Legislative Bill Tracking (3/22/18)

The 2018 Regular Session of the Mississippi Legislature is in its final days, as legislators are scheduled to conclude their work by Sunday, April 1. Legislators will remain in town this weekend for Conference Weekend, as conference reports on appropriation bills must be filed by Saturday night and must be adopted by next Monday, March 26. HB 1083, the bill which would have allowed trained teachers to carry guns in the classroom, died on the House floor earlier today. HB 1592, K-12 education’s appropriation bill, has been referred to a conference committee comprised of Representatives Read, Bennett and Bound and Senators Clarke, Tollison and Burton. These six legislators will negotiate a compromise on their respective chamber’s version of the bill. As passed the House, HB 1592 included an additional $8.2 million for the education funding formula to hold schools harmless next year during implementation of the House’s proposed new funding formula. The proposed funding formula was then killed in the Senate and the Senate did not include this additional $8.2 million in its version of HB 1592. The conference committee will decide if this additional funding is still available to schools or if it is no longer available. If the $8.2 million is available and is appropriated to the funding formula, schools will be underfunded by more than $235 million. Open the attached document to see the status of those bills we are tracking.