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The 2017 legislative session concluded on Wednesday, March 29, with the final days being consumed largely with appropriations bills. The legislature waits until the session’s end to take these up so that we can get the most current revenue estimates for the next fiscal year. The legislature budgets only 98% of revenue projections, thereby giving itself room for two percent error. When projected revenues are down, most agencies are forced to take budget cuts, and that was the case this year.
A few bills of importance were passed through each chamber. Some await the governor’s signature, while others have already been signed and will become law on July 1:
Campaign Finance Reform will prohibit all state and local candidates and officeholders—from legislators to judges and supervisors to aldermen—from using campaign funds for personal expenses. A few have abused the system through the years, necessitating this.
Cursive writing would make its way back into the classroom, under Senate Bill 2273.
The Highway Patrol will be able to add to its depleted number, which is lower than its been in decades. A “trooper school” has been requested for several years, but money was finally allocated for one in this year’s budget.
Attacks on law enforcement and other emergency personnel will now be punishable by enhanced penalties, under a new measure dubbed “Back the Badge Act.” Of course, what sentence is imposed will remain in the discretion of the trial judge.
We will be forced back into a special session—which, hopefully, will last only a day or two—to decide the budgets of MDOT, the State Aid Road Program, and the Attorney General’s Office. The Senate and House failed to reach final compromises on the three agencies’ budgets. The governor must make the “call” for a special session, and he has the ability to include more issues than just those three agencies’ appropriations. This special session will likely be in the next four to six weeks.
I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to serve. If I can be of assistance, please contact me at nsanford@house.ms.gov or at 601-765-4122.
Rep. Noah Sanford represents parts of Covington, Simpson, and Jefferson Davis Counties in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
