and transfer costs from
a student who cannot have his or her needs met in the district
they live in, instead of causing them to lose those opportunities
because of where they live. This amendment passed.
House Amendment 1 to HA 4, both of which passed, was a measure
to benefit school districts in the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan
areas by securing additional funding to cover higher labor costs
in metropolitan areas. This was a good amendment for our school
district, because it takes into account our higher costs-of-living
and work in St. Louis, and allows our teachers to be given a higher
pay scale than teachers in areas with lower costs-of-living.
HA 7 passed and added a section that requires the Department
of Elementary and Secondary Education to reimburse school districts,
including the special school district, for the educational costs
of high-need children with an individual education program if
the cost for the student is three times the current cost for educating
the average student. This bill allows reimbursement for gifted
programs as well as special needs programs. Rep. Lampe (D ?Springfield)
attempted to add to this amendment a section that defines funding
for a student who has to go to a different school district to
receive an education in an exceptionally gifted program. It would
have allowed the tuition costs to be paid by the home district
at their rate per student, as opposed to paying the transfer districts
tuition. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated.
As I𠍿 sure many of you have heard or read in the paper, early
Wednesday morning, around 2 a.m., Amendment 12 was offered. While
this amendment may seem harmless enough, barring school districts
from adopting policies or allowing school activities that advocate
criminal behavior, it took a horrible turn when Rep. Roark (R-
Springfield) introduced an amendment to change the language to
𡤧riminal behavior or homosexuality.? Neither of these amendments
were added to the legislation, but I feel it is important to discuss
the type of attacks that the Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered community
(LGBT) is still facing.
The goal of this amendment was to ban Gay/Straight Alliances
in our public schools. I was astounded by the narrow-mindedness
of this amendment and disgusted that a member of the Missouri
House of Representatives would advocate for such obvious intolerance
and hatred. For those of you who have been receiving these emails
all session, you are aware of my support for the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community, especially the youth
(March 29th email). Our youth deserve a safe place to go, a place
where they are able to find community support, and to take those
places out of their schools, where they spend a large part of
their time, is deplorable.
FIRST STEPS UPDATE
Senate Bill 500 was passed on Thursday. The bill backed by Governor
Blunt calls for the program to be studied, but continues to provide
about $13 million to be equally matched by the federal government
to bring $26 million dollars into the state for the First Steps
Program. SB 500 requires insurance payments to defray costs to
the state as well as family cost participation, meaning co-payments
for the families of children in the First Steps Program. These
fees shall be based on a sliding scale, effective October 1, 2005,
and will take into account:
* Adjusted gross income, family size, financial hardship and
Medicaid eligibility with the fee implementation beginning at
200% of the federal poverty guidelines (currently $38,700 for
a family of four;
* A minimum monthly fee amount of five dollars to the maximum
of one-hundred dollars;
* An increased fee schedule for parents who have insurance and
elect not to use it.
An emergency clause was attached to the bill to put into effect
in August 2005. The emergency clause did not pass.
THE END OF SESSION
Friday was the last day of session. There have been some encouraging
moments, but overall, I feel that there have been a lot of moments
in which corporations and big business has been put before the
welfare of the people, taking away hard-earned benefits, limiting
malpractice suits and workers compensation claims. There have
been positive experiences as well. Creating allies on different
pieces of legislation as well as hustling to pass an amendment
and helping to choreograph floor debate. This has been a wonderful
experience and I am pleased to represent you here in the Missouri
House of Representatives. That being said , I am looking forward
to getting to spend more time in our community, so that I can
make sure you know what I have been doing and I know what you
have been doing. That is what it𠏋 all about. My job is to represent
you, not some corporate entity, and the more I know about what𠏋
going on in the neighborhood, the better I can do my job.
This summer I will be working on several projects, and would
appreciate as much involvement from those I represent. A few of
those topics include:
Financial Parity for minorities in the Arts
Community Service Legislation
A working Anti-Voucher/Tax Credit Group
MSD/Neighborhood Flooding Issues
Domestic Violence Legislation
If you would like to join in the efforts of addressing any of
these issues or if you have some other ideas, please don㦙 hesitate
to contact me.
Please look forward to my full end of session report, enclosed
in the next 72nd District Directory, which will arrive at your
home later on this summer. For now, I am signing off. Periodically,
I will send an update on my summer projects. Remember always feel
free to contact me if there are any issues that I can be of assistance
on.
If you have any comments regarding this or any other issue, please
don㦙 hesitate to contact me at (314) 725-7288.
May 16, 2005
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