State Rep. Jeramey Anderson Holds Town Hall Meeting

Monday night, State Representative Jeramey Anderson held a town hall meeting in Moss Point to discuss his support for a lawsuit against the state for not funding local school districts. 

Representative Anderson and Jackson lawyer, Jesse Mitchell, told a packed room of residents that the Moss Point School District is owed $8.3 million from the 2006 amendment to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (M.A.E.P.) because the amendment required the legislature to start fully funding public schools in 2010. Two weeks ago, several lawyers, including Mitchell, and former Governor, Ronnie Musgrove, filed a lawsuit against the state for under-funding public schools by $1.5 billion since 2010.

Many districts across the state are represented in the lawsuit, but many of those in attendance Monday night became angry when Anderson and Mitchell revealed that Moss Point School District has not agreed to participate in the suit. According to Mitchell, he first approached the school board in July about the suit but was given no response. Mitchell told the residents it would not cost the school district any money to participate in the lawsuit until the lawsuit is won. The deadline for the school district to sign up expires in two weeks. 

Anderson says, “If the school district would have brought it up when Mr. Mitchell came, like most school districts around, and said, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ I would’ve been fine. If they had voted ‘no,’ I would’ve been fine because at least they took the initiative to say, ‘This is an important issue that we need to address.’” 

At the end of Monday night’s meeting, the residents voted Representative Anderson to be their spokesperson at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting and ask the board to join the lawsuit. The meeting is scheduled for 5:30pm at Magnolia Middle School on Church Street.

Also, Anderson and Mitchell made clear this lawsuit was different from the Better Schools, Better Jobs ballot initiative, which seeks to amend the state’s constitution to require full funding for public schools. Anderson and Mitchell both support the initiative but they tell News 25 the purpose of the initiative is to fully fund schools in the future, while the purpose of the M.A.E.P. lawsuit is to compensate schools for money owed to them by the state since 2010.