Lampe: Wrong to Hear "State of Transportation"

Rep. Sara Lampe believes state lawmakers should hear a State of Education address, rather than a State of Transportation address.

Missouri Department of Transportation Director Pete Rahn will deliver the annual State of Transportation address this Wednesday in Jefferson City.

"I think it's wrong for us to be hearing a State of Transportation address," Lampe told me in a recent interview. "Why don't we hear about the state of our children, the state of family, the state of women?," she asked.

"We're going to hear a State of Transportation address, and we don't know what the state of education is because we never get to hear that in the General Assembly," she said. "I'm troubled by that."

Lampe raises an interesting point. Why does transportation get its own separate address? Why not education? Or healthcare? Or even the economy?

This was just part of my recent conversation with Lampe about her passion - education. "One of the things we hear over and over is more money for education," Lampe said. "The problem with the phrase is yeah, there's more money for education, but everything costs more. We aren't really talking about an increase. We're just talking about more money."

She compared it to your monthly credit card bill. "I think it's like getting your credit card bill and only paying the finance charge and not paying towards the principal. We're never going to get out of this hole in education if we don't start paying towards the principal, which is having a vision," she said.

"Process Has Changed"

Rep. Lampe serves on the Education Appropriation Committee, and said the mission has "been totally changed." "We will do no mark-ups in committee. It's all going to be done in budget," she said. "They say this is the amount you have. You can't add to it. You can't expand it, all you can do is steal Peter to pay Paul and you have to shuffle it around."

Rep. Lampe said if she had her way, she would "first back-up and look at the formula again, because it is not adequate and not equitable."

But Lampe said the political problem is that lawmakers won't go back and address a formula they just finished making law. "Nobody's going to touch it. They don't want to touch it because of the lawsuit out there. They don't want to touch it because they are saying it is our formula, we voted it in, we're not going to budge with it," she said. "You have to start there: What should it be? It is worth the investment."

I asked Lampe to give an example of an education program that has been impacted by the current formula. She pointed to Missouri's gifted program.

The Gifted Program

"The formula took money away from the gifted education program to make the formula work," she said. "They took that money out of categoricals and rolled it in to make it work. Now funding for gifted programs is non-existent. Folks will tell you, oh it's in the formula. But the only reason the gifted program has existed for years back to 1973 is because money was allocated specifically for that. You had to write a grant for that. It's no longer there. The state department had to meet 2 weeks ago and change regulations because there was no money for that. Are gifted programs going to be non-existent in Missouri?," Lampe asked.

So would Lampe pour more money into education?

You betcha. "Am I asking for more money as it relates to education? Always. We always need more money in education. And the amount we need is exactly what the Department of Elementary and Secondary education and area superintendents say they need. They know what it takes to educate a kid. They know what it takes to lower class size. They know what it takes to hire counselors," she said.

"I was sitting next to (Nixa Superintendent Stephen) Kleinsmith the other day at a meeting," Lampe said. "He said under the old formula they received more. He said if they did not have the budget director they have, they would have not been prepared for this 7 year cutback," Lampe added.