The FY 2013 budget hearings are underway

Monday, key legislators began meeting to formulate a budget for Fiscal Year 2013. The hearings included testimony from Institutions for Higher Learning and the State Personnel Board. The Mississippi Economic Policy Council was at the hearings, and here's what they are reporting as the highlights from Monday:

Fewer State Workers; Those Remaining Earn Less

• As of June 30, 2011, State employment experienced the largest decrease in employee numbers in the last decade.
• With 62% of state employees earning less than $34,279, many state workers are earning wages below self sufficiency levels.

Fewer Resources to Support Mississippi’s College Students

• At Mississippi State University, faculty to student ratios have increased from 15 or 16 students per faculty member to above 20 students per faculty member since the downturn began.
• In FY1998, 54% of the university system’s revenue came through state appropriations while 33% came from tuition. By FY2012, the two funding sources flipped, and 57% of revenue now comes through student tuition.

I highly recommend that you follow MEPC at their website or through Facebook or Twitter. They do an excellent job.

Rep. Flaggs, you're 1/3rd of the way to a dinner on me, sir

Rep. George Flaggs (D - Vicksburg) and I made a friendly bet last night about how the remainder of the session will play out. He made 3 predictions about how some of the most important unresolved issues will play out. In order to win, he has to be right on all three. Well, he nailed one of the predictions already, as a budget compromise was reached late yesterday evening. The new budget will cut $15M in education funding, but Gov. Barbour has promised to fill that hole with money he gets from the stimulus package. We got level funding on education, and I don't care how we got there. I do wish that we could find the money to fund education as we did a few years ago, though. I know that would be a blessing to systems like Clinton Public Schools that laid off teachers last year.

Anyway, I'm going to keep the details of the other predictions secret until they're met. I'll post here each time Rep. Flaggs gets closer to winning.

A word from Rep. Cecil Brown about the budget battle

Rep. Cecil Brown (D-Jackson)

Here we are, days away from the end of the 2011 legislative session, and we still don’t have a state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The Legislature and Gov. Haley Barbour remain at odds over the budget with the governor insistent on cutting funding levels for state agencies. We in the state House staunchly disagree. We believe there is no reason to cut state agency funding when we clearly have adequate money.

Let me explain our key areas of disagreement.

Education tops the list. House and Senate members have approved the same level of funding for K-12 public schools, $2.2 billion. House and Senate members also have approved the same level of funding for community colleges, $233 million.

The governor, though, wants to reduce K-12 funding by $30 million. While the figure is down from the $65 million he wanted last week, the $30 million would still sting tremendously because it would include $6 million to reimburse teachers for classroom expenses and $24 million from school operating expenses and teacher salaries. That’s unacceptable.

Education has weathered some tough times. Over the past three years, we have reduced K-12 spending by more than $300 million. We have seen teachers lose their jobs. We have seen academic programs eliminated at some schools. And we have seen the teacher-student ratio increase. This is no way to run a school system. Education simply can’t afford additional cuts.

Here’s another important point: If we followed through with the governor’s plan, local property taxes most assuredly will increase as school districts try to find ways to fund day-to-day expenses. In other words, the governor’s proposed funding cuts are nothing more than a backdoor tax increase.

Mental health is another point of disagreement. House members voted to fund mental health by $252 million, including $20 million to operate community mental health facilities. Gov. Barbour wants to fund mental health at $235 million.

The governor’s funding level does not include enough money to operate the community mental health facilities. These local offices that treat and care for people with no other places to go would shut down. Patients would end up on the street or back in jail where many were before. There is just no reason to make this cut when there are funds available to pay for these local centers, especially since they use these state funds as a match for more Medicaid funds.

Another area of disagreement is agriculture units at Mississippi State University and Alcorn State University. The House voted to fund the units at $75 million, but the governor wants to cut the funding by $5.4 million.

The governor’s reasoning is unclear. Perhaps it is in retaliation for the Mississippi Farm Bureau’s opposition to his position on eminent domain. In any case, this proposed cut is arbitrary and destructive to jobs in agriculture in Mississippi.

Our state has not been immune to the economic problems that have dominated our country.

To that end, we in the House have provided a proposal to the Senate to properly fund education, mental health and university priorities while leaving more than a $200 million balance in the rainy day and reserve funds in addition to the $47 million balance in the Hurricane Disaster Funds. Ours is a sound budget. A fair budget. A good budget.

- Rep. Cecil Brown (D-Jackson)
  House Education Committee Chairman

Tracking the MSGOP strategy and spin on the budget battle

There's an ad running on radio right now that's paid for by Mississippi Republicans and is about as bad as it gets.  The ad claims that the Democrats in the Mississippi House want to spend $500M "we don't have."  That's weird, because the House and the Senate/Barbour are only $40M apart in negotiations.  Guess that means the fiscally conservative Gov. Haley Barbour and his legislative foot soldiers only wants to spend $460M we don't have.

How dumb does the MSGOP think you are?  I guess the answer to that is "not dumb enough", considering they want to slash funding to education....

An update on the budget battle

BetterMSReport.com has been covering the ongoing budget battle between the Mississippi House and Gov. Haley Barbour better than anyone else.  The crux is this: Barbour wants to slash funding for education and mental health, and the House doesn't.

To bring you up to speed, here are Better Mississippi Report's stories on the budget showdown:

Rally for K-12 Education, Mental Health Set for Tuesday at Capitol

Barbour Increases Budget Heat on House, Senate Republicans

Barbour's Funding Cuts Could Raise Local Property Taxes on Homes, Vehicles

Budget Update: No Movement Saturday Night After Barbour Meeting

Mississippi Budget Issues at a Glance

Rep. Johnny Stringer: Haley Barbour, build your presidential campaigns on the backs of someone other than Mississippi schoolchildren

House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Johnny Stringer

As we noted yesterday, Gov. Haley Barbour had been out of town politicking for president while budget negotiations were ongoing here in Mississippi. That prevented all sides from being able to get together until today at noon. That meeting apparently didn't go well, as Barbour won't budge on severe cuts to the already underfunded K-12 educational and mental health systems in Mississippi. Barbour wishes instead to cut funding for education to levels below current funding, and is demanding cuts in mental health funding even as the system is shutting down facilities under its current levels of funding.

House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Johnny Stringer (D - Montrose) adamantly opposed Barbour's demands, and linked them to Barbour's presidential aspirations:

“Cutting the education budget as Gov. Barbour has proposed is the equivalent of a tax increase – it will simply shift the tax burden to local school districts, many of which could be forced to increase property taxes on homes and vehicles just to survive day to day. That is unacceptable.”

“We also cannot afford to cut mental health funding next year, a move that would force the closing of all mental health crisis centers in Mississippi and leave several hundred state employees without a job. Many people who are currently in residential mental health facilities will either have to return home or be put out on the street.

“The state House has presented a complete state budget, one that is balanced, one that is conservative in revenue and one that provides sufficient funding for education and mental health. Now, Gov. Barbour wants us to cut education and mental health for no apparent reason. I don’t understand that.

“I recognize that the governor is running for president and has to appear anti-government in these national GOP primaries. But I don’t think Mississippi schoolchildren and people who need mental health services should bear the burden of his presidential politicking.”

h/t BetterMSReport.com

Better Mississippi Report breaks some budget negotiations news

From Better Mississippi Report today:

Barbour objections halt state budget negotiations
Presidential campaigning leaves him unable to meet with lawmakers until Wednesday

JACKSON (Tuesday, March 22, 2011) – Two key House leaders said today they were making major progress with Senate negotiators in crafting a new state budget – until Gov. Haley Barbour threw a last-minute curve.

State Reps. Johnny Stringer and Cecil Brown said House and Senate negotiators have agreed on about 75 percent to 80 percent of the budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

But Barbour – who has been out of state, flying across the country and campaigning for president – effectively stopped negotiations after he voiced opposition to the budget compromise in a letter distributed late Monday.

“We were making such good progress,” said Stringer, who chairs the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. “We thought we may get out of here (early) and save the taxpayers money. This has halted all negotiations.”

House and Senate members are in the final days of the 2011 legislative session. Negotiators face a Saturday deadline for filing a compromise state budget; House and Senate members are expected to begin approving individual budget bills Sunday.

Stringer and Brown briefed members of the news media Tuesday about the status of budget talks. Meanwhile, Barbour was in Nevada hobnobbing with GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval and talking up a possible presidential bid.

Stringer plans to meet with Barbour at noon Wednesday. Stringer said he wanted to meet today – he suggested meeting Barbour at the airport for a “touch-and-go” so the governor could continue his travels – but the offer was declined.

Stringer and Brown said they and Senate negotiators have agreed on the amount of revenue the state has to spend. They said the House and Senate are not that far apart on spending issues.

“We’ve had a great working relationship with the Senate,” Brown said.

Brown said one of his biggest concerns is that the governor wants to maintain level funding. But, Brown said, that is impossible given the increase in expenses mandatory for some agencies.

The only way to accomplish that, he said, would be to cut $65 million from public education funding – something that the House will not support.

Over the last four years, he said, lawmakers cut $300 million from kindergarten-12^th grade funding. He said 2,000 school personnel have been laid-off, including 800 teachers and 1,200 other school workers.

Cutting education again would be harmful and pass the tax burden to county and city school districts that may, in turn, have to raise local property taxes.

“Tomorrow is our working deadline for the budget so the staff can get (individual budget) bills done,” Brown said. “We can’t do anything today or tonight because we can’t meet with the governor until tomorrow because we’ve got to meet with the governor on his schedule.”

Sen. David Baria shines the light on Gov. Barbour's education budget fib

Sen. David Baria's blog post "Education is my Priority", written in response to Gov. Barbour's State of the State address, is a good one.  In it, Sen. Baria sets Gov. Barbour straight on the education budget:

(Barbour) recited the common, though incorrect, refrain that public education receives about 60% of the general fund budget and if we don’t cut there, we would need to make drastic cuts elsewhere.

The fact is that the K-12 budget typically receives about 45% of the general fund budget, but the general fund budget is only about 45% of Mississippi’s total annual budget. Thus, if we look purely at percentages, K-12 education only receives about 20% of the total budget.

Later in the post, Baria brings out that Gov. Barbour wants level funding for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, but a fourth straight year of cuts in education funding.  If Barbour had his way, education funding would be down $334,922,304.00 since FY2008.