Senate Finance Committee advances bills on distilleries, payroll IRAs, tech fund and athletic commission pay

At a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, members voted to report four bills out of committee: a revision to the Mississippi native spirits law to expand craft distillery privileges; a committee substitute creating the Mississippi Work and Save payroll-IRA program for small employers and employees; a bill to create a Technology Innovation Fund for state IT projects and an AI hub; and a bill removing the athletic commissionsalary from statute and subjecting it to personnel-board approval and legislative appropriation.

The changes to the native spirits law would let state-based craft distilleries operate tasting rooms, obtain a single permanent satellite tasting-room sales location elsewhere in Mississippi where alcohol sales are permitted, apply for festival permits, and ship product to licensed retail permittees under department rules. "This is the Mississippi native spirit law, and this is going to be revised to include our scribe spirits," the bill…