Education and healthcare are expected to be the major topics debated when the Mississippi Legislature begins its 2024 session House Speaker pro tem Jason White told Breezy News.
“We will be dealing with lots of big issues in the traditional areas of healthcare and education,” said White. “Specifically, trying to figure something out in the healthcare space for the uninsured working population in our state, while also finding innovative ways to promote more alternative education tracks such as career and technical skills that would enable our people to gain skills and certificates that would equip them for good paying skilled jobs right out of high school. We will also take a really close look at both the funding formula and the accountability model we use for K-12 public education.”
Other topics of debate according to White will be the state’s Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the state’s ballot initiative.
“We will also take a really close look at the Public Employees Retirement System. Recently, there have been major concerns about its long term vitality and viability in light of the growing costs associated with providing these benefits and we will look to reinstate the ballot initiative process that was invalidated by a recent MS Supreme Court decision. Voters are demanding it be fixed and reinstated in some form.”
The 2023 Mississippi Legislative session will begin Tuesday, Jan. 2 at noon and will run for approximately 120 days into early May.
White, who is a Kosciusko native, is expected to be voted in as the new Speaker of the House after Phillip Gunn chose not to seek reelection.
Republicans elected White in November, but a vote by the full House will be needed for him to have the position officially.
