Sometime the best action is no action at all.
Thursday, a bill that would have re-written the K-12 education funding formula missed the deadline for a vote in both houses of the Mississippi legislature. Given the way this bill was put together, we consider this a victory for our state’s educational system.
It is not as though the state’s efforts to fund education is not a serious issue that requires our lawmakers’ attention, of course. But in this case, hitting the breaks on this particular legislation was the wise choice to make.
This summer, legislative leaders put together a committee to explore a new method of funding education after the state was unable/unwilling to consistently meet the standards of its own formula, MAEP, which was passed in 1997 but fully funded just twice over that time span. To help the committee, the state hired EdBuild, an education consulting form, to examine the funding needs for education and make recommendations to the committee.
Yet from the beginning the committee’s work was shrouded in secrecy and even when legislators convened in January for the legislative session, the bill that was the result of the committee’s recommendations offered no details, a ploy many believe was intentional.
Bills in both houses were presented as “dummy bills,” which is basically a bill that has a title and nothing else.
All along, leadership had promised that details on the bill would soon be added, allowing legislators to read, study and discuss the matter before casting their vote.
But as of Thursday morning, those details had not been added.
In a joint press release, Speaker of the House Phillip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said they had decided not to have the bill presented to the legislature because it might make it difficult for local school districts to make necessary adjustments before the 2017-18 school year.
That’s a flimsy argument, of course. With few exceptions, laws go into effect on July 1, the start of the state’s fiscal year. Any new funding formula is going to create the same challenge Gunn and Reeves used as an excuse to hold the bill, no matter whether it’s this year, next year or any other year.
More likely, Gunn and Reeves, saw the handwriting on the wall. Legislators pushed back in enough numbers to guarantee the bill’s defeat.
Given the importance of this legislation, all legislators should have ample time to read, study and discuss any bill put before them and this is especially true with so important an issue. To agree to anything less than that would be a dereliction of duty.
For some reason, leadership doesn’t want legislators – or the public – to know what they are up to when it comes to their plans to fund education.
That’s not only disappointing, it’s intolerable.
When it comes to a new funding formula, let’s put all the cards on the table and examine proposals carefully and thoroughly.
We should accept nothing less than that.
The time for playing political sleight of hand with education is over. Hopefully, Gunn and Reeves got that message Thursday, even if they won’t admit it.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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