Gov. Ronnie Musgrove received nothing short of a political gift last week from state Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jack Gordon in the form of a temporary bailout of the Minimum Foundation Program funding for Mississippi public schools.
Gordon orchestrated a bill that would divert oil and gas severance taxes from being deposited into a trust fund established by the Legislature in 1994 and move it to Minimum Foundation funding and to the critical teacher shortage program.
Musgrove publicly agreed, telling the Associated Press: "In the short term, I would agree to using the money. However, it should only be used in a stop-gap, one-year proposal. We need to make education our priority, and our budget needs to reflect our priority."
Sounds good, but in his State of the State speech earlier this month Musgrove offered not the first proposal to keep the commitment of funding the Minimum Foundation Program to Mississippi's school districts. Without action from Gordon and other legislative leaders, the MFP would likely have gone unfunded for a second straight year. Local school districts absorbed the cuts last year, but the effects of a second year of no MFP funds - the basic state funding mechanism for schools - would have been devastating.
The Senate passed Gordon's measure without opposition. The measure still faces House action, but is expected to pass easily.
For his part, Musgrove's "priority" for public education in Mississippi is the six-year phased-in teacher pay increase package that was adopted in 2000. Funding the 2001 portion of the pay hike is a done deal in the Legislature this session - based primarily on the fact that the 2001 portion of the pay raise is the smallest portion over the six-year span.
Unless revenue collections improve dramatically, funding the 2002 portion of the pay raise will require legislators to cut meat and bone from other state programs - at a time when other venues in the overall state public community are suffering as well.
Local school districts have struggled with the MFP funding crisis, with absorbing overtime back pay for some employees as a result of statewide litigation or the threat of it, and increased energy costs like other government entities.
Even with the MFP bailout, many local districts across the state are still facing local tax increases for support of their school systems.
The state's institutions of higher learning and the state's community college system have borne the brunt of the Legislature's financial burdens over the last two sessions and no help appears on the horizon during the current session. Tuition increases passed along to Mississippi families are clearly one of the few solutions left to the colleges and community colleges.
Oil and gas severance taxes are funds collected at the rate of six percent when those resources are removed from state-owned land. Since 1994, those funds have been directed toward a trust fund for the benefit of public education. Currently, the state Department of Education is receiving the interest earned on the oil and gas trust fund. Under Gordon's plan, the principal funds will be diverted and never deposited into the trust fund, but go straight to the MFP bottom line.
Gordon's plan is one that meets the immediate needs of the public school districts, but it's clearly crisis management.
And it's hard to criticize Musgrove for making raising teacher pay a top priority. But after a lackluster State of the State address and the failure of the governor to put forth a plan to fund MFP, it's rather grating to listen to glittering generalities from Musgrove like "we need to make education our priority, and our budget needs to reflect our priority."
Gordon, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Charlie Capps and other legislative leaders have made the point countless times that few governors in state history have a better fundamental understanding of the state's financial picture and the corresponding legislative process of budgeting and appropriating state funds than does Ronnie Musgrove.
They have issued numerous public invitations for Musgrove to put forth a financial plan that leads lawmakers to the fiscal promised land in which all agencies are funded at the levels they seek, all programs are fully funded and that no one leaves the appropriations process unhappy.
To date, the governor has yet to comply with that request.
As in the general economy of the state these days, times are hard. Times will likely get harder before they get better. The private sector is struggling with many of the same issues.
Gordon made clear in a brief interview last week that one concession Musgrove seeks from the Legislature that he won't get is the removal of the 5 percent growth trigger in the teacher pay raise plan.
"The Legislature is looking for every means possible to pay Mississippi teachers the way they deserve to be paid," he said. "But removing the 5-percent clause is just fiscally irresponsible at a time when we don't really know where the economy is headed."
As in the private sector, there's not a lot wrong in state government that increased revenue wouldn't solve.
