St. Louis Charter Schools will continue receiving local tax dollars

Last week, Missouri’s 8th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that St. Louis charter schools are entitled to their proportionate share of special sales tax revenue, protecting at least $600.00 per student in local revenue for charter schools. This decision also vacates a requirement that charter schools spend that money on desegregation programs.

“I think the court appropriately saw that charter public school students are public school students in the city of St. Louis, and therefore, they are entitled to the same equitable funding, as their peers who attend St. Louis public schools,” said Douglas Thaman, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association and executive director of the Northside Community School.

The Court of Appeals agreed with Missouri Charter Public School Association’s (MCPSA) position that Senate Bill 781, the desegregation settlement agreement, established charter public schools as a never segregated alternative to the formerly segregated St.LouisPublic Schools.
http://www.senate.mo.gov/98info/billtext/tat/SB781.htm

The Eighth Circuit concludes that charter schools “always had a right to a per-pupil share of special-sales-tax revenue.” If charter schools were not entitled to a portion of that funding, “some districts would have reaped a windfall, and Charter Schools would have been chronically underfunded.” The Eighth Circuit concluded that the right to receive funds raised by the special sales tax “existed from day one, which means later changes to the charter-school funding formula had no ‘adverse financial impact.'” The Court concluded that “there has been no “disproportionate adverse financial impact” on the St. Louis Public School District because it never had a right to keep all the special-sales-tax revenue for itself.”

This Court also reversed an earlier decision requiring charter schools to spend their share of the sales tax revenue on desegregation programs. Adopting MCPSA’s arguments directly, the Court opined, “the Missouri Legislature created charter schools to offer students a non-segregated alternative to an already-segregated public-school system.” The Court vacated the portion of Judge Autrey’s opinion imposing conditions on how Charter Schools spend their funds. Charter schools are free to ” spend their money as they see fit.”