Today is the last day of school at the Vicksburg Warren School District, and 43 retiring teachers and staff members will bid the district goodbye.

But Superintendent James Price doesn’t know who will replace them because the state Legislature hasn’t passed a budget for the new fiscal year.

“I can’t recruit and sign anyone because we don’t know about funding,” Price said Wednesday.

The special session of the Mississippi Legislature now under way is expected to resolve that situation, but because lawmakers adjourned in April without a spending plan for the new year starting July 1, no teachers have contracts to return and no replacement teachers have been hired.

Price said no teachers in the Vicksburg Warren School District will be laid off because of budget constraints and a full faculty complement is expected when classes resume in August. But not being able to sign new teachers and staff during the prime hiring months in the spring makes it more difficult to prepare for the next school year, he said.

“We just want it done so we don’t have to crash and burn here at the last minute,” Price said.

District staff has created a working budget for the new fiscal year. Based on the latest legislative budget estimates, the budget for the new year is $1.5 million less than the $72 million budget the district had this year. Forty percent of the district’s budget comes from the state. The lion’s share of the district’s budget – about $50 million – pays the salaries of teachers and staff.

The 9,200-student district employed 535 certified teachers this year.

The Board of Trustees has already approved renewal of the contracts of currently employed teachers who are returning next year, but staff losses through attrition and retirement mean Price will have to find at least 21 new teachers, plus a few special education personnel and assistant principals in just a few short months.

“We have enough people who come into the area as federal employees and have a spouse who wants to teach. Plus, we’ve got a lot of people who come back home,” Price said.

He continued, “This is more of an annoyance. It’s a ‘Why didn’t you do this first go-round’ kind of thing. It’s not a fiscally sound way of managing business for us.”