Deadline Facing Revenue, Appropriations Bills

It's expected to be a busy week for Mississippi lawmakers. Wednesday is the deadline for floor action on bills affecting how the state collects and spends tax dollars. MPB’s Stephen Koranda reports.

House members have quite a few issues to work on before Wednesday’s appropriation and finance deadline, including funding a variety of state agencies, says House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Percy Watson of Hattiesburg.

“We have Institutions of Higher Learning, community colleges, Mississippi Development Authority, Finance and Administration. Most of the work of ways and means is clearly undone,” says Watson.
Crafting tax and revenue bills has been harder than usual for the Senate Finance Committee because of the sagging economy, says Chairman Dean Kirby of Pearl.

“There’s less money than we even expected at the beginning of the session. It seems like when there’s no money, everyone wants to borrow it. It’s like going to the bank when you do bonds. Everybody’s coming to me wanting bonding and we just can’t keep going further in debt,” says Kirby.

The Senate passed nearly 50 appropriations bills for universities, state offices and state oversight boards Friday. Some of this legislation will need future work because of the federal stimulus package, says Alan Nunnelee of Tupelo, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“That’s why we took up a lot of the appropriation bills this week, to go ahead and clears the deadline,” says Nunnelee, “even thought we don’t know the details of the federal package.”

While the details aren't worked out, it's likely more than 2 billion dollars in federal money will be coming to the state.