Update, Friday, 5:13 p.m.:
The Senate passed a road and bridge funding bill using internet sales taxes just after 5 Friday afternoon and adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday. It will now go to a conference committee, where members of the House and Senate will work out minor differences between the two versions. The House has already adjourned until Monday. Both the lottery and internet sales tax are likely to be taken up then.
Gov. Phil Bryant wants legislators to return to Jackson Thursday, Aug. 23 to deal with road and bridge funding, although the special session agenda remained unsettled as of press deadlines.
Monies could come through an internet sales tax, a state lottery, sports betting and/or the BP oil spill settlement.
“There are a lot of moving parts to this still,” Ron Matis, a lobbyist for the Pentecostal church in Mississippi, told the Marion County Board of Supervisors Monday. “There is no fixed deal that has been decided on yet. They will be going into this with a lot on their plates. The good news is that we’re going to get an infrastructure bill passed. All sides are moving toward that.”
Only the governor can call a special session, and he stipulates what the legislature can bring up during it.
State Rep. Ken Morgan, R-Morgantown, met with other legislators Monday at the capital for an update. Morgan said Monday they didn’t know for sure yet what would be on the agenda, but he thinks it will include House Bill 722, which would divert the 7 percent use tax on internet sales to road and bridge funding for cities and counties, and a lottery bill from the Senate. He said there’s also a possibility for taking up how to spend BP oil spill settlement funds with 75 percent going to the Gulf Coast and 25 percent to the rest of the state.
Morgan said the original version of House Bill 722, which the House passed but Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves declined to take up in the Senate during the regular session, would have provided $380,000 in road and bridge funding to the city of Columbia and an 80 percent increase in State Aid money for the Marion County Board of Supervisors.
The problem of not enough money to maintain Mississippi’s roads and bridges has been building for several years. The Mississippi Economic Council has led the push for more funding, but the legislature has been loathe to raise the state’s 18.4-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1987.
Like many rural communities, the problem of roads has become so bad in Marion County that the Board of Supervisors has had numerous people come to complain about road conditions during the past few months, and it has been forced to close nearly a dozen bridges after inspections (some have since been repaired and reopened).
“Folks in Jackson know that it can’t wait until next year to happen,” Matis said. “This is not something they want to carry with them into January. The governor is committed to resolving this, and the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house are on board with the session. This is about getting it done and getting some money to go to help fix these roads and bridges. Everybody knows that is a top priority.”
Reeves indicated Monday that they were close to reaching an agreement, according to multiple media reports, but Matis said few details were being released about the session or any proposals.
“It’s been very hush-hush out of Jackson,” he said. “It’s been moving back and forth between the governor’s office and the others.”
District 5 Supervisor Calvin Newsom said he was concerned about funding promised to the counties because the new fiscal year will begin in October.
“We had heard that they were going to bond $25 million one time,” Newsom said. “Later on they had another plan and we have yet to receive anything. We need to know about this if we’re going to receive that this fiscal year.”
Morgan said there has been a question about basing funding on population or road mileage. Using road mileage would benefit rural counties like Marion that have many miles of roads with a low population.
“My personal opinion, the speaker of the House and the governor have a plan, but the lieutenant governor hasn’t agreed to it,” he said.
On the lottery, Morgan said it would take close to two years to get up and running and that the state wouldn’t end up making that much money off it after paying its expenses.
“The bottom line of it is there’s a lot of money spent on the lottery, but the states don’t net a lot of money out of the lottery,” he said.
Morgan said he has personal feelings where he doesn’t participate in the lottery but is not going to deny it if it’s what the majority of people want.
“I’m voting the people’s vote; it’s not my personal convictions,” he said, noting that a lot of people from Mississippi drive to surrounding states to buy lottery tickets.
He said lottery proceeds would go to roads and bridges for a 10-year period and could be diverted elsewhere after that.
The special session was slated to begin today, although Bryant had not issued the official declaration setting the agenda as of press deadlines Tuesday evening.
