This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 6, 2009 - Federal stimulus dollars for education are supposed to be used in part to plug holes in state funding for basic K-12 and higher education programs. Unclear is whether Missouri can simply cut spending for education programs it already had committed to fund, then use stimulus dollars to cover the shortfall.
That's the approach taken by Rep. Allen Icet, R-Wildwood, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in HB3 . He's proposing to trim state spending for all public colleges and universities in Missouri, then replace the cuts with federal stimulus dollars.
He's not alone in that view. Some Nixon administration officials say it's permissible to use part of the federal stimulus money to underwrite school programs the administration already had proposed to fund.
But Nixon's budget chief, Linda Luebbering, told the Associated Press recentlly that targeting stimulus dollars for some education programs places Missouri in a "strange position" because it already had planned to fund some programs, K-12, for example, at the level required to meet the state's funding formula.
The uncertainty has led at least one school chief, Superintendent Jim Hinson of the Independence School District, to warn districts to "proceed with caution" because of the uncertainty of what will happen under the stimulus program.
Federal guidelines allow states to seek waivers if their stimulus spending proposals don't follow federal policies. But Icet notes that there's confusion all around -- in both Washington and Jefferson City -- about what the stimulus program allows.
"The rules still are being written," he says, adding that it might take months or years before there are definitive answers about some state spending decisions under the stimulus rules. "What I'm trying to do and the General Assembly is trying to do is pull down as many federal dollars we can."
In spite of Nixon's commitment to maintaining spending levels for higher education, Icet's budget bill would trim at least $88 million in state funding for higher education and replace it with education stabilization dollars.
Paul Wagner, deputy commissioner of the Missouri Department of Higher Education, says Icet's proposal shows that the state budget is in extremely bad shape. While saying the budget chair's approach to using stimulus funding is appropriate, Wagner adds that the larger question is what Missouri would do with proposed state education appropriations that the federal dollars would replace.
Wagner says that issue could become problematic if the Missouri officials choose to use the savings to fund ongoing programs rather than spending the savings on one-time projects in the way most of the stimulus money for education is supposed to be spent.
It isn't always easy to know what happens to general revenue when lawmakers have a chance to substitute other funding for those dollars. Lottery money spent for schools is a good example; it's not always clear what happened to every dime of state revenue that once funded education before lottery revenue was available.
But Icet says that confusion won't be an issue with the general revenue he proposes to delete from higher education.
"There will be transparency," he says. "The idea is to take the money cut out of higher education and use it for one-time projects" identified by colleges and universities.
Those schools have prepared their lists of one-time projects they had hoped could be funded with stimulus money. Some of the proposals show how far the campuses have fallen behind due to spending cuts over the years. Proposals from the four-campus University of Missouri system range from replacing leaking roofs to setting up next-generation computer networks to providing one-time salary awards to recognize and retain outstanding faculty and staff members.
How many of these projects will get the green light remains unclear. What is certain, however, is that HB3 would cut and not replace a lot of basic state spending for education. In spite of the promise of federal stimulus program, Missouri's colleges and universities may end up with less funding than they had expected for the Bright Flight, Access Missouri and Marguerite Ross Barnett scholarship programs.
- Bright Flight offers merit-based scholarships to encourage promising high school seniors to attend college in Missouri.
- Access Missouri is a need-based program to help students underwrite the cost of tuition in both public and private colleges in the state.
- The Barnett scholarship program helps students who are employed while attending school part-time.
Gov. Jay Nixon proposed to increase spending or maintain current levels for most of these programs. But Icet's HB 3 calls for 5 percent cuts in the Bright Flight, Access Missouri and the Ross Barnett scholarship programs.
In addition, Icet's bill would cut spending by 10 percent for some other education-related programs, including money for the University of Missouri hospital and clinic system. The bill also would eliminate a $39.8 million proposal to educate more than 900 new graduates in health care fields.
Ironically, this spending initiative had received strong support during the Blunt administration. Former Gov. Matt Blunt and others had argued that Missouri had no choice but to spend more on this training because the state was producing too few graduates in health fields to meet the state's job needs.
So far, reaction to Icet's proposals have been mild, but the fireworks are likely to fly as the proposals are debated in the House and Senate.
