Moss Point School Board Refuses to Join Lawsuit Against MS

Tuesday night, angry residents joined State Representative Jeramey Anderson at the Moss Point Board of Education meeting, demanding the district joins a lawsuit against the State of Mississippi.

The group believes the state owes Moss Point $8.3 million in education funding. Anderson and Moss Point Mayor, Billy Broomfield, pled with Moss Point’s Board of Education to sue the state for education funding promised under the 2006 amendment to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (M.A.E.P.).

Currently, 14 other districts across the state are part of the lawsuit seeking compensation from the state. Anderson says, “So who’s going to be the hero tonight and say, ‘I make a motion to put this on today’s agenda.’”

The board rejected Anderson and Broomfield’s challenge and rebuffed members of the audience for asking questions outside of the public comment session of the meeting. Then, half of the residents walked out of the meeting. Ty Burden, a disappointed resident, says, “The level of arrogance exhibited by the school board, arrogance and ignorance combined, is baffling to me.”

On August 28th, several lawyers, including former Governor Ronnie Musgrove, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the 14 school districts seeking compensation for a lack of education funding from the state. Any district wanting to join the lawsuit has only two weeks left to do so.

In July, Representative Anderson and Jackson lawyer, Jesse Mitchell, approached Moss Point’s school board and asked the district to join the lawsuit. Mitchell says, “When I presented back in July was what would be the cost. It was made abundantly clear to them there would be no upfront costs. We’re taking it under a contingency fee.”

Tuesday night, the board gave no clear reason why they would not join in the lawsuit. Clifton Magee, President of the Moss Point School Board, says, “We will give the board and our new board member a chance to discuss what we talked about, and once that is done we will discuss it openly.”

According to Mitchell, since the amended M.A.E.P. went into effect in 2010, the state has underfunded public schools by $1.5 billion.