| Public Schools Funding |
| Original Filing: |
|
Should the State be required to provide for the support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools? Summary:The amendment will protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity through the 12th grade by amending Section 201 so that the state must provide and the legislature must fund an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. The recommendation is to finance this not by new taxes but by using a portion of future increases in general fund revenues over the next seven years in order to reach the necessary level of funding. Section 201: Educational opportunity for public school children To protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity, the State shall provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. The chancery courts of this State shall have the power to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief. Amount and Source of Revenue Required to Implement the Initiative: For purposes of the initiative, a minimum standard of contemporary adequate education is described by the funding formula of the current version of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program and an efficient education is one that will, among other things, enable Mississippi's public school graduates to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states. Funding the initiative will not require a reduction in, elimination of, or reallocation of funding from any currently funded programs. The initiative will be funded by maintaining current funding levels for public education through the 12th grade adjusted for inflation, and then devoting to public education not less than 25% of future increases in general fund and other tax collections in order to achieve the constitutionally required level of adequacy and efficiency in the public educational system by a target date of Fiscal Year 2022 and maintain it in the future. For example, the state's general fund revenues are projected to increase over Fiscal Year 2014 levels by approximately 3% annually, which will produce an additional $150 million in Fiscal Year 2015. Twenty-five percent of that would be $37.5 million. A similar amount for seven years would reach the additional $265 million a year in current dollars which will be needed to provide Mississippi's public school students with an education that is adequate and efficient by contemporary standards. This initiative is not intended to restrict or meaningfully reduce the overall percentage of general fund revenues devoted to public schools, which at present is approximately 40% If enforcement is necessary, injunctive relief will be the preferred remedy. |
| Ballot Title |
| Should the State be required to provide for the support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools? |
| Ballot Summary |
| Initiative #42 would protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity through the 12th grade by amending Section 201 of the Mississippi Constitution to require that the State must provide and the legislature must fund an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. This initiative would also authorize the chancery courts of this State to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief. |
| Mississippi Public School Support Amendments, Initiative 42 and Alternative 42 (2015) The Mississippi Public School Support Amendments, Initiative 42 and Alternative 42 are on the November 3, 2015 ballot as indirect initiated constitutional amendments. The two amendments will appear on the ballot as competing measures, after the Mississippi Legislature placed Alternative 42 on the ballot. On the ballot, voters will see two questions. The first question will ask them to choose between "either measure" or "neither measure" becoming law. Next, they will be presented with the actual measures, which they can vote for or against, regardless of their answer to the first question. If a majority chooses "either measure," then the measure from the second question with the most votes will become law, so long as that measure also receives at least 40 percent of the total number of ballots cast in the election. If a majority chooses "neither measure," then neither amendment becomes law.[1] Initiative 42 would require the state government to establish, maintain and support "an adequate and efficient system of free public schools." The Mississippi Chancery Courts would be empowered to enforce the amendment's mandate. The amendment's stated purpose is "to protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity."[2] Alternative 42 would require the state legislature to establish, maintain and support "an effective system of free public schools upon such conditions and limitations as the Legislature may prescribe."[3] Unlike Initiative 42, Alternative 42 does not empower the judiciary to enforce the amendment's mandate, provide for "an adequate... system of free public schools," nor inscribe a "fundamental right to educational opportunity" for each child in the Mississippi Constitution. Initiative 42 does not mandate a specific method, other than that already prescribed by the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), for the state to support "an adequate and efficient system of free public schools." Rather, the state legislature would devise a plan to meet the amendment's requirement. Initiative 42's filing petition does, however, make a recommendation about how to achieve the amendment's mandate. Proponents suggest that at least 25 percent of future general fund revenue generated from economic growth be allocated to public schools until they are adequately and efficiently funded.[2] Alternative 42 is the first amendment in the state's history proposed by the Mississippi Legislature to counter an initiated constitutional amendment. According to Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann (R), "This is the first time since 1817, and we became a state 200 years ago, that we have competing legislative amendments. We have 100,000 people who signed the petition to have one amendment and we have the legislature who has signed a counter amendment."[4] |
This initiative if passed will someday result in a court ORDERING that taxes be raised and more money given to the public schools.
Already happened in Nevada.
Thank you. So much.
That’s some confusing crap.
And they KNOW it is. That’s why they do it.