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Historic tax credit revived amid end-of-session mayhem

Clay Chandler
The Clarion-Ledger

Sen. Joey Fillingane promised to find a way to revive legislation that would keep the state’s historic tax credit program from all but going away at the end of the year.

He did, though there was some doubt among supporters of the original bill — authored by Speaker Philip Gunn — that he would follow through on his promise.

The backstory is strange. Gunn, a Clinton Republican, dropped a bill early in the session that would have kept afloat the 25 percent credit developers get for redoing historic properties. The program wasn’t sun-setting, but there did loom a total eclipse.

Projects that didn’t earn certification from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History — the agency that administers the credits — by Dec. 31 would not qualify for them. The deadline was part of the legislation that created the tax credit several years ago. The thinking all along has been the deadline would be extended without much of a fuss, because the credit has proven itself effective.

Since 2006, according to Archives data, $50 million in credits have been paid for projects whose total investment reached $200 million. One of the more common applications has been downtown restoration across the state.

That wasn’t enough to keep Gunn’s bill from dying in the Senate Finance Committee, which Fillingane chairs, without so much as a vote.

That raised eyebrows. It also made some folks mad.

Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes, whose downtown revitalization has been a heavy user of the tax credit, said it was “inexplicable” that the bill would perish. Hewes was one of dozens of local government and development cognoscenti who got bent out of shape and started making it known they’d like the credit extended.

In the middle of the hankering, Gunn approached Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves about inserting the extension language into another bill, even though the code section that authorized it was not part of any remaining legislation. As long as nobody raised an objection via point of order, the extension was likely safe.

Reeves was amenable, and the pertinent language became part one of the main bond bills that was in conference committee. The bill eventually passed and went on to Gov. Phil Bryant.

The tax credit’s resurrection came while House and Senate leadership were throwing down over the state’s transportation budget, part of whose function is to outline which road and bridge projects get funded year to year. It all came to a head in the session’s last week, the distrust that had simmered since January rising to a boil. The House was on the verge of a riot the last night as it debated the transportation budget a second time.

The historic tax credit is now safe until Dec. 31, 2017, far short of Gunn’s original bill that would have extended it until 2029.

Assuming the protagonists from this year’s scrap stay put in the 2015 elections, it’s possible the politics of renewal could themselves be resurrected in two years.

To contact Clay Chandler, call (601) 961-7264 or follow @claychand on Twitter. Read his Brick & Mortar blog on clarionledger.com.