(Missourinet) – The Missouri House Higher Education Committee heard several bills involving tuition cap increases and the elimination of tenure starting in 2019, during a hearing this week in Jefferson City.

State Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Webb City, has a bill that would eliminate the limit on tuition for public colleges and universities that have not received an increase in state funding the previous fiscal year. Normally, institutions cannot raise tuition more than the Consumer Price Index (CPI) percentage. His bill also allows public institutions to raise tuition to the CPI plus 10 percent, even if they have received additional state funding.

“I believe the state’s got vested interest in making sure tuition is affordable but I think we’re at the point where we need to let the colleges and universities make the decision what is affordable in that district,” Davis says.

This proposal comes in the wake of Governor Eric Greitens’ (R) proposed $98 million in budget cuts to higher education this fiscal year. Davis says this would allow these public institutions to accommodate for the lost revenue from state funding.

“This becomes a free-market type of a bill that allows colleges, universities, the board of governors and the presidents to decide what the tuition is going to be,” Davis says. “I hate tying the hands of our board of governors and our presidents of our universities by telling them that they cannot do tuition above CPI especially in years that we withhold tons of money from them.”

Paul Wagner, the executive director of the Council on Public Higher Education in Missouri, testified for the bill during the Higher Education Committee because of the increased flexibility for institutions.

Steven Chaffin, the executive director of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, spoke for informational purposes, saying although he understands the good intentions of the bill, he’s also worried about the effects of eliminating the cap altogether.

Under a proposal from State Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, public institutions would stop offering tenure to staff hired beginning in 2019. This would save taxpayers money by making it easier to fire professors who are not performing, increase accountability and evaluate educators more efficiently, Brattin says.

“If we’re going to make the real changes to streamline higher education and ensure that they’re receiving the best education possible, we have to be able to look into the staff and people who are working in that system to ensure they’re doing the best job they can,” Brattin says. “But with the system that we currently have, that’s not able to be done with a tenured staff.”

However, this spurred lots of opposition from several committee members and representatives from all over the state from various higher education groups and institutions. Rep. Joe Adams, who was a history professor at St. Louis Community College for over 30 years, says a potential to get tenured is essential when hiring.

“I view this as an attack on the MU system for whatever reason and I am unalterably opposed and if this bill makes it to the floor I will be going ballistic and if I’m lucky enough next year to be on that other side, it definitely is going to be dead on arrival,” Adams tells the committee.

Several committee members also say that although saving money is a good intention, eliminating tenure is not the best way to do so. Tenure is essential for attracting and maintaining high-quality educators and for the UM System to remain in the Association of American Universities.

Representatives from Missouri Western State University, Missouri State University, the Missouri National Education Association and the Missouri American Federation of Labor were opposed but did not have time to testify.

Students from the Dance Arts Center will present The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this weekend at the Historic Missouri Theater.

Marla Heeler with the Dance Arts Center said this is the first time they have done a full-scale production.

“I’ve wanted to do this for over 10 years… I lived in Chicago for several years and taught dance there and a great friend of mine, Béa Rashid, created this dance story and I wanted to do it for a long time but everything wasn’t quite in place – the kids, the staff members and the parents and where I was at – as far as being able to finagle it all,” Heeler said. “It just kind of all fell together about a year ago. I said, ‘We’re going to do this,’ and so, met with Béa and one of her other artistic directors in Chicago and started the wheels rolling.”

Heeler said the story translates well into a dance production.

“What’s so cool about it is it’s so unique. It’s not any type of dance production that anyone has ever seen before. It’s not The Nutcracker or even Cinderella or any other ballet that somebody might typically go see,” Heeler said. “It’s a story that most people have never seen in this format. Maybe they’ve seen the movies, maybe they’ve read the books, but they did an amazing job of bringing the story to life.”

The production features students and teachers and features a range of dance styles including ballet, jazz and tap.

Claire Phillips is performing the part of Lucy in the production.  

“We read the whole series when I was younger and as soon as I watched the movie, that was the part I wanted to play before I found out this was even a thing,” Phillips said.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will be presented at 2 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday at the Historic Missouri Theater.

Tickets can be purchased online or by calling (816) 233-5442.

JEFFERSON CITY – Throughout March, Missouri Department of Transportation maintenance crews will be repairing potholes to keep roads as safe and smooth as possible.

According to a press release, the public is asked to report potholes so maintenance crews can assess the damage and complete the needed repairs.

“We don’t want to take any shortcuts and sacrifice the safety of our customers and our crews,” said State Maintenance Engineer Becky Allmeroth. “We are focusing on quality repairs. It is not a good use of resources to have our crews going out multiple times repairing the same pothole.”

Allmeroth asks motorists to watch out for crews making the repairs, slow down and move over a lane to give them room to work. As many as 300 pothole patching crews may be working to make state roadways safer.

Motorists can report the location of potholes on state maintained roads using the following tools:

• Call our 24/7 Customer Service Center at 1-888-ASK-MODOT (888-275-6636)
• Use our Report a Road Concern form on the web at modot.org
• Use your smart phone/tablet with a mobile friendly form at modot.org/roadconcern
• By email to [email protected]

Potholes form when temperatures warm up during the day, but continue to be cold at night. This is the main cause of potholes in highways and why they are prevalent during spring. The rain and snow from winter leave moisture that seeps into cracks and joints in the pavement. When temperatures drop, the water freezes and expands the pavement. This expansion causes the pavement to bulge and crack. When cars drive over the bulging pavement, it eventually causes chunks of pavement to pop out.

MoDOT spends approximately $15 million a year on pothole patching with the majority of that during the month of March.

The state of Missouri maintains 34,000 miles of road including interstates, U.S. and Missouri routes and lettered routes. Potholes on city streets or subdivisions should be directed to local cities or counties.

With the St. Joseph School District still working on balancing the 2018-2019 budget, more decisions were made at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.

One decision included approving a reallocation of preschool funds.

Board member Kappy Hodges said the decision had to do partly with an anticipated shortcoming in Title I funding from the federal government for next year.

“That would mean that we have to make do with less Title I money for the school district and we use it for, not just the K through 8 classes with schools and students that qualify for the Title 1 funding, but also for the preschools at this time,” Hodges said. “There have been some schools that have qualified now as Title I schools, so they need to be covered with services also. So we’re having to make the money that we have, which is likely going to be a little less, cover extra schools too and that puts us in a bad situation for trying to stretch it across everything. So administration has recommended that we pare back the preschool offerings.”  

School District Superintendent Dr. Robert Newhart said the recommendation was to pare down to 13.

“Nobody is going to argue the importance of preschool if we can get it funded. Our primary responsibility is our K-8 programs, we’re actually going to be serving, now, a little over 900 more students than what we would with the preschool allocations at the K-8 level,” Newhart said. “But somewhere here along the line, the district and the community has got to decide how important is the preschool, we believe it is very important, but you have to have funding for it. It would have been a tune of approximately three-quarters of a million dollars to locally fund it to keep it as is.”

Hodges, was one of two who voted no.

“In my opinion, we should have gone ahead and tried to do it anyway and found space in some way,” Hodges said. “The benefits to educating the children, especially in a city where you have a very large population of people who qualify for free and reduced lunch and have that lower socioeconomic level, those kids frequently need a little extra help before they enter kindergarten. I totally understand the situation that the administration presented, I just really wanted to see that continue for the kids I thought would lose out.”

Hodges adds that the Title I funding hasn’t been fully determined yet, so there’s a possibility to add back in some preschools in the future.

Other decisions made Monday night included rearranging within the Parents as Teachers program. The Board also voted to cap funding for the program to save the district $100,000.

Pay-to-play is another item that is part of the budget discussions. According to Dr. Newhart, the district spends approximately $1 million a year on Missouri State High School Activities Association events and sports and fine arts.

“The idea is, to basically help support that, is to ask the families – the parents and the students – to help contribute to offset that cost and to what amount is what is being debated right now by the Board of Education,” Newhart said.

The Board tabled the pay-to-play decision at the meeting and Newhart said administration was asked to come back with additional supporting figures.

The Board of Education meets next on March 12th.

A suspect is in custody after a bank robbery in Platte County Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Kansas City Division of the FBI, a robbery was reported around noon at the U.S. Bank at 400 West Frank St. in Edgerton.

Following a vehicle pursuit by area law enforcement, an individual matching the suspect’s description from the robbery was taken into custody within an hour of the robbery in the area of 33rd and Jackson in Kansas City. The suspect reportedly got out of the vehicle and following a short foot chase, was taken into custody.