The Senate Finance Committee will meet tomorrow at 1:15 p.m., and it is possible that the committee could take up HB 1944, the bill that would send millions more in state funding to private schools, some at the expense of foster care organizations.
Voucher supporters want you to believe that the tax credits benefiting private schools in this bill are the “exact same kind of tax incentive” one gets for a donation to a church or a charitable organization like the United Way. That is false.
Donors to churches and most other charitable organizations get a tax deduction that reduces the amount of income on which they pay taxes. Donors to private schools via the Children’s Promise Act get a tax credit, a dollar-for-dollar reduction in the donor’s state tax bill. For example:
- If you give $1,000 to your church, you get $44 taken off your tax bill, and the donation still costs you $956.
- If a private school donor gives $1,000 to a private school, the Children’s Promise Act has the state pay him back the WHOLE $1,000. The entire amount gets taken off his tax bill, and the donation costs him NOTHING (but costs the state $1,000).
The Children’s Promise Act is not just a “tax incentive.” It is the state paying back private school patrons for their donations to private schools, dollar for dollar. It has the exact same impact on the state budget and for private schools as would a direct state appropriation to the school. It reduces the state funding available for a teacher pay raise, repairs to school facilities, an expansion of pre-k, and many other needs in our public schools.
Ask all senators to VOTE NO on HB 1944 – no more state funding to private schools.
Find contact information for legislators
Capitol Switchboard: 601.359.3770
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: 601.359.3200
It appears that many of the private schools receiving state funds through the Children’s Promise Act are double-dipping, getting state funding twice for the same students. More than half of the private schools receiving Children’s Promise Act funds last year also participated in the ESA voucher program for children with special needs. They likely used the ESA voucher students to qualify for the Children’s Promise Act funding.
HB 1944 would send $20-million or more in state funding to private schools each year through dollar-for-dollar tax credits – up to $500,000 annually to each participating private school, regardless of school size, with no accountability, oversight, or reporting required – and at the expense of foster care organizations. Here are key provisions of the bill:
- Transfers tax credits intended for foster care organizations (Baptist Children’s Village, Methodist Children’s Home, etc.) to private schools if not used by October 1. (While the reverse also is allowed, each year all private school tax credits have been snapped up by private school patrons within minutes of going live, while foster care organizations have been unable to use all of the $9M in credits dedicated to them in each of the last three years.)
- Past efforts to amend the law to direct all of the program’s tax credits to foster care service organizations were rejected by the bill’s sponsors, revealing that their priority is the diversion of public funds to private schools, not the needs of Mississippi’s most vulnerable children.
- Attempts to circumvent the no-funding-to-private-schools provision of the Mississippi Constitution by having private school patrons make donations to private schools, then paying them back via credits to their state tax bills for the amount of the donation – erasing up to half of their total state tax liability, though less than half of state taxes are dedicated to P-12 education.
- Participating private schools are not required to adjust their admissions or academic standards, or admit any new students in this program and are not held to any of the accountability measures and oversight to which public schools are held, though both public and private receive state funds.
- Includes no restrictions for private schools on expenditure of funds, no reporting requirements, and no state audit to verify the number of qualifying children enrolled.
- Carefully worded to ensure that virtually all private schools qualify for the funding, while giving the appearance of benevolence toward children who are disadvantaged (a school qualifies for the full $500,000 if only one enrolled child has a chronic illness or disability, such as asthma, ADHD, or an allergy; funds are not required to be spent on that child).
- $20-million allocated annually to private schools in HB 1944 is roughly equal to the amount it would cost the state to provide every assistant teacher a $2,000 annual salary increase, which would raise their minimum salary from $17,000 to $19,000.
- Similar efforts to increase Children’s Promise Act tax credits for private schools were defeated in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Get more information about HB 1944 here.
Please let your senator and Lt. Gov. Hosemann know right away that you want this bill to die. No amendments, no conference. Let the bill die. Ask your friends and neighbors to call, too. Together, we’ve got this!
