Gov. Phil Bryant on Tuesday signed a bill authorizing Mississippi to issue $250 million in bonds this year and another $50 million in the future for various projects, including $625,000 for a new fire station in Brookhaven and $100,000 for infrastructure improvements at the Lincoln Civic Center.

Fire Chief Tony Weeks, the mayor and the Board of Aldermen have been pitching the city’s need to replace Fire Station 2 on Willard Street to different sources for the last two and a half years, Mayor Joe Cox said at a recent board meeting.

“The big hurdle was passing (the bond bill) through the Legislature, and that has now been done,” Cox said in April. “It now has to be approved by the bond board, which is made up of the governor, the lieutenant governor, the treasurer and the attorney general, and then signed by the governor, so we don’t have a check yet, but it’s looking real good.”

The projects still must be approved by the three-member state Bond Commission before the state can issue bonds to take on long-term debt. The commissioners are the governor, the state treasurer and the attorney general.

State Treasurer Lynn Fitch has said some of the projects included in the bill are just “earmarks” for pet projects and should be rejected.

“This bill is the same kind of Christmas-tree-collection of earmarked goodies that many of these same state legislators rail against Congress for pushing through in the dead of night,” Fitch said in a statement. “When the State issues bonds, we’re obligating Mississippi taxpayers both today and tomorrow to pay back that debt. The Legislature should be painstakingly conscientious of every project it approves. Too many projects in this bill fail to meet even the basic tests for what the state should, or even can, be issuing bonds.”