Democratic Governor Jay Nixon and Republican nominee Dave Spence met today in Columbia and pitched their respective platforms at a live forum.
Of the several topics discussed in this morning’s gubernatorial debate, there were conflicting opinions on how to fix Missouri’s under-funded K-12 public education system. Gov. Jay Nixon said he plans to continue pouring funds into the state’s foundation formula despite complications due to growth over the past few years.
“As we move forward, uhh, working with folks to make sure that we get the necessary, uhh, tweaks to the formula if they’re necessary because of growth across the state and shifts in population and assess evaluation, uhh, is something we’ll work for, uhh. But it is a very complicated rubric,” Gov. Nixon said.
Republican nominee Dave Spence countered Gov. Nixon’s comment, saying the problem was not a matter of tweaking the existing formula but an overall lack of sufficient funding.
“What we really need to look at, the number of tax payers and the number of people that are on unemployment and that have given up. And that is hurting our overall education system ‘cause our tax-base is dwindling," Spence said.
Spence continued to stress the importance of job creation through the duration of the debate. Libertarian Jim Higgins was also part of the forum.
