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Mississippi Governor Focuses on Job Creation in State of the State

Gov. Phil Bryant touted the Mississippi economy during his annual State of the State address Wednesday night, but also announced programs that he said would help the state move to "a new level."

By Bobby Harrison
 
Gov. Phil Bryant touted the Mississippi economy during his annual State of the State address Wednesday night, but also announced programs that he said would help the state move to "a new level."
 
MORE: Text, highlights and video of every governor's annual address.
 
During a joint session of the Mississippi Legislature in the House chamber, the first-term Republican governor said during his three years in office the unemployment rate has dropped from 9.8 percent to 7.3 percent, though, he did not point out it still is one of the highest rates in the nation.
 
He also cited Mississippi's being praised by various national groups for its economic development efforts.
 
"We are not yet where we need to be to move to a new level, but we are moving ahead and should not be timid about recognizing the good in Mississippi," he said to a packed chamber that not only included legislators, but also members of the judiciary, agency heads and others. "Others will certainly revel in the bad. But as for me, I am proud of my Mississippi."
 
To move to that new level, much of the governor's 35-minute speech focused on programs that he said would help create more jobs.
 
His primary new proposal was the Keep Mississippi Working Fund that would direct nearly $50 million into workforce training during the next two years. The funds would be diverted from the Unemployment Trust Fund, that is funded by a tax on employers.
 
Bryant said the money is available in the fund because of the decline of those receiving unemployment payments by 24 percent during the past year.
 
Those funds would be used to provide workforce training by the state's 15 public community colleges.
"We realize that finding a job can and has changed lives for the better," the governor said. "So we must do all in our power to put people to work."
 
In the Democratic response to the State of the State, Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said, "The Republican political spin about job creation is just that, spin. Despite what you've heard Gov. Bryant say, Mississippi has 41,000 fewer jobs than we did in 2007. This despite the fact that the population has grown by over 230,000 since 1997. Democrats have a plan to immediately create jobs without raising taxes or spending money out of the rainy day funds."
 
Johnson cited among other recommendations repaying money taken from the Department of Transportation during budget woes to fund other programs and putting new revenue growth into infrastructure projects.
 
"Repaying this loan would provide the capital to create what would be the equivalent of nine jobs per mile of roads paved or repaired as we fix our roads and bridges," Johnson said.
 
Bryant also outlines his proposal to provide $3 million to pay for high school graduates in career readiness programs with at least a C average to go to community college to further develop their technical skills.
 
"Let us give them a chance to be skilled craftsmen and women and find them a job," he said.
 
The governor also touched on education, health care and his proposal to provide a tax cut to working families earning less than $52,000 annually. Bryant had released his tax cut proposal earlier.
 
In the area of health care, Bryant said he would ask the state's congressional delegation to try to suspend the portion of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that decreases the payments to hospitals for caring for uninsured patients. The plan was to reduce the payments as more people obtained health care coverage through the expansion of Medicaid.
 
But Bryant has refused to expand Medicaid, saying the state could not afford it even though the bulk of the program is paid by the federal government.
 
The governor also said that he is hopeful the historically underperforming public school system will be jump-started by programs passed in recent years, such as a teacher pay raise and a program requiring most students to read on grade level before exiting the third grade.
 
Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said he was disappointed the governor made no recommendations on restoring full funding to the public schools, which have been underfunded $1.5 billion since 2008.
 
"I am still not sure the governor understands the Adequate Education Program funds the basic operations of local schools that are being underfund a quarter of million dollars per year," Bryan said. "He offered no plan to close that gap."
 
Rep. Brad Mayo, R-Oxford, said, "I thought the governor summed up his first three years and talked about where we are going."
 
He said he believes developing skilled workers is key to the state's future, and said the community colleges, as the governor proposed, have proven successful in doing that.
 
The governor was interrupted multiple times by applause, but perhaps the loudest came as he praised the work of people dealing with the tornadoes that hit the state in 2014, including in April in Tupelo.


(c)2015 the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, Miss.) 
Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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