Look Around HR

The Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) is our state’s version of the Department of Labor (as we do not have an “official” department). It handles many important functions including job training, job placement programs, and distributing unemployment benefits- sounds like a pretty important department to me.

MDES has an annual budget of more than $200 million, but the state legislature recently ended their session without re-authorizing funds for the new fiscal year beginning on July 1st. Governor Haley Barbour has issued this press release and will call a special session to fund the agency.

The reason it was not funded you may ask- because the leadership in the House of Representatives was not happy with how the state was spending their advertising dollars. Of the $14 million advertising budget, a little less than $1 million went to TeleSouth Communications, the parent company of Supertalk Mississippi. Supertalk has a number of conservative talk radio hosts; who had been rather critical of the House leadership. So I guess to get back at Supertalk, the Speaker of the House has decided not to fund the entire agency.

Here is what would happen if funds for the agency were not reauthorized: Unemployed Mississippian would not receive their benefits and employers would see their Federal Unemployment Tax Rate rise from 0.8% to 6.2%. The department employs about 700 (who would be out of work), and operates the WIN job centers (which are in each county) that help unemployed find new jobs.

Here is the notice from the U.S. Department of Labor to the Executive Director of MDES.