Governor Mike Kehoe Signs Fiscal Year 2026 Budget with Historic Investment in Education

Governor Mike Kehoe approved and signed the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE’s) $8.6 billion Fiscal Year 2026 budget today, including these highlights:

• Full funding of the Foundation Formula
• Investments in child care subsidy through enabling payment based on authorized enrollment and prospective payments.  
  • DESE and the Office of Childhood have already begun working within the Child Care Data System to build the software changes to pay on enrollment and prospectively. The changes to payments will begin once the technical work is completed, in order to ensure that there is no disruption to the child care subsidy providers. DESE anticipates this work to take approximately six months to complete. Paying on enrollment and prospectively are federal requirements for all states. This change better supports child care providers financially and helps provide a more consistent source of income than the previous system of paying retrospectively on attendance.
• Full funding for Transportation
• Investments in literacy
• Increased investment in career and technical education
• Additional investments in Missouri teachers and students through funds to support the Missouri Leadership Development System and Missouri Teacher Development System.

“We appreciate everyone’s efforts to support Missouri education throughout the state,” said Commissioner of Education Dr. Karla Eslinger. “We thank the General Assembly and Governor Kehoe for investing in public education in our state.”

The 2026 Fiscal Year will begin on July 1, 2025.