The end of this week marked the deadline for House appropriations and revenue bills to be introduced and passed. The House Appropriations Committee finished passing bills regarding budgets for state entities last week, so most legislation addressed this week came from the House Ways and Means Committee. The Mississippi Development Authority Bond Bill, House Bill 1731, details the amount of bond money that will be given to MDA programs. One section of the bill provides money for the ACE Fund, which provides grants to local economic development entities to help expand businesses. Other sections of the bill provide money that could be distributed in grants to counties and municipalities to impr
With general House Bills out of the way, representatives began working on House Appropriations Bills, which will determine how much money is given to various state organizations. The House was responsible for looking at the preliminary budgets of 54 state agencies, including the departments of transportation, public health, Medicaid, education and public safety. Budgets included reverse repealers, a clause which ensures that a bill cannot become law before going to a conference committee for further revisions. With reverse repealers in place, most appropriations bills were voted on in a block to help speed up the process. Bills discussed individually addressed budgets for the Department of H
The House met as a whole throughout the week to discuss bills that made it out of committees and onto the calendar. Thursday, Feb. 9, was the deadline for representatives to discuss House Bills. Any bills that were not discussed by Thursday died on the calendar. Legislation regarding internet sales tax, House Bill 480, officially passed the House this week and will be sent to the Senate for consideration. The House approved House Bill 974, which would exempt certain state agencies from the rules, regulations and procedures of the state Personnel Board. The bill, originally discussed last week, will allow agency heads to run their departments how they see fit and remove employees’ civil servi
Committee meetings to discuss House bills wrapped up on Tuesday, and the House convened as a whole Wednesday through Friday to discuss the legislation that made it to the calendar. One of the most contested bills this week was House Bill 480, an out-of-state sellers use tax bill which would collect sales tax on purchases made over the internet. Representative Trey Lamar, who introduced the bill, said there is already a law requiring this tax that is not being enforced and this bill aims to fix that. Supporters of the bill say this would provide the state with the funding needed to repair Mississippi’s poor infrastructure. Opponents of the bill do not support collecting more taxes from the pe
