Cite as: 515 U. S. 70 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
(Beam, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). The annual cost per pupil at the KCMSD far exceeds that of the neighboring SSD's or of any school district in Missouri. Nevertheless, the KCMSD, which has pursued a "friendly adversary" relationship with the plaintiffs, has continued to propose ever more expensive programs.2 As a result, the desegregation costs have escalated and now are approaching an annual cost of $200 million. These massive expenditures have financed
"high schools in which every classroom will have air conditioning, an alarm system, and 15 microcomputers; a 2,000-square-foot planetarium; green houses and vivariums; a 25-acre farm with an air-conditioned meeting room for 104 people; a Model United Nations wired for language translation; broadcast capable radio and television studios with an editing and animation lab; a temperature controlled art gallery; movie editing and screening rooms; a 3,500-square-foot dust-free diesel mechanics room; 1,875-square-foot elementary school animal rooms for use in a zoo project; swimming pools; and numerous other facilities." Jenkins II, 495 U. S., at 77 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Not surprisingly, the cost of this remedial plan has "far exceeded KCMSD's budget, or for that matter, its authority to tax." Id., at 60. The State, through the operation of joint-and-several liability, has borne the brunt of these costs. The District Court candidly has acknowledged that it has "allowed the District planners to dream" and "provided the
2 In April 1993, 16 years after this litigation began, the District Court acknowledged that the KCMSD and the plaintiffs had "barely addressed . . . how the KCMSD proposes to ultimately fund the school system developed under the desegregation plan." App. to Pet. for Cert. A-123. In the context of a proposal to extend funding of the magnet-school program for 10 additional years at a cost of over $500 million, the District Court noted that "[t]he District's proposals do not include a viable method of financing any of the programs." Id., at A-140.
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