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The Simpson County Development Foundation held their quarterly Council of Governments meeting on Monday, January 7, 2019 at Zip’s Restaurant in Magee.
Elected official from the county attended the meeting in addition to area SCDF members.
Following the invocation and welcoming led by Donnie Caughman, Representative Price Wallace gave an update on what lies ahead in the 2019 session. Price mentioned the problem of Human Trafficking in our state. “Human trafficking is a $150 billion world wide business,” stated Price.
“Mississippi has already been working on human trafficking and we are doing a good job, but more needs to be done. Training law enforcement and truckers who come in contact with these people more than the general public to be able to identify a person being trafficked by their body language.”
Price attended a seminar on Human trafficking and feels the problem will be addressed in the upcoming session which begins Tuesday, January 8, 2019. The need for a pay raise for state employees should be on the docket along with shoring up the state retirement fund.
Senator Chris Caughman ,who is Vice Chairman of the Education committee, feels teacher pray raise will be a top subject. The importance of teacher rendition and special needs children was discussed. Chris pointed out that the Special Needs bill has not been fully funded and scholarships are needed for these children. $80 million was collected over expected revenue.
If there is a continued need for a Trooper School, the need will come before the Senate.
Representative Noah Sanford spoke of the need to fully fund PEERS. “PERS has raised the employer contribution. $100M more will be required, per year. $75M must come from the state or state entities. $25M must come from other public entities, like counties and municipalities” according to Noah.
The need for Rural Broadband was discussed. According to Supervisor Mickey Berry, Southern Pine is on board to cooperate for the use of their poles to reach the rural areas of the state. Implementation of the program would cost approximately $175-$200 million. The implementation would be over an 8 year period.
Donnie Caughman expressed his feelings for the need for a Plan of Action for our county.
The quarterly meeting of the SCDF is scheduled for Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at Berry’s Restaurant in Magee.
