Editorial Roundup: Mississippi
Greenwood Commonwealth. January 2, 2023.
Editorial: Lawmakers’ Plate Will Be Plenty Full
When the Mississippi Legislature convenes on Tuesday, it will be scheduled to be in session for 125 days — one month longer than the next three years.
Considering all the issues that will be on lawmakers’ table, they might need the extra time.
Russ Latino of Magnolia Tribune provided an excellent summary over the weekend of what’s likely to be on the agenda, breaking it down into five major categories: education, health care, taxes, the state retirement system and ballot initiative.
- Education. The Legislature could take another stab at rewriting the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the formula that is supposed to fund the state’s K-12 public schools. The Legislature has struggled most years in appropriating as much money as the 1997 formula calls for. Even when times are flush, however, Republican leaders have resisted MAEP’s guidelines, claiming it is more tilted toward spending on administration than in the classroom. In 2023, lawmakers appropriated an extra $100 million for public schools but put in their own guidelines for spending that money rather than following MAEP’s. There’s also expected to be considerable debate about various forms of “school choice,” from allowing students to more easily attend public schools to which they are not zoned to putting more state dollars into “education savings accounts” that parents could spend on private-school tuition.
- Health care. The troubled financial condition of the state’s hospitals will continue to be on the front burner. Lawmakers have some cleaning up to do on the $103 million emergency appropriation they made in 2023, since federal restrictions on the funding source prevented some struggling hospitals from receiving the help. Medicaid expansion will also be a continuing point of discussion, although Gov. Tate Reeves’ reelection and his promising effort to increase Medicaid funding through an alternative route will probably keep Mississippi among the few holdouts.
- Taxes. Reeves ran on a platform to push for elimination of the personal income tax, going much further than two previous slices that have the state on track toward a flat 4% rate by 2026. Some legislative leaders, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, think the state needs to be more cautious about wiping out one of its main income streams until the impact of the previous cuts is better understood. Hosemann has instead expressed interest in reducing or eliminating the sales tax on groceries, which has greater bipartisan support.
- PERS. Lawmakers have for years put off dealing with this disaster in the making. The Mississippi Public Employees’ Retirement System is on a horrible trajectory, paying out way more in benefits from current retirees than it is taking in from current employees and their employers, also known as the taxpayers. Steady increases in the employer contribution have not solved the problem, and that rate — already at 17.4% of employees’ pay — is scheduled to rise to 27.4% over the next five years unless something dramatic is done. Lawmakers have been given plenty of suggestions dating back more than a decade on how to restore PERS to financial soundness, but they have resisted almost all of them because they are worried about the political fallout and because they personally benefit from the retirement system as it now stands.
- Ballot initiative. Mississippi’s legislative leaders have promised since 2021 to restore the power of the people to bypass them, but they have yet to make that happen. That’s because several of them, including Hosemann, want to make it harder than it had been under the rules in place before the Supreme Court invalidated the initiative process on a technicality three years ago. The public’s patience is wearing out. This could be the year the Legislature keeps its promise.
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