Mississippi’s leading education advocates are unanimously critical of a massive House plan that would fundamentally change the state’s tax structure, expressing concern that it cuts public education funding in the long run.
The proposal, which would eliminate the state’s personal income tax and raise the state’s sales tax, among other things, was introduced less than 24 hours before House members were asked to approve it. The House on Tuesday passed the bill, which will now move to the Senate for consideration.
Describing the proposal as “reprehensible,” “reckless,” and a “political ploy” that holds teachers “hostage,” education advocates have more questions than answers after what they say was a rushed and secretive process.
“It was kept under wraps,” said Nancy Loome, executive director of The Parents’ Campaign, whose organization sent an email to members warning them of similar tax cuts in Kansas and Oklahoma that resulted in decreased school funding and, in some school districts, the transition to a four-day week.
Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, the group that represents teachers, and Philip Burchfield, president of the Mississippi Association of School Superintendents, have similar concerns.
“With MAEP (Mississippi Adequate Education Program) already underfunded and our average teacher salary lagging behind the Southeastern average by more than $5,000, we quite literally cannot afford to let a bill sail through on the promise that everything will work out in the end,” Jones said in a statement. “All Mississippians — educators or otherwise — deserve time to research and understand the effects of this proposal. We should hear from reputable tax policy experts, not just from politicians, about the impact this bill would have on the state.”
Adrian Shipman, a board member for the Mississippi Public Education PAC, issued a statement opposing the bill.
“If enacted, HB1439 could further reduce available state funds by a third, impacting schools and communities for decades and threatening access to quality education and essential services for our most vulnerable Mississippians,” Shipman said. “Our schools deserve better than this far-reaching policy and its reckless 24-hour push through the chamber. Our communities deserve better. Our children deserve better.”
Adding fuel to the fire, House leaders took the unusual step of incorporating the House’s teacher pay plan language into the tax bill. When asked on Wednesday why the teacher pay plan was put into the House tax bill and whether a teacher pay raise was contingent on the tax bill passing, Gunn said, “Why would they not want both? No logical reason I can understand.”
Gunn said the bill, because it would eliminate personal income tax, will mean an additional $2,500 to $3,000 for teachers who earn between $45,000 and $50,000 per year.
“That is simple math,” Gunn said.
But House leaders adding the teacher pay raise to the proposal as a sweetener to prevent opposition from education advocates has not gone according to plan.
Jones, Loome and others explicitly criticized the inclusion of the teacher pay raise in the tax proposal.
“I wish I could say we were surprised, but we are far too familiar with public education being used as a bargaining chip and teachers’ livelihoods being treated as a political football,” Jones said. “While it may not have been intended as a threat to educators, public education advocacy groups, or the lawmakers who will vote on this bill, it is hard not to view it as such.”
Kelly Riley, executive director of Mississippi Professional Educators, said it plainly in an email to the group’s members. By including teacher pay raise language in the bill, despite the fact there are already two separate bills in both the House and the Senate, “the House can let (the Senate’s teacher pay raise bill) die on the House calendar which will only leave (the House’s teacher pay raise bill) and HB 1439 (the tax bill) alive with the pay raise language.”
“To be perfectly clear — the Speaker is using educators to get what he wants,” Riley said.
While legislative leaders are calling the bill “revenue-neutral” and promise state coffers and public services won’t take a big hit, educators are suspicious.
“There will come a time in which the financial resources won’t be there, and usually it’s the public schools that take the fall on that,” Burchfield said.
Each year, he said, teachers and schools are told the money isn’t there for increased funding, and he believes the fallout from this bill could give legislators yet another reason to say there’s no money for schools.
“They always say, ‘Well, we just don’t have the money this year,’” said Burchfield. “But the question for them is, ‘Why?’”
Loome has specific concerns about the impact on the state’s early learning collaboratives, or pre-K programs. The programs are funded by state dollars and donations, which are eligible for dollar-for-dollar tax credits.
Loome pointed out about half of the collaboratives’ funding is made up of donations, and if this bill passes and the tax credit is done away with, the collaboratives will be negatively impacted.
“I think a lot of people are not going to make that donation,” she said. “And the increase in pre-K that we need will never come.”
Mississippi Today reporter Bobby Harrison contributed to this report.
Two major renewable energy projects are planned for Mississippi, including the state’s first wind-power farm.
Lawmakers said Wednesday that a $250-million wind farm is planned for Tunica County and a $140-million to $160-million solar farm for Chickasaw County. The state Senate approved allowing the local counties to provide tax breaks for the projects.
The Tunica project, Tunica Wind Power LLC, would be the state’s first wind farm, state Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley said. The Chickasaw solar farm would be that area’s third one, and several others are operating across the state.
With recent wind-power debate from widespread power outages in Texas, Presley pointed out that the projects would only sell power wholesale to the Tennessee Valley Authority or nationally, not directly to any customers. Presley said the Tunica project has applied for PSC approval, but the Chickasaw solar project has not.
“(The wind farm) will have 100 wind turbines on 13,000 acres in Tunica, be a 200-megawatt facility, able to power at max capacity 7,000 homes,” Presley said.
“In light of what we’ve seen in Texas, we will be asking them about their winterization efforts,” Presley said.
Presley said he knows few details about the Chickasaw County solar project. Lawmakers provided few specific details about the projects on Wednesday before the Senate approved the tax breaks.
The state Senate approved SB 2895, which would allow the two counties’ boards of supervisors to reduce the ad valorem tax assessment on property for the projects from 15% to 8%. Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins said this would allow the counties to be “competitive” with areas in other states and help finalize the projects.
Sen. Barbara Blackmon, D-Canton, questioned the tax break: “Have they said they will not come with the existing (tax valuation)?”
Harkins said: “(Not reducing the tax values) would be about an extra $1 million in taxes compared to other surrounding states. We are competing within the Tennessee Valley Authority.”
The measure passed unanimously, with one “present” vote by Sen. Angela Burks Hill, R-Picayune.
Sen. Benjamin Suber, R-Bruce, who represents the area for the Chickasaw project, said that the 1,100-acre property now only generates about $5,000 a year in ad valorem taxes for the county. Even with the approved tax value reduction, he said it is expected to generate more than $800,000 a year for the county. He noted no state or other taxes would be affected by the bill the Senate passed.
The bill would allow such an ad valorem value reduction only for “transformative” projects investing $100 million or more, Harkins said.
In the third episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Hagan Walker and Anna Barker. Walker and Barker, the founders of the Starkville-based company Glo, discuss their company, entrepreneurialism, how their products went from a way to liven up parties to sooth autistic children at bath time and their newly renovated historic new corporate headquarters. Both Walker and Barker talk about why they decided to stay in Mississippi, how they plan to fight Brain Drain in the state and the importance of giving back to the community. The pair recently signed a licensing agreement with Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street, to produce toys that brighten play and bath time for children.
As budding entrepreneurs in MSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach, the duo turned a literal bright idea into a life-changing product. They continue to find new ways to give back to their community and inspire young Mississippians to follow in their footsteps.
The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a sweeping proposal Tuesday that would completely phase out the personal income tax over 10 years and immediately, starting on July 1, put in place the largest statewide sales tax in the nation at 9.5% on most retail items, excluding groceries.
Mississippi already has the second highest statewide sales tax at 7%, trailing only California at 7.25%, according to the Tax Foundation. But most states, including California, either have a lower sales tax on groceries or completely exempt the tax on groceries. In Mississippi, the current full 7% tax applies to groceries.
The bill, beginning July 1, would lower the rate on food to 4.5% and over a five-year period reduce it to 3.5%.
And, importantly, Mississippi in most cases prevents local governments from imposing an additional sales tax. Jackson has a 1% tax and Tupelo has a .25% tax, but other local governments have no authority to levy a sales tax with the exception of a so-called tourism tax on restaurants and hotels.
With a 9.5% sales tax rate, excluding that on groceries, Mississippi still would be competitive with the sales tax rates of its contiguous states when factoring in local sales tax rates, according to Tax Foundation numbers.
Alabama: 4% state rate, average local of 5.22% for total of 9.22%.
Arkansas: 6.5% state rate, average 2.97% local for total of 9.47%.
Louisiana: 4.45% state rate, average 5.07% local for total of 9.52%.
Tennessee: 7% state rate, average 2.53% local for total of 9.53%.
It is important to note, in many parts of the neighboring states, their rates still would be higher than the sales tax rate in Mississippi. If the bill becomes law, Mississippi would be at 9.5% with the Tax Foundation saying the average local rate was $0.07 because just two cities — Jackson and Tupelo — have a local option. In the neighboring states, all local governments have local options, and in some areas the rates are more than 10%.
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that journalist Will Stribling has joined the newsroom as a healthcare and breaking news reporter.
Stribling, a Vicksburg native, will cover all things public health in Mississippi with a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. He will look closely at public health trends and challenges across the state, with a keen eye toward reproductive justice and women and girls’ health.
“While the pandemic rages on and we turn our focus to vaccine rollout, we also know we need to ask some tough questions in coming weeks about our government’s focus — or often lack thereof — on public health,” said Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau. “Will is just the right person for this critical work. He’s got a great nose for news, he’s versatile, and he’s passionate about the mission of journalism. The thoughtful, deeply reported stories he’s hounded in his career speak for themselves.”
Stribling, a 2020 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media, was most recently an investigative reporter at the DeSoto Times Tribune. He interned at Mississippi Today in 2019. Before that, he interned in several Mississippi newsrooms, including The Vicksburg Post, Hinds County Gazette, and Wayne County News.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be joining the Mississippi Today staff,” Stribling said. “The in-depth reporting from this newsroom keeps Mississippians informed and holds public officials accountable. That work is critical, and it’s something Mississippi Today does with distinction. It’s a privilege to be a part of that mission by reporting on the pandemic and our state’s healthcare system at a time when the general public is more engaged with public health than ever. My goal is to show readers how the complex, multi-layered issues of our public health systems affect them and their families.”
Reach out to Will Stribling at wstribling@mississippitoday.org. Follow him on Twitter @WillStribling.
Two years before Mike Pence kicked off his term as vice president with a pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the former Indiana governor announced an agreement with the Obama administration to bring the national health law’s benefits — and billions in federal dollars — to his home state.
By that time in 2015, “Obamacare” was already a dirty word in Republican-controlled Indiana. And even as he spent months negotiating with the federal government on a waiver to expand Medicaid, Pence took pains to publicly denounce the very law that made the expansion possible.
“We’ve been saying no to government-driven health care — Obamacare,” then-Gov. Pence said in a video announcing the state’s expansion of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor.
As pressure builds for Mississippi to join 38 other states in expanding Medicaid, Indiana stands out as both a potential model and a cautionary tale.
Since expanding Medicaid in 2015, Indiana has provided government-sponsored insurance to nearly 600,000 adults that were too poor to afford private insurance, but made too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid.
Accomplishing the feat in deep red Indiana meant navigating a political minefield. The federal waiver allowed Pence and the Republican state legislature to brand their program as a conservative version of Medicaid expansion, distancing themselves from “government handouts” and the specter of Obamacare in the process.
The political smoke screen has been so effective that many of the program’s recipients don’t even know they’re on Medicaid — much less Obamacare.
Joan Alker is a Georgetown Researcher. Credit: Photo courtesy of Georgetown University
But while health experts say the benefits are indisputable — more coverage, better health and more financial stability for struggling rural hospitals — they also point to costly trade-offs. Many of the conservative wrinkles that enabled the program’s passage through the Republican-led legislature have been ineffective — or worse. In some cases, researchers say; they’ve actively worked against the goal of improving public health.
“At the end of the day, it’s really important that Medicaid expanded in Indiana, and that’s a good thing,” said Joan Alker, a Georgetown University professor who studies Medicaid expansion. “But all these bells and whistles resulted in more red tape, administrative costs and no real benefits in health outcomes — and negatives in terms of people losing their coverage.”
A ‘hand up,’ not a ‘handout’
While Pence’s awkward embrace of Medicaid expansion attracted the national attention, a prior Republican governor of Indiana laid the groundwork.
In 2005, former Gov. Mitch Daniels — now the president of Purdue University — created the original Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP, which extended a version of Medicaid to some low-income adults that earned too much to qualify for coverage. Its reliance on state tobacco funding, though, limited its reach. The pilot program enrolled a few thousand at first, topping out at around 70,000 at its peak in 2014.
What made HIP unique — and later served as the foundation of Indiana’s Medicaid expansion — was that it offered two tiers of health insurance. HIP basic, which met minimum federal Medicaid requirements, and HIP-plus, which provided better benefits, dental and vision. The catch was that to qualify for the better plan, low-income recipients had to make small monthly contributions into health savings accounts.
The thinking was that requiring recipients to have “skin in the game” would make them more invested in their own health. That mantra reappeared both in the design of Indiana’s 2015 expansion of Medicaid, and in how it was sold politically. In his announcement 10 years later, Pence said that unlike traditional Medicaid, Indiana’s program was “grounded in personal responsibility.” Recipients, he added, were “hardworking Hoosiers who don’t need a handout — but they could use a hand up.”
Mark Fairchild, the policy and communications director at Covering Kids and Families of Indiana, said branding Indiana’s program in this way was critical to its success — not just at the legislature, but also in convincing skeptical residents to sign up.
“Very few people who are on it are going to say they’re on Medicaid,” said Fairchild, whose organization advocates for health coverage and helps people sign up. “They say they’re on HIP, they’re on Healthy Indiana. … We’ve had people say ‘I’m not going to sign up for that Medicaid or that Obamacare, but I’ll sign up for HIP.’ ”
Building on an existing program offered another advantage, as well: state officials had proof that expanding coverage was a good deal. HIP’s pilot program was already achieving key goals like reducing uncompensated care and diverting people from emergency rooms who could be cared for by primary care doctors at a much lower cost.
The resulting bipartisan support for the program comes in stark contrast to states like Mississippi, where Medicaid spending is viewed as government waste to be cut.
“I haven’t had a conversation in a long time where anybody’s suggested decreasing the funding,” Fairchild said.
HIP’s pros and cons
Like other states that expanded Medicaid, Indiana’s program covers adults making up to 138% of the poverty line. That’s up to $17,829 for an individual or $36,590 for a family of four. (For context, pre-expansion Medicaid cuts off at the federal poverty line, or $12,880 for an individual.)
“It was really created to say we don’t have an option for these folks,” Fairchild says. “If we don’t keep them healthy, they’re not going to be able to re-enter the workforce.”
In a typical year, Indiana provides health coverage to around 400,000 people through HIP — a figure that surged to 575,000 last year due the pandemic and the recession. The impact to the state budget has been minimal. The federal government covers 90 percent of the costs, and the state’s share is primarily funded through a hospital assessment fee that the Indiana Hospital Association supports paying.
Still, while it has provided extensive coverage, HIP has also come under fire for the very changes that made it politically palatable to conservatives: None more so than the so-called “lockout” provision, which kicks people off their insurance for three months if they miss required payments to their health savings accounts or fail to complete certain paperwork.
For some, the cost itself might be a barrier. The premiums are anywhere from $10 to $40 a month, with tobacco users required to pay extra as an incentive to quit smoking. But the bigger issue, Fairchild says, is that the program just has too many complicated rules for people to follow.
“The more requirements, the more layers we add to it for people to do,” Fairchild said. “It’s easy for them to mess up and have the potential to be removed from the program.”
Early on, the payments were tied so strictly to income that someone’s earnings could fluctuate by a few hundred dollars and they’d get knocked out of compliance without realizing their payments were supposed to increase from say, $10 to $10.75 per month. Now, the payments are based on income tiers to provide more leeway.
But people still make mistakes. The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, which administers Medicaid, did not immediately respond to a request for the latest lockout figures. But in the program’s first two years, 10,000 recipients lost coverage for failing to pay monthly premiums, and another 46,000 lost coverage for not even making their first payment, according to federal filings.
Alker, the Georgetown researcher, says the payments do more harm than good.
“There’s really no good rationale for it,” says Alker, who runs the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown Health Policy Institute. “It essentially forces people to be uninsured for an amount of time because they didn’t send a form back or their form got lost in the mail or things like that.”
Low-income people tend to rent, and move frequently, causing notices to get sent to the wrong address. And the worst consequences of dropped coverage are exactly the sort of costly health crises that Medicaid expansion is supposed to help prevent.
“If you’re able to get your medicine for hypertension and control it, that’s cheaper than winding up in the emergency room with a stroke,” Alker said.
The state put another disputed provision, the work and community engagement requirement, on hold while it faces a court challenge. But early tests by the state suggested that, like the monthly payments, it could cause people to lose their coverage simply out of ignorance. Under the rule, recipients have to show proof that they’re working, looking for a job or participating in another qualifying activity like volunteering or caregiving.
“It’s one of those issues that the state will say that the requirements aren’t that tough,” Fairchild said. But when the state tried to implement it, officials found that most people “hadn’t even logged in to set up an account yet.”
Kosali Simon is a professor at Indiana University. Credit: Photo courtesy of Indiana University
Moreover, things like work requirements and the lockout provision can be a bureaucratic nightmare to enforce.
Using public benefit programs as an incentive to promote personal accountability “sounds great in theory,” says Kosali Simon, an Indiana University professor who studies health economics and policy. “In the end, it ends up being a huge cost to state taxpayers to send all these notices, and figure out how to get this money back.”
Lessons for Mississippi
If Mississippi follows in Indiana’s footsteps, even those who support HIP say it shouldn’t be copied verbatim.
Fairchild’s advice to Mississippi is twofold: Simpler is better, and outreach is essential. Funding for federal “navigators,” like Fairchild’s organization, that help people sign up and show them how to stay in compliance has been slashed in recent years, a period that has coincided with uninsured rates creeping back up after years of decline.
Experts say the lack of outreach, coupled with complex administrative requirements, has likely hurt African Americans the most, exacerbating existing racial inequalities.
“I think it affects everybody, but the concern I’ve heard the most is the Black population,” Simon said. “Everything that’s put as an additional requirement, where you have to do something active that requires resources, it’s going to have disparate impacts because of the way resources are distributed” unevenly across different races.
Still, despite the criticisms, health experts say the good has far outweighed the bad.
“There’s literally over 400 studies now showing the value of Medicaid expansion in so many different ways,” Alker says.
National studies show that expansion increases coverage and improves people’s health. It has reduced uncompensated care, which occurs when people show up in the emergency room without insurance, leaving hospitals footing the bill. It has also been a financial lifeline to rural hospitals.
Since 2010, only one rural hospital has closed in Indiana, compared to five in Mississippi, according to the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. Among the six states with the most closures in that period, none of them has expanded Medicaid.
Indiana’s program, even with its drawbacks, compares favorably to more traditional expansion states in its effect on health coverage, says Simon, the IU professor.
In research published in 2018, Simon and her colleagues found that Indiana’s coverage gains under HIP were actually larger than those in some other states — although they were smaller than that of neighboring expansion states. As of last year, 10.3% of non-elderly people in Indiana lacked health care, down from 13.8% in 2014, before the state expanded Medicaid.
“The heart of it is the same,” Simon said, “whether the little features here and there are different.”
A sweeping bill that would eliminate Mississippi’s personal income tax and cut the sales tax on groceries in half while increasing the sales tax on other items by 2.5 cents passed the House on Tuesday.
As the bill was being passed, Gov. Tate Reeves praised House GOP leaders for their proposal to phase out the personal income tax, but threw cold water on their plan for commensurate increases in sales and other taxes to balance the books.
“I wouldn’t want to be a Republican that votes to increase taxes substantially for certain segments of the public,” Republican Reeves said during a news conference. “… I personally support tax cuts, not tax swaps or tax transfers or tax increases … I don’t think we ought to sit here and pick and choose who to take money from. I think we ought to take less from everybody.”
As Reeves was speaking, the proposal passed the House by an 85-34 vote (needing 72 to pass) after Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, took about 30 minutes of questions on the bill called the Mississippi Tax Freedom Act. While most of the questions were by those opposed to the measure, no one rose to speak against the bill. Most of those voting no were Democrats, though some in the minority, including House Democratic leader Robert Johnson of Natchez, voted for the proposal.
“All Mississippians can look to this as a red-letter day,” said House Speaker Philip Gunn, who authored the bill along with Pro Tem Jason White and Lamar. “… For every Mississippian who pays an income tax, today is the day we started down the road to eliminating that burden. There will be an immediate benefit to the citizens of the state with the passage of this plan … There is coming a day when the entire income tax is eliminated.”
The bill would exempt the tax on the first $50,000 in income for an individual and first $100,000 for married couple starting with the 2022 tax year. And then over a 10-year period the personal income tax would be completely phased out, though the yearly reduction would be postponed in any year where revenue does not grow by 2.5%.
In addition, the 7% tax on groceries would be cut to 4.5% on July 1 and within five years reduced to 3.5%. Also on July 1, the sales tax on most retail items would be raised from 7% to 9.5% and the sales tax on other items which is currently 5% or less, such as manufacturing equipment, vehicles and airplanes, would be increased by 2.5% in an attempt to make the proposal revenue neutral.
The tax on cigarettes would be increased by 50 cents a pack, and taxes on vaping devices, alcohol and other items would also increase.
Lamar said a person making $50,000 a year would see a decrease in taxes of $2,035 and would need to spend about $82,000 to pay as much in sales taxes as the savings in income taxes. A married couple earning $100,000 would save $4,535 and would have to spend $181,400 to pay as much in sales tax as in income tax savings.
Lamar said the bill “broadened the tax base” by charging more sales tax for those who might not be paying income taxes because they were visiting the state or were cheating the state by not paying the income taxes they owed. By the same token, he said, all working people would receive a tax break.
But Rep. Bo Brown, D-Jackson, said the increase in the sales tax would hurt poor people who might not pay income taxes because of their low income.
Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Charleston, praised the effort to cut the grocery tax that would be an aid to poor people, but still voted against the proposal because the bill also would provide income tax cuts for the wealthy.
“Instead of giving people earning more than $100,000 a tax break, I would rather eliminate the grocery tax and help more people,” Reynolds said.
But Johnson, the Democratic leader in the House, said overall he supported the bill and expressed hope that before the proposal makes its way through the legislative process more might be done to help low-income earners.
“I keep looking for the Trojan horse, the trick in this, but it seems like something I would write,” Johnson said. “It’s a bill for the working people of Mississippi, and right now it looks like the budget concerns we had have been addressed.”
But The Parents Campaign, an education advocacy group, questioned whether the proposal would be revenue neutral and, if not, could negatively impact needed education funding. In addition, the group said the proposal could be devasting for the state’s pre-kindergarten program.
“Mississippi Early Learning Collaboratives got more than $5.5 million in donations via income tax credit incentives in 2020 – almost half of all collaborative funding,” the Parent’s Campaign said Tuesday in social media posts urging its members and lawmakers to oppose the bill.
The plan includes the House’s $1,000 a year teacher pay raise, and that coupled with tax cuts, teachers making $50,000 a year would “immediately” benefit by $3,000 a year total, and those making $40,000 by $2,500.
Gunn said 57% of Mississippians fall into the $50,000 or under group.
Reeves said the phased elimination of the lowest bracket of income tax — passed when he was lieutenant governor in 2016 — shows that all personal income taxes could be phased out over time without a corresponding increase in other taxes. He did not mention that more than 50 tax cuts enacted during his term as lieutenant governor, most for corporations, coincided with several years of drastic state agency budget cuts, deficit spending and raiding of state “rainy day funds.”
“The state collected $400 million more through the first seven months of this fiscal year than was budgeted,” Reeves said Tuesday. “What if we let Mississippians keep that money rather than spend it somewhere else?”
While there might be attempts to force a reconsideration of the vote on the bill, it most likely will advance to the Senate in the coming days.
Asked whether he and other House leaders had communicated with the governor in drafting the measure, Gunn replied with a curt, “No.” As for communications with the Senate and-or lieutenant governor, Gunn said, “We have talked in general terms that eliminating the income tax is important for us,” but indicated Senate leaders had not been involved in drafting the measure.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, through a spokeswoman, had no comment on the proposal on Tuesday. Some Senate leaders said the House unveiling of the bill caught them by surprise, although they were vaguely aware the House was discussing an income tax cut measure.
Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Tuesday that teachers and first responders in Mississippi can begin receiving COVID-19 vaccines starting on March 1.
The expanded eligibility includes all K-12 school, preschool and daycare employees, who can begin scheduling open vaccine appointments on Feb. 23. It does not include college educators or employees.
“This is exciting news for people who are working hard to keep our schools open and our streets safe,” Reeves said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported on Monday that 341,102 people in Mississippi — about 12% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. About 145,941 people have received both doses since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
As vaccine eligibility increases, COVID-19 cases and deaths continue their dramatic decline in Mississippi — an encouraging sign after a brutal winter spike that set new records for both statistics.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 348 new COVID-19 cases of COVID-19 and 24 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday. This brings Mississippi to a total of 291,222 coronavirus cases and 6,577 deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020.
January saw the most coronavirus-related deaths in a single month in Mississippi, with 1,240 confirmed. The state also set new single-day records for new cases: 3,255 cases on Jan. 7, and 98 deaths on Jan. 12.
Additionally, the number of COVID-19 cases, COVID-related hospital admissions and clinic visits for COVID-19 like illnesses in Mississippi have been trending sharply downward in 2021.
Welcome trends!
For now please: Wear a mask in public and avoid social events. We need time to vaccinated more people to prevent a 4th wave and dodge the threat of emerging variants! pic.twitter.com/6HoecsGmsL
Mask mandates are currently in effect in 75 of Mississippi’s 82 counties. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original statewide mandate issued by Gov. Tate Reeves on Aug. 4 with helping cases improve after a sharp summer spike. Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate on Sept. 30, but has since issued orders for the individual counties.
Last week’s winter storm caused many across the state to have to postpone vaccination appointments as drive-thru clinics and county health departments closed due to hazardous weather conditions.
All of the MSDH drive-thru vaccination appointments that were canceled due to the closures have been automatically rescheduled for some day this week at the same time as the initial appointment. As a result, MSDH drive-thru clinics will be vaccinating a much higher number of people than usual this week. A MSDH spokesperson confirmed that no vaccine doses expired over the course of last week’s closures.
The House Ways and Means Committee on Monday passed a bill that would eliminate Mississippi’s personal income tax within a decade and reduce the state’s highest-in-the-nation tax on groceries while raising the sales tax and other taxes.
The landmark tax bill was authored by the three highest-ranking House Republicans: Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, Pro Tem Jason White and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Trey Lamar.
“This is a much fairer tax structure,” Lamar said, adding that the bill is essentially revenue neutral. Lamar said that the leaders drafted the bill in hopes it would garner bipartisan support. It passed the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday with no dissenting votes, including from the several Democrats on the committee.
The bill would immediately eliminate the personal income tax for individuals making under $50,000 a year and for married couples making less than $100,000. It would totally phase out the state’s personal income tax over a 10-year period if revenue growth standards are met. If the growth standards are not met, the tax cut for that year would be delayed.
In addition, the 7% tax on groceries would, as of July 1, be reduced to 4.5% and ultimately reduced to 3.5%. Cutting the state’s grocery tax has long been a top stated goal of legislative Democrats.
Other taxes would be increased to make up for lost revenue from the proposed cuts. The general sales tax on other retail items, which is currently 7%, would be increased to 9.5% starting July 1. The sales tax on vehicles, currently 5%, would be increased to 7.5%. Essentially, all items currently taxed at 2% or 3%, such as some farm implements, would be increased by 2.5%.
The 68 cents per pack tax on cigarettes would be increased by 50 cents. Taxes also would be increased on other items such as alcohol.
Lamar said a person making $50,000 per year would receive an immediate savings of about $2,030 and would have to spend more than $82,000 on items to pay as much in sales taxes as they would be saving in income taxes.
White also stressed that the legislation would ensure that the revenue municipal governments lost from the reduction in the grocery tax would be replaced by the state. Local governments receive a portion of the sales tax revenue collected within its borders.
Lamar said he hopes to bring the bill up for House vote on Tuesday. If the bill passes there, it will move to the Senate for consideration.
In addition to taking up the massive tax bill, legislators, facing a tight deadline from time lost to last week’s unprecedented winter storms, hurriedly passed a first draft of a $20 billion state budget Monday afternoon.
Lawmakers have until Wednesday to pass about 100 appropriations bills out of the originating House or Senate and on to the other chamber. Wednesday is also the deadline for first passage of legislation dealing with taxes.
Gov. Tate Reeves proposed phasing out the state’s personal income tax — which generates nearly $2 billion a year, or a third of the state’s general fund — before the session began. But he did not offer any tax increases to offset the lost state revenue.
Gunn and members of his leadership team in the House had proposed in earlier sessions phasing out the income tax. At that time, they wanted to tie the phase-out to an increase in the gasoline tax, but Reeves, serving as lieutenant governor at the time, rejected that proposal saying he opposed any tax increases, even if they were swaps.
The bill passed out of House Ways and Means Committee Monday does not change the tax on gasoline.
A spokeswoman for Reeves did not return a request for comment on Monday.
Working to get back on schedule on Monday, the House and Senate Appropriations committees passed most budgets at the amount approved this fall by the members who serve on the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. That makes most budget bills placeholders at this point. Later in the legislative process in March, House and Senate leaders will work out final budget numbers the full chambers can accept or send back for further work.
“This is our first crack at looking at our expected revenue and the expectations we have for our state agencies,” said Sen. Briggs Hopson, the Vicksburg Republican who chairs the Appropriations Committee. Recent projections are that state revenue is running at least $300 million above earlier projections, despite the continuing global pandemic.
Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday passed a couple of exceptions to the placeholder numbers. It approved a $51 million increase to the main public education budget to cover a roughly $1,000 pay raise for teachers — a proposal the Senate passed earlier this year — and it shifted $6.4 million from the Department of Finance to the Department of Public Safety for DPS to take over control of the Capitol Police, which the Senate likewise has already passed.
Hopson warned his committee colleagues that they’ll likely have to deal with several deficits from state agencies — although those numbers aren’t yet nailed down and the “deficit bill” was passed as a placeholder.
Sen. Sollie Norwood, D-Jackson, asked Hopson: “Are we setting the budgets too low, then they have to come back for deficits, or are they not operating efficiently enough?”
Hopson noted that the Department of Corrections and Medicaid often have large deficits, and setting their budgets is difficult because their expenses are “moving targets.” But he said other agencies that don’t live within their budgets will have some explaining to do.
“One thing I’ve said to agencies … deficits are for unseen problems,” Hopson said. “I’m not going to be real sympathetic to any agency just coming in expecting deficit spending for things they should have expected.”
The total state budget, including federal funds, is about $20 billion. Another large slice of the budget is funded through special funds — specific fees or taxes to run individual agencies, such as the gasoline tax that is the primary state funding source for the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
The $6 billion state support budget is the portion of the funding pie where legislators have the most discretion in how funds are divvied up for education, health care, law enforcement and in other areas.
