Missouri’s State Board of Education has chosen not to ask lawmakers for the roughly $300 million increase that state calculations indicate would be needed to fully fund the public-school foundation formula in fiscal 2028. Instead, the board directed the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to keep the request flat at the current year’s appropriation, a decision that shifts the next funding debate from the size of the agency request to the consequences of holding it level.
The vote came at the board’s September 15 meeting after members deadlocked over whether a formal budget request should show the full statutory calculation or reflect what they believe the state can afford. According to Missouri Independent reporting from the meeting, lawmakers funded the formula about $190 million below its calculated level for the current fiscal year, while another increase of roughly $110 million is expected for fiscal 2028. Those amounts together produce the approximately $300 million gap.
The practical effect is not an immediate cut to district checks. The board was approving an executive-branch budget recommendation, not the final appropriation. The governor will assemble a budget proposal and the General Assembly will decide how much money to appropriate during the 2027 legislative session. Still, the flat request matters because it becomes the education department’s official starting position in that process.
Why the formula is getting more expensive
Missouri’s foundation formula distributes state aid based on enrollment, attendance and local wealth. The cost is rising in part because changes enacted in Senate Bill 727 are being phased in. The law gradually changes the attendance measure used in the calculation and establishes new minimum teacher-salary requirements, among other provisions. The formula is therefore not simply an aspirational target: it is the mechanism state law uses to calculate the amount required for districts under the system.
The board’s decision followed a broader effort to reduce the department’s request. The education department cut its supplemental general-revenue request from $159 million to $73 million and removed nearly $75 million from proposed increases and new obligations, the Missouri Independent reported. Items dropped included $3 million for maintenance of the department’s data-reporting system and $4 million to continue the statewide Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program.
Families and school leaders should not read the board action as the last word on next year’s funding. Missouri’s public board agenda and meeting archive provides the official record of the September meeting, while the legislature’s appropriation process will determine the actual number. The key signal now is that DESE will enter that process without asking for the full formula amount, even as the statutory calculation continues to rise.
For districts, that creates a planning risk rather than a settled loss. Local boards preparing 2027-28 budgets will need to watch the governor’s recommendation and the House and Senate education appropriations bills closely. A flat state request would preserve the current baseline, but it would not close the gap between that baseline and the formula’s calculated need.
