Budget makers in the Mississippi Legislature will have slightly more money to spend next year than they did this year.
Key members of the House and Senate met Friday and set a revenue forecast of $7.6 billion for the year starting July 1. This is a 1% increase from this year.
The estimate is experts’ best guess at how much the state will collect, based on economic trends such as employment rates and consumer spending patterns.
Mississippi’s budget is expected to shrink slightly next year.
The lawmakers’ term is scheduled to last four months, ending in early May. In the coming weeks, they will decide how much to spend on schools, prisons, health care and other services and finish drafting next year’s budget.
Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said Friday that lawmakers will be cautious about funding.
FILE – This Sept. 2, 2020 file photo shows a magnolia-centered banner chosen by the Mississippi State Flag Commission on display outside the Old State Capitol Museum in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. is showing. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Mississippi is in the process of lowering its personal income tax under a law signed into law in 2022 by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. In his budget proposal released in February, Governor Reeves said he wanted to eliminate the tax by 2029, but Governor Hosemann said Friday he had no intention of doing so. We hope to see a move in that direction this year.
“I can’t speak for the House side, but from the Senate side, I don’t think there will be an income tax cut,” Horsman told reporters.
It’s been several months since state agencies submitted their budget requests for next year. Lawmakers rarely give government agencies all the funding they ask for, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Reed said that’s likely to be the case this Congress.
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“I’m going to do the best I can,” said Reed, a Republican from Gautier. “We get requests. It’s impossible to meet 100% of requests, so I tell people to give me a priority list and that’s what I keep doing. We try to help everyone. I am.”
