Gov. Haley Barbour and the Legislature seem to be of a like mind on the issues critical to Mississippi (and Mississippi State).
Job creation is the top priority. Both support a two-tiered plan: attract businesses into the state with low taxes and a well-trained workforce and grow new businesses through investing in education.
Public universities, especially MSU, play a vital role in both strategies. MSU, in particular, benefits the state far beyond the salaries it pays employees.
Think Nissan would have come to Canton without a top-notch engineering school nearby? Think Mississippi farmers aren’t turning a profit using the agricultural and veterinary research done in Starkville?
What about entrepreneurship? Imagine Meridian without Peavey Electronics. Laurel, Hazlehurst and Flowood would hurt without Sanderson Farms plants around. Both companies were founded by MSU alums.
Knowing that universities are, in Barbour’s words, “an economic gold mine,” how can he and the Legislature be so far off on how much money higher education should get?
The Legislative Budget Committee set a tentative cut of $70 million from the higher education budget, according to the (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger. About $20 million of that cut will bleed Maroon and White.
But Barbour announced during his State of the State speech Monday that not one cent should be cut from the universities’ budgets. He plans to not just to keep the higher education budget status quo, but increase it by $30 million.
One hundred million dollars’ worth of difference means that Barbour’s honeymoon in the Legislature may be coming to a close.
By state law, Barbour has to release a budget that, among other things, tells where the $100 million is going to come from.
Given that Mississippi’s Constitution gives the power of the purse strings to the Legislature, they will likely follow tradition and use Barbour’s budget to shore up the supply of toilet paper in the Capitol building.
Judging by the rumblings from Jackson, legislators apparently have better things to do with $100 million. Is funding for universities the sort of the thing Barbour should go to the mat for?
Only if he is serious about all that stuff he said to get elected.
Recall that Barbour said, “Mississippi can do better,” every third sentence during election season. His campaign blamed then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove for allegedly losing several thousand jobs during his tenure.
Musgrove (who said “Nissan” every third word during election season) claimed the state gained jobs during his four years on the job.
None of us media types ever figured out if the state lost or gained jobs during the Musgrove administration. We were focused on more interesting topics like Eli’s Heisman candidacy and Jackie Sherrill’s “retirement.” But I digress.
The point is this: the 2003 campaign was all about jobs. Barbour won because he convinced people he could bring more of them to the state than Musgrove.
And one undisputed fact is that higher education was cut three out of the four years of Musgrove’s tenure.
I don’t blame Musgrove for the hiring freezes and large classes MSU endured because less money came from Jackson. Mississippi’s Constitution makes the governor responsible for cutting money until the state’s budget is balanced. Musgrove pushed education every year and the Legislature ignored him until his last year.
But obviously Mississippians felt that whatever the government was doing about job creation was not enough. That’s why they sent Musgrove packing.
And higher education was cut for three straight years … a coincidence? Yes and no.
Universities need a stable funding source more than anything. Cutting a college’s budget is a lot like eating tainted food: it takes a little time for the results to kick in. Cutting funding one year will not kill a university, just as giving extra money one year will not turn MSU into Harvard.
If Barbour can convince the Legislature to just stablize funding to colleges, he will have done his job. A set percentage based on credit hours per school is a good place to start. That way schools won’t be tempted to bloat their enrollments. Got that Southern Miss?
Then university presidents can spend a lot less time lobbying in Jackson and more time drumming up private support, which is what separates the good public universities from the great ones.
Wilson Boyd is a senior economics major. He can be reached at [email protected].