The Missouri State Treasurer’s Office can continue to subsidize private-school scholarships from a $51 million allotment of state revenue while a lawsuit challenging the fund’s constitutionality makes its way through the system, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Brian Stumpe ruled Monday morning.
Stumpe rejected arguments by the Missouri branch of the National Education Association that the flow of funds should be stopped in order to prevent unauthorized spending of state funds that can’t be “clawed back.”
But he didn’t outright deny the teachers union’s case, also turning down the state’s motion to dismiss Monday.
Still, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is in his final days in office before stepping into a federal position as co-deputy director of the FBI, labeled the ruling a “victory.”
“Parents, not unions, not bureaucrats, know what’s best for their kids,” he said in a press release. “This case is about freedom and opportunity, and today’s ruling is a huge step toward securing both.”
At the center of the case is the MOScholars program, which until the infusion of general revenue landed last month funded private-school scholarships through a tax credit program.
The lawsuit challenges the shift from a program dependent on donations — which taxpayers are able to receive back as a tax credit equal to 100% of their contribution — to a state-sponsored voucher program.
Both sides met in circuit court last Thursday for the first in-person hearing of what will likely be a months-long legal battle. MNEA’s attorney Loretta Haggard argued that the appropriation lacks authority from state statute.
“You can’t just turn on a hose of $51 million in general revenue and force it through the tax credit framework,” she said. “There are gaps in that framework.”
But the attorney general’s office and intervenors from Indiana-based advocacy group EdChoice argued the legislature’s authority in the budget process was sufficient.
“Just because (the budget bill) funds a program set up by other statutes does not make a new appropriation unlawful—new funding is a common, necessary, and entirely unsurprising
feature of general-revenue bills,” Bailey’s office wrote in a filing submitted Aug. 15.
The digital case record does not include Stumpe’s reasoning for the two denials Monday.
MNEA President Rebeka McIntosh shared her concerns about the unhampered flow of tax dollars to private schools in a statement.
“Politicians think they’ve won, but Missouri NEA’s 45,000 educators know better. We’ll prove in court what rural Missouri already knows: when you kill the school, you kill the town,” she said. “These vouchers violate our constitution and hurt our kids.”
The case does not yet have a trial date.