Monetary matters returned to the forefront during the seventh week of the 2010 legislative session as the House of Representatives set in motion the process of preparing a new state budget for FY 2011.

The current fiscal year, FY 2010, has four months remaining before it ends on June 30, and state agencies are dealing with reductions to it by Gov. Barbour. But much of the work this week was on FY 2011, beginning July 1, as first the House Appropriations Committee and then the full House considered and approved new state agency budgets.

We will spend almost $6 billion of state funds on FY 2011, with the federal government and other sources paying the rest of the tab over $10 billion. The House and Senate will be reviewing the opposite's work over the next few weeks.

Deadlines to finalize legislative work in several areas will be drawing tighter as the 90-day session moves past the midway mark. This week (Feb. 22-26) is the actual deadline to pass or reject the FY 2011 appropriation and revenue bills on the House floor. Then, on March 2, we face a deadline to pass or reject general bills that originated in the Senate. By then, the session will have only month to go before completion. Sine die adjournment is planned for Saturday, April 3.

 As are all bills before the Legislature, the appropriation and revenue bills we took up this week are subject to change before the session ends, especially in tight economic times when state tax revenue collections are at their lowest ebb in many years.

No better example of change is the current FY 2010 budget, which has already undergone four reductions by Gov. Barbour, with K-12 public education taking massive hits that have left school district officials statewide scrambling to meet their obligations.

The Senate this week narrowly approved SB 2688, a "budget reconciliation act" that the House had passed several days earlier. It would restore $79 million of the cuts already conducted by Gov. Barbour. The Senate agreed with the House on the bill and sent it to Barbour for his signature or veto.

The Medicaid budget approved this week was in an amount of just over $5 billion, making it the single largest budget in state government. The program provides health-care services for almost one-fourth of all Mississippians. The good part is that only $225.8 million of that will be state funds, with federal government picking up the remainder of the costs.

The components of our K-12 through higher education system combined would spend more than $4 billion under the budget scenario approved by the House this week. K-12 spending, including the district-funding MAEP portion, is planned in the range of $3.2 billion, and the two-year and four-year systems at just over $1 billion

collectively.

All of these segments have taken budget cuts in the current year, headed by K-12's $180 million reduction. The amount that the House passed for MAEP funding is $52 million above current operations, but almost 10 percent below what they had at the start of FY 2010.

A few of the other large state agency budgets being planned for FY 2011 include: Human Services, $834.4 million; Rehabilitation Services, $200.9 million; Mental Health, $652.4 million; and Transportation, $1.1 billion (with no General Funds). The House of Representatives this week also made some moves to limit travel expenses by members of the Legislature.

The House gave overwhelming approval to HB 1674 for a disaster loan guaranty program for sweet potato farmers, who lost almost all of their 2009 crop in 11 main counties due to wet weather. The bill is designed to spur lenders into making production loans for the farmers this spring. Sweet potatoes are not covered under the federal crop insurance program. This is an $80 million industry in the state.

Members of boards of supervisors in some of the state's poorest counties came to the House chamber this week to hear about HCR 68, which acknowledges the need for improved economic viability.

We had a hearing this week on a proposed additional tax on "soda pops" and other sweetened beverages, but apparently the idea won't fly this year. The idea came up after a study by the Stennis Institute found that Mississippi has the highest obesity rate in the United States; in 2008, the obesity rate in Mississippi was 33.4 percent as compared to a national rate of 26.7 percent.

From 1995 through 2008, the percentage of persons in Mississippi that are obese has increased by approximately one percent per year. It is estimated that there are approximately 725,413 obese adults in the state of Mississippi. Studies of obesity predict that by 2018, approximately 52.2 percent of Mississippians will be obese, unless the growth in obesity rates can be curtailed.

Young people in Mississippi also exhibit disproportionately high obesity rates;

approximately 17.9 percent of high school students in Mississippi are obese as compared to 13 percent of high school students nationwide.

Late the week before, when we were still considering general bills that had originated in the House of Representatives, these were among the bills that passed:

HB 430 to mandate that counties enact a policy by which indigent persons can be buried. The county would have discretion to pay the full cost of the burial including the opening and closing of the gravesite, or may contribute part of the expense; HB 957 was to prohibit retired state workers from returning to employment on contract or some other status until they have been retired from at least 12 months;

HB 941 to create a statewide health information network to facilitate patient clinical and information, and "promote more efficient and effective communication among multiple health care providers and payers, including hospitals, physicians, non-physical providers, third-party payers, self-insured employers, pharmacies,

laboratories, and other health care entities; and HB 536 to require nursing home operations to maintain liability insurance of at least $500,000 to cover cases of negligence to their patients.

HB 1341 to establish a bridge loan program to be administered by the State Department of Education to assist local school districts that suffer revenue losses as a result of an economic downturn that substantially impacts the state and local revenues available to school districts.  Loan proceeds distributed to school districts would be specifically for school district operations identified as essential by the department.

A bill that gained a majority but failed to get the required three-fifths of the votes for passage was HB 1646 dealing with extending the operations of the Mississippi Employment Security Commission. This subject will be heard from again because it affects many out-of-work people drawing unemployment compensation – and others who will be drawing it in the future.

We learned this week that Mississippi will receive a $20 million federal grant to help fund railroad improvements from the Port of Gulfport to Hattiesburg, a major step for the Mississippi economy. The grant will partly fund improvements along 67.5 miles of Kansas City Southern Railroad track between the Port of Gulfport and north to Hattiesburg.

To contact us at the Capitol, please call 601-359-3770. You may also watch legislative proceedings on the Internet at www.ls.state.ms.us, and click on "House" or "Senate."