Latest news with #LegislativeSession
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
With budget approved, Mississippi lawmakers look ahead to 2026 session
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Mississippi lawmakers passed a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 during a special session. Their eyes are now on the 2026 Legislative Session. During the special session, lawmakers passed more than 100 bills for the state's $7 billion budget. Before the session started, Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann (R-Miss.) said House and Senate leadership had an agreement with Gov. Tate Reeves (R-Miss.) about what needed to be done. 'The House didn't do that. You know, three of those bills were off the wall and kill one. They're supposed to pass. So it's just, it was difficult. And we had to get the governor back involved in all this, so we didn't have another special session,' said Hosemann. House Speaker Jason White (R-Miss.) said the House got close to completing their work in one day. Mississippi lawmakers pass $7 billion budget in special session 'We passed all the bills. We were done with them. We saw no reason not to go home. Our folks have been here and worked long and hard. I won't apologize, and I won't check with the Senate on what the House may or may not have permission to do,' White stated. Both chambers will turn their attention to the 2026 Legislative session. Some of the priorities will include school choice and revitalizing the capital city. 'Water and sewer for our capital city. We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem or standing in the way, but be part of the solution. If there's a way that the state can play a role there, we want to be a willing partner. We're excited about new leadership for the City of Jackson,' said White. Another priority for the Senate will be teacher pay raises. 'You will see us propose a significant increase on our teacher pay. Well, how did it how did we get to where we are? We had great teachers teaching good people,' said Hosemann. The Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) of Mississippi is still on the table. White said one of the priorities for the House is dedicated funding for the system. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Spring session entering final day as budget deadline looms
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WGN) – We're finally getting a look at state lawmakers' $55 billion budget plan with just over 24 hours left in the legislative session. On the second to last day of session, the three most powerful men in Springfield met behind closed doors. Talks between Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), House Speaker Emanuel 'Chris' Welch (D-Westchester), and Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Illinois) led to the release of a 3,300-page appropriations bill that adds $1 billion in new revenue, though it holds the line on individual and corporate income taxes. Illinois budget battle: What Chicago needs from Springfield 'We've got $1 billion in revenue for this budget in the area of tax collection, for those who have not paid their taxes as well as those who've made choices in terms of gaming and other – tobacco use and gaming,' Sen. Elgie Sims (D-Chicago) said. Despite having major submajorities in both chambers, Democrats wrestled with a bleak financial picture. Revenue growth did not meet estimates used to draft Pritzker's budget blueprint. 'This budget includes significant investments in our priorities, education, health care, protecting our most vulnerable,' Sims said. Democrats are asking their members to pass the $55 billion spending plan despite uncertainty about federal funding. Lawmakers, groups rally against Medicaid cuts as state budget deadline looms 'It's a tough year. We know instability in Washington, D.C. makes it worse,' Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) said. 'We know there are some real pressures here in the state in trying to bring forth a budget that meets the needs of everybody was a tough one. So this was tough. This has been the toughest budget year since I've been here.' After months of warning from Chicagoland transit that bus and train service might be cut without a state bailout, lawmakers are working to hike the cost of tolls and rideshares to help the system. READ: Illinois has a $770M hole in the transit budget that could leave commuters stranded There's also legislation moving to create a new oversight agency. 'I want to remind folks that when we're talking about CTA, Metra, Pace, this is a statewide transit overhaul,' Buckner said. House Republican Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) suggests some of her members might support the transit reforms. 'We saw the governance piece and I think we could probably get some bipartisan support on that,' McCombie said. 'The funding source is what kind of scares all of us, because what is that going to look like?' Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Democrats expect to meet the budget deadline, but the transit legislation might be broken up into pieces or may not even pass at all on Saturday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Five big budget issues: Tense times ahead as feuding Florida lawmakers take on DeSantis
Florida lawmakers have unfinished business. They were supposed to return to the Capitol on May 12 for an extended regular legislative session to negotiate and pass a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The budget is the only bill the Legislature is required to pass each year, but House and Senate leaders deadlocked during the 60-day session, mainly on the issue of tax cuts. On the scheduled final day, May 2, a 'framework' for a deal emerged. Then it "blew up." In a May 9 memo to his members that was released to the news media, House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, broke "his commitment to the House" by saying he would "no longer bring the House's historic tax proposal to the Senate floor." More: 'Blew up': Florida House speaker slams Senate president for breaking state budget deal It was for good reason: Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier in the week said he would veto any proposed cut to the state sales tax, Perez's signature plan, claiming it would jeopardize his own push for cuts to property taxes. 'Any 'Florida last' tax package is going to be dead on arrival,' he told reporters at an event in Tampa. Even if some form of tax cuts are agreed upon, there are wide discrepancies between the House and Senate on several major issues that will no doubt require tense negotiations to reach agreement. No one now expects any budget work to happen the week of May 12. Albritton had, for the most part, remained cordial with Perez despite the gridlock. Yet he's repeatedly cautioned against cutting taxes too drastically in the face of projected budget shortfalls and uncertain economic headwinds. He has insisted on his signature priority, dubbed the 'Rural Renaissance' bill, that the House has resisted. But he also told his members, after Perez suggested the extra session might have to go as long as June 30, that he wouldn't trouble them to come back to Tallahassee just for a "procedural" vote to again extend session. It adds up to an overtime session with much to be resolved. The budget passed by the House in April was $113 billion, about $4.4 billion less than the Senate's spending plan and $5.6 billion less than the current budget. Here's a look at five of the major questions yet to be answered: The framework for the tax cut deal had been this: A $2.8 billion cut overall, with $1.6 billion of that in the form of a 0.25% cut in the state sales tax, lowering it to 5.75%. What a tax cut bill looks like now remains to be seen, now that the original deal was detonated. In the House's initial bill, they included a plan to provide property owners with a rebate by using tourist development taxes, also known as bed taxes, to backfill the money. Counties would be able to determine the details of who would get the rebates. And going forward, counties would be able to use bed tax revenues for any purpose. Under current law, bed taxes must be used for specific tourism-boosting purposes, including advertising, promotion, stadium and convention center upgrades. Those provisions are opposed by the tourism industry and aren't included in the Senate plan. The Senate bill, though, includes a variety of sales tax holidays lawmakers have passed in recent years, such as on back-to-school items, disaster preparedness items, gear and supplies related to outdoor activities, tools and guns and ammunition. DeSantis included the 'Second Amendment sales tax holiday' in his budget recommendation. But the House didn't include any sales tax holidays in its bill. The delay over the budget has already affected one of the planned sales tax holidays. The disaster preparedness holiday in the Senate bill was to run from May 15 to May 31, and the budget isn't likely to be completed, much less signed into law before that timeframe. For K-12 school funding, the chambers are $237 million apart, with the Senate providing $29.6 billion, and the House at $29.3 billion. Teacher salaries are the source of much of that difference. The Senate sets aside $1.5 billion for pay increases, which is $248 million more than the current year and $147 million more than the House plan. There are also major differences in how the chambers approach vouchers. In the Senate plan there's $4 billion for the Family Empowerment Scholarship program that's included in the main funding formula for K-12 schools. The House has nearly the same amount, almost $4 billion, but it isn't part of the main funding formula. The House also wants to eliminate a fund, known as the Educational Enrollment Stabilization Fund, which is used to prevent cuts to school districts with drops in student levels throughout the year. The Senate prefers to allow the fund, which had $118 million in the current year, to be used to pay for private school scholarships if the applications for the vouchers exceed the money set aside for those programs. The chambers are $1.7 billion apart in spending on health and human services, but the most difficult gap to resolve likely involves initiatives championed by Senate leaders but resisted by the House. Part of Albritton's 'Rural Renaissance' includes $72.5 million to the Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration to boost access to health care programs in rural areas and provide greater reimbursements to rural hospitals. The House doesn't include those measures in its budget. It also wants to reverse a decision by the Legislature last year to fund several parts of the 'Live Healthy Act' that Albritton's predecessor, Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, made a top priority. Passidomo stepped aside as Senate president but remains chair of the Rules Committee and will be an influential voice in budget talks. The Live Healthy Act put an additional $38 million per year into programs to help those pursuing medical education and set up the Health Care Innovation council. The House would eliminate those in its budget plan. The House also wants to put all revenue from the state's gambling compact into the General Revenue Fund, the main pot to pay for many state operations. That would reverse a decision made by lawmakers last year to distribute the funds to specific environmental programs. Under the current law, more than $834 million goes to water quality improvement projects, land buying programs and other environmental uses, including $32 million for state parks and $100 million for the Florida Wildlife Corridor. That was another top priority for Passidomo during her tenure as Senate president. Underlying the budget battle are state economists' projections for the revenue Florida will receive next fiscal year. Those projections were made in March, before President Donald Trump's April 2 announcement of new tariffs on imports from nearly every country. ➤ Trump teases 'major trade deal' announcement amid tariff fight The tariffs sent stock markets into a tailspin and upended previous economic predictions. Trump, though, is sticking to his tariffs as a way to get companies to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S., even if that means massive disruption to supply chains and less trade with other countries. 'I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five,' Trump told NBC's 'Meet the Press' on May 4. But if people buy less stuff that would be bad for a state like Florida that is so reliant on sales taxes for revenue. Sales taxes are projected to account for 76% of the state's revenue in the current fiscal year. If a prolonged economic downturn results in less consumer spending, it could put a significant dent in revenues, bringing lawmakers back to the Capitol to either make large spending cuts — or undo whatever tax cuts they eventually agree on. Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@ Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gov. DeSantis, five big questions loom over Florida budget battle
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Capitol Report: 2025 Legislative Session recap, P&W strike update
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — This week on Capitol Report, House Speaker Rep. Matt Ritter joins the show to discuss the 2025 Legislative Session and Warehouse Worker bill. Plus, News 8 political reporter Mike Cerulli breaks down the Pratt & Whitney machinists strike and other organized labor concerns. Finally, the panel discusses the recent concerns of homeschooling advocates and a U.S. News & World Report poll that ranked Connecticut as the 15th best state. Watch the full show above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Morrisey signs session's key foster care bill, vetoes other measure meant to help system in crisis
The West Virginia State Capitol (West Virginia Legislative Photography) Gov. Patrick Morrisey has signed lawmakers' key foster care measure into law – an omnibus bill that folded together several pieces of legislation. It includes creating a team to review the death of a foster child that occurred while in state care. The Republican governor opted to veto other child welfare-related items, including a bill that would have provided pay raises for attorneys representing foster children. He also slashed lawmakers' funding for a nonprofit that helps foster kids. Lawmakers came into the 60-day session saying they must address widespread issues in the state's troubled foster care system that is serving more than 6,000 children with a shortage of social workers, support services and safe homes for children. Too many children have ended up living in hotel rooms, and the state spent $70 million last year sending foster kids to out-of-state group homes. And, for years, the state hasn't wanted to answer questions about what's happening to kids in the child welfare system. While many of the proposed bills – including one mandating an outside review of the foster system – never made it up for a vote by deadline, lawmakers behind the successful foster care measure say it's a step in the right direction. Foster care is a 'glaring area of need in state government,' said Del. Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, who is a foster parent. 'We made it clear that we are willing and committed to taking action … We've tried over the course of several years to identify areas that need attention and need work, and many of those areas got touched by [House Bill] 2880,' he continued. 'There's always work to be done, but when you look at the measure that we did get passed … I'm pleased with where we're at.' Senate Minority Leader Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, called it the 'most important bill of the session.' 'For all the praying we do in the Senate, these are the least among us. These are the most vulnerable people,' he said. 'There was a lot of bipartisan work that went into this … It's a really thoughtful bill. It's going to help kids.' But, more should have been done, he emphasized. 'This bill would hit like 20% of what we could have done during the session,' he said. 'This is just a screaming issue for the little ones who have no lobbyists.' During the Legislative Session, a federal judge dismissed a sweeping lawsuit brought by foster children against the state for alleged mistreatment in care. The judge said that the ongoing problems couldn't be solved by the courts, and the 'blame squarely lies with the West Virginia state government.' The foster care measure nearly died in the final hours of session last month as Senate and House members struggled to come to an agreement on what it should contain. Woelfel told lawmakers in a conference committee hashing out the bill that they couldn't let the session's only foster care measure die. Lawmakers eventually agreed to remove a part of the bill that would have regulated in-state behavioral programs for children, and said they'd work on that part in a separate bill for next year. House Bill 2880 in its final form folds together several different foster care measures from this session, including mandating that parent resource navigators, who help parents who are seeking to reunify with their children, be included in key meetings about the child's case. Parent resource navigators are established through the court system. West Virginia terminates parental rights at twice the rate of any other state. 'It's always about reunification with biological mom and dad, but they don't always get a lot of resources through navigating the complex system,' explained Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, who sponsored the bill. Burkhammer is a foster parent. The measure also created a Critical Incident Review Team that will review a fatality or near fatality of a child in the custody of the state Department of Human Services. The team must meet within 45 days of the fatality or near fatality to conduct the review and share a report with lawmakers and online. 'I think probably the best part of the bill is the Critical Incident Review Team and being able to put an additional set of eyes on these fatalities and near fatalities,' Pinson said, adding the goal is to help prevent future incidents. 'Being able to bring in additional resources to address our response to these very serious situations is demanded.' The bill also included some new requirements for the state's online Child Welfare Dashboard, including additional information about the state's Child Protective Service workforce. Angelica Hightower, communications specialist for the Department of Human Services, said that the agency didn't have any concerns with the bill. 'We recognize the intent of this legislation to strengthen the delivery and oversight of services within our child welfare system and broader human services framework,' she wrote in an email. 'As we move toward implementation, the department is committed to working collaboratively to ensure that the measures outlined in the bill are carried out effectively and in alignment with the needs of West Virginia's children and families.' Lawmakers also revised childhood immunization rules for foster families in a bundle of rules changes, Burkhammer said. Foster parents will no longer be required to provide the vaccination records of their biological children as an eligibility condition to open their home to a foster child. Both Burkhammer and Pinson said lawmakers' failure to fix ongoing issues with the state's voucher system, which provides money for their foster kids' clothes and other items, was the biggest failure in foster care reform this session. The current voucher system limits spending to only certain stores and regularly results in foster parents and kinship caregivers spending their own money to pay for clothes, beds, car seats and more. 'When parents are willing to step up and put themselves out there for foster children, we've got to make sure that as a state we can provide the resources that they need,' Pinson said. Morrisey vetoed House Bill 2351, sponsored by Burkhammer, which would have given public defenders and guardian ad litems a pay raise of an additional $10 per hour for in- and out-of-court work. The state has a shortage of guardian ad litems, which are required in child welfare cases and represent the best interests of the child. The shortfall has led to cases often lingering in the court system while children await permanency. In his veto message, Morrisey said he was 'sympathetic to the intent of this bill' but noted that lawmakers had reduced his proposed funding amount for the Public Defender Services. 'I want West Virginia to be a national model for fiscal responsibility, and this bill fails to meet that objective,' Morrisey wrote. 'The math does not add up. The Legislature did not fully fund this line item for the ensuing fiscal year, which necessitates the veto of this bill.' Burkhammer emphasized that the shortage of guardian ad litems has led to 'low quality of services.' 'Ulimateily, the child's best interest is not getting the attention it deserves,' he said. Morrisey also cut 75% of lawmakers' allocated funding to West Virginia's Court Appointed Special Advocates, or CASA, a program that helps foster children in the court system, before signing the budget bill. In his veto message, the governor said the program relies on grants and could seek additional grant funding. Woelfel believes that despite the vetoes, Morrisey is committed to foster care reform. 'I'm taking him at his word,' he said. 'I think it has got to be a team effort.'
