Mississippi
State truancy officers face stagnant pay and ‘unmanageable caseloads’
Alison Lanthrip, a faculty attendance officer for Webster County, was puzzled when a specific pupil stopped displaying as much as faculty final yr.
She wasn’t the everyday pupil to finish up on a truancy record. Lanthrip may have despatched a letter to her dad and mom and continued by way of the tall stack of referrals on her desk. As an alternative, Lanthrip visited the house in individual.
When she acquired there, Lanthrip discovered that the household’s washer had stopped working. The coed had gone by way of all her clear garments.
“And she or he didn’t need to come to highschool with soiled garments,” Lanthrip mentioned.
Lanthrip related the household to a neighborhood service group who changed the washer. “She was in class inside every week,” Lanthrip mentioned.
That is how the usually neglected Workplace of Obligatory College Attendance Enforcement, established to adjust to state statute, ought to ideally operate.
“Our job is to not simply implement that state legislation that claims you must come to highschool, however our job is to work with each company to guarantee that the kid does have a chance,” mentioned April Brewer, the varsity attendance officer for Lamar County.
Sitting in a courtroom after bringing a truancy case earlier than the native county courtroom decide, Brewer clutched the intimidating gold metallic and black leather-based attendance officer badge hanging round her neck, as if to cover it. She says she doesn’t normally put on it on pupil visits. Brewer doesn’t need them to suppose she’s there to get anybody in bother.
“I’m there to actually assist and I really need them to open up as a result of there are many the explanation why you don’t go to highschool and I actually need to know what the reason being,” Brewer mentioned.
However currently, the workplace has been in disarray as the employees have been experiencing increased workloads and stagnant pay, in response to a number of faculty attendance officers who spoke with Mississippi At present.
The Mississippi Division of Schooling, which oversees faculty attendance enforcement, has systematically understaffed the workplace, they mentioned, creating unmanageable caseloads, as excessive as 10,000 college students per officer in some counties.
“When you find yourself mainly thought of a paper pusher, you may’t get in and counsel these college students,” Lanthrip mentioned. “… All you have got time for is paperwork.”
Lanthrip and Brewer are a part of a coalition of college attendance officers who’re organizing with the assistance of the Mississippi Alliance of State Staff employees union to foyer and introduce laws this coming yr for higher circumstances of their workplace.
Till lately, MDE hadn’t even been offering paper, ink and stamps with the intention to ship the required letters, they mentioned, forcing the officers to pay out of pocket for supplies. Due to the circumstances, there may be an excessive amount of turnover, contributing to the understaffing. Officers additionally mentioned MDE has didn’t approve their journey and mileage reimbursement, discouraging them from making house visits.
“Should you’re not in a position to try this and get in these households like that, you don’t know what assets they should attempt to assist these households,” Lanthrip mentioned.
And a few haven’t obtained a pay elevate in over a decade.
Terri Hill from Jones County has been working as a faculty attendance officer for 26 years. After taxes, she takes house about $28,000. She mentioned her final elevate was about 15 years in the past.
“It’s ridiculous and all people appears to be like over us,” Hill mentioned.
Brewer, a mother of seven, has been on the job for 11 years, however with a $30,000 wage, she’s needed to constantly work two further jobs.
The invoice they drafted would elevate baseline pay by about 70%, bringing the ground up from $24,500 to $41,500 – precisely the present beginning pay for public faculty lecturers within the state. The 2023 laws doesn’t but have a sponsor, however they are saying no less than 4 lawmakers have expressed curiosity.
College attendance officers will need to have no less than a bachelor’s diploma and their salaries are set in statute. After 17 years, an officer with a bachelor’s diploma can earn $31,182. With a grasp’s diploma, they will begin out making $26,000 and cap out at $37,000 after 21 years. These state employees have been disregarded of the realignments and instructor pay raises that the Legislature has handed in recent times.
Mississippi Division of Schooling officers denied that the division has disadvantaged the officers of assets, however acknowledged issues concerning the stagnant pay.
“We’ll hold working at it to guarantee that we hear the voices of our attendance officers to attempt to deal with their wants and work alongside our districts to guarantee that if there are issues there that assist our faculty attendance officers higher serve college students, then that’s 100% what we’re centered on,” Kim Benton, interim state superintendent of training, advised Mississippi At present.
Hill estimates she’s liable for overseeing between 4,000 to five,000 college students.
“It makes you simply wanna choose up your purse and clock out and go house,” Hill mentioned. “… The workload has elevated, so far as getting referrals. Like in our county, Jones County, we used to have 4 PIN numbers (budgeted positions) they usually took one away from us, so now there’s solely three of us working this county as a substitute of 4.”
At one level, there was a cap within the legislation that allowed for caseloads of not more than 2,500 college students per attendance officer. However lawmakers eliminated that requirement after they rewrote the legislation in 1998. Now, MDE is allowed to make use of a set variety of 153 attendance officers. The state at the moment has 125 stuffed positions and 20 vacancies, Mississippi Division of Schooling advised Mississippi At present.
The proposed new laws would take away the restrict on attendance officers and reinstate a student-officer ratio of not more than 2,000 college students to at least one officer.
The officers are purported to make contact with college students after 5, 10 and 12 unexcused absences. At 12, the officer might select to petition the courtroom. These circumstances are dealt with in a different way throughout the state. Some counties make the most of the county and youth courts whereas others take the circumstances to justice courtroom, the place the dad and mom can face fines and even jail time in extreme eventualities.
Lamar County Courtroom Decide Brad Touchstone, a former lawmaker, mentioned he goals to take the much less punitive route and makes use of courtroom hearings oftentimes to verify in on the progress of scholars far after their preliminary truancy. He mentioned faculty attendance officers like Brewer play a crucial function in baby welfare.
“They’re one other layer of safety that we now have on the market to determine children which are in disaster. I’ve had kids are available in right here that, at first blush, you simply suppose they don’t need to go to highschool, however then you definately determine there’s quite a bit deeper points there, melancholy, an entire host of points that we have to learn about,” Touchtone mentioned. “And we don’t at all times get a CPS report each time there’s a child in disaster. So April is ready to typically determine these children so we are able to put companies within the house to deal with the true root drawback, which isn’t truancy. It’s that the kid’s in disaster.”
Only recently, Touchstone had a case the place the scholar on his docket introduced her school-aged buddy to help her throughout the listening to. Touchstone acknowledged that if the second lady was there in courtroom throughout the faculty day, she was absent, too. The courtroom ultimately recognized the lady as a runaway from a foster household and “have been capable of safe her and get her again the place she wanted to be,” Touchstone mentioned.
Final yr, one of many faculties Brewer covers referred to as her to inform her that one of many college students she had been working with – “she had been doing so properly,” Brewer mentioned – had not proven as much as faculty.
Brewer went out to the house to seek out that the household’s electrical energy had been minimize off. The mother had misplaced her job and didn’t search assist, fearful that she would have Youngster Safety Companies referred to as.
“She was scared that that might make them take the youngsters into custody. And I mentioned, ‘No.’ I mentioned, ‘We’re right here that can assist you. I’ll enable you,’” Brewer mentioned.
After some useless ends, Brewer discovered an company that might pay to return energy to the house.
“Now what if I didn’t exit and do the house go to?” she requested.
When children went digital throughout the pandemic, it solely elevated the challenges for attendance officers.
“Due to the pandemic in 2020, hundreds of kids throughout the state didn’t return to highschool leading to an exceptionally massive variety of “lacking kids,’” the officers mentioned in a letter to lawmakers in help of two payments throughout the 2022 legislative session. “SAO’s (faculty attendance officers) spent many hours, on high of their common duties, to find these kids and guarantee they have been enrolled in class and obtain an training.”
One of many payments would have raised attendance officer pay in statute, whereas the opposite would have eliminated the officers from MDE, inserting them on the particular person faculty districts.
Each died final session after receiving little consideration. The chairmen of the home and senate training committees didn’t reply to Mississippi At present’s request for remark.
For Brewer, who spent her youth in foster care, the work is very private.
“This isn’t only a job to me,” Brewer mentioned. “I come from a really tough background with foster care and every thing. I realized after I was about 14 or 15 that training was my means out. I see this job as a chance to succeed in children that have been mainly me.”
“I attempt to be for them what anyone ought to have been for me,” she mentioned.
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Mississippi
Report shows Mississippi Legislature retirement reforms this year aren’t effective. See why
Lawmakers, PERS director agree they must work together in the future
How to plan for retirement using an online calculator
Retirement calculators can give you an idea of when you’ll financially be able to retire.
Problem Solved
State lawmakers will need to readdress concerns about the Public Employment Retirement System of Mississippi in 2025 if it is to remain viable long term, according to a July study.
Legislative actions in the 2024 Session to reduce public employer contribution rate hikes and increase state funding are not enough to address billions in unfunded future benefits to retirees, according to a report released by the Legislature’s third-party watchdog group, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee.
Projections show the state’s retirement plan being less than 50% fully funded by 2047 and having $25 billion in liabilities. According to several municipal leaders who spoke to the Clarion Ledger earlier this year, the legislative move from lawmakers in the past session should save public employers from cutting positions and raising taxes to keep and hire more public employees.
“Change in approach for increasing the employer contribution rate, in addition to the one-time funds transfer, reduces the plan’s projected future funded ratio from 65.5% to 49.9%,” the report reads. “…The PERS plan is currently expected to be at a lower-funded level in the future than it currently is today.”
PERS Executive Director Ray Higgins told the Clarion Ledger he wasn’t surprised by the report’s findings.
“The PEER analysis seems to be an accurate report and generally reconciles with our information,” Higgins said. “Also, the legislative action from last session appears to be a short-term solution.”
While the report does not list out any specific recommendations for lawmakers this coming year, it says continued work will be necessary to fix the retirement system that has 118,000 retirees receiving benefits and 147,000 active members paying into the system.
In 2023, the PERS governing board, made up of mostly elected members, as advised by financial actuaries who watch over the state’s retirement plan, passed a rate increase on public employers, such as cities, counties and school districts from 17.40% to 19.90% that was to take effect July 1. The rate would have continued to increase to 22.4% by 2027.
In the 2024 Session, the Legislature passed two bills. Senate 3231, prohibits the PERS Board’s plan to gradually increase the employer contribution rate and replaces it with a plan to increase to 19.90% over the next five years in 0.5% annual increases. SB 3231 also takes the board’s only regulatory power to increase rates and puts it in the hands of the Legislature.
SB 2468 enacts a one-time transfer of $110 million of capital expense funds into the PERS trust.
More on PERS bill MS Legislature passes bill restricting state retirement board’s authority
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s Deputy Chief of Staff Leah Rupp Smith told the Clarion Ledger efforts Hosemann helped push forward that resulted in those bills’ passage led to a potentially more stable retirement system.
“To avoid this calamity while developing a future solution, the Legislature adopted a less-aggressive employer increase,” Smith wrote via email. “We are now informed the plan has a projected future funding ratio of 65.5% as of 2047, as compared to 48.6% projected one year ago.”
Republican House Speaker Jason White’s Communications Director Taylor Spillman did not reply to several emails requesting White’s comments on the report.
What are the big problems?
Higgins previously said the ratio of retirees to active members has seen a reverse trend since 2013, when there were 93,000 retirees and 162,000 active members. This increases the unfunded liability of the system as fewer people take jobs in government, reducing active members and more people retire, increasing the funding obligation of PERS.
The other issue lies with projections for the retirement plan’s future if state lawmakers decide not to take action in the years to come.
“While the ($110 million) funding for the first year is comparable, each year in the future could potentially see a greater deviation in expected employer contribution revenues for the PERS plan,” the report reads. “This deviation does not immediately constitute a problem for the PERS plan; however, careful evaluation of the plan’s future liabilities and funding needs will be necessary to ensure the sustainability of the PERS plan.”
Are there any solutions?
Higgins and Smith both said future work on PERS is still a top priority.
Higgins specifically mentioned a new retirement benefits package that could be offered to new public sector employees, which the PERS board has called tier 5.
“The Board has previously recommended a tier 5 for new employees to help better sustain PERS in the future and is currently considering what may be included or resubmitted in next year’s legislative package,” Higgins said.
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Earlier this year, Hosemann told the Clarion Ledger he wanted to see evidence that a new tier of benefits could help maintain the retirement system long term. Smith did not confirm whether Hosemann’s office is currently studying that idea in the legislative off season, but she did say the Legislature is looking at several ideas.
“The Legislature is exploring any option for a more viable plan,” Smith said. “The Lt. Governor continues to be committed to fulfilling current employee and retiree benefits, including the cost-of-living adjustment for these individuals.”
Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
Waiting for my suitcase in the arrivals hall at Jackson airport the other evening, it occurred to me that the luggage carrousel was a pretty good metaphor for Mississippi politics.
Like suitcases on a carrousel, many leaders simply sit on the conveyor belt of state politics, waiting their turn to get moved along to the next role.
Too often leaders are carried along by time and process, rarely offering any vision as to what our state should do differently. That explains why Mississippi conservatives have achieved less in 12 years than Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama have accomplished in the past 12 months. Louisiana did not even have a Republican governor this time last year, yet they’ve already passed universal school choice.
Things could be about to change if House Speaker Jason White has his way. This week, White announced that he will be hosting a Tax Policy Summit on Sept. 24 to take a deep dive into the prospects for tax reform.
My friend, Grover Norquist, will be speaking, as will Gov Reeves, as well as leading conservative figures from the state Legislature.
Having a conversation in public matters because in the past the leadership in our state Senate has done what it can to head off tax cuts. Bringing the facts of what can and cannot be done into the open makes it far harder for anyone to keep finding new excuses to oppose actual conservative policy.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant against the putrid politics of backroom deals. We have seen far too many backroom maneuvers used to kill off good conservative policy in this state. Back in 2022, Mississippi passed a law to cut the state income tax to a flat 4 percent. This $525 million tax cut, driven forward by Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov Reeves, benefited 1.2 million taxpayers and their families. But we must not forget how some in the Senate fought against it — not in the open, of course.
Weak Senate leadership has a history of opposing conservative proposals in our state. Seldom do they have the courage to come out and explicitly kill off conservative measures. Instead, they do it on the sly. The Senate leadership maneuvered to stop anti-DEI legislation in 2024. I don’t recall anyone coming out and explaining why they opposed anti-DEI law. They just killed it in committee with a nudge and wink.
For three years in a row, the Senate leadership has killed off attempts to restore the ballot initiative. Again, those against resorting the ballot lack the courage to say they are against it. They killed that, too, on the sly.
Rep Rob Roberson’s excellent school funding reform bill, perhaps the only big strategic achievement of this year’s session, passed despite attempts to scupper it by some in the Senate. (Part of the backroom deal to get the bill passed was to change its name. It really was that petty.) When the Senate leadership wants to oppose an authentically conservative policy, they follow a now familiar pattern.
A reason is cited as to why what is being proposed can’t be done. School choice, we were once told, would be unconstitutional. An anti-DEI law, it was implied, was unnecessary because there was no DEI on campus.
Once that excuse is shown to be nonsense (there is no constitutional bar to school choice, DEI is rampant on campus), another excuse is promptly conjured up. And on it goes.
Each time the Senate leadership opposes conservative policy this way, I wonder what their alternatives are. The answer is that most of the time there are none. It is pretty low grade to oppose ideas simply because they are not your own. Eventually, of course, a suitcase that sits on the carousel for too long ends up in lost luggage.
As a direct consequence of the 2022 Reeves-Gunn tax cuts, Mississippi is now starting to see a flood of inward investment into the state.
Every time you hear about a new factory opening up in our state, remember who and what helped make it happen. I am very optimistic that this tax summit could see further progress to make our state more competitive.
— Douglas Carswell is the president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Mississippi
Ex-official in Mississippi is treated for gambling addiction amid embezzlement charge, lawyer says
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former tax assessor and collector in north Mississippi checked into a residential treatment center for a gambling addiction after he called the state auditor’s office and confessed to misusing more than $300,000 in public money, his attorney said Tuesday.
Shannon Wilburn, 49, resigned in April from the elected office he had held in Benton County since 2016, and he began the 12-week addiction treatment in late July, his attorney Tony Farese told The Associated Press.
“I’ve known Shannon all of his life,” Farese said. “We are shocked that he finds himself in this situation.”
Mississippi Auditor Shad White announced Tuesday that Wilburn has been charged with one count of embezzlement. The announcement came days after Wilburn was indicted. Farese said Wilburn turned himself in to the sheriff’s office Friday, then posted bond and returned to the treatment program.
Wilburn is accused of taking $327,055 paid to the Benton County Tax Collector’s office and using the money for personal expenses, Farese said. He said Wilburn confessed to the auditor’s office before hiring legal representation and has continued to cooperate with investigators.
“He apologizes for disappointing the citizens of Benton County and the state of Mississippi,” Farese said.
If convicted, Wilburn would face up to $5,000 in fines and 20 years in prison.
White said Wilburn’s employment as a Benton County elected official was covered by $200,000 in surety bonds to protect taxpayers from losses from corruption. The county also has an insurance policy that covers theft.
“The dedicated team at the State Auditor’s Office will continue to work closely with prosecutors to get record results, one case at a time,” White said in a statement.
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