Treasurer promotes MOScholars program
By Marcus Clem
For two years now, Missouri has allowed the donation of money for private school education so as to earn dollar-for-dollar breaks on taxation, and a state official promoted this program on Thursday.
State Treasurer Vivek Malek visited St. Joseph Christian School to that end. He assumed office in January 2023, and in that time he has been charged with managing MOScholars. Normally, people can donate money to nonprofit causes so as to deduct from their taxable income and thereby owe less to the state. Based on a 2022 statute, MOScholars donors specifically fund private education and thusly earn a tax credit.
“I think it’s a win-win for everybody, and it just gives parents a different choice,” Malek said.
A person who owes $5,000 in a given year to the Department of Revenue can fund MOScholars for $5,000, and pay nothing more. The state, under Malek’s supervision, then breaks the proceeds — $9 million in the first year of the program, $17 million in the second — into $6,375 awards per student, per year, to help pay for tuition at the private school of their choice.
MOScholars has a number of rules that limit its impact. In the main, only families who have a household income of 200% (or less) can have their children qualify to receive the $6,375 per year; an exception is given to students qualified for an individualized education program (IEP) based on their needs. For example, 200% of the poverty line for a family of four is collective household earnings of $62,400 per year.
St. Joseph Christian School has 59 students who receive MOScholars money today, out of its total student body of 520, according to Co-Superintendent Danny Maggart. Tuition at the school varies by grade; the highest tuition cost of $8,486 per year is assessed to high schoolers. Therefore, MOScholars can pay 79.3% of the annual cost. St. Joseph Christian School is a leading recipient of these funds because geographic restrictions mean only some places in Missouri (including St. Joseph) have students who qualify. There were 1,997 MOScholars recipients statewide enrolled in a private school for the 2023-2024 year.
Legislation is currently under consideration in Jefferson City to reform MOScholars and increase its availability. Senate Bill 727 would, among other measures, make the program available statewide. The cap on donations, which has not yet been reached, would be raised to $75 million, up from $50 million. Should this cap be reached in the future, people would no longer be able to get tax credits for giving money, for the rest of that tax year.
Some in the Missouri General Assembly have suggested that the millions of dollars MOScholars provides lure students away from public school and deprive districts of the money the state provides to educate them. This is nonsense, Malek said Thursday, because the state is required by statute to keep funding a public district as it did before if a student moves to private school under MOScholars. And, the scale of money is completely different.
“Even if it gets to $75 million, that’s just peanuts compared to what (the state education department) gets,” Malek said.
Annual public education funding in 2023 amounted to just under $10.4 billion.
