The Mississippi House of Representatives and Senate remain at odds over how to best fund public education.
On Tuesday, the Senate elected not to move forward with the House’s plan to implement what lawmakers call the INSPIRE Act, a funding formula that would move the state away from the oft-criticized Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) which has only been fully funded three times since its inception in 1997.
Senate Education Committee Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leaksville, motioned to neither send an amended version of the legislation back to the House nor to further the discussions in conference. Instead, the Senate proposed a different set of bills to provide an additional $206 million to K-12 public schools and $50 million for teacher pay raises while keeping the MAEP intact. Another $50 million is intended to go toward raising the pay of personnel at Mississippi community colleges and public universities.
In a press release, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann made assurances that he is not against modifying or moving away from the MAEP. However, he is not willing to jump the gun on any drastic shift without additional conversations with education leaders and parents.
“We are not married to the current formula. We do, however, believe any appropriation as significant as that which funds our school systems should be vetted and discussed with stakeholders including parents, educators, and the public at large,” Hosemann’s official statement reads. “Studying the issue together, in connection with the Department of Education and our new superintendent, will hopefully result in a new, long-term sustainable formula both chambers can agree on which is good for students and schools.”
First-year House Speaker Jason White was not as gung-ho over the Senate’s decision to kill both the INSPIRE Act and their own proposal to slightly modify and fully fund MAEP as his cross-chamber counterparts were. As a longtime advocate for a new funding formula, White believes he and his fellow representatives were slighted by not being given the chance to openly discuss the matter in conference.
White’s office released the following statement:
“Today, the Senate took an active role to deny an increase
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