Business Blog

Recently Louie Miller, spokesman for the Sierra Club, criticized the Legislature and me for “costing Kemper County residents millions.” Let me set the record straight. The Sierra Club is fighting the construction of a cutting edge, clean coal electric power generation facility by Mississippi Power in Kemper County. It will be the first commercial scale [...]

The strategy is to structure benefits consistent with a  policy that encourages workers to stay on the job until age 62 “All the cards are on the table face up.” So went the pronouncement of Gov. Haley Barbour last week in detailing a 40-page report that calls for saving over $100 million annually in taxpayer [...]

A three-year moratorium on cost of living allowances, or COLAs, for Mississippi’s retired public employees is a key recommendation of a report that will be released by Gov. Haley Barbour Wednesday. The moratorium recommended by a Barbour-appointed study commission could save the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi about $40 million annually for three years [...]

A facilities study that could guide the State of Mississippi’s policies for accommodating its office and other operational needs is expected to be completed before the Christmas holidays. International commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield is wrapping up work on the second part of a study whose initial phase led to a recommendation to [...]

The budget balancing that lies ahead for Gov.-elect Phil Bryant and the 2012 Mississippi Legislature just got tougher. The monthly report from the Department of Revenue shows that Mississippi’s November revenue collections fell below the estimate by 1.5 percent, or almost $4.9 million less than anticipated. Adding to the difficulty of the balancing act is [...]

By Ted Carter The head of the Mississippi Retired Public Employees Association says several legislators have warned him that Gov. Haley Barbour will work after he leaves office to alter the benefits structure of the state’s $20 billion public employers retirement system. Specifically, Barbour will lobby for curbs on retiree cost-of-living increases and will push [...]

By Ted Carter Mississippi’s state-hopping governor has hospital administrators across the state scratching their heads and wondering: What’s he talking about? And smokers? He’s got them choking on their Luckys. What Gov. Haley Barbour’s talking about is raising taxes – something he says he hasn’t done but President Obama has. In a speech to the [...]