Tag: Kevin Windham

House panel seeks success in creating higher ed performance-based funding plan

      A House effort to arrive at a successful performance-based model for funding the state’s colleges and universities launched on Tuesday.

Representative Brenda Shields (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      The House Special Interim Committee on Higher Education Performance Funding held an introductory hearing, in which it heard several presentations about the past attempts at performance-based funding. 

      Committee Chair Brenda Shields (R-St. Joseph) said it’s important to know what’s come before.

      “This has been attempted several times.  We haven’t been successful,” Shields said.

      She said if there is to be a chance for a better result this time, everyone must have a seat at the table.

      “It’s going to require us to engage all the stakeholders.  That’s all of our universities and our community colleges, all of our institutes of higher education along with the [Department of Higher Education] to be able for us to be successful in developing a formula that actually has a measurement model to it.  How do we know how we’re performing if we don’t have measurements?  So that’s what we’re really looking for, is how can we measure our fixed costs, the variable costs, and then our performance funding on top of that, so that our universities actually know what they’re working towards.”

Representative Kevin Windham (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      Shields said if not all of the state’s institutions have buy-in, any new formula will be doomed. 

      “If [a legislator] doesn’t feel as if their individual university that they represent is happy, they will vote against it, or I believe I will vote against it if my university felt as if they were not receiving fair funding.  I would vote against it and it would bring the people of my region against it, and it’s really hard to pass a formula unless you feel as if everyone is a winner somewhere in that formula.”

      What the legislature is using now in setting higher education funding is a “base plus” model, but Shields said no one has been able to tell her where that base came from.

      “Every year, if the legislature thinks that we can afford a three-percent increase, we use the current base and we add three percent to it.  First of all, nobody can explain how the base was created.  Secondly, it doesn’t take into account that things have changed, so we give everybody a three percent increase based on their base and maybe their student enrollment has increased dramatically.  Maybe it’s decreased dramatically.  Maybe they’ve taken on teaching some degrees that are more expensive to offer … and we haven’t taken any of that into account.  We just continue to add a percent to this base number that no one can remember how it was created.”

MU System President Mun Choi addresses the House Special Interim Committee on Higher Education Performance Funding (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      Tuesday’s hearing set the Department of Higher Education to the task of creating a work group with representation from all the institutions of higher education in the state. 

      “They will begin to sit down and break down what’s the fixed cost.  Let’s define ‘fixed costs,’ what are your fixed costs, what are the variable costs of running an institution, and then of course, what should be our measurements for a performance funding model?  They will agree upon what those measurements are and then we’ll move from there.”

      Shields said the goal is not to pass a new funding mechanism in the 2025 legislative session.

      “What our hope is for the ’25 session is that we have a system in place which we can test and simulate and make tweaks to, and so we will spend the entire ’25 session making tweaks.  I do not believe that we’ll pass legislation in ’25.  I think the soonest that we’ll pass legislation will be in ’26 for use in ’27.”

      The committee will meet three more times this year.

Bill would make cost to apply for law enforcement jobs more manageable

      A bill aimed at addressing a shortage of law enforcement officers has advanced through a House committee.

Representative Lane Roberts (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      House Bill 1703 is sponsored by Representative Lane Roberts (R-Joplin), who was a chief of police in multiple communities including Joplin and is a past director of the Department of Public Safety.  He said before a person can apply for employment as a law enforcement officer in Missouri they must first have their license. 

      “What that means is the officer is going to invest somewhere around $6,000 and, depending on whether they attend the day academy or night academy, four to six months of their lives with no guarantee of a job.  The result, in some cases, is they merely have a $6,000 debt,” said Roberts. 

      Roberts’ bill would create the “Peace Officer Basic Training Tuition Reimbursement Program.”  This would pay back individuals for that training over a period of four years if they find a law enforcement job and retain it for four years. 

      Roberts told the Committee on Crime Prevention his bill aims to make the potential cost of training less of a barrier, particular for two groups of people he hopes to incent toward pursuing law enforcement careers.

      “I’m interested in attracting some of those people who are 27, 28, 29 years old, who have a little life experience, have some idea of what they’re getting into.  Unfortunately many of those people will have mortgages, they’ll be married, have children, and the cost of burdening their family with a $6,000 debt with no guarantee of getting a job certainly would give them pause before they would apply,” said Roberts.

      “Many of the minority categories – people that we have worked very hard to attract – find that $6,000 up-front fee to be an absolute barrier, not just an inhibitor.  This would give them the opportunity to have a law enforcement career.”

      HB 1703 would also require that law enforcement instructors and their curriculum be approved by the Department of Public Safety.  This stemmed from an amendment offered by Representative Kevin Windham (D-Hillsdale) to last year’s version of the legislation.  Windham said it was in answer to something that happened in St. Louis County.

Representative Kevin Windham (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      “We had a police trainer that used some racially-charged language, and as our law stands right now that person would be able to go to any other law enforcement training facility throughout the state.  The amendment to Representative Roberts’ bill will make it where a person that participates in behavior that is less than what we would expect, they won’t be able to bounce around from law enforcement training facility to law enforcement training facility.”

      The bill carries a potential cost to the state of more than $5.5-million. 

      “While I don’t pretend that that’s not a substantial amount of money I would submit to you that at a time when we are having trouble recruiting officers, we’re having trouble finding minority officers, we’re having trouble retaining officers, that (nearly) $6-million is a fairly insignificant amount to be able to correct that in a significant way.”

      Last year’s version the legislation was approved by the House 152-1 but it stalled in the Senate.  HB 1703 has been approved by the Crime Prevention committee and needs one more committee’s action before going to the full House.