Jackson Free Press

The latest round of state budget cuts has many Mississippi school districts facing difficult budgetary decisions. Gov. Haley Barbour announced $85 million in cuts to K-12 education last Wednesday, $76 million of which will come out of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the state's supplementary funding mechanism for low-revenue school districts.

"I suspect that there will be some districts that, regardless of what they do, they can't make payroll," State Superintendent Hank Bounds told State school board members at a Jan. 15 meeting.

Bounds said he expects about 20 school districts to be unable to meet their expenses, even after trimming their own budgets as much as possible.

School districts typically spend about three-fourths of their budget on personnel, with the rest going to operational expenses, such as buses, utilities and food services. Only a small number of school district personnel, such as assistant teachers and cafeteria employees, can be laid off mid-year, Bounds said.

"You can cut out sports activities, but that's not much money," Bounds said. "You can't raise taxes mid-stream."

In his Jan. 14 State of the State address, the governor gave little indication of the harm this latest round of cuts will do to districts. Barbour told legislators that many school districts had their own "rainy day funds" that would help cushion the blow.

"Last month the state Department of Education reported our local school districts have $517 million dollars in their rainy day funds, or 50 percent more than the state's own Rainy Day Fund," Barbour said.

Bounds said that Barbour's remarks were based on an inaccurate picture of school funding. School districts receive state funding in monthly increments, but their local revenue is concentrated in the few months when most people pay property taxes—between February and April. Districts set aside some of that local revenue, not as a rainy day fund for unforeseen emergencies, but as a "cash flow reserve" to cover expected yearly shortfalls. State Auditor Stacey Pickering released this information in a report titled "The Myth of School Rainy Day Funds" in May 2008.

The governor's proposed $76.6 million cut to MAEP had several board members fuming at Thursday's state board meeting.

"The notion that we can't fully afford funding MAEP is ideology over practicality and responsibility," Chairman Bill Jones said. "We know they're going to raise some revenue via the tobacco tax; we know there's $370 million sitting in the bank over there. If it's not important enough to fund education, I don't know what we're holding the money for."

Bounds has indicated that the Department of Education may seek assistance from the Legislature in restoring some of the funding cuts. "We're going to have to ask the Legislature to help figure out this money situation," he said.

Before the education budget cuts, Bounds called for $3 million in funding for the Children First Act, a bill that would allow the Department of Education to remove school boards of failing school districts.

"I don't know what the chances are to get those dollars," Bounds said. "But I think it's important that now is not the time to back up on expectations."