Honors Theses

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Accountancy

First Advisor

Rick Elam

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This thesis concerns the current public actionof Dr. Rick Eiam) schooi funding mechanisms in Mississippi that reiate to sixteenth s and. As a resuit of the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785, the surveyed and divided i townships, each with 36 square mile sections, used for the upkeep of the pubiic schoois within a township. Since Mississippi’s founding, sixteenth section iand has served as a source of revenue for the upkeep of public most schools in the state have sixteenth section land country has been The sixteenth section of each township has historically been schools in Mississippi. While as a source of revenue, over thirty public school districts are without sixteenth section land. These districts are known as the Chickasaw public school districts. In lieu of revenue from sixteenth state provides Chickasaw schools with an annual appropriation. Unfortunately, Mississippi has not historically provided Chickasaw public schools with the appropriate amount of funding. Of particular concern is the funding that Chickasaw districts have received under the 1980 s formula under Federal Court Order No. 84-4109, which designed to equalize the differences in sixteenth section related funding. The research in this thesis tests the effectiveness of this sixteenth section funding under the Federal Court Order No. 84-4109 formula. Two methods were used. The first method section land, the was reexamines from sixteenth section related sources on a per acre basis. The second method uses total student enrollment (or teachable units) for each school district. It was concluded that while the state’s funding is adequate under a test of per acre basis, funding disparities exist when using teachable units as a basis. In order to address this disparity, Mississippi should reconfigure the Federal Court’s formula or seek equality through a statewide sixteenth section fund. revenue

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