In talking with a small town mayor last week, he told me that economic recruitment for large and small cities alike share one glaring similarity.

&8220;The first question they ask is, &8216;How are your schools?’&8221; Lake Mayor Larry Townsend said. &8220;Whether or not we have good schools means the difference in whether or not we land new business.&8221;

Lake has a population of approximately 400 people. Joe McGee Construction is their their largest private employer, and Dollar General is their largest retailer.

Nonetheless, they have received somewhere in the neighborhood of $750,000 in grant money for economic and community development projects over the last three years. They also have two Level 4 schools that are part of the Scott County School District, a district that did not have to raise taxes last year, but did not fill all personnel vacancies in order to make ends meet.

All of this could change within a year’s time. The Town of Lake can scarcely afford to find private or public funds to help offset state shortfalls in funding their local schools.

Likewise, the county is set to raise taxes for the next budget year, in part to help maintain school funding the state did not provide.

What you have in Lake and Scott County mirrors much of rural Mississippi today. And while a push by bipartisan alliances is under way to bring awareness to funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, serious doubt remains that the Legislature and Gov. Haley Barbour will follow suit.

Former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat who most consider the education governor of modern-day Mississippi, has teamed with Jack Reed, a Republican businessman from Tupelo who was unsuccessful in his bid for the governor’s mansion against Ray Mabus.

Winter and Reed are traveling the state with a simple message: MAEP funding is crucial to the success of our schools.

Last year, the Legislature supported a plan by Barbour to cut MAEP funds so they could save face with teachers and fully fund a pay raise enacted by a previous legislature. What is sad is that lawmakers had to decide between the two.

It seems the answer to whether or not the Legislature should fully fund education this year is a no-brainer, but we all know better.

Winter has said the state is currently staring down a $400 million deficit in education funding. By comparison, the Legislature underfunded education by $79 million last year. When you multiply the education woes of the past nine months by 10, you get a clear picture at what the state must overcome.

Unlike 2003, when former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove was campaigning for re-election and urged the Legislature to do so, education funding did not come &8220;first and fully&8221; last year. Lawmakers said it was because they wanted to wait until the very end to see what moneys they could find and see how tax revenues flowed.

The truth is that if education was fully funded first last year, other programs would have seen deeper cuts. Furthermore, Barbour’s four-year plan must have included cuts in education.

All of this became necessary because of a few campaign promises not to raise taxes.

Nevermind that counties just like Scott and towns just like Lake had to or are now having to eat it for the sake of the state.

So the real question is this: Will Barbour and the Legislature sacrifice continued improvement in education for some ill-thought-out campaign promises or will they raise taxes?

Sam R. Hall

can be reached by e-mail to

shall@sctonline.net

.