The 2025 Regular Session of the Mississippi Legislature convened at noon Tuesday, January 7. As this 90-day session is scheduled to end by Sunday, April 6, things are on the fast track at the capitol. Highlights from this first week include:
Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann discussed his legislative priorities during a Stennis Capitol Press Corp luncheon Monday. When asked about school choice, Lt. Governor Hosemann said he is for public to public choice and giving receiving districts the right to say no based on capacity except when a student comes from an F district in which case the receiving district should accept the student. As discussed in our Winter 2024 MPE Journal, there are a number of issues to be considered in the school choice conversation, including do local school districts and taxpayers want to be responsible for bearing the cost of educating students who do not live in their district.
State Superintendent Dr. Lance Evans presented the Mississippi Department of Education’s FY 2026 Fiscal Priorities to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday afternoon. MDE staff briefed senators on funding for the Mississippi Student Funding Formula (see pages 13-16 of MDE’s FY 2026 Budget Request PowerPoint).
Governor Reeves and House Speaker Jason White both reiterated their support for eliminating the state income tax. The Joint Legislative Budget Office released December's revenue collections this past Monday. Revenue collections for December were $106.7 million below the sine die revenue estimate, while year-to-date revenue collections through December were $80.5 million below the sine die estimate.
Legislators have until next Wednesday, January 15, to request general bills to be drafted. Those general bills must then be introduced and referred to committee(s) by Monday, January 20. Committees must consider and pass general bills originating in their own chamber (i.e., House or Senate) by Tuesday, February 4.
MPE’s 2025 Legislative Priorities present our position on several critical issues. The 2025 Session could significantly impact the future of public education in our state. It is essential that educators and other citizens have conversations with their local senator and representative on these and other issues. MPE provides the following resources to support your conversations:
The "Legislators by School District" page of our website (www.mpe.org) provides contact information for those legislators who represent each local school district. You may always leave a message for any House or Senate member with the capitol switchboard at 601-359-3770.
We will share our first weekly bill tracking spreadsheet of bills we will be monitoring after the February 4 committee deadline. We will update the tracking spreadsheet each week and post it in the "Legislative News" section of our website.
If you are not already doing so, be sure to follow MPE on Facebook, X (@MSProfEd) and Instagram (ms_prof_educators) for legislative updates throughout the week from the capitol.
MPE looks forward to working with legislators throughout the 2025 Legislative Session to address important issues for our schools and communities and to continue to move our great state forward!
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