Senate advances bill changing publication fees for legal notices; nonpublic parties to pay higher rates

The Mississippi Senate on Jan. 23 approved a committee amendment and passed House Bill 598, which updates the per‑word fees charged by newspapers and other publications for legal notices and establishes procedures for corrections when a required notice is published with an error.

The measure keeps the statutory rates that public bodies pay unchanged — 12 cents per word for the first insertion and 10 cents per word for subsequent insertions — but raises the rates charged to private parties. Under the bill, nonpublic parties would pay 25 cents per word for a first insertion and 23 cents per word for subsequent insertions for notices required by law. Those higher rates would take effect July 1, 2026, and thereafter be adjusted in line with the consumer price index, the bill says.

The committee amendment also adds detailed steps for publishing corrections when a county or municipal government’s required notice contains an error in text or publishing date. The amendment contains a reverse‑repealer provision intended to preserve prior law where needed while the new text is clarified.

During floor discussion, Senator Harkins, explaining the committee amendment, said the bill updates “the rates ... set in statute” and summarized the correction provisions. Senator Hill asked whether the change would increase costs for counties; Harkins replied that the statutory rate for public bodies remains the same and that the increase applies only to private parties. Hill also raised a separate point about whether counties can advertise online instead of paying newspapers; Senator Harkins said that broader changes to allow online‑only publication were not part of this bill and that the reverse‑repealer language was intended to address implementation concerns in some situations.

The Senate adopted the committee amendment and then moved passage by the morning roll call; the motion carried by voice and the bill passed by use of the morning roll call.

The bill does not specify a statute citation in the floor explanation provided on the record. The text on the record gave the new per‑word rates and the effective date but did not list estimated fiscal impacts for county governments or publishers.

Votes at a glance on the floor record show the amendment adoption and final passage by procedural morning roll call; no roll‑call tally with individual names was recorded in the transcript excerpt.