Ellington

A new round of budget cuts expected later this week will affect all state agencies, Gov. Haley Barbour told business leaders at the Mississippi Economic Council's "Capitol Day," Jan. 8. Barbour said that the state's revenue will fall at least 8.3 percent below estimates. In November, Barbour cut fourty-two million from state agencies while sparing Medicaid and the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. This time, he said, Medicaid and MAEP will suffer cuts as well.

"I could cut everything but MAEP and Medicaid and achieve $140 million worth of savings," Barbour said. "At that point I cannot make any more cuts except to MAEP and Medicaid."

State law prohibits the governor from cutting any agency's funding by more than 5 percent unless all other agencies also take a 5 percent cut. Barbour said that he would not cut MAEP, which levels funding for school districts, or Medicaid beyond 5 percent. He will need to cut between $175 million and $310 million to balance the budget for the 2009 fiscal year.

Despite the state's bleak economic forecast, Barbour said that he wanted to protect funding for work-force development and job training.

"We're going to have some serious issues about how to keep our economy as strong and as healthy as it can be during the downturn, so that we stay poised to be the first out of the gate when the economy turns up," Barbour said.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the governor told the Jackson Free Press that Barbour will announce those cuts Jan. 14.