Joint Legislative Budget Committee: FY 2013 Budget Recommendation

February 7th, 2012

This afternoon, the Legislative Budget Office presented the Joint Legislative Budget Committee’s Budget Recommendation for FY 2013 to the Legislature.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) recommendation will be considered by the Legislature, in addition to Governor Bryant’s recommendation and former Governor Barbour’s recommendation that was released last Fall.

In total, JLBC recommended $18,075,824,092 dollars in combined support. These funds are displayed in Figure 1 and consist of:

$4,567,434,000 in General Funds;
$819,341,841 in State Support Special Funds;
$8,122,084,367 in Federal Funds; and
$4,566,963,884 Other Special Funds.

There are several budget challenges for the upcoming fiscal year, including:

Loss of FY 2012 non-recurring funds:
- In total, the state needs to find a way to replace $536.8 million in non-recurring funds. Approximately ninety percent of the non-recurring funds needing to be replaced are for Medicaid.
General Fund revenue growth is inadequate to replace FY 2012 non-recurring funds:
- Revenue would need to grow 12% to fill the shortfall left by the loss of non-recurring funds.
The need to sustain adequate funding of critical state operations (such as the Department of Public Safety, Health Department, and Education); and
The need to fund budget growth in select budgets.

On average, the recommendation for FY13 is 2.3% less than in FY2012. The range in cuts for specific agencies, however, runs from 0%-48%. In light of these challenges, it is increasingly important that our legislators take a balanced approach that includes raising revenues— a cuts only approach will not build or support the public structures that are essential to moving Mississippi forward.

Want to know more? Go here to read MEPC’s initial analysis of the JLBC budget recommendation.

Author: Francinia D. McKeithan, Policy Analyst/ SFAI Policy Fellow