This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 31, 2013 - The Normandy School Board reversed itself Thursday and approved payment of $108,635 for the transportation of transfer students in September, but tuition for those students still remains unpaid.
At a special meeting at the district’s headquarters, board members said the transportation bill submitted by the First Student bus company should not have been lumped in with tuition bills at a meeting when both sets of bills were rejected by a single vote of 3-2. Two board members were absent at last week's meeting.
Instead, board President William Humphrey said, the First Student bill should have been voted on separately because the district had already approved a contract with the company for transportation of transfer students to nearby accredited school districts.
"We approved that two months ago,” Superintendent Tyrone McNichols told the board. "We have no contracts with other districts. "We have paid all of our bills that we have contracts with.”
After the meeting, Humphrey said the issue of the unpaid tuition is the subject of ongoing discussions among board members and it will be revisited at the board's next meeting in mid-November.
He said First Student did not approach Normandy with concerns about the vote last week not to pay the transportation bill.
Before Thursday morning's vote, board member Terry Artis, who voted last week against paying the tuition and transportation bills, wondered why the bus company payment did not fall under the same objection he has to the tuition payments — what he considers to be a violation of the Hancock Amendment’s prohibition of imposing mandates on districts without providing money to pay for them.
Artis said he still believes that paying the transportation bills would violate the rights of Normandy residents.
Humphrey said that while some legal issues related to the transfer law remain to be settled by the courts, the busing contract is separate and should have been split off from the tuition bills.
"We had approved the prior contract, so it’s a contract issue that’s involved,” he said during the brief meeting that ended with the First Student contract being approved by a vote of 6-0, with Artis abstaining. Board member Jeanette Pulliam joined the meeting by phone. After the vote, the board went into a closed session that lasted more than two hours.
At issue is the law that allows students living in unaccredited school districts to transfer to nearby accredited districts, with their home districts paying tuition and, in some cases, transportation as well. About 1,000 students have transferred to Normandy, about 440 of them to Francis Howell in St. Charles County, which Normandy designated as the district for which it would pay transportation as well as tuition.
The law was upheld this summer by the Missouri Supreme Court, which rejected the Hancock Amendment issue that had been raised in a lower court decision.
After the Normandy board voted last week to reject the tuition and transportation payments, state education officials said if the bills go unpaid for two months, tax funds that normally would be distributed by the state to Normandy would instead be sent directly to the districts and bus firm submitting the bills.
The Normandy board earlier approved tuition and transportation bills for August. But at their meeting last week, after voting to cut 103 teachers and other staff members, close Bel Nor Elementary School and offer early retirement incentives to other employees, board members who voted against paying the bills said the emotion of the situation had dictated their decision.
That emotion was still evident Thursday morning, as different board members took the opportunity to comment on Normandy’s financial difficulties. The district has said that the transfers are costing between $13 million and $15 million, and the state board of education has voted to seek an additional $6.8 million to help Normandy survive the year.
That request has not had a very favorable reception from lawmakers; education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said at a meeting with legislators last week that she hasn’t heard from anyone who thinks it’s a good idea.
At Thursday morning’s meeting, board Secretary Nancy Hartman, who voted last week for paying the tuition and transportation bills, noted the differences between the two types of payments.
"I do see a distinction between something that was forced upon us and something we entered into,” Hartman said. "We should pay our bills for something that we have a contract for.
"We may in hindsight say, 'Well, maybe I’m sorry we made the contract,’ but we did make the contract. It’s like saying maybe I’m sorry I bought this fancy car, but I’ve got to pay the bills for it. We have to be responsible to pay our bills that we entered into.”
Comparing the $1.3 million total of tuition and transportation rejected last week with the $108,635 approved for First Student Thursday, Hartman said:
"From a practical standpoint, if we’re looking at the negative impact on money that is left to educate the children who are staying, in terms of an actual dollar impact it’s a much smaller amount of money.”
And in terms of reaction from residents in Normandy who have expressed opinions about the transfer law?
"If the voters decide that they don’t like what we did,” Hartman said, "they can vote us out.”