State lawmakers propose changes that would allow MAEP to be fully funded

Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar is proposing updates to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which serves as the formula for how much funding the state should be spending on public schools. The alterations would be enacted via an amendment to a bill, which the Senate will likely bring to the floor for voting today.

DeBar says these changes would allow MAEP to be fully funded for the first time in years, and that the new formula would allow full funding in later years as well.

"To fully fund MAEP next year would be approximately $24 million," he said. "and that will remain consistent until the recalculation year, which is done every four years when actual expenses are made to the form to the base student cost."

The changes included updating the way the base student cost is calculated and changing the percentage cap on local contribution numbers. Some schools will lose money with the new formula but DeBar proposed a solution to that as well.

There are approximately four districts that when you factor in the pay raise from last year, the teacher pay raise do lose money.

"They don't have enough to cover the teacher pay raises," he said. "And the reason for all of them is that their ADA has declined significantly. So what we propose to do is for this one year, use one time money to fund each of those folks' four districts so their teacher raises are covered."

This would be the first time in many years that the formula leads to full funding for public education. According to the Mississippi Parents Campaign, MAEP has been under-funded by more than $3 billion in the past 15 years.