Mississippi’s college football season isn’t the only thing that gets underway in earnest in September each year.
September also marks the beginning of the Legislature’s formal budget preparation process, which starts four months before the beginning of the 2017 regular session with legislative budget hearings. That allows the Joint Legislative Budget Committee and the Legislative Budget Office to gather information to produce a coherent state budget once the Legislature actually goes into session.
State agencies use the budget hearing process to justify their budget requests through detailed reports, charts, graphs and other tangible evidence. They build the case for agency funding by painting vivid portraits of those served by their agencies and the perceived consequences if those services are not enhanced and grown — and even more vivid portraits if the services are curtailed or eliminated.
Perhaps the best way to begin a discussion of the next budget the Legislature has to build is to put it this way: Look at everything problematic with the current state budget and then make it worse. But that’s still missing the point to a degree. Maybe an easier way to understand it is to look back.
Even with federal stimulus funds, Mississippi’s fiscal year 2010 budget was cut an average 9.5 percent. The 2011 budget was crafted to be at a level that averaged 13.5 percent below 2010 appropriations.
As the 2009 federal stimulus funds expired, the 2012 budget that lawmakers confronted was originally projected to be from 20 percent to 23 percent below the 2010 levels.
Mississippi fired or furloughed state employees under the FY 2010 and FY 2011 budgets. Gov. Haley Barbour cut spending five times in 2010 in order to comply with the state’s constitutional mandate to balance the budget. It was a mess.
Fast forward to the present day. Legislators start the budget process months after Gov. Phil Bryant has to enact two budget cuts and dip into the state’s rainy day fund three times in the previous fiscal year ended June 30.
A legislative overestimation of available revenue of some $56 million for the fiscal year that began July 1, coupled with a dispute over $80 million in special funds revenue that legislators intended to spend in the general fund, means lawmakers started the current fiscal year some $130 million in the hole.
Then came revenue collection numbers for July, the first month of the new fiscal year, that show sluggish state revenues down $11.5 million or 3.9 percent year over year. That’s the predicate for the beginning of the budget process.
Another hard reality facing lawmakers is the ongoing call by the Mississippi Economic Council and others to meet $375 million in unaddressed state infrastructure needs. The push in favor of the state’s roads and bridges had broad-based support and no real legislative opposition save the questions of how it’s funded and who pays.
Looking back to 2010 provides perspective. Things aren’t quite that bad. But anyone who doesn’t see a very difficult state budget year ahead isn’t paying attention.
