Missouri's recently formed Charter Public School Commission is preparing to begin operations next year.
The seven-member commission, which held its first organizational meeting Tuesday in Jefferson City, elected Alicia Herald of St. Louis by acclamation as chair. Herald is founder and CEO of St. Louis-based myEDmatch. Deborah Curtis of Warrensburg was elected vice chair. Curtis is provost and chief learning officer at the University of Central Missouri.
One of the commission's top priorities is finding an executive director, which it is currently barred from doing. By law, the charter school commission's budget can be used only for equipment and similar expenses.
Herald says the commission will ask Gov. Jay Nixon for permission to use the money to hire an executive director and other staff.
"We have to do a lot of things (with) the standards that authorizers have, including things like how do we review proposals for new charter schools, how do we oversee them and support them over time, what does potential closure look like?" Herald said. "So there's just a lot we have to build out, and the executive director would be charged with that (task)."
Meanwhile, the charter school commission is starting out with two-thirds less money than it was originally intended to have.
When it was created by Missouri lawmakers in 2012, it was slated to have an operating budget of $300,000 a year. But the commission has sat dormant until recently. In 2013, Missouri lawmakers only allocated $200,000 for the commission's FY2014 operating budget, and they did likewise earlier this year as well, only allocating $200,000 for the current FY2015 fiscal year. Nixon is also withholding half of that figure, giving the newly activated commission only $100,000 to work with.
"Part of the major piece there was that we (had not yet), as a commission, (been seated)," Herald said.
But now that there is a seated commission? "We'll request (the remaining $100,000)…. That's our next step coming out of here."
Herald added that they will request the full $300,000 allocation for the Fiscal Year 2016 budget, which begins July 1 next year, and they plan to ask permission to set up a revolving fund. That would enable the commission to pursue extra funding in the form of state, federal and private grants.
The Charter Public School Commission has nine seats, seven of which have been filled. All of the members have to undergo confirmation by the Missouri Senate next month to remain on the commission.
Follow Marshall Griffin on Twitter: @MarshallGReport
