Topping news in Mississippi this week:

• Contrary to speculation, a rewrite of the state’s school funding formula won’t be on the agenda for the upcoming special session of the Mississippi Legislature in June.
• After months of debate on whether a state lottery would boost state revenue collection, House Speaker Philip Gunn formed a lottery study commission this week. The last 11 regular Legislative sessions have seen about 50 bills die in committee that would have created a state lottery. Mississippi is one of six states without any form of lottery.
• Under a new proposal from Speaker Gunn, voters could decide whether to raise local taxes for infrastructure improvements in their communities. The funding pitch came almost exactly a month before the special session to fund the Mississippi Department of Transportation and two other departments for the next fiscal year.

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This Week: What’s on the Legislature’s special session agenda and what’s not

by Gabriel Austin, Mississippi Today
May 5, 2017

<h1>This Week: What’s on the Legislature’s special session agenda and what’s not</h1> <p class="byline">by Gabriel Austin, Mississippi Today <br />May 5, 2017</p> <p>Topping news in Mississippi this week:</p> <ul> <li>Contrary to speculation, a rewrite of the state’s school funding formula won’t be on the agenda for the upcoming special session of the Mississippi Legislature in June.</li> <li>After months of debate on whether a state lottery would boost state revenue collection, House Speaker Philip Gunn formed a lottery study commission this week. The last 11 regular Legislative sessions have seen about 50 bills die in committee that would have created a state lottery. Mississippi is one of six states without any form of lottery.</li> <li>Under a new proposal from Speaker Gunn, voters could decide whether to raise local taxes for infrastructure improvements in their communities. The funding pitch came almost exactly a month before the special session to fund the Mississippi Department of Transportation and two other departments for the next fiscal year.</li> </ul> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/05/this-week-whats-on-the-legislatures-special-session-agenda-and-whats-not/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org">Mississippi Today</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=67168&ga=UA-75003810-1" style="max-width:200px;"></p>

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