Jackson Free Press

The government is shut down.

The U.S. Air Force Academy has suspended travel, which threatens to cancel its game against Navy this weekend. And me and city reporter Tyler Cleveland couldn't even officially figure out how many Hispanics live in Jackson because the U.S. Census Bureau website is shut down. So we guesstimated the population be around 417,382ish, give or take.

By now, we all know what got us here.

Republicans in U.S. House of Representatives who still want to defund Obamacare pegged the health law to raising the debt ceiling. Leading up to the vote, there was a lot and back and forth about the pros and cons of Obamacare, the bulk of which went into effect today. There was also seemed to be an unusually high volume of congressional letter writing.

One such letter came from sometimes JFP columnist Jed Oppenheim, who shared his letter to U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker with me. It reads, in part:

"I am deeply troubled that you represent a state that is the least healthy in the country, has the greatest poverty, obesity, infant immortality and other negative life indicator rates in the country; and we are on the brink of closing hospitals and medical care due to not expanding medicaid, yes you continue to waste countless taxpayer dollars on a fruitless fight against a bill that has NEVER been allowed to succeed by the GOP. The time, money and manipulatives spent trying to prevent the implementation of Obamacare could have been used on our schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and military veterans to name a few. Yet nothing of this sort from the GOP--meaning nothing of this sort from our 'do-nothing' government."

Wow -- compelling and rich.

One would expect that such an impassioned pro-Obamacare missive would elicit a let's-agree-to-disagree form letter from Wicker's office. Here's what he wrote:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding your support for defunding and repealing the President's health-care law. I am glad to have the benefit of your views on this issue, and I agree that this massive government overhaul of health care in America should be fully repealed," Wicker's letter said.

Um, that's not exactly what Jed's letter said.

It actually said the opposite of that, but clearly Wicker isn't reading his mail.

No wonder the government's shut down.

Keeping with the status quo, Gov. Phil Bryant has shorted public education in his 2016 budget recommendation. Below is a press release from Better Schools Better Jobs.

JACKSON – Supporters of a citizens' initiative to require full state funding for K-12 education insist Gov. Phil Bryant's 2016 budget proposal does little to resolve chronic under-funding, saying it's a good reason Mississippi voters should support their cause.

“Gov. Bryant's budget once again shortchanges Mississippi's school children,” said Patsy R. Brumfield, communications director for Better Schools, Better Jobs, which gathered nearly 200,000 signatures earlier this year to support a constitutional amendment to require the state to fully fund its part of K-12 schools.

Monday, Bryant announced his latest budget plan, which he said increases public school funding by more than $52 million.

Initiative advocates said Tuesday the increase does not improve basic K-12 funding, rather chiefly funds the second year of a teacher pay raise, which isn't part of the basic funding formula passed by the Legislature in 1997 and fully funded only twice.

“If anyone were waiting for a reason to support the Better Schools, Better Jobs Initiative that will guarantee funding for our students, Gov. Bryant just gave them one,” Brumfield added.

Dr. Ray Morgigno, superintendent of Pearl Public School District near Jackson, was not impressed with Bryant's proposal.

“I am disappointed that this budget really doesn’t do much to address the underfunding we have been facing,” he said.

The governor's plan still leaves K-12 school funding about $260 million short of the standard recognized by the Legislature as “adequate.”

“Fully funding MAEP would help districts deal with the increase in basic costs along with all of the mandates that are put on districts each year,” Morgigno said. “Unfortunately, the governor's proposal shows no truly improved commitment to education in our state.”

He said Bryant's budget proposal does nothing to help shore up the underfunding for mandates such as more technology in the classroom and curriculum needs to prepare for the continually increasing testing requirements, among others.

“The other issue that we are not addressing are the increases to keep up aging facilities, air conditioners, heaters, buses and rising textbook costs,” the Pearl school leader said. “Energy costs to heat and cool buildings continue to climb each year.”

The constitutional amendment initiative goes to the Legislature, when it convenes in January.

On deadline day, both the House and the Senate passed their respective versions of "dummy" education funding formula bills out of committee that bring up code sections regarding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. The bills mark both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves' commitment to at least looking at some of EdBuild's education funding recommendations, which were released two weeks ago in an 80-page report.

EdBuild's main recommendation is for the state to transition to a weighted student formula, which would work in a very different way than MAEP does now. Weights are attached to certain characteristics of students like special education, English language learners or "low-income" students to name a few. Weighted formulas give money based on those weights and the student populations they affect, so in theory, the district with the highest number of highest weighted student populations could have the most to gain--or not. How much weight each of those and other measures will get in the Legislature's proposed new formula is still unclear, and experts say that the weights are the political part of any weighted formula.

The dummy bills that came out of both committees today give no indications of what sort of weights the top lawmakers are considering or what total dollar amount lawmakers are working with to determine funding for the new formula or fiscal-year 2018, which begins July 1.

It's possible that specifics on any plans to re-vamp the formula won't be out until conference committee time, right before session ends. It's also possible that lawmakers will only address certain parts of EdBuild's recommendations. Both Rep. John Read, R-Gautier, and Sen. Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, mentioned the transparency measures from EdBuild's report, which would require school districts to track and report how they spend their funds in new ways.

There are a lot of questions up in the air, and the answers are few and far between. What's for certain is that the formula is certainly still up for debate and potential changes this session, but to what extent changes will be made depends on top lawmakers' decisions in the next 60 days.