What Is 16th Section Land in Mississippi?

Over 200 years ago in Mississippi, the Land Ordinance of 1785 set aside section number 16 in every township for the benefit of the public school system. Today, Sixteenth Section Land, also known as 16th-Section Land, in Mississippi includes over 640,000 acres of trust land managed by 108 Mississippi public school districts.

Anyone who believes that support for public education is a relatively new phenomena in this country would be surprised to know the true history. Public education has long been one of the foundations of the United States, even before it was a nation. The settlers from Europe, particularly from England, imported the notion of putting land in trust to finance public education.

It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote the first official law to that effect in this country. Called the Ordinance of 1785, it followed the colonial policy of reserving land for school purposes. At that time, acreage was divided into townships, a measure of land equal to a 36-square-mile area.

Every township contained 36 sections, each one a square mile in size. The total acreage contained in each township was 640 acres. The Ordinance of 1785 specified that each 16th section of land within a township had to be utilized to finance and maintain public schools.

The Continental Congress’ Ordinance of 1787 did not stand alone as the only law requiring that land be set aside for public school support. As new states were created, the 16th-section requirements were extended to include them.

For example, in 1803, the state of Georgia was created. In the agreement creating Georgia, it was mandated that when new states were created and achieved statehood, the Ordinance of 1787 would apply with equal force to them.

That is, they would be admitted as states only under the same conditions and restrictions contained in the Ordinance of 1787. Therefore, when land south of Tennessee and west of Georgia was sold, the 16th section in each township in these areas had to be set aside for support of public schools. Title to these lands vested in the new states as trustees.

All went well for some time regarding the creation of Sixteenth Section Lands. But in time it had to be acknowledged that some Sixteenth Section Lands had already been sold. Some had been sold by England before the United States became a nation; others were sold by the United States government.

To deal with this problem, Congress once again acted. In 1806, it passed the Lieu Lands Act, which offered alternative lands to school districts to replace lands that had already been sold. However, unlike Sixteenth-Section Lands, the lieu lands were often located far from the township authorities and they proved difficult to manage. In the end, much of this land was also sold.

In 1817, Mississippi joined the union to become a state. At this time and immediately after statehood, the 16th section lands in the state were endangered by neglect and occasional abuse.

In time, the state acted to protect the lands, starting with the constitution for the new state. Section 95 of the 1890 Mississippi Constitution declares that lands belonging to the state can never be donated to private corporations or individuals, and Section 211 forbids any and all sales of Sixteenth Section Lands.

These protections were significantly strengthened by decisions of the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1975 and 1989. One of those cases, Hill v. Thompson (1989), invalidated a downtown lease in the city of Forest that was issued for 99 years for a one-time payment of $7.50. The court ruled that the lease was voidable since 16th section leases can only be issued for fair market value.

Soon after, the state set standards for managing the lands in the Sixteenth Section Reform Act of 1978. Since then, the functions of the state land commissioner were passed to the Mississippi Secretary of State. Under this protection, the annual income from the 16th section lands increased from several million dollars per acre to approximately seventy million dollars by 2014.

In Mississippi, the state has preserved the allocation of 16th section property to the maintenance of public schools. The trustees are largely the 108 school districts involved, together with the Mississippi Secretary of State who is appointed the supervising trustee.

The current secretary of state oversees management of more than 640,000 acres of 16th section public school trust lands, and their leasing provides important financial support for the public schools in Mississippi.

Title to all Sixteenth Section Land in Mississippi is held by the State of Mississippi, but it is not ordinary public land. Rather, the lands are held in trust for the support of public education, and legal trust principles apply to their management.

The laws require that those responsible for the management of trust lands do so in accord with the very highest legal standards of care. To that end, the secretary of state monitors management closely.

Local school boards are required to file copies of all leases that they grant on 16th section land with the office of the secretary of state. They must also file reports concerning their management of the lands and an accounting of the income received from leasing and investment of funds.

How are the 16th-section parcels used to finance public education? The trustee school districts lease out the land for a variety of uses. The land has been classified for different uses, and this classification dictates the types of activity to which they can be used by lessees. Classifications include:

• Agricultural land.
  
• Forest land.
  
• Hunting.
• Residential.
• Mining.
  
• Farming.
  
• Fishing.
  
• Recreational.
  
• Industrial.
  

The parcels to be leased are put out to bid by the local school districts. The available leases are publicized in newspapers and other media. Whomever bids highest takes the lease from the local board of education. Each year, a parcel is reassessed and leased out again at fair market rental value. Taxes on the parcels are paid by the leaseholders to the same extent as if they owned the real property.