By AP/St. Louis Public Radio
Jefferson City, Mo. – Missouri's budget troubles have opened divisions among public schools, which are jockeying over what should get cut.
Governor Jay Nixon has said Missouri cannot afford a $43 million midyear funding boost that schools had been expecting. There are at least two competing plans for how to make that reduction.
One would reduce the June payment to all school districts by about 2 percent. The other plan would exempt from this year's cut about 150 school districts, meaning other schools would see larger cuts.
Advocates of shielding the so-called "hold-harmless" schools say they should not be cut, because they haven't gotten increases under the school funding formula.
Both sides in the dispute each contend the other option is unfair.