McComb Lions Club members grilled state Rep. Sam Mims V, R-McComb, about Medicaid, the state’s gas tax, the possibility of a lottery and the state’s infrastructure during their Tuesday meeting.
Club members asked Mims if a gas tax or a lottery could help with balancing the budget.
He said House Speaker Philip Gunn has created a committee to study the possibility of a lottery.
However, Mims said he opposes a lottery on moral grounds and he doesn’t believe it will help.
“I think it’s just a tax, anyway,” businessman Ron Craddock said. “People spend half their check to try to win a zillion dollars.”
Tony Nettles asked Mims whether a gas tax increase could help, given a decrease in gasoline usage due to the improved fuel efficiency of vehicles.
Mims said he doesn’t support increasing the gas tax, and no bill to do so was introduced during this legislative session.
That led to a related discussion of the condition of roads.
“We know that we have a problem with our roads in the state,” Mims said.
Lawmakers closed their regular session without approving a budget for the Mississippi Department of Transportation or the attorney general’s office, and both of those matters had to be handled in a special session.
One club member told Mims he was tired of the empty promises from the Capitol.
“In that highway bill, everybody got their roads but Southwest Mississippi. We never got the roads we were promised,” he said.
District Attorney Dee Bates asked Mims why the Legislature didn’t approve the attorney general’s budget, and if a failed bill regarding habitual offender law might be re-introduced.
House Bill 1033 would have offered some leniency to parolees with jobs by allowing them to set up online interviews with probation officers. The bill also would have eliminated automatic prison time for failure to pay a fine.
In vetoing the bill, Gov. Phil Bryant said it contained a mistake that would have made habitual offenders eligible for parole after serving 25 percent of a sentence.
One of the touchiest subjects for the Legislature was the budget. In 2016, Bryant had to dip into the state’s Rainy Day fund to balance the budget.
Mims said last year’s budget was based on $6 billion in revenue, but projections fell short.
“Our projections come through sales tax and income tax receipts and those were OK but it didn’t meet our projections,” Mims said.
He said this year, when legislators met again, a budget estimate committee met and projected no growth.
“We really went to work,” he said. “We knew that most state agencies would receive less money than they did last year.”
When asked about the budget cuts to the Division of Medicaid, one of the biggest budgets in the state, he said those in nursing homes or on dialysis wouldn’t be affected.
But he said the state estimated it would have 788,000 recipients of Medicaid, and those numbers alarmed him.
Division of Medicaid officials “came to (the legislature) and asked us for $1.033 billion and we gave them $918 million. That’s just down from $948 million they received last year.”
He said the state has to find a way to get a handle on Medicaid.
Mims called this legislative session “one of the most difficult and challenging sessions” because of “internal situations.”
