Video: Budget Deadline Approaching for MS. Lawmakers

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Mississippi lawmakers face a Saturday night deadline to set final details of a roughly $6 billion budget for fiscal 2015, which starts July 1.

Numbers are in flux, but negotiators started revealing a few proposals Friday.

Republicans who lead the Appropriations committees, Herb Frierson in the House and Eugene “Buck” Clarke in the Senate, say teachers will get a pay raise. But, the chairmen wouldn’t release details.

Both sides say a Highway Patrol trooper training school will be funded.

A relatively small group of lower-paid state employees could get more money. Clarke says negotiators are looking at a raise for an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 workers who earn $30,000 or less and haven’t received one the past four years.