Last week the joint legislative budget committee held a budget hearing on Friday, Sept. 24. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee is a joint standing committee of the Mississippi State Legislature and is made up of six senators and six representatives who are all committee chairs or vice-chairs. The committee, with the assistance of the Legislative Budget Office (LBO), develops the Legislative Budget Recommendation (LBR) that is then submitted to the Mississippi Legislature.
Friday’s budget hearing, which was scheduled to start at 8:30, got off to a late start and continued on all day with a short break for lunch. Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann and Speaker of the House Philip Gunn chaired the hearing. During the afternoon, directors from the Division of Child Protective Services, the Department of Health, the Mississippi Department of Education, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Mental Health all presented to the joint legislative budget committee, and legislators were able to ask questions of the directors about their funding needs.
We hope you were able to watch all or part of the hearings and hear the directors of each of the agencies present their requests and provide updates to the committee. If you were unable to view the hearing last Friday, you can watch it on the Mississippi Legislature YouTube page.
We want to publicly thank Department of Child Protection Services Commissioner Andrea Sanders and Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson for their emphasis on approaches that keep children in their homes and communities during their presentations. We also appreciate Senator John Horhn for continuing to publicly ask about progress on the mental health lawsuit and what is needed to address it.
The next steps in this process will come in November and December. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee will next meet on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., to review the legislative budget office Staff Budget Recommendations (LBR), and to adopt the fiscal year 2022 revenue estimate. Then on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, from 10-11 am the committee will meet for the public adoption of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee recommendation. Both of these meetings are public and will be held in the Legislative Budget Office Hearing Room, Woolfolk Building, Room 139, in Jackson. You can access both meetings virtually by going to the Mississippi Legislature YouTube page on the day of the meeting.
The Budget Recommendation Memorandum and Legislative Budget Book will then be published, and during next year’s legislative session the appropriations bills for each of the agencies will be discussed and passed. State agency budget requests for fiscal year 2023 can be accessed here. Just choose the fiscal year (2023) and which agency you would like to look at from the drop-down menus. You can then review the full budget request or any part of it as a separate PDF document.
We’ve linked to the budget requests for the following agencies:
Department of Child Protection Services (CPS) FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Department of Health (DOH) FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Department of Human Services (DHS) FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Department of Mental Health (DMH) FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Division of Medicaid FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) FULL BUDGET SUMMARY
Y’ALL POLITICS
Legislative budget hearings kick off as lawmakers begin crafting FY 2023 Mississippi state budget
CLARION LEDGER
Joint committee hears from Mississippi agencies as prep for 2022-23 budget begins
