Thursday afternoon
February 25, 2010
Dear Friend,
I want to take a few moments and explain an important issue that the Mississippi Senate voted on today. It is my hope that you will agree with the vote I cast after hearing my reasons.
I’m privileged to represent the largest school district in Mississippi. The Desoto County School system has over 31,000 students. Public education is an integral part of the fabric of our community. I have always been a strong supporter and advocate for our schools. Recently, information was distributed to the contrary. Specifically, the notion that somehow my vote to sustain Governor Barbour’s veto of Senate Bill 2688 dealing with funding restoration was a vote against education. That sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth.
Senate Bill 2688 was a spending bill designed to help ease the cuts that have been made to numerous state agencies. One of those agencies is public education. As you may know, I recently supported an amendment made by Senator Briggs Hopson (R-Vicksburg) to allocate $45 million exclusively for K-12 education. SB 2688 did not contain that language and offered less funding to education, but spent more overall. SB 2688 transferred most of $79 million from the Health Care Trust Fund. The bill restored $37 million to K-12 education for 2010, but did not address adequate funding for the Department of Corrections. Without proper restoration funding to Corrections, upwards of 3,000 state inmates would have to be released from prison. Clearly, this action would be a threat to the public safety of our citizens.
The good news is the Senate will adopt a plan, as early as next week, that will restore in the neighborhood of $82 million to agencies. The lion share of the $82 million will be appropriated to K-12 education. Desoto County Schools will receive over $2million should the measure pass. The federal government has agreed to provide up to $14 million in additional funds, which means we won’t have to dip as far into the state’s trust fund to shore up education and corrections. This will allow us to use some of those trust funds for the 2011 budget, which we will craft in the coming weeks. Thank you for reading this explanation of my vote. I hope that you are now armed with the true facts of what SB 2688 did and did not do, and can share my position on strongly supporting education. At the same time, I hope you agree that letting 3,000 criminals out of jail and back into our neighborhoods would have been a disaster. We will get through these tough times, together. It’s gonna require some trust and a whole lot of faith. You have my commitment that I will continue to look out for DeSoto County’s best interests. Sincerely, Merle Flowers |
