The House this week (actually last as I e-mail this) continued to work on almost 200 general bills that earlier had been approved by our various committees. We were facing a Feb. 11 deadline on the House floor to either approve or defeat those measures, or allow them to expire without a vote. Death of a bill at this still-early point in the session does not mean it can't be seen again, but it is a good indicator of things to come.

In the week ahead, we will turn more of our attention to what many observers see as the number one job of the Legislature: creating a budget for state fiscal year 2011 beginning July 1. Feb. 24 is the deadline for House floor action on the appropriation and revenue bills that originated in our chamber.

On the east end of the Capitol's third floor, the Senate will face the same deadline for the "money bills" that originated in their chamber. All of these steps will eventually culminate in an FY '11 budget.

The House Appropriations Committee and full House late in the week voted to restore almost $80 million in cuts that had been enacted by Gov. Barbour for FY 2010. It would come mostly from an existing tobacco settlement expendable account, and restore about $35 million to K-12 funding and almost $14 million to universities and community colleges, and smaller amounts to other state agencies such as the

Veterans Board, Mental Health and Department of Health.

An effort to pass a Senate-inspired amendment for a smaller amount failed on the

House floor.

State tax revenues, as you no doubt have heard, are far off projections, resulting in a fourth round of budget cuts, announced by Gov. Barbour on Feb. 5. He ordered $21 million more in cuts to state agencies, bringing the total cuts to nearly 8.7 percent for the current fiscal year.

Revenues in January were 11.2 percent, or $40.5 million, lower than anticipated. Budget analysts now estimate the total budget shortfall for Fiscal Year 2010 to hit $458.5 million.

A top priority of the House of Representatives is and has always been K-12 public education, and we dealt with several important "ed bills" in the past week. Among them was HB 624 which was amended to mandate that schools start no earlier than Sept. 1 of each year. The date of the start of a school year has been an issue in the Legislature for many years, and many have advocated that a later start would save money in air-conditioning costs over the hot-August school starts of recent years, and other reasons.

One of the bill's backers showed a poll of the Gulf Coast Business Council showing 77 percent of the parents of students approve of a later school start date. About 15 states have opted for a later start date. In Texas, starting later saved the state almost $800 million annually, the study found. We'll see how the Senate feels.

Other education matters that gained House approval this week were: HB 629 revising the GED Program entrance requirements for students who are at least one full grade level behind the ninth grade, and requiring those students to take the end-of-course subject area tests for those courses;

HB 1078 requiring the State Department of Education to develop the Healthier School Initiative, and to provide financial incentives to schools receiving recognition through the HealthierUS School Challenge; HB 1079 requiring the State Department

of Education to provide training on certain food service practices, including healthy food and beverage choices, healthy food preparation, marketing of healthy food choices to students and staff and food preparation ingredients;

HB 1047 to study why teachers leave the profession early and how to attract more teachers; the state is 2,600 teachers short in the current school year; HB 632 to

require closer monitoring of why students are absent from school; and

HB 1043 to initiate a "New Start School" in each public school that is considered as

"failing" for three straight years. Some confused "New Start" with charter schools.

The bill would require readmission of students already enrolled in the school and allows terminated personnel to reapply in the new school set-up. It also allows the

possibility that a non-profit group with a successful record could seek a contract

to operate the new school;

HB 80 to study the implementation of universal pre-kindergarten programs statewide. Mississippi has been talking about doing this for almost 30 years and we are one of only two states without mandatory Pre-K;  HB 1071 to create an Education Achievement Council to sustain attention to the state's goal of increasing the educational attainment and skill levels of the state's working-age population benchmark to the national average by 2025; 

HB 997 to require districts to regulate outdoor practices of athletic teams when temps reach 95 degrees and higher; HB 1349 to allow districts in financial trouble to borrow funds to keep going;

On other subjects this week, the House passed: HB 1122 to prohibit the use of nitrous oxide in automobiles on streets and highways. The ingredient is used to "soup up" vehicles by giving them more horsepower. A state trooper, Steve Hood, was killed last year near Tupelo in his pursuit of a vehicle using nitrous oxide;

HB 49 prohibiting the discharge of employees who in good faith file a worker's comp claim; HB 1537 creating a panel to study legal aid for economically deprived citizens; HB 1070 creating a special hunting season for terminally ill children;

HB 1379 transferring the Mississippi Persian Gulf War Memorial to the State Veteran Affairs Board at the Coastal Plains Experiment Station near Newton to honor the 59 state soldiers who have died in those conflicts; HB 1046 adding the Coldwater River in north-central Mississippi to the state's scenic rivers program; HB 1548 to study whether Flood and Drainage Districts are effectively doing their job;

HB 727 creating better coordination for the state's heritage, history and culture trail; HB 852 increasing by 50-percent the amount of compensation paid to victims of crime through a state-operated fund; and

HB 780 requiring dialysis center treatments to have backup electric power in times

of emergency; HB 695 regulating midwifery, with a grandmother clause for current

midwives who have been active in the state for five years; HB 986 to regulate the

selling of metallic coverings for human teeth;

HB 918 limiting eminent domain-takeover of private property unless it's for a project that is certified by the Mississippi Development Authority, a county and a city and the Legislature; HB 769 to  revise the penalty for aggravated domestic assault from five years to 10 years; HB 960 giving drivers the option of a four-year or eight-year license;

HB 1158 allowing cities above 10,000 population to have a second city judge; HB 581 to remove from the master list of possible jurors anyone who has been permanently excused from jury duty or anyone over 65 requesting to be excused;

SB 2524 to name the new State Health Lab for the late state health officer Dr. Ed Thompson; HB 981 requiring preneed casket contracts to meet the same rules as preneed funeral services; and

 HB 807 to create a procedure to have debt forgiven and credit reports purged for

victims of identity theft; HB 1157 to collect a $100 fee from persons convicted of a sex offense, with the money going into a fund to be known as the Crime Laboratory

DNA Identification System Fund. Monies in the fund will be used to defray the state's costs of the DNA identification system;

HB 1281 to delete the publishing requirement for cities to clean trashy properties and instead send a letter to the property owner and post it at City Hall; HB 232 banning the sale of novelty lighters, which often appear to be toys, and on which several fire deaths have been blamed; 

HB 1287 increasing the fee that state prisoners pay to participate in the corrections system's Intensive Supervision Program; HB 694 to require background checks for nursing licenses;

HB 718 clarifying the powers of the state to regulate charitable bingo, as related to licenses and expected expenses, with at least 15 percent of the take to remain locally; HB 686 to create a state Children's Product Safety Act to help combat the

entry into the state of dangerous toys and other items; HB 1450 to waive the college

tuition for children of Mississippi veterans killed in the Persian Gulf War;

HB 687 to enact a statewide price gouging law in the event of natural disasters and

emergencies; HB 262 to allow a whistleblower to recover damages; HB 957 to require retired state workers to lay out at least one year before returning on a contract basis; HB 941 to create a Mississippi Health Information Network to provide improved coordination of health-care services through technology;

HB 769 to send violators of domestic violence laws to jail for up to 20 years on a third offense that's within five years of the most recent offense; HB 637 to allow the sale of the "old" School for the Blind property of 23 acres  in Jackson; HB 155 requiring the State Parole Board to make a recommendation on whether an inmate should be pardoned;

HB 1385 repealing the contribution required to be paid by veteran residents of state veterans’ homes; HB 853 to create early voting in a county registrar's office and bring the state in line with this practice. Voters could cast votes from within 20 days to five days before an election,

We defeated on the floor HB 1396 which would have prohibited Medicaid from reducing the reimbursement to a nursing home due to a patient's child support obligation. Failing to receive enough "yes" votes to pass was HB 1346 which would have reauthorized the state employment security agency and would have qualified the state to receive $57 million in federal stimulus money spurned last year by Gov. Barbour.

Governor Barbour this week signed HB 512 aimed at restricting the purchase of a key ingredient of the illegal drug methamphetamine. It requires a doctor's prescription to purchase cold and sinus medicine containing the ingredient pseudoephedrine. The bill swiftly passed the Legislature this month with overwhelming bipartisan support.

In floor action late the week before, we passed: HB 1487 to provide certain rights to bicycle riders; HB 1337 to provide for a $25 fine for failing to obey a signal for an approaching train; HB 1233 requiring the state to create rules for advertising on school buses as a way of raising funds for local districts during tight budgetary times; and HB 1162 creating scholarships for law students who agree to work for Mississippi Legal Services for at least four years after graduation.

Introduced to the Legislature this week was Dr. Jimmy Keeton, the new leader of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. He succeeds Dr. Dan Jones, now the chancellor at Ole Miss.

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