By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Local state lawmakers want more details from Gov. Mike Kehoe on the education platform he unveiled during his State of the State address to a joint session of the Missouri General Assembly.
State Rep. Brenda Shields, a fellow Republican from St. Joseph, would have liked to have heard the governor promise to fully fund the school education formula.
“And we’ll have to sort out and see if we’re able to fund that and if we can increase that funding for public education,” Shields tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “But I think what we have to remember is there’s lots of ideas that we need to make sure that we move Missouri education forward.”
State Rep. Bill Falkner of St. Joseph, also a Republican, says he has concerns about the governor’s education proposal.
“And so, we’re going to wait to see how it’s laid out and then whether I can support it or not,” Falkner tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “Because, right now, (with) the information I’ve got, it’d be kind of hard to support.”
The governor has proposed a $53.7 billion state budget. It includes a record $4 billion for education, but that is still short $300 million of fully funding the state public school formula, known as the Foundation Formula.
Kehoe has also suggested overhauling the Foundation Formula. Shields has more than a passing interest in the discussion. Her husband, then Sen. Charlie Shields, devised the Foundation Formula. But that was 20 years ago.
“I do think it is time that we address a new education formula for our state,” Shields says. “We just need to make sure that it is equitable to all students in our state so they can all receive a quality education.”
Much has changed over the past two decades.
“Even the types of students and the families and the home life that our students are coming from are different than they even were 20 years ago,” according to Shields. “So, I think those are some of the things that we’re going to have to address.”
Falkner wants the state to support public education as much as possible.
“As mayor, dealing with companies wanting to move into our community, the public school system was a very important piece to that,” Falkner says. “I think it’s vital to our communities to have a strong public education system.”
Sen. Rusty Black, a Republican from Chillicothe, also wants more information about how the governor plans to change the Foundation Formula.
“There’s been discussion since I’ve been here about making some major changes to it, because of changes that have happened in communities, etc.,” Black says. “None of that was a surprise and I’ve been around some of the discussion associated with that.”
The governor has proposed allocating more money to charter schools as well as a tax credit program that offsets the cost of sending a child to private school.
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