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Mississippi Free Press
Journalism by Mississippians, for Mississippians
JACKSON, Miss.— School districts could soon employ their own school attendance officers, taking the employment authority away from the Mississippi Department of Education while giving the officers pay raises under Senate Bill 2618. The Legislature would offer monetary support to school districts to finance their new employees.
The Senate passed its version of the bill on Feb. 12 and sent it to the House Education Committee for consideration.
The House Education Committee amended the bill during its March 4 meeting to add House Bill 1345’s language that students can transfer from one school district to another as long as the school district where the student wants to transfer gives written approval of the student’s decision. The school district must approve or deny the transfer within 60 days of the student’s notice; if the school district does not act within 60 days, the student is considered eligible for transfer. The Senate had allowed the House Bill, H.B. 1435, to die on the March 4 legislative deadline.
MDE must pay “an amount equal to the total funding formula funds” that is “allocated for each student transferring to a school district outside his or her district of residence” to the school district in which the student transferred under the amended version of S.B. 2618.
“While the lieutenant governor has supported the (school attendance officer) bill in the press as it relates to fighting chronic absenteeism, he has also repeatedly supported the House’s position on the open-enrollment bill and at least continuing the conversation in that bill,” Mississippi House Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, said at the House Education Committee meeting on March 4. “What we’re going to do with this amendment, we will add House Bill 1435 to this bill, move it to the floor so we can continue the debate discussion, and then give the lieutenant governor an opportunity to accomplish two policy goals that he has stated multiple times in the press the last two months.”
“Anything (from the House Education Committee) that dies this year, we’re going to bring it back up next year,” House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, told reporters on March 4.
The House Education Committee approved its amended version of S.B. 2618, which provides both for school attendance officers and public school transfers, on March 4 and sent it to the House floor for a vote from all representatives.
The amended bill will still need approval from the Senate before it can go to the governor’s desk for his signature.
Gaming licensees would need to get a lease from the State of Mississippi through the Mississippi Secretary of State to use or place an establishment on the public trust tidelands under Senate Bill 2381. It defines public trust tidelands as “surface lands, tidelands and submerged lands owned by the state and held in trust for” Mississippi citizens.”
The Secretary of State would not be allowed to give a lease for a gaming establishment to build on “public trust tidelands on which the sand beach was constructed,” the legislation says.
However, House Gaming Committee Chairman Rep. Casey Eure, R-Saucier, amended the bill on March 4 to add language in Section 19 to add the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, which would legalize online sports betting, online sports pools and online sports race books in the state. His decision to amend S.B. 2381 came on the same day that Senate Gaming Committee Chairman Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, allowed Eure’s mobile sports betting bill, House Bill 1302, to die in committee.
He told reporters on March 7 that it is a “possibility” that the tidelands legislation may die because of his amendment to the bill that added the mobile sports betting provision.
Companies that want to open up mobile sports betting platforms to Mississippians would have to obtain a manufacturer’s license from the state. Only players who are 21 or older and are located in Mississippi could participate in the program if the amended version of S.B. 2381 becomes law.
Senate Bill 2510 would increase the penalties for companies operating illegal sports betting programs in Mississippi. Eure amended the bill in the House Gaming Committee meeting on March 4 to also establish an online sports betting program in Section 4. The legislation lays out how online sports pools or online racebook platforms could obtain a gaming license from the state to legally allow Mississippians over the age of 21 to participate in online sports betting.
“Today we basically kept (online sports betting) alive and sent two more vehicles to the Senate. I’ve done everything the Senate’s asked me to do in my original bill (H.B. 1302) that they didn’t take up,” Eure told reporters on March 7.
Both bills are headed to the House floor for a vote from all representatives. If the House passes the bills, they go back to the Senate for the body to determine if it accepts the amendments the House made.
Mississippi Senate Elections Committee Chairman Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, is continuing his push for early voting in Mississippi despite legislative setbacks and repeated attacks from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves.
The Republican senator used a strike-all amendment to replace the language in House Bill 177 with language from his own early-voting bill, Senate Bill 2654. His legislation would replace in-person absentee voting that begins 45 days before an election. Mississippians still could vote absentee via mail-in ballots.
House Bill 177 originally said Mississippians voting via in-person absentee would have to cast their ballots using optical-reading mark equipment instead of casting a sealed ballot into a sealed box. It also would have allowed poll workers and election commissioners to count absentee ballots on the Monday night before Election Day so they could more quickly announce absentee ballot vote totals on Tuesday night after voting precincts close. Election commissioners and poll workers would have had to count all ballots, including absentee and Election Day ballots, on election night under the House’s version of the legislation.
The House passed the House Elections Committee substitute of the legislation on Feb. 11.
“They passed our bill (S.B. 2654) out of their committee and did a strike-all and did the same thing and so we’re doing that with this one just to keep two vehicles alive and see what we can make happen,” England said in a committee meeting on March 4.
Mississippi House Elections Committee Chairman Rep. Noah Sanford, R-Collins, previously replaced S.B. 2654’s language with a strike-all amendment that included the language of the House’s version of H.B. 177. The committee passed it on Feb. 27 and sent it to the House floor for a vote from all representatives.
“What I imagine will happen after talking to my counterpart, Rep. Sanford, we do have some very similar language we’re working on, and I think this will maybe help get us to conference,” England said in a Senate Elections Committee meeting on March 4. In conference, House and Senate members work to compromise and reach agreements on differences between bills.
The Senate Elections Committee passed its amended version of the bill on March 4. H.B. 177 heads to the Senate floor for consideration from all senators.
Senate Bill 2314 would classify all hemp and CBD as a Schedule I drug, which would remove all hemp products from Mississippi store shelves. This legislation affects hemp and CBD products that have less than 0.3% THC and do not include medical cannabis products.
Mississippi House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, expressed concern about making all hemp Schedule I and asked if the committee “was just moving” the legislation “through the process” during a Judiciary B Committee meeting on March 3. Business and Commerce Chairman Rep. Lee Yancey, R-Rankin, said he wanted to keep bills related to hemp alive so they could go through the negotiation process with the House and Senate.
“I really would prefer not to ban all the products because, I mean, some of the products to me are harmless,” Yancey told the Mississippi Free Press on March 4. “Now, the bill requires them to be tested, and I think they need to be tested so that people know what they’re taking, that it’s indeed what it says it is, and doesn’t contain lead or insecticides or pesticides or whatever. But it’s a problem that we’ve been trying to address for four or five years, and we just haven’t been able to get on the same page as the Senate.”
Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, R-West, double-referred S.B. 2314 to the House Business and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary A Committee. Both committees passed the bill on March 4 and sent it to the House floor for a vote from all representatives.
Using, stealing, destroying and selling another person’s mail, checks or credit cards may soon be illegal under Senate Bill 2311, which establishes mail, check and credit card theft as crimes. Federal law already classifies mail, check and credit-card fraud as crimes.
The legislation says a person convicted of mail theft for the first time could serve up to five years in prison and pay up to $5,000 in fines. A person could go to prison for up to 10 years and pay up to $20,000 for the second violation under the bill.
It would be illegal for a person to steal an “unsigned check, signed check or sight order” or knowingly receive “the check or sight order with intent to use it, to sell it, or to transfer it to a person other than the person from whom the check or sight order was taken,” S.B. 2311 says.
A person could not defraud, obtain, possess, transfer or use a credit card that does not belong to them without the consent of the cardholder under the legislation.
House Judiciary B Chairman Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, said Florida and Missouri have similar laws when he introduced the bill to his committee on March 3.
“This has turned into a pretty significant problem throughout the state. The feds, unfortunately, are not enforcing their codes because they don’t have the financial or manpower to do it at this time,” he said at the Judiciary B Committee meeting on March 3.
The House Judiciary B Committee passed the legislation on March 3 and the House passed it by a 115-0 vote on March 4. Lawmakers are preparing the official version of the legislation for Senate President Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to sign before sending it to Gov. Tate Reeves to sign it into law.
Senate Bill 2439 would have created a fifth tier in the Public Employees’ Retirement System for state employees hired on or after March 1, 2026, while terminating the Supplemental Legislative Retirement Plan for state legislators and Senate presidents for those elected after March 1, 2026. The fifth tier would allow those employees to have a “defined contribution plan” as well as the other benefits PERS offers.
Terminating the SLRP for certain employees would mean current legislators and Senate President Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann would still receive “supplemental benefits” along with regular PERS benefits while legislators and Senate presidents elected after March 1, 2026, would not receive SLRP benefits.
SLRP members must pay “full contribution amounts for both PERS and SLRP in order to fund their regular and supplemental benefits,” the PERS SLRP handbook says. The SLRP retirement allowance is equal to 50% of the PERS retirement allowance.
“We need money and reform, that’s the position of the board. We brought a tier five to the Legislature last year; it was a different approach. … But we also ask for a guaranteed stream of revenue, surplus funds. It’s really going to take both things to right the course for PERS. We need an infusion of cash and pension reform,” PERS Board of Trustees’ Council and Policy Adviser Davatta Lee told House State Affairs Committee members on March 4.
Employees hired between July 1, 1990, and Feb. 28, 2026, could have had a chance to participate in an optional retirement program under PERS through Senate Bill 2449. The state would cap employer contributions at 9% and terminate contributions for employees hired on or after March 1, 2026, under the legislation.
House State Affairs Committee Vice Chairman Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said professors from the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University called him with concerns about S.B. 2449. He voted against the bill.
“If the numbers only save the retirement system $20 million, why would we forgo the opportunity to bring professors—we are already one of the lowest salaries at (institutions of higher learning) in the Southeast—why would we do something to discourage bringing people in?” he asked House State Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs.
“Mr. Vice Chairman, that is something we can consider. This is a working project. As you can see, it’s been double referred and I’m sure that concern will continue to be addressed as the process moves forward,” Zuber replied. House Speaker Jason White, R-West, double-referred the bills to the House State Affairs Committee and the House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee.
House State Affairs Committee Chairman Zuber allowed both bills to pass out of his committee on March 4, although the voice votes seemed to lean toward a resounding “no.” He denied requests for roll-call votes. The bills died in the AET Committee on the March 4 deadline after committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Ford, R-Vicksburg, did not bring them up for a vote.
State Reporter Heather Harrison graduated from Mississippi State University with a degree in Communication in 2023. She worked at The Reflector student newspaper for three years, starting as a staff writer, then the news editor before becoming the editor-in-chief. She also worked for Starkville Daily News after college covering the Board of Aldermen meetings. Heather has won more than a dozen awards for her multi-media journalism work.
In her free time, Heather likes to walk her dog, Finley, read books, and listen to Taylor Swift. She lives in Pearl and is a native of Hazlehurst.
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