42 and MAEP Explained: Myths and Realities

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MAEP Formula Explained he Mississippi Adequate Education Program is the state’s formula to “establish adequate current operation funding levels” in each school district under the Mississippi Department of Education’s jurisdiction to meet a “successful level of student performance.” MAEP funding (theoretically) covers teacher and district employee salaries, retirement and insurance, instruction materials, operational costs, transportation, and special, vocational, gifted and alternative education. MAEP accounts for the majority of the Department of Education’s budget, funded by the Legislature and Mississippians’ state tax dollars. Mississippians will vote on Nov. 3 on Initiative 42, designed to force the state Legilsature to fully fund MAEP.

Doing the Math CH LUN E E FR AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE BASE STUDENT COST

AT-RISK COMPONENT

CH LUN D UCE RED

LOCAL CONTRIBUTION

8%

GUARANTEE (if needed)

MAEP ALLOCATION FOR THAT DISTRICT

vocational educaton

MAEP ALLOCATION FOR THAT DISTRICT

Add-On Programs

Total MAEP Budget for that District special education SOURCE: MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION MAEP FORMULA

KEY TERMS: Attendance:* Calculated in the second and third month of preceding year for school districts of all students K-12 (excludes selfcontained special education, and accounts for consistent growth of district over 3 years).

Base Student Cost**: Calculated by averaging components of “successful and efficient” schools and districts. The components

averaged are Instruction (teachers per 1,000 students), Administration (admin/staff ratio), Maintenance and Operations (spending per 100,000 square feet, maintenance staff per 100,000 square feet) and Ancillary (librarians and counselors per 1,000 students). The base student cost is re-calculated every four years, and an inflation adjustment is made in off-years.

At-Risk Component*: The at-risk component number is 5% of the base student cost multiplied by

the district’s number of freelunch participants on Oct. 31 of the preceding year.

Local Contribution*: Using the second preceding year’s data, property value taxes and yield from mills based on local tax base is collected and capped at 27% of the program costs.

8% Guarantee*: This is the catch-all if after the above components are calculated, a district still doesn’t receive at least 8 percent more funding than they did 13 years ago (in 2002),

they will get at least that much funding.

Add-On Programs*: These funds go toward Transportation, Special Education, Gifted Education, Vocational Education, Alternative Education Transportation: Amount of funding for transportation in each school district is based on the Average Daily Attendance of students who take school district transportation—there is a set cost per student set by the State Board of Education rate

table. The rate table divides the students who use district transport by the total square miles in the district.

Special and Gifted Education: A teacher unit is added for each approved program in district—funding is based on certification and experience of approved teacher, and approved through calculation in four specific MDE offices.

Vocational Education: Half of a teacher unit is added for each approved program in district—fund-

ing is based on certification and experience of approved teacher, and approved through calculation in four specific MDE offices.

Alternative School Programs: .75% of the district’s Average Daily Attendance or 12 students, whichever is greater, is multiplied by the state average per pupil expenditure in public funds for the preceding school year. *value dependent on school district size, numbers or Average Daily Attendance **value stays the same across all school districts

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Average Daily

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MAEP: The Formula

and How Politics Got in the Way

by Arielle Dreher

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he state Legislature established the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, or MAEP, in 1997 to avoid equity lawsuits being filed across the country in states where inadequate funding, due to disparities between rich and poor school districts, usually led to lawsuits from citizens. Some states were being asked to fully fund schools based on constitutional provisions that required the states to do so.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, was one of the original signers of MAEP. Bryan described two kinds of lawsuits typically filed in the U.S. around 1997: school districts suing their state because they didn’t have the funding to meet the requirement and school districts suggesting changes to state constitutions to provide enough funding for schools.

A group of senators got to work to avoid such lawsuits in Mississippi. Bryan said MAEP was developed in a bi-partisan agreement, with input from various representatives of the state. The team had to make sure that the formula gave enough money for a school district to remain accredited by the state and establish a funding baseline. When the formula finally got to Republican Gov. Kirk Fordice’s desk, he vetoed it. The bi-partisan muscle flexed, however, and a two-thirds majority in both houses overrode Fordice and passed it.

Lawmakers did not fully fund the original formula immediately. In fact, the original plan was to phase in money over a period of five to six years. By 2002, the formula was 96.23 percent funded.

As an “adequate� education formula, Bryan said the total amount of fully funding MAEP was about 10 percent more than what the state was paying before 1997 on public education. “The formula does a very good and inexpensive job of getting us to the point where school districts agree that it gives them enough money,� Bryan said. “The cost of this is so little, it’s a bargain—the fact that we’re arguing about this shows how far off base we are.�

The last year the formula was fully funded was 2008. Mississippi admittedly dealt with economic hardship during the recession like the rest of the country, but now revenue is coming back slowly, with about a 2-percent projected increase in economic growth for this coming year. Bryan said the state has the money now, but what used to be a bi-partisan issue has devolved to a purely political fight over ideology. “The failure to fund the program at this point is not due to economics, it’s due to political position,� he said.

Corey Wiggins, director of the Hope Policy Institute, a think tank that uses data

to analyze policies, said that, ultimately, the budgeting process of the Legislature reveals budgeting priorities. “When you look at your society, those things that are the most important to you and those things that are top priority issues to you, those are the things that get money up front,� Wiggins said.

Wiggins said the easiest way to deduce the state’s priorities from the data is to compare what Mississippi spends per pupil to other states. Mississippi spends about $2,500 less per student than the national average. In 2013, the national average in per-pupil spending was $10,700, according to the Census Bureau; Mississippi spent $8,130 per-pupil in 2013. Only four states spend less than Mississippi on per pupil funding according to fiscal-year 2013 U.S. Census Bureau data. “When we look at it (MAEP), we really don’t put a lot of money into it compared to what other states are doing,� Wiggins said.

Since 2002, MAEP has been underfunded $1.63 billion. The Legislature’s authorization has hovered between 87 and 89 percent of full funding for the past five years, and fiscal-year 2013-2014 was the worst year for funding the formula, at 87.67 percent.

In fiscal-year 2014-2015, teacher pay raises that cost $64.6 million increased the

MAEP budget, and the MAEP allocation was increased by $72.1 million. The formula is sitting at an 89.34 percent fully funded mark.

Initiative 42 does not ask the Legislature to bring funding levels for MAEP back up to 100 percent immediately. The initiative, instead, suggests a seven-year phasein of funding from future increases in the general fund of no less than 25 percent.

The target fiscal year date for full funding is fiscal-year 2022, keeping the formula fully funded from there on after.

How MAEP Affects School Districts Investing in education is a task both sides of the political aisle claim to do.

MAEP has been tweaked and adjusted as needed throughout its history, and parts of the formula, particularly the 8-percent guarantee in 2002, were a part of legislators recognizing school districts that were suffering from the formula in the beginning.

Sometimes, changes to MAEP can lead to things like the “63 Percent� rule that Jackson Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Sharolyn Miller says forces school administrators and teachers to work harder for their average daily attendance numbers.

Average daily attendance is counted in September and October, and students must

Timeline: How Section 201 of the Mississippi Constitution Has Changed

Article 8 of Mississippi’s Constitution begins with Section 201, the provision that allots responsibility for educating students in the state. Here’s a timeline of how Section 201 has changed over the years, and how it could change in November.

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The Evolution of Section 201:

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1890:

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Debating Initiative 42

Rep. Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, and Jim Keith, a Republican lawyer and Initiative 42 proponent, discussed Initiative 42 and the legislative alternative 42A on Oct. 19 at the Capital Club. Here are some sound bites from the debate:

REP. GREG SNOWDEN: There is no mention whatsoever of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program in Initiative 42 (in the words going into the state constitution), there is not even a mention of funding at all … there’s no growth trigger at all.

Forty-four states in this union have the word “Legislature,” “general assembly” “or “general legislative assembly” (in Section 201); that’s where the authority to (fund education) resides. Only six states use broader words such as “state.”

If Section 201 of the (state) constitution has been changed to give that authority ultimately to the judiciary system, that’s not appropriate. It’s completely contrary to our system of representative democracy, it clearly blurs the distinction of the separation of powers doctrine when they give the power to the “State” and not the “Legislature.”

(If Initiative 42 passes), we’re going to go back to Jackson in January, and we’re going to have lawsuits pending when we get there.

(If Initiative 42 passes), the only prudent course of action open to us at that time is to immediately fund the formula, which requires taking about $201 million out of the rest of the state budget which equals about 7.8% reduction in every budget but Medicaid. You’re being told there won’t be a lawsuit if the formula is funded, so basic prudence suggests that the very first thing to do is fund the formula.

This is clearly and thoroughly a partisan issue. The truth is the Mississippi Republican Party has unanimously endorsed opposition to Initiative 42. The elected leaders of this state, the legislators that are Republicans, have come out against it because we understand the dangers. It is a partisan issue—we didn’t pick this fight.

JIM KEITH: The real issue in this is that some members of the Legislature do not want oversight with respect to decisions that it makes regarding public education. …

That position is inconsistent with our three branches of government that our forefathers wrote.

Adding “State” emphasizes that every branch of government—all three branches—(and) cities, counties, school districts all have a duty to provide an adequate and efficient system of public education.

It does not remove any legislative authority from the Legislature.

Initiative 42 calls for the use of appropriate injunctive relief because that is the way future funding would be ordered if necessary: injunctive relief— make someone do what they are legally required to do.

Initiative 42 does not mandate (immediate funding). When a court interprets the constitution, they use the text, the constitutional language, the intent of the authors and the interpretation of the courts.

Equitable relief does allow phasing-in just as the petition suggested. That suggestion was because the statute required a recommended method for funding 42.

The phase-in is not mentioned in the constitutional amendment because it would be a bit ludicrous to put phase-in in a constitutional provision you hope will be there in a hundred years, but likewise, there’s no requirement that full funding be given in any given year for Initiative 42.

If you look at the MAEP formula, all school districts will see an increase in funding if the MAEP is fully funded.

Initiative 42 simply establishes a minimal level of state funding and quality for all districts to meet.

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“I’ve heard recently that we were requesting more money to pay for [administrative] raises, and that’s definitely not the case,” she said.

JPS employees that aren’t teachers went for seven years without raises, due to a low local contribution and less than adequate MAEP funding.

Further compounding the problem is that adequate funding is more difficult to define for districts with more students, and Mississippi’s few urban areas have challenges not faced by rural and suburban districts.

“What may be adequate for my children who are at a higher poverty level who have other needs may be a little bit different from a district that doesn’t have some of the issues that we work with,” Miller said.

“So adequate for us may be a little bit more than someone else.”

Regardless of the school district’s size, however, a low tax base contributing less to the local contribution will always leave school districts struggling to come up with additional money. Despite the difficult financial maneuvering Miller has to do in her role (such as leasing 23 new buses for the district, because the funds to purchase them up front weren’t available), she said the formula is not the problem.

“The issue is not the formula; the issue is putting the money behind the formula because it does no good when you tell me, ‘Here’s where you would be, but be adequate and high performing anyway (but without the money),’” Miller said.

JPS has been able to make up for some lost funding and low local contribution through donations—several community groups or private citizens have helped JPS schools get WiFi, for instance.

MAEP as a formula and a policy relies on local communities and the Legislature to fund public schools in Mississippi.

Ideally, effective economic development in places like Jackson will raise property tax revenues, thus raising the local contribution to JPS. But, for local economic development to work, a place like Jackson needs better schools to attract and retain businesses and professional employees.

Wiggins said the revolving cycle of education leading to jobs leading to a stronger tax base (that then turns around and pays for education again) all begins with education in the first place.

“We’ve seen time and time again through research and data that investing in education is one of those things that we tend to get a big return on investment,” Wiggins said. So if the state can’t or won’t hold up it’s part of the bargain, it’s not clear where the money can come from to get this cycle restarted.

For more education funding stories, visit jfp.ms/maep. Email reporter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com.

IMANI KHAYYAM

be at school for at least 63 percent of the school day to be counted as in attendance.

The Legislature passed the attendance rule in 2013 that said if a child “has an absence that is more than thirty-seven percent (37%) of the instructional day…the child must be considered absent the entire school day.” The change came after speculation that school districts were inflating their average daily attendance numbers.

This past legislative session, a bill to change average daily attendance to “average daily membership” would have calculated that number over an average of the whole school year instead of counting students in September and October.

The bill did not pass, but Miller said it would have helped boost their average daily attendance numbers, allowing them to receive more MAEP funding. She said that some JPS schools have added health clinics to keep children in school even if they aren’t feeling well because the school will lose needed funding if they miss too much, even if they’re sick. All JPS students eat free breakfast and lunch, so not being able to eat can’t keep them away, either.

“We do those things to encourage our children to make sure they’re in school every day,” Miller said.

The base student cost is re-calculated every four years, and that cost stays consistent across all school districts. The rest of the variables in the MAEP equation are districtdependent, relying mostly on average daily attendance and local contribution. Local contribution is determined by property-tax millage rates; frequently, the rate is higher in poorer districts as they have to offset the underfunding of MAEP. In Jackson, a lot of government buildings, churches and universities do not pay property taxes. Miller said that, on the whole, the property values in Jackson have gone down compared to surrounding counties, making the base of taxpayers that contribute to JPS smaller and smaller.

Miller said this money primarily pays the bulk of operations and maintenance for JPS buildings and pay for all non-teacher positions (or, in some cases, additional teacher salaries). JPS’ MAEP funding mostly goes to paying teacher salaries and benefits, so the district relies on the local contribution and donations from community members to help cover the cost of running one of the state’s largest school districts. The district received $31.68 million in local contributions for this school year, but they’re total MAEP allocation equals $130.78 million.

In other words, the local contribution makes up less than 25 percent of the district’s MAEP funding. Other districts dealing with a low taxpayer base likely deal with the same problems as JPS, Miller said, because without a substantial local contribution, a district is mainly working with MAEP funds.

Administrators are paid from the local contribution as well, Miller said.

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School Funding Myths and Realities Myth: “In over 55% of local school districts, in the last year of full recalculation, the formula did not calculate enough in the instructional cost component to cover the costs of salaries and benefits for classroom teachers.� –Sept. 2015 State Auditor MAEP Report

Reality: The Legislature underfunded MAEP by $201 million last year—and whether or not the formula is working or not needs to be in the context of “adequate and efficient.� This formula was designed with the least possible funding in mind— “excellent and above average� education likely requires more funding than theMAEP budget asks for.

Myth: Initiative 42 will transfer education funding power and policy-making to a single judge in Hinds County. –42truth.com; anti-42 Campaign

Reality: No legal action will be necessary to enforce Initiative 42 if it passes if the Legislature follows the law. If a lawsuit is brought against the Legislature, the legal process begins in Hinds County because that’s where the Legislature is located, but any case could be appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, who would have the final say—not a judge in Hinds County.

Myth: If Initiative 42 passes, the Legislature will be forced to fully fund MAEP immediately. –GOP leaders via Rep. Herb Frierson, House Appropriations Chairman

Reality: The Legislature will be forced to fully fund MAEP if Initiative 42 passes, but timing was considered in the original ballot initiative. The initiative suggests a phase-in approach to funding MAEP using 25 percent of the general fund increases with a target date as far away as FY2022.

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School Funding Pros and Cons

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Pro: “Just like any policy you put in place, you have to continue to work with it so it’s meeting the needs of citizens. The idea of something being ‘bad policy’ is subjective based upon approach.� –Corey Wiggins, Hope Institute Policy Center

Con: Initiative 42 is “bad policy.� –Sid Salter in the ClarionLedger, top GOP leaders

Pro: “The bottom line is, the formula does a very good and inexpensive job of getting us to the point where school districts agree that it gives them enough money—the cost of this is so little, it’s a bargain. The fact that we’re arguing about this shows how far off base we are.� –Sen. Hob Bryan D-Amory

Con: “Voting in favor of Initiative 42 will force the Legislature to fully fund MAEP immediately and will cause necessary 7.8% budget cuts from all other state departments.� –Rep. Herb Frierson, House Appropriations Chairman

Pro: “The auditor’s report is not a serious effort to deal with the dilemma—if you look at all the complaints about the formula over the years, they come from people who don’t believe in it.� –Sen. Hob Bryan D-Amory, one of the original authors of MAEP in 1997

Con: “The MAEP formula absolutely does not distribute funds according to educational need.� – September 2015 State Auditor MAEP Report

Mississippi Department of Education Budget Overview General Education Other (pre-k, programs, literacy DVVHVVPHQWV Ă RZ WKURXJK programs, MSIS): 6.6% General Education-MDE Operations: .9% Chickasaw School Fund: .8%

MAEP: 88.2%

MS Schools for the Blind and Deaf: .5% SOURCE: MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FY2017 BUDGET REQUEST

PACman: Follow the Initiative 42 Money Here’s a quick guide to who’s who in the money race to squash or push the citizen-driven initiative on the ballot in November. The amounts listed were raised by early October. The next filing date is Oct. 27.

PRO-42 CAMP: PACs: Better Schools, Better Jobs Amount Raised: $1.65 million Cash on Hand (Oct. 9 filing): $78,286

ANTI-42 OR 42A CAMP: PACs: Improve Mississippi PIC Amount Raised: $200,100 Cash on Hand (Oct. 9 filing): $199,950 KidsFirst PAC Amount Raised: $123,800 Cash on Hand (Oct. 9 filing): $110,285

Funders: Jim Barksdale Dick Molpus Kellogg Foundation (an AP report found these three funders gave money to the out-ofstate funders who donated to Better Schools, Better Jobs)

Top Politician Funders: Gov. Phil Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Herb Frierson

Out-of-State Funders: Southern Education Foundation New Venture Fund

Out of State Funders: Americans for Prosperity (KidsFirst)

A District Perspective

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SOURCE: JPS MAEP ALLOCATION FROM MDE OFFICE OF SCHOOL FINANCIAL SERVICES