2020 Legislative Session Wrap-Up
The Disrupted 2020 Session
By: Stacey J. Preis, Ph.D.
The 2020 Missouri legislative session began with charter schools, career and technical education, and school safety as a few of the key education issues to be addressed. However, the session was significantly disrupted in mid-March with the COVID-19 public health crisis. The legislature was not able to engage in regular business for several weeks in March and April forcing the state budget to be the top priority upon return to the Capitol. Passing a balanced budget each year is the only constitutional requirement of the General Assembly.
Budget
Unforeseen effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the closure of casinos and the extension of the deadline for state income tax filing, will have a significant impact on state revenue for the current fiscal year. In April, elementary and secondary education had $7.1 million in school transportation funding withheld and an additional $600,000 in other education programs. Community colleges, universities, and State Technical College of Missouri had a combined April withhold from their core funding of more than $73 million, plus an additional $3.5 million from research and other programs. State revenue continues to fall below projections making additional withholds possible for the current fiscal year ending on June 30.
For Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, the state budget was developed with a general revenue estimate that is difficult to predict, in addition to having a heavy reliance on federal stimulus and relief funding to address the economic impact of COVID-19. The FY 2021 budgets for Elementary and Secondary Education and Higher Education and Workforce Development include a large proportion of general revenue and federal stimulus funding. The budget for Elementary and Secondary Education includes $208,443,000 from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER); $30,000,000 from the Governors Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER); plus an additional $2,000,000,000 placeholder for additional Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act if funds were to become available. For public institutions of higher education, approximately 30 percent of their FY 2021 core funding is budgeted from federal dollars.
The anticipation of federal funding was not enough to protect all large expenditures in the education budgets. The FY 2021 appropriation for school transportation is $13.6 million less than the FY 2020 appropriation and $6.5 million less than the FY 2020 actual expenditure to-date. In addition, the FY 2021 budget includes nearly $14 million in reductions for state scholarships.
In lean budget years, any expenditure coming from the “General Revenue Fund” is vulnerable, and smaller programs in the education budget such as character education, scholars and fine arts academies, and early childhood quality assurance are particularly vulnerable. However, budget shortfalls of hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be balanced by cutting small programs. The K-12 foundation formula, school transportation, and core funding for institutions of higher education are large dollar appropriations and account for a sizeable share of the State’s general revenue.
Legislation
In the last weeks of the session, education stakeholders were closely watching two education bills: SB 528 and HB 1540. SB 528 began as a school transportation bill, and HB 1504 would have allowed parents to record individualized education plan (IEP) meetings. However, these two simple, no-cost bills became magnets for amendments and ballooned into large education omnibus bills with multimillion dollar price tags. It is not uncommon in the final weeks of session for a narrowly focused bill to be given a broader title that can accommodate numerous amendments, many of which are other bills that have stalled out somewhere during the process. This practice has been called out by the media and others for pushing the limits of the Hammerschmidt v. Boone County decision that states that a bill “shall not contain more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” Although neither of these omnibus education bills reached final passage, many of the provisions contained within SB 528 and HB 1540 are likely to resurface again next session.
In the end, only a few education bills passed in the 2020 legislative session.
HB 1682 (Wood) prohibits vapor (i.e. vaping) products from use in indoor school facilities and buses. Local boards of education may develop additional policies for vapor products for all other school properties.
SB 656 (Cierpiot) and SB 718 (White) contain identical language extending a provisional teaching certificate from one year to three years for military spouses and other individuals who relocate to Missouri. In addition, the State Board of Education must issue a full certificate within 30 days to military spouses meeting all certificate requirements.
HB 1467 (Pike) exempts the salaries and benefits of the executive director and paid staff of the board of the Public School Retirement System from confidentiality requirements for personally identifiable information.
Term Limits
Representative Kathy Swan and Representative Dean Dohrman both finished the final regular session of their terms in the House of Representatives. Representative Swan is chair of the Workforce Development Committee and former chair of the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. She is running for District 27 of the Missouri Senate. Representative Dohrman is chair of Higher Education and chair of the Joint Committee on Education.
Former Senator Gary Romine resigned his Senate seat in early 2020 when Governor Parson appointed him chair of the State Tax Commission. Senator Romine was chair of the Education Committee at the time of his resignation and is also former chair of the Joint Committee on Education.
These legislators served the State of Missouri well as leaders in education policy and deserve our thanks and gratitude.