Friday, January 22, 2010

Missouri budget shortfall could prompt school cuts - Yahoo! News

Missouri budget shortfall could prompt school cuts - Yahoo! News:


"JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri's public schools may be forced to freeze salaries, expand classes, cut extracurricular activities or seek local tax increases to cope with a funding shortfall, education advocates warned Thursday.
K-12 schools — though spared from cuts in their basic state aid — still might have to scale back because of Gov. Jay Nixon's plan to provide barely one-sixth of the funding increase needed to meet the state's financing formula, said Brent Ghan, a spokesman for the Missouri School Boards' Association.
'This is a pretty dramatic shortfall,' said Ghan. 'The funding situation from the state is going to have an impact on schools statewide — there's no doubt about it.'"