Today, Cole County Judge Callahan ruled against 262 Missouri public school districts that attempted to collect from taxpayers $1 billion in additional funding. In his ruling, Callahan wrote, “Further refinements to this calculation are a moot point since the evidence demonstrated that the state exceeds the twenty-five percent requirement under every reasonable method that provided consistent treatment of both the numerator and denominator.”

This final plaintiff legal argument was rejected in a ruling in favor of the State of Missouri, upholding the school funding formula created by the legislature in 2006. The school districts contended that Missouri’s school funding formula was not adequate, and requested additional spending.

In an earlier ruling in the case, Judge Callahan determined that the State’s constitution is very clear in granting the legislature the power to set the public school funding formula. This final ruling says definitively that Missouri spends the required 25% of its budget on education, and that spending may even be much higher.

The State and the intervenor defendants, who contended that the funding formula had a rational basis, presented evidence of committed, constitutional spending, and that even without the state income questioned by the plaintiffs the state still met the 25% target.

Plaintiffs included the Committee for Educational Equality (CEE), the Committee to Fund Excellent Schools (CFES) and the St. Louis City School Board. CEE and CFES are made up of half of the State’s school districts, including the more affluent Clayton and Ladue districts.

There have been many school finance adequacy cases in recent years across the country. This case was unique because for the first time, three private citizens joined the State against a constitutional threat. Menlo Smith, Bevis Schock and Rex Sinquefield intervened as taxpayers. They contended that the Attorney General’s office, in defense of the state, had not taken sufficient depositions to defend taxpayers on a ruling that would affect them. The Attorney General’s office had taken only two depositions before the start of the trial. The intervenors spent close to $800,000 from private donations to pay for attorney’s fees and other case preparation expenses. In comparison, within the first three months of the trial, the defense intervenors participated in more than 60 depositions.

“In short, Judge Callahan’s ruling saves Missouri taxpayers somewhere around a billion dollars,” said Sinquefield. “This shows the school districts that taxpayers are already pulling their weight. The Judge considered the spending evidence within a Constitutional framework and found overwhelmingly that spending is ample. We should revisit the question of why these school districts felt compelled to spend $4.6 million in taxpayer dollars to sue the taxpayers.”

“Many common misconceptions about school performance, accountability and per pupil spending were brought to light because of this case. We hope that taxpayers and the media will take a close look at these revelations. It is critical that Missouri build an educational system that adequately educates our youth, places quality education within reach of all Missouri students and uses taxpayer money responsibly,” said Sinquefield.

It has been reported that the plaintiffs are considering an appeal of the decision to the Missouri State Supreme Court.

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