With just over a month before a new fiscal year starts, House and Senate leaders have sent Gov. Tate Reeves a proposed budget for approval.
House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said separately that they have reached a handshake deal on a $7 billion state budget, which was supposed to have been passed earlier this year in regular session.
Still, Reeves will ultimately have to give sign-off on it and order a special legislative session before all 174 lawmakers can consider it.
Hosemann, the Senate’s presiding officer, told Mississippi Today in a statement that: “The House and Senate have come to an agreement on the budget. We have notified the Governor and are awaiting the call for special session.”
White gave a similar account on SuperTalk radio station this week and predicted lawmakers will vote on the budget to fund government services “within the next couple of weeks.”
Mississippi lawmakers control the purse strings and the budget process. But they adjourned their 2025 regular session earlier this year without passing a budget because of political infighting. Now, legislators must return to the Capitol to pass a budget in a special session before the new budget year begins July 1.
The state Constitution gives the governor the sole power to call a special session, and Reeves alone sets the parameters for what lawmakers can consider in a special session.
Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment on what his criteria will be for approving the budget before he calls the special session. But he told reporters earlier this year at a press conference that he wants legislative leaders to send him a fiscally responsible budget.
White and Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona who serves as a House appropriations chairman, previously said that most state agency budgets will have level funding, with only increases for the public pension system and insurance costs.
One of the significant points of contention between the two chambers has been how to spend cash not allocated to government operations. Lawmakers typically spend this money on capital projects across the state — including many lawmakers’ pet projects in their districts.
The Senate wanted to spend only on projects for state agencies, universities and colleges. The House believed there is enough money to fund projects in counties and municipalities around the state, in addition to the state projects.
The political reality is that legislative leadership tightly controls the bulk of the local projects in what’s often referred to as the “Christmas Tree bill.” Leadership can use these projects to reward people who buy into their agenda and punish members who buck the leadership.
Such special projects for back home are often a key focus of rank-and-file lawmakers who don’t have prominent leadership roles at the Capitol.
READ MORE: Mississippi lawmakers end 2025 session unable to agree (or even meet about) state budget: Legislative recapA major flashpoint in the project funding debate appears to be money for installing a new interpretive center at the Vicksburg National Military Park, the hometown of both Hosemann and Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History helps manage the exhibits of the park, and state money typically flows through the agency. Because the state agency helps manage the area, this was part of the Senate’s justification for the project.
However, the House leadership has apparently balked at the request and views the Senate’s attempt to secure money for the park as an attempt to steer dollars to its favorite project while preventing spending on any pet projects for the House.
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