The Fayetteville, Ark. School Board has elected to try for a tax increase in May, according to last Sunday's Northwest Arkansas Times. If the measure passes, beginning teachers will receive a salary of $38,000 a year, up from the current $34,420.
This is Arkansas, remember, the state which until recently was at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to funding for education.
Fayetteville officials said they had to raise the beginning salaries to compete with Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville schools. The Greenland School District, on the other hand, said it couldn't compete with Fayetteville now. Greenland starts its teachers at $29,108 annually. The statewide minimum beginning salary is $27,500, according to the article.
There are veteran teachers in the state of Missouri who don't receive what beginning Fayetteville teachers receive now. My beginning salary at Diamond six years ago was $21,450 a year, if I recall correctly. And that is not Missouri's minimum.
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As state legislators struggle to fix the foundation formula under which Missouri public schools are funded, one problem has not been mentioned.
Many of the schools whose officials are suing the state claiming the funding system is inadequate are not spending the money they are getting. Missouri State Teachers Association's "School and Community" magazine's March edition begins an article called "The Hoarding Mentality" by saying, "More than half of Missouri school districts are accumulating excess reserves."
Schools can be penalized by the state for having an end balance of less than three percent, but "more than 20 percent isn't playing fair with students, teachers, and taxpayers," the article said. The article noted that it is wise for districts to hold some money aside for "avoiding financial stress," "gaining interest revenue," "avoiding interest costs for capital projects," and "covering unexpected costs and revenue shortfalls."
The MSTA released a list of school districts with ending fund balances of more than 20 percent and the list included most of the districts in the Turner Report area. Some districts, such as Joplin and Carl Junction, were only slightly above the 20 percent and had been below it for the past three years. Others, such as Carthage, Jasper, Lamar, and Liberal, were below the 20 percent, with Lamar getting dangerously close to the three percent threshold during 2002-2003.
McDonald County, which has been used as the poster child for funding inequity had an ending fund balance of 37.75 percent, while Sarcoxie had 33.8 percent, 34.45 percent, and 45.19 percent over the past three years.
Diamond stayed within the less than 20 percent, but comfortably more than 10 percent ending fund balance while the late Dr. Greg Smith was superintendent, but began hoarding money during the reign of superintendent Mark Mayo.
MSTA's figures show the school with an ending fund balance of 27.3 percent in 2003-2004 and 22.2 percent during the 2002-2003 school year. I found the 22.2 percent ending fund balance for 2002-2003 particularly enlightening since that was the year Mayo suddenly decided in June that two teachers had to be cut to save $66,000, even though the MSTA figures indicate Diamond had an ending fund balance of $1,115,000. (I should mention in the spirit of complete disclosure that both of the teachers whose positions were eliminated already had signed contracts for the next year and I was one of them. I should also mention that the decision turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for me.)
During that time, Mayo and the Board of Education eliminated the vocal music program, the middle school reading program, all full-time counselors except the high school position, increased classroom numbers, began charging fees to participate in athletics and forced the Booster Club to cover the cost of the wrestling program.
You would think the district was on the edge of financial catastrophe. But according to the MSTA figures, the Diamond R-4 School District had an ending fund balance of $1,239.399 in 2003-2004. But finances were still so bad that the position of Middle School Principal Denise Mounts had to be eliminated. Ms. Mounts was making $48,000 a year. Her replacement, Danny DeWitt, was recently rehired at about $7,000 per year less than that, so apparently the board felt that 7 or $8,000 out of more than $1.2 million was enough of a reason to eliminate a person's job.
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I have been quick to criticize some of the decisions made by Missouri's newly-minted governor Matt Blunt during his first three months of office, so it is only fair to give him credit when he does something right.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' sudden interest in the Carthage odor situation comes as a direct result of the governor's intervention. Undeniably, the efforts put forth by the governor's father, Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt, plus U. S. Senators Kit Bond and Jim Talent were also helpful, but a quick examination of the article about the situation that will be featured in the Saturday Joplin Globe gives no doubt who is responsible for Friday morning's closed door session between DNR head Doyle Childers and ConAgra officials.
"Gov. Blunt called us and asked us what was going on," Childers is quoted as saying in the article written by the Globe's John Hacker. "We prepared a briefing paper for him based on the reports we had, and he asked us to get this meeting together."
Apparently, it takes the personal intervention of the governor to get the DNR to do its job.
The Globe quite rightly noted the fact that the meeting was closed to protect "proprietary secrets."
This appears to be more of the type of concession to business that Missouri politicians seem to be doing more and more of these days. After all, who wants to steal a proprietary secret that makes things smell so bad?