Mississippi House passes new education funding model

The Mississippi House of Representatives on a 95-13 vote Wednesday passed a bill that calls for replacing the Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding formula with a new version.

If passed by both chambers, the bill would be the state's first education funding remodel since MAEP was implemented in 1997.

"What you have before you today is a way that we can fund children," Education Chair and bill sponsor Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, said. "This doesn't fund administration. It doesn't fund teachers units. It funds what we think we are going to need for kids. We haven't really funded the current formula — we've funded it twice — but we've got a program and a formula in front of you today that puts as much emphasis on equity for our school districts as anything you have ever seen."

House Bill 1453 aims to scrap the current MAEP funding formula, which designates school districts to pay up to 27% of the total cost to educate its students and creates a base student cost from an objective formula that allows poorer districts to receive more state funds than richer districts.

In its place, the INSPIRE program would create a base student cost of $6,650 per student based on total enrollment instead of attendance and include an inflation factor to account for update costs. It would also replace the objective formula with a committee made up of superintendents and other appointees to make funding recommendations to lawmakers, who will then appropriate funds to those school districts.

While presenting the bill to lawmakers, Rep. Kent McCarty, R-Hattiesburg, and Roberson both said the goal of the bill was to provide a modern, functioning funding formula that would provide more money to poorer school districts and give added funds to districts that expand school programs such as career tech classes and those with larger percentages of low-income students enrolled.

"This gives us an opportunity (to help) poor districts that have struggled to maintain a C-rating or a D," Roberson said.

Before it passed though, several Democrats within the House asked Roberson and McCarty where the bill even came from.

Adams County Democratic Rep. Robert Johnson questioned if the bill was sponsored or co-authored by education advocacy groups that have publicly advocated for a more conservative approach to education in Mississippi, which includes private school voucher programs. Those groups included Empower Mississippi and the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

"There are people who are now saying they did help write this bill and are now applauding this formula who have never been supporters of public education," Johnson said.

McCarty said Roberson, Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, and himself worked on the bill independent of outside influence from those organizations.

"I'm not keen to work with them on much," McCarty said.

Several House members also had questions about school districts that would receive less money than they do now under MAEP, such as Simpson County School District and Moss Point School District.

Roberson said those schools had been receiving the same level of funding since the early 2000s after being locked into specific funding levels due to declining populations in the surrounding areas. INSPIRE does not include those same provisions.

"I think that's probably a fair criticism, but my question would be is, 'What is your plan?'" Roberson said after the vote. "I'm willing to sit down with any district and have that conversation about what it would look like to help encourage more people to come to their community or their schools."

Roberson later told the Clarion Ledger he was thrilled the bill passed through the House, but he doubts it will be received well by the Senate Education Committee Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, who has been pushing his own funding formula bill to modify MAEP.

More on DeBar's bill Mississippi Senate, House pushing separate education funding formulas for public schools

Given the difference between the two chambers approach to funding education this year, Roberson said it is highly likely that either his or DeBar's bill will go to conference, which is where several lawmakers from each chamber meet to iron out a final version of an unaccepted piece of legislation, or they kill it.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for Dennis, and we work well together, and I have no doubt that we'll work well on this too," Roberson said.

Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected] or 972-571-2335.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi House sends new education funding bill to Senate