On the Issues
Budgets
- Balance it every time. Don't set unrealistic revenue projections. Live within your means.
- Finish the budget on time. One regular session provides ample opportunity to reach an agreement.
- Save some money in reserve for tough economic times.
Education
- Follow through with our commitment to fully fund MAEP if the money is there.
- Allow the MS Department of Education to pilot such initiatives as charter schools, vouchers and dual enrollment.
- Support early childhood education through MS Building Blocks, and come up with a common sense way to expand access using our current network of private and faith-based providers.
- Offer incentives to local school districts to merge back office operations with neighboring school districts to save more money on the local level.
- Allow high-growth districts to enter into lease-purchase agreements with developers to build needed classroom space faster.
Higher Education
- Create a more seamless curriculum and credit transfer process between high school, community/junior college and university.
- Study how the state might move its funding formula to one that rewards achieving desired objectives, such as graduation rates, retention rates and research
- Prevent higher tuition hikes that will limit access and increase debt load for students
Economic Development
- Don't add new regulations or tax burdens to businesses.
- Push for a balanced economic development strategy that puts equal emphasis on recruitment, retention and entrepreneurship.
- Create more incentives for research-based startups, especially those that partner with universities.
- Include claw-back provisions for large bond recruitment incentives.
- Make our state more friendly to developers who want to redevelop our historic buildings and places.
- Recognize that one of our state's fastest growing industry is tourism- and invest in it.
Public Health
- Preserve the doctor-patient relationship in diagnoses and choosing treatment plans.
- Protect tort reform.
- Recognize that obesity and its resulting complications will be the state's biggest public health issue for the next few decades- empower local governments and schools to address lack of physical activity and lack of access to healthy foods.
- Further the adoption of the MS Health Information Network among providers and insurers.
Medicaid
- Reimburse our physicians and hospitals at a fair rate. Don't make the reimbursement process too cumbersome.
- Continue the shift from institutional-based care to home and community-based care.
- Listen to your providers, and work with them on the rollout of managed care (MS-CAN).
Mental Health
- No new institutions- build an infrastructure that supports a community-based system.
- Eliminate disparities in community mental health regions by holding centers accountable for base services.
- Encourage cooperation in back office operations between regional institutions.
- Coordinate all three components of our state's mental health system- institutions, community-based services and private providers- and have them going in the same direction.
Politics
- Don't grandstand to excess. Stump speeches do well for the ballot box- they don't necessarily solve actual problems.
- Don't be afraid to have honest conversations on subjects painful to Mississippi. If teen pregnancy is an issue, have the conversation. If you don't think we can support eight universities over the long-term, have the conversation. Nothing is solved when politicians fear saying what everyone already knows.
- Don't decide you've "arrived." There's always something new to learn and perspectives to understand.
- Conduct yourself in committee, on the chamber floor and with other legislators with a dignity and class the office deserves.