Area superintendents of education are in Jackson today topromote schools after legislators failed to meet a Saturday budgetdeadline.

Education funding is $161 million short of the amount expectedfor this year and has resulted in more than 2,000 teachersstatewide not being rehired for the next school year. The $161million shortage is a cut proposed in the Legislative BudgetRecommendation (LBR) compiled by state analysts and budgetwriters.

Negotiators returned to work Sunday to craft an education budgetfrom the state’s $3.7 billion income, but those negotiations endedabruptly later that night.

“The negotiations were broken off at about 8 p.m. Sunday becausethe Senate went back to LBR,” said Brookhaven School DistrictSuperintendent Dr. Sam Bounds, who will assume duties as theexecutive director of the Mississippi Association of SchoolSuperintendents in June. “We just feel that that would bedisastrous.”

The House had introduced a bill to fully fund education byraising some fees, eliminating some positions in the Department ofEducation and sweetening tax income expectations. The Senate votedit down.

“It’s the worst it’s been for K-12 funding since I returned toMississippi 28 years ago,” Bounds said.

Lincoln County School District Superintendent Terry Brister saideducators can’t predict what will happen to their budgets.

“I really don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “The publicknows as much as we do. I’m really disappointed right now.”

Negotiations were heated in Jackson this weekend after SenateEducation Chairman Mike Chaney claimed school districts across thestate are holding $349 million in rainy day funds. He saidlegislators should use that money.

Bounds, who spent the weekend in Jackson conferring withlegislators, said those funds are reserves to meet certainpurposes, such as emergencies and classroom construction.

Brister said he had no idea what funds Chaney was speaking ofunless he was referring to a 3 percent cushion required by thestate auditor. Those funds are kept to ensure the district couldpay two months of salaries were something unforeseen to happen,Brister said.

The money comes from all sources, Brister said, not just stateand local funding.

“You can’t earmark that as coming from the state, local,federal, whatever,” Brister said. “That’s emergency money. If wewere to come up short in an emergency, what would people say? We’retrying to be good stewards of our taxpayers’ dollars and do what’sright for the district and state.”

Legislators now face a deadline Tuesday on appropriations bills.By law, appropriations bills must be passed within five days of theend of the session, which is May 9.

Bounds and Brister were hopeful the legislators could agree to acompromise bill sometime today.

If they do not, both sides must agree to extend the session orgo home without a budget. The governor would then be forced to calla special session to craft an education funding bill.