Cite as: 515 U. S. 70 (1995)
Souter, J., dissenting
that goal, keeping in mind the broad discretion enjoyed by the District Court in exercising its equitable powers.
The District Court first ordered KCMSD salary increases, limited to teachers, in 1987, basing its decision on the need to raise the level of student achievement. "[I]t is essential that the KCMSD have sufficient revenues to fund an operating budget which can provide quality education, including a high quality faculty." Jenkins, 672 F. Supp., at 410. The State raised no objection to the District Court's order, and said nothing about the issue of salary increases in its 1988 appeal to the Eighth Circuit.
When the District Court's 1987 order expired in 1990, all parties, including the State, agreed to a further order increasing salaries for both instructional and noninstructional personnel through the 1991-1992 school year. 1 App. 332- 337 (Order of July 23, 1990). In 1992 the District Court merely ordered that salaries in the KCMSD be maintained at the same level for the following year, rejecting the State's argument that desegregation funding for salaries should be discontinued, App. to Pet. for Cert. A-76 to A-93 (Order of June 25, 1992), and in 1993 the District Court ordered small salary increases for both instructional and noninstructional personnel through the end of the 1995-1996 school year, App. to Pet. for Cert. A-94 to A-109 (Order of June 30, 1993).
It is the District Court's 1992 and 1993 orders that are before us, and it is difficult to see how the District Court abused its discretion in either instance. The District Court had evidence in front of it that adopting the State's position and discontinuing desegregation funding for salary levels would result in their abrupt drop to 1986-1987 levels, with the resulting disparity between teacher pay in the district and the nationwide level increasing to as much as 40 to 45 percent, and a mass exodus of competent employees likely taking place. Id., at A-76, A-78 to A-91. Faced with this evidence, the District Court found that continued desegregation funding of salaries, and small increases in those salaries
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