Mississippi education: MS House Education Committee pushes forward bill to reform funding

On Thursday, the Mississippi House Education Committee voted to move forward a bill that aims to replace the objective Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding formula with one designated by lawmakers.

During the meeting Tuesday afternoon, House Education Chair Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, and Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, told lawmakers that they have worked for about a year to remodel the way Mississippi funds K-12 education.

If passed as is by both legislative chambers, House Bill 1453 would establish a new funding formula based on student enrollment in school districts instead of attendance and the educational needs of students.

The new formula would also incorporate a base student cost of $6,650. The funding formula would act as a recommendation to help lawmakers determine funding rather than an objective funding law.

"This bill is as close to getting to an equitable way of funding," Roberson said. "I believe in this bill, I believe this is the right thing to do. I believe that the kids of our state deserve the things that we're doing here in terms of the money that we're putting in here."

The bill, which Roberson said he and his fellow lawmakers have tweaked since introducing the in late February, will also include an inflation adjustor for updated costs, funding additions called weights, which would reward school districts for increasing certain programs such as special needs, English classes for those who speak another language and career technology courses. There is also added funding for schools with higher populations of low-income students and families within the area.

"This is really one of the key parts of this bill that really helps address some of the inequities in the current formula that there's no correlation between poverty and (money) you're seeing from the state," Rep. Ken McCarty, R-Hattiesburg, said of the bill.

Under the current Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding, poorer school districts also receive more funding than affluent ones.

If passed, the bill, dubbed the INSPIRE Act, would fund $2.96 billion toward education in Mississippi, which falls short of MAEP's current estimated cost of $2.99 billion.

MAEP was established in 1997, but it has only been fully funded twice since its inception.

McCarty said the bill also includes an accountability measure that would create a committee made up of eight superintendents — half from large districts and half from small districts throughout the state that would provide legislators a base student cost every four years. The committee also includes five members from the Mississippi Department of Education.

Under MAEP, the base student cost is determined by factoring the cost to educate a child in an "adequately" operated school district. That formula is calculated every four years and during the intervening years, an inflation factor is added to the base student cost, and school districts receive the base student costs multiplied by average daily attendance.

Even if the bill passes through the House, it is unlikely it will be met with much love from Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, who told the Clarion Ledger he is working to pass his bill to bring MAEP closer to full funding.

Read more about Debar's bill Mississippi Senate, House pushing separate education funding formulas for public schools

"I'm focused on my Senate bills right now," Debar said. "I can only go forward with the things that I know about."

Roberson's bill will now move to the House floor for a vote on the chamber.

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Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS House could scrap MAEP funding for public schools for new formula