State School Funding: Pennies Come and Go for Rockwood

Compared to some other Missouri districts, representatives are quick to point out that state legislator-related funding could have been less for the upcoming school year.

Rockwood chief financial officer Shirley Broz said Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) funding for the coming year is only a $1 million additional swing of Rockwood's approximate 2012 $200 million annual budget. "It's a small percentage of what is needed to run Rockwood," she said.

However, Broz said, given the overall state funding circumstances, it could have been much worse for the district.

Rockwood School District will receive another $540,742 for the 2013 school year from the state funding formula, based on current DESE plans, she said. But Rockwood could have received up to $3 million more for the 2013 year if the funding equation was executed differently.

DESE managers recently announced an approach to curb what would have been a $700 million shortfall in the state's school funding formula for Missouri's 520 districts. Lawmakers ended the most recent legislative session in Jefferson City last month at an impasse and battle of the various types of school districts positioned against each another.

Broz said because DESE did not change the state adequacy target (SAT) of $6,131 per student per year, the overall funding equation yielded about the same amount of money that Rockwood typically would have received, rather the anticipated decrease that could have happened. However, at this per pupil level, Missouri managers lack approximately $251 million to fund the program.

The present state adequacy formula was adopted in 2005; state law calls for the per-pupil target to increase to $6,423 on July 1, with a similar increase to $6,716 the following year.

A May 23 memo to school districts from DESE Commissioner of Education Chris Nicastro stated:  "The fiscal challenges now facing Missouri prohibit full funding of the current formula, resulting in the potential of extreme funding shifts for school districts. The upcoming fiscal year will be the first year for using the 2005 formula with the seven year phase-­in plan fully complete."

DESE's temporary measure of holding in place the current per pupil adequacy target translated into some school districts not getting the state aid boost they might have had gotten with the higher per-pupil target.

Broz warns that the year-to-year instability and uncertainty of education-related state funding leaves all districts in financial planning predictaments.

Editor's Note:  For a look at what all Missouri school districts received for 2013 funding, see the PDF that accompanies this article.