No Changes to Mississippi’s School Funding Formula

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Lawmakers won’t rewrite Mississippi’s K-12 school funding formula this year.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, an Oxford Republican, says House and Senate negotiators couldn’t reach agreement on possible changes. House Bill 458 died Monday when the House and Senate failed to file a conference report.

The original bill proposed no changes but left open the chance of major alterations in House-Senate talks.

School districts wanted to base the formula on average enrollment, instead of average attendance. That would have increased funding under the $2 billion-plus Mississippi Adequate Education Program. Many Republicans wanted to change it to hold down school administrative spending. Lawmakers fell $170 million short of the amount sought by the formula for next year’s budget, and have fully funded it only twice since 1997,