An Associated Press report claims the state underfunded Starkville School District by $12.08 million from Fiscal Year 2009-2015, making it one of 42 Mississippi school systems to have a combined gap of more than $10 million in funding in the same timeframe.
Since 2008, legislators have spent $1.5 billion less on education, the AP reported, and the likelihood of continued underfunding is high as estimates state Mississippi could come up $280 million short of fully funding its school systems next year.
Locally, SSD Superintendent Lewis Holloway said the funding gap is apparent, as the district reduced the number of teacher assistants, froze salaries, delayed maintenance on buildings and postponed school bus purchases in the past few years.
More importantly, he said, is the direct effect classroom size — student-teacher ratios — has on educators.
“More students equal more tests, more preparation and more work,” Holloway said. “Teachers are now asked to do more today than ever before…(appropriate levels of funding) would not go to some administrative, bureaucratic salary. It would go directly to help teachers and kids.”
The shortcomings with Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding, a formula lawmakers approved in 1997 in an attempt to equally distribute educational funding across the state’s public school systems, affect SSD’s total financial picture, which then forces the district to dip into its ending fund balance and rely more on borrowing and debt service.
The biggest fear associated with funding issues Holloway said he has is with declining student-teacher ratios and increasing classroom sizes.
About 4,300 students are enrolled at SSD, but the number is expected to eclipse 5,000 pupils after 2015’s state-mandated consolidation with Oktibbeha County School District.
SSD’s current student-teacher ratio is at about 15-to-1, but the number is deceiving.
“That takes into account every teacher, coach, librarian, counselor — everybody,” he said. “Take fourth grade, for example. When you look into the classroom, you could see 24 kids in there. That’s not 15-to-1.”
“Fourth grade averages about 24 students. We think we can get better academic results if that number was down to 20.”
OCSD wasn’t spared from state underfunding. In the same timeframe, its state-level funding gap was $2.8 million, the AP study reported.
“It’s gotten to the point now where you have a $50 million budget and a $1 million (ending fund balance), and that’s not healthy,” Holloway said. “It causes us to borrow money and pay interest while we’re waiting on taxes to come in. We’re now paying for 28 teachers out of local income that the state doesn’t fund,”
As approved, SSD’s FY 2015 budget adopted a 66.57-mill tax levy to locally fund a predicted $55 million in expenses. Local taxing constitutes about 40 percent of the district’s total income, and the remainder is funded by intermediate, state (43 percent), federal (14 percent), 16th section land and other sources.
Instruction (42.75 percent), support services (25.76 percent) and non-instructional services (6.27 percent) comprise the lion’s share of SSD’s expenses, while construction and debt service combine for another 21 percent.
About 50 local school mills help support SSD’s general expenses. Besides a single mill for the Millsaps Career and Technology Center, the remainder helps fund limited tax notes and bond indebtedness.
Although about 4 mills are expected to roll off in the next few years, district tax levels could remain about the same due to funding gaps.
Across the state, about 80 percent of Mississippi’s 146 school districts raised property taxes since 2008, the last time lawmakers fully funded MAEP, the AP reported.
Frustration is growing because of the dynamic between dwindling funding, legislators’ blanket calls for better education and specific challenges unique to Oktibbeha County’s consolidation. While lawmakers have pledged to support the process, the state has yet to commit funding for building improvements, the construction of a grades 6-7 demonstration school at Mississippi State University and the establishment and continual funding of a larger pre-kindergarten program partnered with the land-grant institution.
“There’s this huge expectation; they want higher standards, higher test scores and consolidation, but they’re not willing to fund schools at the full rate,” Holloway said.
‘Big Three’ spending binds lawmakers hands
Lawmakers’ inability to fully fund MAEP has yielded at least one lawsuit and incited calls for an amendment to Mississippi’s constitution guaranteeing 100 percent funding, but state Rep. Gary Chism, R-Columbus, says legislators’ hands are tied due to increasing costs associated with the state’s correctional system, Medicaid and debt service.
Chism’s district includes a portion of Oktibbeha County.
In 35 states, educational spending is still lower than levels prior to the 2008 economic downturn, the AP reported. Mississippi’s per-pupil rates — — $7,926 in 2010-2011 — were already among the nation’s lowest marks, its report states.
“I think we’re making great strides to fully fund MAEP each and every year under the circumstances,” Chism said. “Yes, we’re still suffering from the recession, but (MAEP) wasn’t fully funded but one time before then…it’s my hope that we will have it funded over the next two or three years. However, we can’t do it this year since we have other things we have to pay first.
“(The Mississippi Department of Corrections) is a blank check — it usually depends on how many people we have in the system,” Chism added. “(MDOC) has to be paid, and it’s usually a deficit appropriation. What money we may have had that exceeded projections will have to be used to pay that. The other we have to pay up is Medicaid. Again, we’re something like $200 million short. Nobody, besides those three (including state debt service), gets everything they want. With those three, whatever they cost is whatever they cost.”
While Chism acknowledges the struggle to fully fund MAEP, he guaranteed the Legislature will not increase taxes to help outpace increasing costs. A tax increase and an unwillingness to provide tax breaks to companies looking to invest in Mississippi could hamper future economic development opportunities and hurt existing businesses, thereby cutting revenues and leading to even larger educational funding issues, he said.
Also, a constitutional amendment for such a funding mandate, Chism said, could prove detrimental to the state in context of its balanced budget requirement.
“Let me warn the constituents: If (MAEP) is the fourth thing that has to be funded — no ifs, ands or buts about it — community colleges, Mississippi’s Institutions of Higher Learning and public safety will not be funded at their current levels,” he said. “We’re not raising taxes, and why would you not offer tax breaks (for economic development and enticement)? If you want to compete with Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, you better have them or you won’t get (development). If you’re going to play, you have to pay.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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