Area lawmakers note ’08 successes, failures
Published 5:00 am Monday, April 21, 2008
The 2008 legislative session managed to keep the state afloat ina tight budget year, but area lawmakers said few benefits specificto Lincoln County and the rest of Southwest Mississippi were passeddown from Jackson during the four-month gathering that endedFriday.
“We didn’t get a lot out of it,” said District 92 Rep. BeckyCurrie, R-Brookhaven. “We got as much as any other area thissession. Gov. (Haley) Barbour was not signing any bonds, not doinganything to put the state into debt. That was his goal, and he didit.”
Currie said the few industries scheduled to open in the statewere directly associated with North Mississippi’s Toyota plant, andthose facilities needed to be close to the Tupelo site.
“Everything that opened up this year was pretty much already inthe works,” she said.
Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello, pointed to Southwest Mississippi’slocation as a factor in the area’s legislative difficulties andlack of economic growth.
“We have an area of the state that essentially is fenced in bythe Mississippi River,” he said. “It’s a long way from Natchez downinto Louisiana with no major highways or bridges that cross theriver. North Mississippi has been getting some things, such asautomobile plants, that I believe their location in particular wasmore conducive for large manufacturers coming to them.”
District 39 Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, D-Brookhaven, said patienceand cooperation would be the key to pumping up SouthwestMississippi, and the Legislature can only respond to industrialrequests.
“If we could pass legislation instructing an industry that ‘youshall come to Lincoln County,’ I assure you the entire legislativedelegation would be on it,” she said. “You have to have thecircumstances set up before you can pass legislation.
Like every other area, it doesn’t happen over night,” shecontinued. “We’re working very well together, and we just have towait and capitalize on the opportunity when it does come by.”
The only real area-specific victory of the 2008 legislativesession singled out by area legislators was funding for theconstruction of a new Mississippi National Guard facility inMonticello.
Hyde-Smith said the funding for the $20 million facility,accomplished through one of the sessions’s few bond bills, was $1million this year, with another $1 million on the way in 2009.Federal matching money will complete the funding.
“It’s one of my priorities right now,” Hyde-Smith said. “We’reat war, and one of the most important things we can do is to getour National Guard the most we can through our stateappropriations.”
Whatever other benefits Southwest Mississippi can claim from thelegislative session were shared with other areas. Local legislatorspointed to the full funding of education as one of the session’sachievements that the area can claim, along with the rest of thestate, as a positive.
“We gave colleges and universities $8 million more than they hadlast year,” Hyde-Smith said. “Copiah-Lincoln Community College willcertainly benefit from that. We also put almost $100 million invocational and technical school funding – a $13 million increaseover last year. Fully funding MAEP and putting money into communitycolleges will certainly benefit this area.”
But even the funding of education was not without itsdifficulties. Evans said even though the Mississippi AdequateEducation Program was fully funded for the first time outside anelection year, the education bill contained no teacher pay raises -even after Democrats and Republicans in the House battled over a 3percent raise versus a 5 percent raise.
“I voted against it – it was a protest vote,” Evans said. “Iknew it would pass, and I voted against it because I was, and am,really disappointed that we did not get a teacher pay raiseacross.”
Local legislators also pointed out a few failures of the 2008session, such as the lack of bills dealing with voter ID andeminent domain.
The biggest issue unresolved from the session is Medicaid.Although funds for the institution were appropriated in the finalweek of the session, the means to raise those funds remainsunknown. The Legislature will return to a special session withinthe next two months to resolve the problem.