Major policy issues for Mississippi in the 2025 legislative session

Editor’s note: This is the first entry in an eight-part series featuring some of the most impactful legislation coming to Mississippi’s 2025 legislative session.

The 2025 legislative session begins Jan. 7, and the many issues floated through this year’s press releases, news stories, and legislative task force committees will be brought to the fore for debate and possibly enacted into law.

But which bills will make the headlines? What will the parliamentarians debate the most? how many bills will make it to the Legislature’s deadlines or die in the hands of House and Senate lawmakers?

Below is a look at some of the biggest issues coming before Mississippi lawmakers in 2025.

Debates on tax cuts

Mississippi legislative leadership is pursuing cuts to the state’s tax code.

This year, the potential targets of the tax code will largely take the form of income and sales tax cuts, with conversation about loosening state restrictions on local option taxes and funding for the Department of Transportation in Mississippi.

On one side of the Mississippi State Capitol building, House Speaker Jason White, R-West, wants to cut the state’s personal income tax, which will be a flat 4 percent through fiscal year 2027. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to reduce the 7 percent tax on food sales, one of the highest in the country.

“The positive thing is that both chambers seem very interested in tax reform in a way that we can hopefully reduce the income tax burden on Mississippians as we continue to manage these surpluses while we look, hopefully , a way to lower our food tax, maybe not all, but some, and help Mississippians,” White told reporters after a tax policy summit in September.

Income taxes make up nearly a third of the state’s budget, which may prompt lawmakers to find other ways to raise state revenue to make up for it. Meanwhile, many cities and towns in Mississippi rely on food sales tax revenue to fund local government.

Whether one, both, or neither is cut, government spending will likely increase in 2025.

Medicaid expansion returns for debate in 2025

During the 2024 session, state lawmakers failed to reach a final resolution on Medicaid expansion, pushing the issue through to 2025.

Both White and Hosemann have vowed to bring the legislation back to full swing next year in an attempt to bring tens of thousands of poor Mississippians access to government-funded health care.

House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, hinted earlier this year that his chamber would likely introduce a proposal similar to Medicaid expansion legislation, House Bill 1725, which was proposed in 2024. The plan The Senate, as in 2024, will probably also have similar characteristics to his proposal.

As things currently stand, if the Legislature were to fully pass Medicaid expansion past Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, an angry opponent of the expansion, more than 200,000 Mississippians would likely benefit, and the state would bring in an economic stimulus of about 1.2 billions of dollars by expanding the program. program. The federal government would pick up 90 percent of the tab, and the state would pick up the other 10 percent.

Earlier this year, the Clarion Ledger identified several areas where Mississippi’s Medicaid plan could be stalled as President-elect Donald Trump likely pursues cuts to the Affordable Care Act, of which Medicaid is a part.

Government structure

Since the fall, Senate leadership has publicly said it is studying ways to reduce state government’s financial and regulatory burden on its taxpayers.

Hosemann told the Clarion Ledger this coming session that he is likely to support legislation to establish a commission to study how to reduce the size and cost of government.

Around the same time, state Auditor Shad White, a Republican, released a government waste study that identified $335 million in government waste at 13 state agencies through unused government assets, state contracting and procurement policies that they “waste” time and money and other means.

While the study and the $2 million paid for it have been scrutinized by lawmakers and top Mississippi GOP members, it could still serve as guidance for lawmakers looking to shrink government, White said.

Public employment pension system

During the 2024 session, the Legislature passed a bill to remove regulatory powers from the Mississippi Public Employment Retirement System board to increase funding requirements from cities and counties in the retirement plan of the state.

Over the summer, an oversight report was released that said what lawmakers did in 2024 did virtually nothing to fix the problems with PERS, which is a $25 billion funding shortfall, a number that is falling of public employees contributing to the system and a growing number of beneficiaries.

To try to address the long-term sustainability of the system, the PERS board released its legislative recommendations this month, which included a new class of benefits for new public employees. Some of the proposals for that new tier, called Tier 5, would see new state employees receive less guaranteed cash after retirement than current retirees.

More about PERS:

Legislative, judicial redistribution, court reforms

State lawmakers in 2025 will have to address several areas of redistricting from legislative districts to state circuit and chancery lines and possibly those defining juvenile courts.

Thanks to a federal court ruling, the Mississippi Legislature will have to redraw some of its legislative districts because the court found that several district lines diluted black voting power.

The recall could end up affecting dozens of districts, prompting special elections after the session.

Judicial redistricting, which must occur within five years of a U.S. census, will affect circuit and chancery districts. During the 2024 session, efforts to draw court lines died until a legislative deadline.

One issue that could be related to the judicial district debate is youth courts, identified in task force committee reports. Major reforms are needed to fix some of the fundamental problems in the state’s youth justice system.

One of the recommendations offered to solve the problems of the system would be to combine the courts with the courts of chancery. Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula and chairman of the Senate Judiciary A Committee, said it’s possible that youth courts could be involved in the judicial district rollback debate.

“I haven’t thought that far yet,” Wiggins said after a committee hearing on youth courts in November. “I think it’s imperative that we look at our court systems, the youth court, the circuit court, the chancery court, for all the reasons that we heard last year and that we heard here today.”

Education issues in 2025

Next year, lawmakers will need to come up with an additional $38 million to fully fund Mississippi’s new student funding formula, which was fully funded this year at about $2.95 billion.

Other issues that may attract attention are school choice and private school vouchers.

House Speaker Jason White said in a public interview earlier this month that he intends for the House to pass school choice to give parents more options to move their children from one public school to another.

House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, said his committee will take up school choice bills, charter school bills and introduce legislation requiring the Mississippi Department of Education to study ways to address failing school districts.

Senate Education Chairman Dennis Debar, R-Leakesville, said he is pushing for similar goals and would also seek to address a teacher pay raise.

Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected] or 972-571-2335.