The Missouri Lottery generated $267.32 million for education in fiscal 2014. How much in lottery funding did Nixa receive? It’s called the Classroom Trust Fund and we received $2.3 million this past year. Over a three-year average that would be about 9 percent, maybe 9.5 percent, of our state funding formula calculation. It’s very important.
At the time the current funding formula was put in place, I think they thought gaming funds were more stable than they are. I’ve been here long enough now that I’m on my third funding formula, so I’ve got some history on how that works. It is concerning when it doesn’t meet the expectations. We receive 47 percent of our funding from the state and 9 percent of that is from gaming. That’s a big margin to be in flux.
How does a district plan with a budget constantly in flux because of lawmakers? School districts begin to develop their budgets in the fall and then hit it hard in February. However, we don’t find out how much funding is projected until we get to the end of the school year. Then we have to present the budget to the board when we don’t really know exactly what we are going to get. It’s a best-projection situation.
There were a lot of people who worked on the funding formula in place right now. I think it would be helpful if the formula would just be funded as designed. We don’t need to go back in and do a whole fix on developing a whole new formula, that’s already been done. The focus needs to be on how to fund what was promised. Leave the formula the way it is – just fund it.
Will the formula ever see 100 percent funding? Something always seems to happen and it’s never fully funded, like the gaming monies. There should be a back-up plan if that doesn’t come though. The last new formula was implemented over a seven-year time frame. It affected Nixa adversely because we were a fast-growing district. The first three to four years it actually harmed us. It was just not conducive to fast-growing districts. In the middle of the implementation it started swinging back the other way then the economy tanked and they started prorating the funding down to 91, 92 and last year at 93 percent of what we should have actually received in funding.
What does 93 percent of funding mean for Nixa? What’s missing in that 7 percent? We would be reducing class sizes. We would be able to expand programs. We could implement the technology sooner. That 7 percent reduction is about $1.8 million to us in a year. We could employ more teachers and give teachers raises. We have to be very cautious right now.
The funding is still at 93 percent. If it cost us $1.8 million last year and the same for the year before and the year before, we are almost $5 million behind over the last few years. We could really do wonderful things for kids with that kind of money.
Nixa currently is working on $9.5 million in bond-issue construction projects. Last year, the district helped spearhead a statewide effort to increase maximum district bonding capacity to 20 percent from 15 percent. Where does that stand? It’s still pending. The Nixa School Board was very instrumental in changing it from 10 percent to 15 percent, but of course now we want it to go to 20 so we don’t have to keep going back to the voters again and again. We can only borrow so much money against our worth, which is based on the district’s assessed valuation. If we have a higher borrowing capacity, we could complete the projects in one bond issue, rather than having so many.
In September, the General Assembly will convene its annual veto session to consider overriding vetoes of tax-cut bills that could reduce state revenue available for education. What would this mean for Nixa? As a district we try to provide guidance to those making the decisions that affect public schools. They aren’t school people and they don’t often live in this world, so maybe we can help them make the best decisions for our kids.
Public education is a good thing. I know often times it gets a bad rap, but we are doing an excellent job in public education.
Public schools are sometimes the pawn in the political game. We don’t want to get in that. That is sideways energy to us.
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
