Senate committee axes funding for higher education by Chad Livengood SNL April 6, 2010

Deal to freeze tuition in jeopardy JEFFERSON CITY — The Senate Appropriations Committee today agreed to cut $14.8 million from the operating budgets for public universities and community colleges, putting Gov. Jay Nixon's tuition freeze deal in jeopardy. The proposed cut would reduce overall funding for universities and community colleges by $64.8 million — $14.8 million more than Nixon and the schools agreed to last fall in exchange for holding the line on tuition rates next fall. Any cut beyond $50 million — or 5.2 percent — would break the deal and allow universities and community colleges to raise tuition up to the rate of inflation, which is projected to be 2.9 percent. In effort to preserve the tuition deal, Nixon is willing to cut Access Missouri college scholarships or school bus transportation funding, according to budget director Linda Luebbering. Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, initially proposed taking a vote on cutting the $14.8 million from higher education. But a vote was not taken after senators signaled they would go along with Mayer's recommendations and take the issue to conference committee negotiations with the House. "I would just ask the committee to go along with the chairman on this so we don't have to start taking votes," said Sen. Joan Bray, the ranking Democrat on the committee from St. Louis County. The Appropriations Committee also is considering eliminating the entire $37 million appropriated for Career Ladder, a program that awards teachers extra pay for taking on additional duties outside of the normal work day, such as after-school tutoring. "Under the circumstances, I felt we needed to eliminate this," Mayer told the committee. Sens. Frank Barnitz and Kurt Schaefer objected to eliminating Career Ladder, so the issue was laid over for another day. Career Ladder is a program in which school districts pay teachers for extra work performed beyond their contract and the state reimburses a portion after the fact. "Because that work's been done, we have an obligation to fund that standard," said Barnitz, a Dent County Democrat. Senate budget writers spent roughly three hours today getting through the two education funding bills for elementary and secondary schools and four-year and two-year universities and colleges. The senators also finalized plans to cut funding for the Parents as Teachers program by more than half of what the House funded it at, from $27.8 million to $13 million. Given the bleak budget outlook, Nixon agrees with the Senate's funding level, Luebbering said. Several of the education budget line-items were left open for further discussion later this week, much to the ire of some senators. "We can go through the budget again today and keep everything open," said Sen. Tim Green, a St. Louis County Democrat. "Sooner or later, we have to make cuts." Green added: "If we're just going to keep everything open, there's no reason to meet today." A list of potential cuts Some committee members also signaled they don't want to take all of the political heat for making tough budget cuts after the Republican-controlled House and Democratic governor sent them an unbalanced budget. Nixon has called on legislators to slash $500 million from the budget he proposed in January. Mayer told reporters Luebbering had given him a list last week of the governor's suggested cuts. But he declined to release it, claiming he had an agreement with the governor's office to keep it private. But he called on Nixon's office to release the document. During Tuesday's meeting, Schaefer asked Luebbering to produce her office's list. "We don't have that," Luebbering replied. "I don't have a list that shows the governor's cuts." Luebbering released the document Tuesday afternoon after the News-Leader and other news organizations requested a copy (see PDF attachment below). But the four-page list did not contain all suggested cuts from Nixon's office, as Mayer suggested. In fact, most of the deeper cuts were suggestions that came from the Senate Appropriations Committee and its staff, according to the document. Mayer has already dismissed some of Nixon's suggested cuts, such as slashing $50 million in Access Missouri scholarships for private school students. "I wouldn't accept that cut," Mayer told a reporter.