Bills to rewrite education funding formula die in legislature

Bills to rewrite Mississippi’s education-funding formula died Thursday in the House and Senate.

SB 2607 and HB 1294 were killed after neither was taken up by the Thursday-afternoon deadline in both chambers. The bills had been essentially placeholders while officials debated changing how the state funds its public schools.

The state hired the company EdBuild to create a formula to replace the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which has been in place since 1997 but has been fully funded only twice.

According to the AP’s calculations based on EdBuild’s recommendations, six of 15 South Mississippi school districts would have received less state funding.

This story was originally published February 9, 2017 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Bills to rewrite education funding formula die in legislature."