Approval of bills related to the revenue-generating side of the state budget dominated action during the eighth week of the 2010 legislative session. We now have one month left to complete a budget for FY 2011, beginning July 1. We also have work to do on closing the books on 2010, ending June 30.

Gov. Barbour issued a veto at mid-week of SB 2688, a "budget reconciliation act" that had been agreed upon by the House and Senate. It would have restored almost $80 million in budget cuts that the governor had earlier enacted.

A lion's share of the budget restoration would have gone to K-12 public education. The Senate, however, failed by several votes to override the veto, killing the bill.

Obviously, there will be other attempts in the coming days to reconcile the budget for FY 2010. It is necessary because we must complete the FY 2010 work before we can realistically address FY 2011.

The bills on which we focused this week had first emerged from the tax-writing (and tax-exempting) House Ways and Means Committee. We then considered them on the full House floor.

Ways and Means deals annually with the state laws that bring in revenues, mainly in the form of myriad taxes such as sales tax, income tax, corporate tax, gaming tax and several other categories. The panel also considers exemptions to tax laws, and annually looks at possible bond issues to generate funds for economic development purposes and improvements to state-owned facilities.

The House passed two large general obligation bond issue bills this week. One was HB 1701 in the amount of $410 million to fund improvements to state-owned facilities; monies for various tourism projects including $4 million to expand the hallowed grounds of the Elvis Presley Birthplace site in Tupelo; $4 million for the Infinite project at the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County;

$3 million for the Mississippi Children's Museum nearing completion in Jackson and some other arts programs; funds for a small business development loan program to encourage job creation; financing of larger economic development projects that may come in the future; $20 million for the local bridge replacement program; $25 million for a loan program for financially strapped school districts; and monies to help the City of Jackson make additional repairs to its beleaguered water and sewerage systems.

We discussed for more than one hour and then overwhelmingly passed HB 1688 which would provide $300 million in bonds for various state highway, roads and bridges projects from one of the state to the other. Such a bill had passed the House the last two years, only to die in the Senate.

The bill brings together certain road projects in and around the new Toyota plant in Northeast Mississippi, planning for five road projects included in the "Vision 21" highway act of several years ago and then amendments for such ideas as the four-laning of U.S. 61 from Leland to Vicksburg and four-laning from Greenwood to Holly Springs.

The bill was also amended to include some bridge rehabilitation funds. Mississippi has hundreds of bridges that are deemed deficient by federal standards, posing a major safety issue.

Other bills that passed the full House after clearing Ways and Means were: HB 1674 to provide a $2,000-per-job tax credit for the cut-and-sew manufacturing industry in Northeast Mississippi in an effort to save it. A similar bill was vetoed last year by Gov.

Barbour; HB 1591 to provide $1.4 million in bonds to help improve local water systems;

HB 1677 providing tax breaks to private firms that provide school-bus transportation for public school districts; HB 1598 providing almost $16 million in bonds to finance a forestry industry loan program, an effort to aid one of the state's largest enterprises; HB 863 to provide a $1,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers; HB 654 to provide a $500 tax credit to cover costs of a homeowners' insurance deductible when damage is inflicted by a named storm;

HB 1716 to provide a tax credit for landowners who designate lands for natural area preserve, a wildlife refuge or habitat area, a wildlife management area or a public outdoor recreational area; HB 301 to exempt 35-percent of the true value of affordable rental housing from ad valorem taxation, a move supported by tax assessors in the state; and HB 1566 to exempt from sales taxes food products grown or processed in Mississippi and sold from farmers' markets that have been certified by the State Department of Agriculture.

The House also considered several general bills, dealing with policy issues, which had been approved by the Senate. The Senate, meanwhile, is considering House general bills that we had passed.

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."