MS SB2034

Beginning with fiscal year 2017-2018, the annual appropriation bill for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) must identify the amounts appropriated for each component including teacher salaries, instructional cost, administrative cost, plant and maintenance, ancillary support, at-risk pupil programs, and add-on programs (transportation, vocational/technical education, special education, gifted education, alternative school, extended school year, university-based programs, and bus driver training).

School district budgets must contain detailed statements showing estimated expenditures for each instructional and add-on program component identified in the legislative appropriation bill, with separate accounting for amounts to be paid from MAEP funds, local maintenance funds, and other available funds.

School districts are limited to spending no more than the amount appropriated in each specific budget category, with transfers between categories restricted to 10% increases in major objects of expenditure only if other objects are decreased correspondingly; transfers cannot decrease salaries, wages, fringe benefits, or capital outlay for equipment.

School board members, superintendents, and school officials are personally liable for entering into contracts, obligations, or expenditures that exceed the amount available in a specific budget category, except in cases of MAEP payment reductions by the Governor or certain tortious acts.

The act takes effect July 1, 2016, with budget and appropriation requirements beginning in fiscal year 2017-2018.