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Longtime lobbyist Steve Carroll tells SLPS board a volatile session left schools largely protected; retirement fix included in bill
Summary
Steve Carroll, SLPS lobbyist, briefed the board on the 2025 Missouri legislative session, describing budget fights, an open-enrollment bill exemption for SLPS, a line-item for reading literacy, and passage of a retirement-contribution compromise (House Bill 147) that caps the district contribution rate.
Steve Carroll, president of Carroll and Associates government-relations firm, told the Saint Louis Public Schools Board of Education on June 10 that the 2025 Missouri legislative session ended chaotically but produced several results relevant to the district.
Carroll said the legislature approved large allocations for stadium projects and tornado relief and that, for education, the session left the district with several defensive successes: he said his office helped defeat bills that would have removed major revenue streams from state government and that negotiators preserved funding the district sought. "There were dozens of bills like that this year that we were able to kill," Carroll said.
Carroll described two items of special interest to SLPS: first, House Bill 711 (open enrollment) passed the Missouri House but was amended and then stalled in the Senate; Carroll said he ensured language allowing this board to opt out of open enrollment annually because SLPS is part of the desegregation settlement. Second, Carroll said the district’s $2.5 million line item for a reading-literacy program was preserved in the final package and is now on the governor’s desk.
On retirement funding, Carroll described an off-session negotiation that produced legislation enacted this year as House Bill 147, which he said caps the district’s retirement contribution rate at 14 percent and—he said—will get the system above a 70 percent funding threshold by 2031 under the bill’s schedule. "We came up with a bill ... which caps our contribution rate of 14%. So it's something that that we can afford, something that will get us to the 70% by the year 02/1931," Carroll said.
Carroll also warned the board that a statewide formula review process is underway and will report recommendations by December 2026; he described concern the commission’s membership and the governor’s guidance could yield a formula recommendation that does not fully fund current needs. He urged the board to prepare a legislative platform and to continue committee work on that agenda.
Board members thanked Carroll for his long service and said they planned to reconvene the board’s legislative committee to craft a platform for the coming sessions.
The board did not take a formal vote on Carroll’s report; the session was informational. Carroll answered members’ questions about the retirement bill’s governor-signature likelihood and about the district’s exemption planning for open enrollment.
