HALLSVILLE — Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick is defending his decision not to certify Hallsville School District’s bond from the April election, stating in a news release that “he cannot and will not turn a blind eye to cases where the very specific requirements laid out in statute have not been met.”
Fitzpatrick sent the news release hours after telling KOMU 8 News that his office mistakenly certified the April bond election for the Centralia School District — and that the Boone County Clerk’s Office made the same clerical error with the Centralia School District as it did with the Hallsville School District.
The Boone County Clerk’s Office failed to publish a notice of a bond election before the election in a newspaper for the affected area in the manner required by state law, Fitzpatrick said. The Boone County clerk published notices two weeks and three weeks before the election. The first publication must occur two weeks prior to the election with the second publication occurring within one week, state law requires.
The publication is included in the Centralia Fireside Guard, the Columbia Missourian, and the Boone County Journal. Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said the statute is a difficult standard to uphold given the newspapers’ schedules.
“One of the things that’s challenging about that is two out of those three are once-a-week papers,” Lennon said. “And so, in order to make sure that we are working within the spirit of making sure that voters get adequate notice, we put it in at three weeks and two weeks so that if something were to go wrong, we wouldn’t have delinquency in having notice at all.”
Fitzpatrick said Lennon should still know that her standard does not comply with the law.
“She’s probably a very competent county clerk, but I think if you asked her the question — even if that is your practice, does that practice comply with the letter of the law? If she was being honest with you, she should say it does not,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said the Hallsville School District bond counsel has not submitted the bond to his office for certification because of the answers his office gave to hypothetical questions.
“They asked the hypotheticals, which they probably shouldn’t have done. I mean, but they asked hypotheticals, and we answered them,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said the Centralia School District bond counsel submitted its bond issue for certification, and the bond counsel stated it met publication requirements, despite not meeting them.
“Centralia’s bond should not have been approved,” Fitzpatrick said. “… And, frankly, it slipped and probably should not have been approved.”
Fitzpatrick told KOMU 8 that his office did not verify that the Centralia School District bond was advertised in compliance with state law.
He said in the news release issued later on Thursday: “I have the utmost respect for voters and the decisions they make at the polls, but I also have a mandatory statutory duty to review these bond issues to ensure they have complied with all the notice and transparency requirements set forth in state law. While some want me to sweep these errors under the rug, that would not be the right thing to do. As state auditor, it’s my job to call balls and strikes, and I cannot in good faith certify that state laws have been complied with when I know they have not.”
But Fitzpatrick still certified the Centralia School District bond.
Hallsville Superintendent Tyler Walker said he just wants fair application of the law and for the state to listen to its voters.
“This is not fair for our kids. It’s not for me, it’s not for the adults in the building. It’s for our kids,” Walker said. “And our community obviously supported it, so it just doesn’t make sense to me to turn that down because of an outdated statute.”
In April, Hallsville residents voted to approve Proposition 2, a $6.5 million “no-tax increase bond issue” for the Hallsville School District.
The bond would have funded several projects in the district’s Phase 2 master plan. This would have included:
- Parking and traffic improvements
- New classrooms at Hallsville Primary School
- A relocated baseball field and multipurpose field
- Security upgrades with additional doors at the main entrance of each school
- Refinancing prior lease obligations to reduce further financial commitments
According to the district’s website, the projects are needed to match its projected growth as new housing developments are being built in the area. Currently, Hallsville Primary School sits at 92% capacity and is expected to exceed 100% by 2029.
For now, Hallsville is at a standstill.
“Right now we’re having conversations with our attorneys,” Walker said. “We’re having conversations with our representatives. Just whoever we can have conversations with because it’s just not fair.”
