Jackson Free Press

The Jackson City Council passed the compromise budget they worked out with Mayor Tony Yarber's administration.

"This budget is as barebones as it gets," Yarber said after the council voted 5-2 on a nearly $400 million spending plan Thursday morning.

To close a $15 million deficit, Yarber initially proposed the tax increase along with furloughing most full-time workers one day each month.

Ward 4 Councilman De'Keither Stamps and Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes voted against the budget, which still relies on furloughs.

"I don't think we should balance the budget on the backs of the people," Stamps said in the meeting.

Last week, after a very short public hearing last night on the proposed millage rate—the amount per $1,000 used to calculate local taxes on property—the Jackson City Council approved a millage rate of 58.03 with anticipated revenues of $1.14 million per mill.

Nonetheless, the city will rake in at least $926,000 less in property taxes because the overall assessed value of property in Jackson went down, officials said.

Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon, who had been hospitalized, did not attend but participated in the meeting via speakerphone.

Here's a great way to contribute to a great cause while also keeping shopping local in mind: today, Sept. 10, and tomorrow, Sept. 11, Thimblepress is teaming up with Tennessee business Little Things Studio and other small businesses around the country to aid Syrian refugees. If you shop Thimblepress online today and tomorrow, the store will donate all proceeds to World Relief, which is working with refugees who are fleeing from the violence in Syria. For more information, visit littlethingstudio.com or worldrelief.org.

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Acclaimed singer-songwriter Steve Earle is the latest voice to join the flag debate, though his voice comes in the form of a good-old-fashioned protest song. On the track, titled "Mississippi, It's Time," the Virginia-born musician denounces the Confederate battle emblem's position on the Mississippi state flag, which has been a point of contention yet again following a white-supremacist gunman's slaying of nine African Americans at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17.

“I grew up in the South and lived there until I was 50, and I know that I’m not the only southerner who never believed for one second that the Confederate battle flag is symbolic of anything but racism in anything like a modern context,” Steve Earle said in a press release. “This is about giving those southerners a voice.”

Earle and his band, the Dukes, release the song for download on iTunes this Friday, Sept. 11, with all proceeds going to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The lyrics feature a number of powerful and to-the-point phrases, such as, Mississippi, don't you reckon it's time that the flag came down because the world turned 'round? We can't move ahead if we're looking behind," and "I wish I was in a land that never held a soul in bondage ever. I wouldn't have to drag these chains behind. Mississippi, it's time."

Near the track's close, though, Earle trades any semblance of metaphor for blunt outrage: "What the hell, Mississippi? Mississippi, you're out of your mind. Mississippi, God d***, even Alabama and South Carolina (have) come across the line."

As people from without and within the state push for the removal of the Confederate flag—and the dark ideals it represents—the decision ultimately rests with state lawmakers who can't seem to come to an agreement.

Earle, a pupil of famed songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, has had countless hits on the country music charts, both from his own releases, such as his debut record, 1986's "Guitar Town," and from hits for legends like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris.

Visit Southern Poverty Law Center's website to listen to "Mississippi, It's Time."

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Mississippi public schools will administer new assessments for 3-8 grades called the Mississippi Assessment Program (MAP) this year, and the Mississippi Department of Education released blueprints for the tests today.

The MAP tests will be conducted primarily on computers, with the exclusion of the English language portion which will be handwritten. Tests will be administered at the end of the 2015-1016 school year and will include multiple choice, constructed response, writing, technology enhanced, and performance task questions.

The tests will be administered by Questar Assessment Inc., a Minneapolis-based assessment provider who won a $122 million contract with the state in April. The tests are aligned with the Mississippi College and Career-Ready Standards (MCCRS) for English language arts and mathematics. MAP will replace the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Mississippi is no longer a member of the multi-state consortium, according to the Mississippi Department of Education's press release.

Third graders are still required to take an English language arts assessment this year, and in the 2016-2017 school year, superintendent of education Dr. Carey Wright said she will recommend to the Mississippi Legislature in the 2016 session that the law be amended to make student proficiency the goal and keep testing third graders in following school years.

In the MDE's press release Wright said:

“If the goal is to ensure that our students are successful in 4th grade and beyond, we need to set high expectations for them to be proficient readers. The current law doesn’t say that students need to be proficient in reading to move to the next grade level. The students who met the minimum passing score last year will still need instructional support this school year."