SHELBINA, MO. -- Teachers in the South Shelby School District have put in more than 1,000 extra hours of work over the past year.

Last week, the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee voted to cut funding to several programs, including one called Career Ladder.

It pays teachers for tutoring students after school and over the summer.

KHQA's Jarod Wells found out these cuts will affect teachers and students across the state, but may hit rural districts even harder.

South Shelby Career Ladder Chairperson Karen Kerin said, "Obviously we would like to be paid for what we've done, but truly it is the fact that a lot of kids aren't going to get some tutoring next year."

Karen Kerin is one of about 35 teachers in the South Shelby School District Career Ladder program.

Kerin said, "Whether you're from Illinois, Missouri or Iowa, you understand that the state test scores and the goals we have to get, this tutoring is a massive amount of help."

Kerin fears wiithout Career Ladder, students who fall behind may not get the help they need.

Kerin said, "Our teachers are so professional, I'm certain we'll continue to do the most of that, because this district, economically, a lot of parents couldn't afford to pay for tutoring."

But it will have to be for less money. There are three stages of the Career Ladder program. At the top stage, a teacher gets paid $5,000 for 120 hours of extra work. More than half of that comes from state funding. The local school district picks up the rest.

South Shelby Superintendent Rick Roberts said, "We're going to try to continue our 41% for those teachers this year and also years to come, as long as we can afford to continue to do that."

That means teachers at South Shelby will get paid less than half of what they were expecting for their work in the program this year..they would make significantly less in future years.

And that may send some Missouri teachers searching for extra income elsewhere.

Roberts said, "Career Ladder has been able to equal out staying in rural Missouri compared to going to Kansas City, St. Louis and making more money. In other words, we get to keep our better teachers instead of moving on to other places where they make more money."

Lawmakers could reverse the work of the appropriations committee, but as it stands right now, come July first, state funding for Career Ladder will be gone.

Roberts said, "It will definitely have an impact on student performance."

Almost 18,000 teachers participate in Missouri's Career Ladder program right now.

We spoke with Missouri Senator Wes Shoemyer and he says there is language now in the proposed budget that would fund the career ladder program for this year.

However, the funding for 2011 will not be available.

But Shoemyer says the plan of the legislature is to fund the career ladder program beginning in 2012 with funds that would pay for the program a year in advance.