BRIAN PERRY/School budgets and judges
Next month, the organization Better Schools Better Jobs (BSBJ) will present the signatures collected for Initiative 42, a proposed amendment to the Mississippi Constitution dealing with education. The initiative process requires 21,444 certified signatures from each of Mississippi’s old five congressional districts to make it on the ballot.
BSBJ’s rhetoric in support of the initiative talks about legislative funding of education and fiscal benchmarks which must be met to see increased funding. However, the actual language of the constitutional amendment does not mention the word funding. The amendment changes Section 201 of the Mississippi Constitution.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) recently released a fact sheet raising numerous concerns over the language in the amendment. BSBJ disputes those assertions in a response on its web page.
What is not in dispute is how the language of the ballot initiative would change the Mississippi Constitution. Here are the proposed changes with additions underlined and deletions noted by strike-through.
Madison County Journal
9/24/14
Magnolia Tribune
