Fr. Matt Flatley, Vienna, MO

The Missouri Children's Education Initiative (CEI) is a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution that will provide financial assistance to elementary and secondary school children. I am signing this petition because this proposal is a win-win-win proposition! It has the potential to help all children in our state and it does so without raising taxes. Rather, taxpayers will be able to claim a tax credit for 50% of their donation to a "Children's Education Foundation."

Using this tax credit as an incentive for giving, non-profit foundations will be able to raise more funds to assist more schools and more students.

Who will benefit? This program will work to improve all programs in public schools. It will provide scholarships to those who attend nonpublic schools, and it will provide special education scholarships or funds to enhance special education services. Yes, this is indeed a win-win-win proposal.

In my own personal life, I am exceedingly grateful for the excellent, Catholic parochial education I received at the grade school and high school levels throughout my early years. The culture of Catholic education reinforced what I was learning at home and helped to nurture my faith. I believe it was also instrumental in helping to cultivate my vocation. My parents sent all of their children to Catholic schools at great sacrifice. How helpful this sort of tax credit could have been for them and so many others like them, if only it been available at the time.

Let us ensure that it is available to all Missouri families today. Let's sign the petition for the Missouri Children's Education Initiative.

Located in the small Southwest Missouri community of El Dorardo Springs, St. Elizabeth 

of Hungary parish has only 46 households. But this small parish just sent the MCC the signatures of 27 parishioners who have signed the official petition in support of the Children's Education Initiative (CEI). Now this is inspiring! If St. Elizabeth can do it, so can your parish.

Yes, the deadline for sending back to the MCC your CEI signatures is December 31, but send those petition pages to us sooner if you can. This will enable the MCC to gauge how well the campaign is progressing. That's important as we determine which Congressional districts require more attention.

It is not that difficult to become a Circulator of the petition supporting the Children's Education Initiative (CEI), but there are a few rules to follow. Click Instructions for Circulators to read a brief one-page primer. Before gather signatures, the MCC recommends Circulators attend a training session sponsored by either your parish or your diocese. 

By offering a state tax credit to donors, CEI encourages charitable giving to nonprofit foundations that help K-12 school children. But what if my parish or Catholic school does not have such a foundation? Under CEI new foundations can be established. The process is simple. A fee of $25 is paid when registering with the Missouri Secretary of State. Foundations register as a 501(c) 3 nonprofit corporation.  

Foundations can be established that help just Catholic school children or help all school children, both public and nonpublic. Foundations can be established that help school children on a local, regional or diocesan basis.

This week an interim committee of the Missouri House met to discuss how to reform and possibly expand Medicaid, the insurance program that provides health coverage to lower income Missourians. The committee is chaired by State Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City), who last session advanced legislation supported by the Missouri Catholic Conference.

This week the Randolph County prosecutor dismissed all charges against Reginald Griffin, making him the fourth person in the state that was sentenced to death and wrongly convicted in Missouri. Griffin had been sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of James Bausley, a fellow inmate at the Moberly Correctional Center in Moberly, Missouri.