MAEP: The Formula and How Politics Got in the Way

The state Legislature established the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, or MAEP, in 1997 to avoid equity lawsuits being filed across the country in states where inadequate funding, due to disparities between rich and poor school districts, usually led to lawsuits from citizens. Some states were being asked to fully fund schools based on constitutional provisions that required the states to do so.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, was one of the original signers of MAEP. Bryan described two kinds of lawsuits typically filed in the U.S. around 1997: school districts suing their state because they didn’t have the funding to meet the requirement and school districts suggesting changes to state constitutions to provide enough funding for schools.

A group of senators got to work to avoid such lawsuits in Mississippi. Bryan said MAEP was developed in a bi-partisan agreement, with input from various representatives of the state. The team had to make sure that the formula gave enough money for a school district to remain accredited by the state and establish a funding baseline. When the formula finally got to Republican Gov. Kirk Fordice’s desk, he vetoed it. The bi-partisan muscle flexed, however, and a two-thirds majority in both houses overrode Fordice and passed it.

Lawmakers did not fully fund the original formula immediately. In fact, the original plan was to phase in money over a period of five to six years. By 2002, the formula was 96.23 percent funded.

As an “adequate” education formula, Bryan said the total amount of fully funding MAEP was about 10 percent more than what the state was paying before 1997 on public education.

“The formula does a very good and inexpensive job of getting us to the point where school districts agree that it gives them enough money,” Bryan said. “The cost of this is so little, it’s a bargain—the fact that we’re arguing about this shows how far off base we are.”