Liddell v. Board of Educ. of City of St. Louis, Mo.

Page 400

839 F.2d 400

44 Ed. Law Rep. 1055

In re Craton LIDDELL, et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the

CITY OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, et al. (Two Cases).

RITENOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. The STATE OF MISSOURI, Appellee.

Parkway School District, Amicus.

ROCKWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. The STATE OF MISSOURI, Appellee.

Nos. 86-2193, 86-2359.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Oct. 13, 1987.

Decided Feb. 4, 1988.

Rehearing En Banc Denied March 14, 1988.

John Gianoulakis, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

Robert L. Presson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., for appellee.

Before HEANEY, Circuit Judge, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

HEANEY, Circuit Judge.

Ritenour School District and Rockwood School District submitted requests to the district court for reimbursement by the State of Missouri for expenses incurred in accepting black transfer students from the City of St. Louis School District pursuant to the settlement plan in the St. Louis school desegregation case. The district court granted Ritenour partial payment and denied Rockwood's request. We affirm in part and reverse in part as to Ritenour, and reverse as to Rockwood.

BACKGROUND

In March, 1983, twenty-three county schools and the City of St. Louis School District entered into a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in the St. Louis school desegregation case. This Court approved the settlement agreement and detailed a plan for the desegration of the St. Louis schools. See Liddell v. State of Missouri, 731 F.2d 1294 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 816, 105 S.Ct. 82, 83 L.Ed.2d 30 (1984) (Liddell VII ). We found the State of Missouri to be a constitutional violator, id. at 1298-99, and held that it must, with certain exceptions, abide by the terms of the settlement agreement. Id. at 1309.

The settlement plan requires the voluntary interdistrict transfer of black students from the City of St. Louis school system to the county school districts. The transfers serve two purposes: (1) to provide the transfer students and the suburban students with an integrated education; and (2) to reduce the number of students in the St. Louis schools, particularly in the nonintegrated schools. The State is obligated to fund much of the interdistrict plan. Id. at 1301-09.

Liddell VII established that 15,000 black students from the city would be transferred to county schools over a period of years. Significant progress has been made toward that goal. The numbers of transfers has steadily climbed from 2,294 in 1983-84, see 731 F.2d at 1302, to almost 12,000 in the current school year. See Voluntary Interdistrict Coordinating Committee Report of November 4, 1987, at 10.

Both Ritenour and Rockwood have growing numbers of resident and transfer students. ¹ Ritenour requests reimbursement from the State for some of the costs of reopening a closed elementary school. Rockwood requests reimbursement for the building of more classroom space to accommodate the transfer students.

ANALYSIS

In issue in this case is section X.B.3 of the settlement plan which provides for reimbursement for a county district's "one-time extraordinary costs (other than hiring of personnel) such as the costs associated with reopening a closed school." Both Ritenour and Rockwood claim that they are entitled to reimbursement under this section.

The State makes a number of arguments which apply to claims of both school districts. ² It initially contends that Ritenour and Rockwood are not entitled to any reimbursement by the State for capital expenditures for the reopening or the creation of classroom space to accommodate transfer students. It points to Liddell VII in which the Court en banc disapproved that portion of the settlement plan under which the county districts were to be reimbursed for capital costs for establishing county magnet schools. See 731 F.2d at 1312. It argues that the Court decided that reimbursements for capital expenditures in the county school districts were beyond the scope of the proper remedy. This argument is without merit.

The State must abide by the terms of the settlement plan. See id. at 1302-09. The Court en banc stated: "Interdistrict transfers between the city and the county schools may proceed pursuant to the settlement agreement," subject to certain exceptions. The Court did not except the State from paying the capital costs due to interdistrict transfers as directed in section X.B.3. See id. at 1309. Liddell VII therefore did not insulate the State from liability for capital costs to accommodate transfer students in the county schools.

Second, the State contends that the question of the need for additional space for transfer students should only be considered on the basis of the county as a whole. It argues that unless Ritenour and Rockwood can show that other county districts do not have space, their request to be reimbursed for the creation of additional space should be denied.

The settlement plan does not establish such a requirement. Nor does it limit transfer students to those districts which have existing space to accommodate them. ³ Instead, it specifically permits districts to seek reimbursement for capital costs. In Liddell VII, we stated that "complementary zones" which would limit the choices of the schools which transferees could attend would undermine the voluntary nature of the settlement agreement. See id. at 1309. We view the State's present argument in a similar light. A requirement that a district cannot build to accommodate transfer students unless no other district has space would seriously limit the choices available to transfer students. We therefore reject the State's argument.

Third, the State contends that Ritenour and Rockwood are not short of space. It argues that Ritenour and Rockwood would be able to accommodate the additional transfer students by raising their pupil to teacher ratios. We will not require either school to take that action. It was not the intent of the settlement agreement or of this Court to require suburban schools to lower their standards as a condition of participating in the voluntary interdistrict desegregation plan.

Finally, the State contends that the per pupil reimbursements paid by the State under section X.B.1. of the settlement plan are sufficient to cover, not only the per pupil recurring costs, but also the costs of capital projects. We disagree.

Reimbursements for per pupil expenditures under section X.B.1. and reimbursements for one-time costs under section X.B.3. are distinct aspects of the settlement plan. The per pupil reimbursements under section X.B.1. are not in issue in this appeal. In any event, the record before this Court does not show that county districts are receiving reimbursements that are greater than their per pupil costs. In fact, Ritenour submitted evidence that in 1984-85, it received a per pupil reimbursement from the State of $2,270 but that its per pupil costs were $3,150.

We turn now to the individual budget requests of Ritenour and Rockwood.

A. Ritenour

Ritenour objects to the formula adopted by the district court for determining the amount the State should reimburse it for the reopening of Buder Elementary School. Ritenour estimated the cost of reopening this school to be $587,000. It asked the State to pay $290,565. The State refused. Thereafter, Ritenour filed a budget request. A hearing was set before the Budget Review Committee (BRC).

Ritenour submitted evidence that its elementary schools were overcrowded; that in the previous year it could not accept more transfers because of the overcrowding; and that over the last several years, Ritenour had been forced to convert speciality rooms into regular classrooms. According to the evidence, as of June, 1985, Ritenour's elementary schools exceeded their "preferred capacity" by 486 students. The State submitted no evidence in rebuttal.

On June 6, 1985, the BRC filed its final report and recommendation with the district court. The report agreed with Ritenour that Buder had to be reopened, in part because of transfer students; that the $587,000 estimate for renovating Buder was reasonable; and that "Ritenour has deligently abided by the Settlement Plan provisions in the recruitment, assignment and education of transfer students." The BRC, however, recommended that only $108,783 be paid to Ritenour.

The BRC arrived at this figure by deducting "non-capital costs" such as books and instructional materials; by deducting funds which had been expended by the school district prior to approval by the district court; and by applying a special "proration factor." The "proration factor" was arrived at by dividing the number of additional transfer students in the coming school year by the total number of seats in Buder. Ritenour's estimates of the costs and the BRC's deductions from them break down as follows:

Proposed Expenditures (1986-87)
--------------------------------
  Equipment and Furniture         $190,000
  Repair and Renovation            190,000
  Kitchen                           44,000
  Instructional Materials           40,000
  Kitchen Exhaust System            15,000
Prior Expenditures (1985-86)
--------------------------------
  Roof Work                         47,000
  Reading and Math                  31,000
  Library Starter Kits              30,000
                                  --------
    Total Projected Cost of
      Reopening Buder -           $587,000
    Deduct
      Recurring Operating Costs     43,865
      Expenditures Made Prior to
        District Court Approvel    108,000
                                  --------
    Net Capital Cost              $435,135
      Multiply by Cost Proration
        Factor of 25%                  .25
                                  --------
                                  $108,783
                                  --------

We consider each of Ritenour's objections to...