Jackson Free Press

The opening salvo in Mississippi's legislative special session goes to the Democratic-majority House of Representatives, with the House Appropriations Committee approving funding for the Public Service Commission this morning. The bill, which the full House voted to approve, would grant the Public Service Commission an additional three staff members and allow the PSC to reallocate money to fill three more vacant positions. All told, the bill would give the PSC three staff lawyers for $292,000 and three rate analysts. That appropriation is a more modest offer than the 11 additional staff members that the PSC originally requested during the regular legislative session.

Speaking at the committee meeting today, Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, described the bill as a way of granting the PSC independence from the Public Utilities Staff.

"Sometimes the Public Utilities Staff will make a recommendation to the Public Service Commission and the utility will disagree with it," Brown said. "In that case the Public Service Commission has to make an unbiased decision on what the result's going to be. They can't be advised by the Public Utilities Staff because the Public Utilities Staff is one side of the issue. That would be like a judge saying to the prosecutor, 'I want you to tell me what my decision ought to be.Ҕ

The Public Service Commission needs its own lawyers to keep its decisions unbiased, Brown argued.

Legislators created the Public Utilities Staff in the 1990s after a scandal involving the PSC raised doubts about its impartiality. The governor appoints a director for the Utilities Staff, while the three Public Service Commissioners are elected officials.

The Appropriations Committee also approved a bill providing $8.2 million for community mental health centers, which were left out of a Medicaid funding bill passed during the special session in late June. That appropriation, however, was not on the governor's agenda, and may have trouble moving any further.

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