Mississippi Today
House leaders want lawmakers, not an objective formula, to determine ‘full funding’ for public schools
House leaders filed a bill Tuesday that would ditch the objective formula that has for decades determined the funding level for Mississippi’s public schools and instead leave it to lawmakers to annually determine how much to give schools.
The bill, which would scrap the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), is sponsored by House Education Chair Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, and is supported by first-year House Speaker Jason White.
READ MORE: Speaker Jason White says House will work to scrap, rewrite public education funding formula
Roberson on Tuesday did not rule out the possibility that the House leadership’s final version could include an objective funding formula to determine what is known as the base student cost.
The current MAEP, which Roberson and other members of the House leadership are trying to rewrite, uses a formula to ascertain the base student cost to provide an adequate education for each child and provides that amount of money for each student. Local school districts are required to pay a portion of that base student cost — no more than 27%. MAEP provides more state funding for poor districts than for more affluent districts.
First-year House Speaker Jason White, R-West, announced earlier this week on the SuperTalk radio network his plans to “scrap” MAEP and pass out of the House a new plan in about two weeks, but he offered few other details. If the White-Roberson plan passes the House, it would go to the Senate, where leaders have introduced legislation to “fix” but not totally replace MAEP.
The House rewrite bill, House Bill 1453, was posted on the legislative website on Tuesday, but was later removed.
While Roberson did not rule out the possibility of an objective formula being added to the bill, he said, “I would contend the current formula is not objective.” Even though MAEP was passed in 1997 with bipartisan support, some Republicans have been longtime critics, arguing the state could not afford it and that the program was too complex.
Roberson said the rewrite would direct more money than the base student cost to students based on certain criteria, such as for special education needs or for English learners. But as the bill is currently written, the Legislature would determine what the base student cost is. Some public education advocates fear legislators would reduce the base student cost in future years so that they could fund other pet projects or provide tax cuts.
Roberson said he hopes to provide an additional $100 million to $150 million to public education as part of the rewrite. MAEP is underfunded $174 million for the current fiscal year and has been underfunded by $3.52 billion since 2008.
In the 2010s, then-House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves tried to rewrite MAEP and to remove the objective formula. That effort was killed in a bipartisan effort in the Senate in 2018.
The current effort by new Speaker White is the first attempt since 2018 to completely rewrite the formula.
Last year the Senate, led by Education Committee Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, tried to make significant changes to MAEP and to fully fund it. The Senate’s proposed changes included requiring wealthy school districts to contribute more to the formula and limiting the possible year-over-year growth in the formula. Those proposed changes and full funding were rejected by House leaders.
DeBar has filed a bill again this session to try to enact those same changes.
Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, introduces legislation every year to increase how much in state funding MAEP would allocate to the districts for at-risk students. At-risk students would include those living in poverty. But considering that MAEP has been fully funded only twice since it was enacted in 2003, there has not been much appetite among state leaders to increase the money going to MAEP by increasing the amount of money at-risk students are supposed to receive. Under current law, local school districts are supposed to receive an extra 5% for each at-risk student.
Clark said he has not yet seen the proposed MAEP rewrite bill, but said an objective formula is important. He called the objective formula “the heart and soul of MAEP” and without it feared how poorer districts could be impacted in later years.
READ MORE: Could this be the year political games end and MAEP is funded and fixed?
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Ray Higgins: PERS needs both extra cash and benefit changes for future employees
Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison talks with Ray Higgins, executive director of the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System, about proposed changes in pension benefits for future employees and what is needed to protect the system for current employees and retirees. Higgins also stresses the importance of the massive system to the Mississippi economy.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
‘Bringing mental health into the spaces where moms already are’: UMMC program takes off
A program aimed at increasing access to mental health services for mothers has taken off at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
The program, called CHAMP4Moms, is an extension of an existing program called CHAMP – which stands for Child Access to Mental Health and Psychiatry. The goal is to make it easier for moms to reach mental health resources during a phase when some may need it the most and have the least time.
CHAMP4Moms offers a direct phone line that health providers can call if they are caring for a pregnant woman or new mother they believe may have unaddressed mental health issues. On the line, health providers can speak directly to a reproductive psychiatrist who can guide them on how to screen, diagnose and treat mothers. That means that moms don’t have to go out of their way to find a psychiatrist, and health care providers who don’t have extensive training in psychiatry can still help these women.
“Basically, we’re trying to bring mental health into the spaces where moms already are,” explained Calandrea Taylor, the program manager. “Because of the low workforce that we have in the state, it’s a lot to try to fill the state with mental health providers. But what we do is bring the mental health practice to you and where mothers are. And we’re hoping that that reduces stigma.”
Launched in 2023, the program has had a slow lift off, Taylor said. But the phone line is up and running, as the team continues to make additions to the program – including a website with resources that Taylor expects will go live next year.
To fill the role of medical director, UMMC brought in a California-based reproductive psychiatrist, Dr. Emily Dossett. Dossett, who grew up in Mississippi and still has family in the state, says it has been rewarding to come full circle and serve her home state – which suffers a dearth of mental health providers and has no reproductive psychiatrists.
“I love it. It’s really satisfying to take the experience I’ve been able to pull together over the past 20 years practicing medicine and then apply it to a place I love,” Dossett said. “I feel like I understand the people I work with, I relate to them, I like hearing where they’re from and being able to picture it … That piece of it has really been very much a joy.”
As medical director, Dossett is able to educate maternal health providers on mental health issues. But she’s also an affiliate professor at UMMC, which she says allows her to train up the next generation of psychiatrists on the importance of maternal and reproductive psychiatry – an often-overlooked aspect in the field.
If people think of reproductive mental health at all, they likely think of postpartum depression, Dossett said. But reproductive psychiatry is far more encompassing than just the postpartum time period – and includes many more conditions than just depression.
“Most reproductive psychiatrists work with pregnant and postpartum people, but there’s also work to be done around people who have issues connected to their menstrual cycle or perimenopause,” she explained. “… There’s depression, certainly. But we actually see more anxiety, which comes in lots of different forms – it can be panic disorder, general anxiety, OCD.”
Tackling mental health in this population doesn’t just improve people’s quality of life. It can be lifesaving – and has the potential to mitigate some of the state’s worst health metrics.
Mental health disorders are the leading cause of pregnancy-related death, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control as any death up to a year postpartum that is caused by or worsened by pregnancy.
In Mississippi, 80% of pregnancy-related deaths between 2016 and 2020 were deemed preventable, according to the latest Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report.
Mississippi is not alone in this, Dossett said. Historically, mental health has not been taken seriously in the western world, for a number of reasons – including stigma and a somewhat arbitrary division between mind and body, Dossett explained.
“You see commercials on TV of happy pregnant ladies. You see magazines of celebrities and their baby bumps, and everybody is super happy. And so, if you don’t feel that way, there’s this tremendous amount of shame … But another part of it is medicine and the way that our health system is set up, it’s just classically divided between physical and mental health.”
Dossett encourages women to tell their doctor about any challenges they’re facing – even if they seem normal.
“There are a lot of people who have significant symptoms, but they think it’s normal,” Dossett said. “They don’t know that there’s a difference between the sort of normal adjustment that people have after having a baby – and it is a huge adjustment – and symptoms that get in the way of their ability to connect or bond with the baby, or their ability to eat or sleep, or take care of their other children or eventually go to work.”
She also encourages health care providers to develop a basic understanding of mental health issues and to ask patients questions about their mood, thoughts and feelings.
CHAMP4Moms is a resource Dossett hopes providers will take advantage of – but she also hopes they will shape and inform the program in its inaugural year.
“We’re available, we’re open for calls, we’re open for feedback and suggestions, we’re open for collaboration,” she said. “We want this to be something that can hopefully really move the needle on perinatal mental health and substance use in the state – and I think it can.”
Providers can call the CHAMP main line at 601-984-2080 for resources and referral options throughout the state.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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