Burnett: Education cut badly in budget

In his weekly report, Rep. John Burnett, D-Kansas City, says it is time to stop the overuse of tax credits which are forcing Missourians to make draconian cuts in such areas as education:

The budget freezes basic state funding for local public school districts and  imposes a 50 percent cut in the state reimbursement to districts for student transportation costs and eliminates or reduces funding for other education costs beyond basic state aid. Summer school took a huge cut. Career ladder, the program for teachers doing after hours tutoring and projects, was in the end funded. But, it is one of the few programs that is funded backwards. In other words the money now is to reimburse for this years work. The Rs are trying to kill the program by threatening it out of existence. They were loud in proclaiming "never again". But a new Legislature takes it up next year. One aspect that is so frustrating is that the MO Constitution makes public school funding the first priority in the budget. But the reality today is that the tax credit programs that take money directly out of the budget come first. That money comes of the top then all services are funded. And we have been funding these tax credits and now we learn that they are much more costly than previously thought. State Auditor Susan Montee issued an audit on April 26 that contends the General Assembly grossly underestimated the revenue the state would lose from various tax credit programs by a whopping $1.1 billion over a five-year period ending on June 30, 2009. The audit reviewed just 15 of the more than 60 tax credits program currently in state law. Montee said lawmakers need to develop more accurate measures to estimate costs when considering new tax credit programs and should place tighter controls on the issuance and redemption of existing programs. House Democrats, Gov. Jay Nixon and some Senate Republicans have pushed for tax credit reform this year, but House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin, has said the House won't even debate the issue.  Oh and on April 29 we voted to rewrite the state's formula for distributing basic state funding to local school district, despite the fact that the formula, which became law in 2005, is still three school years shy of being fully implemented. The bill, HB 2245, was sent to the Senate on an 82-67 vote with the bare minimum number of "yes" votes needed for passage.  When lawmakers rewrote the education funding formula in 2005, scheduled funding increases were to be phased in over seven years starting with the 2006-2007 school year and ending with the 2012-2013 school year. HB 2245 would extend the phase-in period by another four years, meaning the 2005 formula wouldn't be fully implemented until the 2016-2017 school year - 12 years after it was first enacted.  It remains to be seen if such a one sided law can make it through the Senate if even the House can only come up with the minimum 82 votes.  I voted no on this and all the budget bills. It seems to me that if we are going to cut basic services this badly we should at least debate the tax credits. If the Rs insist on giving their supporters the money off the top of the budget I, for one, will not vote to cut services.