For the first time in years, the Missouri legislature has passed a budget that will not fully fund K-12 public education.
Members of the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate passed on Wednesday the 16 bills that make up the state budget, totaling around $50.7 billion. Of that total, roughly $15.9 billion is made up of state general revenue.
That budget includes the 12 bills that make up the operating budget, which totals about $48.7 billion. The operating budget includes funding for the state's departments.
The legislature will spend about $2.4 billion less than it did last year.
The budget is due this Friday, which means the legislature completed the task well before deadline.
House Budget Chair Dirk Deaton, R-Seneca, thanked Senate Appropriations Chair Rusty Black, R-Chillicothe, after the House passed the budget bills.
"I hope we've shown how this process can be and maybe what it should be. It's, I think, been pretty smooth. There's always some bumps in the road, and everybody has different perspectives and priorities," Deaton said.
This year's budget includes over $4.2 billion for the K-12 public school foundation formula and more than $376 million in school transportation dollars.
The legislature also restored over $80 million in funding for disability care programs that Gov. Mike Kehoe's office cut.
Democrats say budget underfunds K-12 education
This year's budget will not meet the K-12 foundation formula requirement by around $190 million dollars.
Last year, the legislature considered not fully funding the formula, but ultimately went with the Senate recommendation to fully fund it.
"For the first time since 2017, Republicans here, who have the majority, are telling our neighborhood schools that they're not good enough for their full funding," Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City, said.
Democrats throughout the day spoke against the decision, including Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis.
"If we can't do the basic thing in educating our children, making sure our schools are right, having transparency in where our educational dollars are going, everything is not working," May said.
However, Republicans said the budget gives a lot of money and support to the state's public schools.
"All of those monies, there's not one thing that we decreased in the last five years. We've increased as to where we are now with record funding, and yet we're being accused of unfunding or underfunding the formula," Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, said.
One Senate change that remained in the final K-12 education bill is the restoration of roughly $51 million in childcare subsidy dollars.
The dollars were originally in Gov. Mike Kehoe's budget proposal, but the House later removed them.
Another compromise on the childcare subsidies involves how the state will pay for them. Senate Appropriations Chair Rusty Black said the legislature agreed on a hybrid method that mostly paid those subsidies on enrollment rather than attendance.
However, Black said it also creates a funding mechanism for longer absences.
"If a young person would miss 10 days, then the department will come up with the scale, there'll be a reduction on how much [childcare providers] receive from those dollars at that point," Black said.
House Rep. Betsy Fogle, D-Springfield, called the restoration of the childcare dollars a win for providers and families who rely on those subsidies but wished the state would move fully to paying on enrollment.
"The language as written is not written to allow us to pay on enrollment, but it does give us some concessions in expanding the number of absences that are allowed for students or pre-K people, so that will give some flexibility to our providers." Fogle said.
Funding continues for state's private school vouchers
For the second year in a row, the legislature used general revenue funds for the state's private school voucher program, known as the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program.
The program allows families to get funding to send their children to the school of their choice, including private schools.
This year the legislature allocated $60 million towards the program. That's $10 million more than last year.
While the Senate had lowered that allocation back down to $50 million, that money was restored during the conference committee.
Rep. John Martin, R-Columbia, said he has constituents who have used the scholarship program.
"This is a great opportunity for school choice, again, with parents, whether it be to another public school, a private school, or home school," Martin said.
Sen. Doug Beck, D-Affton, has repeatedly spoken against the program, including how Treasurer Vivek Malek has handled it.
"There is no transparency and accountability is not there in the treasurer's office. Matter of fact, there's incompetency, as we've seen, especially with the leaking for over a year of everyone that is in that program," Beck said.
Beck is referring to reporting by the Missouri Independent that found the treasurer's office posted MOScholars student data on its website for almost a year.
Malek originally asked for $100 million for the program earlier this year at the beginning of the budget process.
Future changes in higher education funding possible
Something that won't see a major change this fiscal year is the funding model for the state's two-year and four-year colleges and universities.
The legislature is allocating roughly the same amount of dollars to those institutions as it did last year.
However, that was not a guarantee. The House had proposed a massive overhaul that allocated funds based primarily on enrollment.
Critics of the model say it created a system of winners and losers.
That plan gave more funds to some institutions, like the University of Missouri system, which would have seen an additional $20 million.
Meanwhile, other schools saw a cut, including Truman State University, which faced a more than 50% cut of $27 million.
The Senate reversed that plan, and the conference committee agreed to stick with the Senate's reversal.
Nurrenbern said she was thankful they didn't go with the House's plan. She also spoke of the uncertainty the House created when they dropped that new model.
"How dare they put all of those students and all of those families in a position where they don't know if they're going to be able to continue at that university?" Nurrenbern said.
However, also included in that bill is language requiring universities to evaluate their funding model.
"When some institutions are declining in enrollment and some institutions are growing rapidly in enrollment, you can't just do the same thing they've always done," Lewis said.
Through the legislation, the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development must develop and submit an "objective, formula-driven funding model for the allocation of state appropriations to public institutions of higher education."
That model would be created using the total amount of state funding appropriated for higher education institutions for fiscal year 2027 as well as the same amount of total funds for two-year and four-year schools.
The Department must turn in that model by Dec. 1.
Senate President Pro-Tem Cindy O'Laughlin, R-Shelbina, said this is something the legislature needs to consider.
"I do think we need to look at the college funding model. I do think probably everyone in the Senate thinks the same thing, and I think that the Senate will get together and decide how they want to go about that," O'Laughlin said.
Nurrenbern said anyone with stakes in higher education will likely want to be a part of these discussions sooner than later.
"Anybody who's interested in how higher ed is funded moving forward, I hope you guys have a seat at the table, and I hope we listen with open ears to those conversations," Nurrenbern.
A smaller budget, with even smaller ones possible
The legislature is looking to tighten its budget due to shrinking revenues.
Part of that decrease comes from the fact that the state has already spent or allocated a large amount of federal dollars, like the American Rescue Plan Act, given to Missouri over the years.
These likely smaller future budgets also come as Republicans are seeking to eliminate the state income tax, which would create a nearly $9 billion hole in the budget if not replaced.
"I'm worried that as we continue down this path of eliminating certain taxes, that all the promises we want to make good on will become a lot harder," Fogle said.
The budget bills now go to Kehoe, where he has the ability to line-item veto expenditures from the budget. The budget must be signed before July 1.
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