Budgeting for the next fiscal year is taking a front and center position in Mississippi politics with initial presentations from state agencies being made to the legislative budget committee in the next few days. Most legislative watchers agree this is an exercise in futility as the “real” budget decisions are made during the legislative session.
In recent years, the decisions have been made behind closed doors with only a few senators and representatives in attendance. In the recent past, the recommended state budget is presented to members of the House of Representatives and Senate, and, without a robust and healthy debate, passed with members of both the House and Senate voting along party lines.
The result is, by their own admission, that the majority of state lawmakers who voted for it did not know what was in it and those who voted against it, knew even less.
As we start this again, we should note some of the programs affected by last year’s budget cuts:
- The state portion of funding for childhood immunizations was cut in half, according to information provided to the PEER Committee by the Mississippi Department of Health.
- Some early intervention staff, who are front line workers to support parents of children (age 0-3) with developmental delays, have been eliminated. Currently, there are no interventionist in the Oxford area to work with the 128 children and parents in the area who were clients, not to mention any new ones.
- The Department of Mental Health will close a unit that houses mentally ill children and teenagers at East Mississippi State Hospital in Meridian within the next several months, which will increase the distance parents from the coast must drive to see their children.
As bad as this seems, the real tragedy is the failure we have made as a state to move forward in funding and growing crucial programs that support the healthy growth and development of young children.
The majority of funding for programs such as immunizations, food stamps, WIC (nutritious food provided to eligible low income families for pregnant women and young children), funds for low income childcare and technical assistance to childcare facilities, is allocated to the state from the Federal government. With an uncertain Federal outlook for funding health insurance for thousands of children and their parents in Mississippi, as well as proposals for cutting funds for after school programs, professional development for teachers and on-campus childcare services for low income students at colleges and universities, we are in deep trouble.
If a “do-over” opportunity for legislative budget decisions existed, I wonder if the body still would have voted to:
- Cut corporate taxes (Estimates show tax cuts will subtract $350 million from state revenue next year)
- Cut state agency budgets, resulting in lay-offs and critical service reductions
- Not increase higher education budgets, resulting in increases in tuition at some universities and community colleges
- Not address the infrastructure repairs on roads and bridges
- Not address the school funding formula and increase the education budget
If we fast forward 20 years, and the process for developing and approving state budgets is maintained as it is now and state revenue remains sluggish, we may well see:
- Roads and bridges closed in many counties, making it impossible for children to get to school and parents to work without going miles out of the way
- A teacher shortage resulting in school consolidations and high school students missing out on higher level coursework because qualified math and science teachers left the state years ago
- An increase in children failing the state literacy examination in the third grade because the number of state-funded pre-K programs has not increased
- More children with serious developmental delays and emotional issues will go untreated and without life-changing interventions so they are kept at home resulting in a loss of one parent’s income
- An increase in local taxes to maintain basic educational services such as school district building and bus repairs
- A rise in once non-existent childhood illnesses due to a reduction in immunization funding
- A slow-down in business relocation to Mississippi and possible plant closings because the quality of life is not competitive with other states and a lack of skilled workers
For skeptics who are inclined to say I have over-stated the problems in the future, our friends in Kansas have tried to tell us, don’t go down this path. Reported in Mississippi Today: “If Mississippi fails to pay attention to what’s going on here, they do that at their peril,” said Kansas Sen. Randall Hardy, a Republican who was elected in 2016 on the sole platform of fixing the state’s tax code. “Tax cuts, especially significant ones, should be looked at very carefully before implementing them. Our experience here was not positive. The desired results never happened. We did not see any of the increases in job creation that were supposed to happen, we did not see the tax rolls increase.”
Do you think we can get a “do-over”?
By Dr. Cathy Grace