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The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Wednesday set aside $5 million to pay for a childcare program in crisis for over a year. 

That funding would cover vouchers, or coupons that make childcare more affordable for low-income families, and the money would be enough to provide for about 800 children. Over 6,000 families remain on a waitlist for these vouchers, according to the department.

“Childcare is not a luxury – it is the infrastructure that makes work possible for Mississippi families,” said Bob Anderson, executive director of the department, in a press release. 

Anderson called the investment “targeted,” “responsible” and said it reflects the department’s “commitment to deploying public resources where they make a real difference.”

This move comes a month after lawmakers failed to appropriate any money toward childcare, despite pleas from early childhood educators who are going without salaries and providing free care for thousands of families that have been on the voucher waitlist over the last year. For years, the childcare voucher program relied upon pandemic-era federal funds that dried up in early 2025. 

The additional $5 million comes from a pool of unspent money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program – a spending solution advocates proposed a year ago. 

In 2025, MDHS officials said it was not possible to use more federal TANF money than the state already devoted to childcare. Currently, Mississippi transfers the maximum 30% of TANF funds to the state-run voucher program. 

However, advocates pointed to other states that have legitimately and successfully steered additional TANF funds to child care vouchers without interfering with the 30% limit. In January, state officials changed course and said they were exploring the model’s viability. 

One of the most vocal advocates who has been calling for this funding is Carol Burnett, executive director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. Burnett described this development as a “fabulous move in the right direction” and said while the amount of money is low compared to how much is needed, it establishes a precedent. 

“It’s a development to celebrate because it sets something in motion that we can build on as we move forward,” Burnett told Mississippi Today Wednesday. “There was no way we could build on it until DHS agreed they could do it. And now that happened.”

The agency is taking a “fiscally conservative stance” on this initial investment, Mark Jones, director of communications at the state Department of Human Services, told Mississippi Today.

“In October, MDHS will make consideration of a future increase,” Jones said.

Blocks away from where state lawmakers will consider redrawing Mississippi’s political maps to reduce Black representation in government, thousands of people gathered Wednesday in Jackson to protest those efforts and mobilize people to vote in November.  

The energy from the crowd was so palpable and raucous at times that some of the event’s speakers had to pause their remarks to let the attendees participate in rounds of chants, shouting, “No justice, no peace.”

FAQ: Mississippi redistricting. Why does it matter? What’s being considered?

Wednesday’s rally was a rebuke of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening the federal Voting Rights Act and efforts by Republicans across the South to redraw electoral districts to weaken Black voting strength. The participants protested those efforts by sporting shirts that called for fair political districts and waving signs that said, “No Jim Crow maps.” 

The target for some of the redistricting efforts in Mississippi is U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s lone Democrat and Black member in Congress, who frequently draws the anger of Mississippi Republicans and President Donald Trump. 

“I’m mad as hell about them calling Congressman Thompson a terror,” said U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, a Democrat from Illinois who attended the rally. 

Jackson, son of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, was referring to a comment Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made on a radio show earlier this month, where he said that Thompson’s “reign of terror” in the state’s 2nd Congressional District would soon end. 

Thompson told the crowd on Wednesday that GOP leaders will soon have a “fight on their hands” if they want to redraw the state’s congressional districts by slicing up the majority-Black Delta and Jackson metro area and putting those regions into majority-white districts. 

“We can’t let short-minded people turn us back,” Thompson said. “Now, we don’t have to act like the crazy folks did on January 6, but you’re going to know we’re upset.”   

READ MORE: ‘We’re going backwards.’ Mississippians share experiences of voter suppression, dread of redistricting battle

Some Republicans in the state and the Trump White House have pushed for Mississippi lawmakers to redraw the state’s four congressional districts to make it difficult for Thompson to win reelection. 

But several politicians at the rally, such as Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate this year, criticized Reeves’ comments, noting Thompson has a history of sending federal dollars to Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation. 

“The issue with that is I don’t remember Gov. Reeves sending back the money that Congressman Thompson voted to give for infrastructure,” Colom said. 

For now, Reeves has cancelled a special legislative session for lawmakers to redraw the state’s Supreme Court voting map. The session was supposed to have begun Wednesday. But Reeves said in an interview earlier this month that he expects the Legislature to redraw Mississippi’s congressional, state legislative and judicial districts before the 2027 state election cycle. 

House Speaker Jason White on Wednesday said he expects the governor to call lawmakers into a special session soon to redraw state legislative districts. 

Historians, state lawmakers, national advocates, members of Congress and civil rights attorneys spoke at Wednesday’s rally, called Day of Action, aimed at bring generations of voters together to rebel against the redistricting efforts and mobilize them to vote during the upcoming midterm election.

“We will not be erased,” said state Rep. Kabir Karriem of Columbus, chairman of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus. “We’re not going anywhere. And if you think you’re going to get rid of us, you’ve got another thing coming.” 

Southern states, led by white Republicans, have raced to redraw their congressional districts and erode majority-Black districts after the recent high court ruling. 

“In the 250th year of the country, the nation has decided to double down on the idea that it is a white republic,” said Eddie Glaude, a nationally recognized academic and political pundit who grew up in Moss Point. 

The Rev. Jerry Jefferson, president of the Okitibbeha County Branch of the NAACP, drove over two hours from Starkville to attend the rally. Jefferson, donning a “I FIGHT FOR VOTING RIGHTS” shirt, said the memory of prior civil rights struggles still looms large for him and many other attendees at the Jackson Convention Center on Wednesday.

“Once again, every time we try to go up the social ladder, political ladder or whatever it is, there’s always somebody who’s going to come try to cut our feet from under us and put us down to where we were before. But we refuse to go back,” Jefferson said.

The rush of some Southern states to redraw districts ahead of midterm elections caused several speakers to compare the erasure of majority-Black districts to fights during the Civil Rights Movement to gain voting rights for Black people and to the end of Reconstruction in the Deep South, when the federal government returned control to state leaders and they began enacting discriminatory laws and trying to intimidate Black voters. 

Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Holmes County whose father Robert Clark in 1967 became the first Black person elected to the Mississippi Legislature in the modern era, said today’s efforts to reduce Black officials mirror the decision of white lawmakers in the 19th century to disenfranchise Black voters by enacting Jim Crow laws. 

“It’s the same fight, same song, second verse,” Clark said. 

The national NAACP has responded to this by calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps to reduce Black representation in politics, including in Mississippi.

If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could drain rosters for powerhouse football programs and deplete revenues.

Derrick Johnson, the national NAACP president, on Wednesday at the rally compared predominantly white universities using many Black student athletes as a revenue source while not standing up for Black voices to a type of “sharecropping.”

“We don’t believe in sharecropping,” said Johnson, who lives in Mississippi. “We should not perform on the football fields or basketball courts where they cannot generate a profit.”

The rally ended with Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones urging the participants to channel their anger against efforts to reduce Black voting strength into voting in the federal midterm election on Nov. 3. 

“If you can get 5,000 people together on a Wednesday in the rain, then I believe you can get so many more on a Tuesday in November,” Jones said.

Mississippi Today reporter Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.

Eddie Glaude is a member of the board of directors for Deep South Today, parent company of Mississippi Today.

About 99 students in Canton could lose their school by August if the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board agrees to revoke its charter. 

At a May 14 hearing, an attorney for the board argued that SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy should lose its charter because leadership mismanaged the school, particularly its finances, violating state law and its contract.

Tamu Green, the school’s founder and chief executive officer, contended that mistakes were made because his staff lacked promised training and technical support from the charter board. He said he didn’t know all the relevant federal and state requirements.

“It’s a guessing game a little bit,” Green said of finalizing the school’s financial paperwork by the close of the fiscal year. 

“I mean, my unwritten rule was we just spent,” he said. And he didn’t know that financial paperwork had to “look really good” by the end of the fiscal year.

Hearing officer Kim Turner, who regularly serves as the State Agencies director at the attorney general’s office, will recommend whether SR1 CPSA should keep its charter. If Turner recommends revoking the charter — and if the authorizer board accepts her recommendation — SR1 CPSA would become the first charter school the state forces to close.

The board’s main concerns about SR1 CPSA involve school spending, accounting and money management. The school has received over $2 million in local and state tax dollars since it opened to students in August 2023.

How did school leaders spend taxpayers’ dollars?

The board voted in December to start the process of shutting down the school in part because it had one day’s cash on hand — $24,000. The board requires charter schools to have enough money available to cover 30 to 60 days of operations. 

Jamie Travis, an attorney for SR1 CPSA, said school leadership never missed payments.

He also argued that the school now has $600,000 in the bank, which he said was evidence it is financially viable.

But Tolliver McMullen, a certified fraud examiner and public accountant who was an expert witness for the authorizer board, testified that money in the bank doesn’t alleviate all concerns about the school’s finances — how the money is spent and whether school officials can account for their spending are important factors, too. 

SR1 CPSA leaders spent around $800,000 in a year when the school had about 15 students, he said. That breaks down to roughly $53,000 spent per student in its first year, or roughly five times the amount that Canton Public School District spent per student in 2023-24.

The state also raised questions about how the school’s leaders documented their spending, such as $55,080 in Amazon purchases charged to two credit cards. School officials had not disclosed the credit cards to the state as required. 

“The issue is that SR1 lacked clean, complete, readily verifiable documentation with the oversight required,” said Dillon Pitts, the attorney representing the state charter authorizer board.

READ MORE: Financial shortfall may cost Canton school its charter

The charter authorizer board also noted concerns that SR1 CPSA has experienced significant turnover in its business office since it opened in 2023. The school has a different business manager since the charter board started investigating in earnest in December.

Green and his team did not provide all documentation on the contractors from whom they buy cafeteria food, lease student transportation and acquire equipment at the school, according to Pitts.

Green told the charter authorizer board that the documents belong to SR1 (Scientific Research), a nonprofit organization Green owns, which has a separate governing board and is not under the board’s purview, according to Pitts. But Pitts argued that SR1 signed a contract with the charter authorizer board and is also subject to board monitoring. Several school leaders failed to provide the board with statements of economic interest, which disclose whether school contract money goes to companies they have a financial interest in.

Green said his impact should not just be measured by numbers.

“Unfortunately, I look at people as people. I don’t look at this monetary value,” Green said of his school’s past budgeting.

State questions school officials’ compliance with federal laws related to students with disability and food service

Pitts said the board also has evidence that SR1 CPSA leaders also violated federal guidelines that ensure safe food for students and classroom accommodations for students with disabilities. Pitts submitted the documentation to the hearing officer for review.

A food services provider inspected the cafeteria and found portion sizes, food temperature and nutritional values were out of compliance with federal standards, Pitts said. Food safety reports were missing, too. Staff members were eating meals intended for students without paying.

SR1 CPSA is one of two charter schools that operate their own cafeterias. Most charter schools partner with a local school district or the Mississippi Department of Education.

Another inspection of records revealed that seven out of 11 Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, were missing parent or guardian signatures, according to Pitts. These plans outline how school officials are accommodating a student’s disability.

Dorlisa Hutton, chief operating officer at SR1 and vice president of SR1 CPSA, said the state education department didn’t find any instances of noncompliance in the school’s special education department. That’s because the agency has not monitored those records yet, said Jean Cook, an Education Department spokesperson.

The struggle to enroll students in an underserved community

Student enrollment also ties into some of the financial troubles of SR1 CPSA. The school has fallen short of its enrollment goals for three consecutive years. Green delayed opening the school twice because he couldn’t enroll enough students. 

Despite that recent history, Green said he anticipates a significant enrollment jump: from around 99 students to 300 by July.

“We want this thing to grow,” Green said of his future plans for his school. “I really am blessed that families still trust in us to say, ‘Hey, like the old spiritual: we’re going to be all right.’”

Public schools receive funding from the state Education Department based on how many students school leadership intends to enroll for the upcoming year. The department recoups the money for the students not enrolled the following year, which hurt SR1 CPSA financially.

By overprojecting enrollment in previous years, SR1 CPSA received much more state funding than it would otherwise. But the Education Department requires charter schools to repay money they received for overprojected enrollment. SR1 CPSA had overspent its revenue for both years of operation, which caused the school to enter its second year with a negative cash flow. 

It’s difficult to open a school in an underserved community like Canton because building trust with locals takes time, Green said during the hearing. “Generational trauma” also makes recruiting students difficult, he said.

Green said his school should get another opportunity to improve its financial reporting and management because the board didn’t offer technical support in preparing financial paperwork and other services. Pitts, the attorney for the authorizer board, argued that the school had been offered assistance and already been given another chance.

Pitts told the hearing officer that the authorizer board moved to shutter SR1 CPSA in its first semester in 2023 after it enrolled roughly 15 students but requested money to serve 150. The authorizer board didn’t proceed with closing the school in part because SR1 CPSA leaders pledged to improve management.

Turner will next review the hearing transcript in addition to hundreds of documents, which the state charter board argues will prove fiscal mismanagement in violation of state law. 

Turner will then issue a recommendation on whether to revoke the school’s charter. Charter board members have the final vote on whether to accept the recommendation and effectively shutter the school.

Travis indicated plans to appeal the case to the Hinds County Chancery Court, which could keep the school’s final fate uncertain for longer.

The public can now get a glimpse of 1960s Ku Klux Klan materials, including charters and lists of dues-paying Mississippi Klansmen, through collections housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

The department announced Wednesday that the materials can be seen in its research library in downtown Jackson. Items are also now available for viewing online.

In March, state Department of Public Safety officials gave Archives and History a cache of KKK materials they stumbled across while cleaning out a closet. The purge was part of a move to the new Public Safety headquarters outside Jackson.

Inside a small blue suitcase, they found a handbook for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most violent white supremacist group in the 1960s, which carried out at least 10 killings. Officials also found Klan charters, a Klan robe, KKK recruitment materials, propaganda, meeting notes, ledgers and a list of members who paid — or didn’t pay — their dues.

The blue case, robe and hood are in the care of the Two Mississippi Museums operated by Archives and History.

In the move from Jackson to a new building in Rankin County, the Department of Public Safety also found old Mississippi Highway Patrol folders labeled “Communist Agitators” and “Freedom Riders,” which contain photos and reports on the 1961 riders. Trained in nonviolent techniques in Washington and Nashville, they rode interstate buses into the South to challenge segregation laws.

T.B. Birdsong, then-head of the patrol, falsely claimed Communists were behind these rides and Russians had trained two riders in Cuba.

Many of the riders convicted in Mississippi because of their civil rights activities, including the late Congressman John Lewis and other famous activists, were sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

The link to materials about the Freedom Riders are also available online.

The long-hidden Klan material gives a glimpse into the dark past when membership for the White Knights soared in Mississippi in the 1960s, reportedly to nearly 100,000 members, and politicians sought their support.

The highway patrol began to document Klan activities in 1964, after Klansmen kidnapped and killed three civil right workers in Neshoba County.

The handbook obtained by state investigators outlined secret rituals, bylaws and operations of the White Knights. The organization created a Voting Registration Committee to “study and watch the negro voting activity” and an Intelligence Committee to “keep accurate and indexed information on people, places and cars.”

The next president of the Mississippi University for Women should prioritize listening to and understanding students, people within the institution’s community say. 

That’s something Nora Miller, who retires effective June 30, did well, said Zander Hall, the university’s Student Government Association incoming president for the 2026-2027 school year.

Whether at sports games, campus events or in Columbus where the university is based, Miller made an effort to recognize students and remember their names, he said. 

“She was very personable and engaging, and that is someone we need as students, someone who can get to know us and hear us,” said Hall, a senior studying elementary education from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning’s Board of Trustees has launched a search for Miller’s successor. In April, the trustees named Scott Tollison, provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, as the interim president.

IHL has not yet announced an official process for the national president search for the university. But IHL Board of Trustees held listening sessions in April, a first step in the search process, to get feedback on preferred traits of MUW’s next leader. 

During those sessions, trustees requested that speakers not name a preferred candidate for the top job. But, some speakers named Sally Burchfield Doty, director of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi. Doty is a 1988 MUW alumna and served in the state Senate from 2012 to 2020. 

Doty told The Commercial Dispatch she is interested in the role. 

Faculty, alumni and other MUW stakeholders also said they hope the university’s next leader can convey to state higher education officials and lawmakers the university’s uniqueness among the state’s eight public universities and highlight the success of its academic programs. 

MUW’s college of nursing and health science continues to rank among one of the best schools in the state for future physicians, MUW nursing professor Mary Helen Ruffin said. 

It’s also the second year of the university’s M-CARE apprenticeship program, formerly known as Mississippi Earn, Ruffin said. Through the program, nursing students work with registered nurses at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle in Columbus to train and earn a license to enter the field. Students who complete the program are guaranteed a job at the hospital, Ruffin said. 

“It’s important for the next leader to build upon the university’s enrollment growth and success of the academic programs,” Ruffin said. “I think we just really need someone who can continue to build upon the momentum that we have right now.”  

While the W has a small student population, about 2,370 students, it has a big regional impact in Columbus and on the rest of the state. 

The W “seems to be a gem in Mississippi higher education that is under-recognized and under-celebrated,” said Chuck Yarborough, who is a history teacher at Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, which is a magnet school for high school students that shares a campus with MUW. Yarborough said he wants the next university leader to also acknowledge the strong, decades-long partnership between MSMS and the university, which continues to develop students to become future leaders in the state. 

Miller’s retirement announcement was a bittersweet surprise for Trip Hairston, who represents District 2 on the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors. The university’s next leader should be assertive, advocate for the W and have great finance management skills, Hairston said.

The next leader should also have a strategic plan for prioritizing the university’s long-term sustainability, he said. 

Hairston and Miller advocated for MSMS to remain on the MUW campus. In 2025, the Mississippi Department of Education recommended MSMS relocate to Mississippi State University’s campus. The Legislature did not act on the recommendation.

“We spent a lot of time together, strategizing on what to do next and who to go see and who to call,” Hairston said. 

“I’m going to miss her openness with me,” he said of Miller. “I believe that whoever the successor is has got some pretty big shoes to fill.”

Today’s column comes to you compliments of a chapter in Dr. Dan Jones’ new memoir “Medical Missionary,” an intriguing read I much enjoyed.

We begin in October 2002. Jones, later the University of Mississippi chancellor, was then the associate vice chancellor for health affairs at University of Mississippi Medical Center. Six doctors from a Pyongyang medical center were winding up a two-month visit to UMMC. Jones decided it would be a good idea to expose the North Koreans to American football.

Some background is necessary here: The six doctors were accompanied by a North Korean government handler, presumably to ensure they did not defect. Jones knew the stern, often scowling handler as “Mr. Jon” from a previous visit to North Korea. Jones’ relationship with Mr. Jon had been tenuous, at best.

“Yankee imperialist bastard,” was how Mr. Jon, a short, stocky man with military bearing, had once referred to Jones.

The North Korean doctors’ visit had been highly productive. Jones, an avid Ole Miss football fan, was eager to show them a good time.

“Football?” Mr. Jon asked before the Oxford visit. “Is that the sport they play with tin cans on their heads?”

On the Friday night before the Saturday game, Jones tried to give the Koreans a rudimentary football lesson – no easy task, Jones discovered. While the six doctors seemed politely interested, Mr. Jon was enthralled. Something about the often brutal sport clearly appealed to him

Mr Jon pointed at the TV tuned to a Friday night game. “Why don’t they tackle down that small man wearing black and white,” Mr. Jon asked.

Long after the doctors had retired to bed to rest for the big day, Mr. Jon continued to pepper Jones with football questions. Clearly, they had made a connection. Finally.

Now then, if you are going to your first football game what better way to start than on a glorious October Saturday afternoon with the sixth-ranked Florida Gators, quarterbacked by Heisman Trophy candidate Rex Grossman, against underdog Ole Miss, quarterbacked by Eli Manning?

The experience began in The Grove, which was as busy as a stepped-on ant bed that day.

As Jones describes in the book: “I always love the moment when folks see the Ole Miss campus, especially The Grove, for the first time. All the senses are pinging: the tall oaks lay down their deep green blankets of shade on the lush grass. Red and blue tents shoulder so close it’s hard to tell where one party ends and another begins. The tang of barbecue and grilled sausages is heady perfume, and the taste is even better than the smell. The happy yells of reuniting friends cut over whatever song some tent is blasting and, occasionally, the school chant of ‘Hotty Toddy’ is raised and answered.”

On the walk from The Grove to the stadium, Mr. Jon continued to ask question after question about football. At one point, he asked: “What does it all mean? The thing they keep saying.”

“Hotty Toddy?” Jones asked. 

Mr. Jon nodded.

“Well, it means sort of … nothing. It’s nonsense.”

“It means nonsense?”

“Nobody knows exactly what it means,” Jones responded. “It’s something we say at our school… Hotty Toddy means we’re excited. We’re rooting for our team, we hope to win. It’s like a bow or a high five between fans. We’re all it it together. Hotty Toddy!”

They continued on to the stadium, past the long row of the portable Hotty Toddy potties. Mr. Jon seemed satisfied with the explanation.

Jones had arranged for the visitors to be in the chancellor’s suite, where they could either sit outside and watch the game or sit inside and enjoy the air conditioning and football fare. They also had access to the suite next to the chancellor’s, where beer and bourbon were available.

By the second quarter, Jones and Mr. Jon were the only two remaining in the outside seating. Mr. Jon was mesmerized by the football. Heavily favored Florida led 14-2 at intermission, but Mr. Jon had become a Rebel fan and he wasn’t giving up. He never left his seat, except to visit the adjacent suite to replenish his bourbon.

Local Ole Miss fans will remember what happened in that second half nearly 24 years ago. The Rebels, sparked by a tenacious defense and Manning’s error-less quarterbacking, fired back.

“Sack him!” Mr. Jon yelled as the Ole Miss defense constantly harassed Grossman. When a nearby fan yelled, “Ref, you need glasses,” Mr. Jon responded, “Yes, sir. He does need glasses!”

When Ole Miss completed the scintillating 17-14 victory and fans charged the field and tore down the goal posts, Mr. Jon threw back his head and yelled: “Hotty Toddy” and, wrote Jones, “gave sloppy high-fives to every American bastard he could reach.”

An addendum: Mr. Jon’s head clearly ached the next morning when the Koreans returned to Jackson to begin packing for the long trip home. 

Addendum, two: Dan Jones would reunite with Mr. Jon on a subsequent visit to North Korea. To learn about that – and so much more, including Jones’ medical missionary work in South Korea, Russia, Iran and China – get the book. It will not disappoint. 

Dan Jones is signing “Medical Missionary” at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Square Books in Oxford, where he is joined for a conversation with poet/author Beth Ann Fennelly. Jones is signing the book Thursday at Lemuria in Jackson, where Rick Cleveland will join him for a conversation. The signing begins at 4:30 p.m. the program at 5:30.

In what Clarke County Sheriff Anthony Chancelor called “an attempted coup,” six of his deputies have left the department after a majority signed a letter voicing concerns about the sheriff’s priorities and how following them has put their integrity into question.  

Sgt. Andy Lafferty, Sgt. Steve Whitaker, Sgt. Kenneth Hollifield, Deputy Peyton Kennedy and Deputy Ellis Ray Dogget said they are willing to lay down their badges because of pressing issues. 

“We didn’t want to have to go this route, but we are not speaking for anyone else other than us five Deputies,” they wrote in an open letter published Sunday on the community page Clarke County Hot Topics. “We are concerned about issues that we don’t have any control over.”

Another deputy who did not sign the letter, Don Moore, is also no longer with the department. 

Before the departures, the sheriff’s office had an estimated 16 officers serving a county of about 15,000 residents in eastern Mississippi. 

“Our focus now is moving forward and continuing to provide the dependable service and protection the people of Clarke County deserve,” Chancelor said in a statement the day after the resignations.

He said the resignations came as a surprise and he found it disappointing that the men aired their grievances on social media rather than coming directly to him. 

The deputies could not immediately be reached, and Chancelor did not respond to a request for further comment. 

After the sheriff released his statement, Whitaker’s resignation letter was shared online by a local media outlet called the Scotty Ray Report, and it provided more details about why Whitaker left. 

In the his letter, Whitaker cites multiple reasons and events that took place during Chancelor’s administration, including how compared to administrative staff, most deputies have had to work overtime and take on second jobs.

He also included more serious allegations, including how administrative staff showed up or answered radio calls while intoxicated and how charges have been dismissed for people brought to the jail without agreement from the arresting officers. 

Whitaker alleged misconduct by the sheriff on and off duty that “(put) his deputies in potential civil and legal situations.” 

Chancelor did not respond to a request for comment about the alleged misconduct in Whitaker’s resignation letter. 

Monday morning, Whitaker tried to speak with the Clarke County Board of Supervisors during its meeting. In video clips, Chancelor is addressing the board when Whitaker cuts in to say he is resigning and “everybody knows why.” 

Whitaker did not elaborate because a supervisor used a gavel at least twice, and Chancelor accused him of interrupting a public meeting. 

Later in the meeting, the board went into executive session to talk about personnel issues, but Chancery Clerk Leanne Volking said it took no action. On Tuesday, she said nothing has been presented to the supervisors relating to resignation or termination of the deputies. 

“That’s on the sheriff’s department to present that to the board at the next meeting,” she said, declining to comment further. The next meeting is scheduled for June 1. 

Whitaker had been with the sheriff’s office just short of five years, according to his Facebook profile. 

“I am honored to have served the citizens of Clarke County but I feel this is necessary to maintain my personal morals, principles, and integrity,” he wrote. “I also hope this will bring public awareness and transparency to the citizens of Clarke County.”

Although Whitaker did not share more about alleged misconduct, community members have mentioned a 2019 case under the previous sheriff. Mississippi Today and The New York Times reported about how Clarke County sheriff’s deputies beat Marquise Tilman – an order given by former sheriff Todd Kemp captured in a recording. 

Chancelor was one of the deputies accused in the beating and one of six named in the lawsuit alongside Kemp. Tilman settled with Clarke County and the deputies for an undisclosed amount in 2022. 

Community members have also pointed to Chancelor’s alleged domestic violence against his wife that the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation began looking into in November 2024. At the time, the sheriff called it a “personal matter between my wife and I” and said he and his chief deputy made the decision to call in MBI. 

Bailey Martin, spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday that MBI’s investigation into Chancelor had been completed and turned over to the attorney general’s office. 

MaryAsa Lee, the spokesperson for that office, said the investigation is active and further comment will not be provided. 

Jackson police could get a new ballistics unit, a small SWAT vehicle and 11 guns if the department is approved for state and federal grants. 

The new chief, RaShall Brackney, is undertaking a push to bring millions in outside funding to the Jackson Police Department amid citywide budget constraints. Brackney took over the department April 1. 

Jackson is navigating a sizable budget shortfall between revenue collected and the amount it planned to spend during the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. This has created the need to cut spending and freeze hiring for most positions. The deficit has also spurred the city council to hold ongoing discussions about how to avoid passing an unrealistic budget next year. 

Knowing she’d have a limited budget this year, Brackney told Mississippi Today that one of her first acts as chief was to hire a local grant writer whose sole job is to find and apply for money. 

“Across the nation, a lot of police departments are woefully underfunded,” Brackney said. “Not as a result of malfeasance, but a lack of resources.”

The city’s budget crunch means Jackson Police Department, which last year was budgeted for $38 million, will return to its funding levels for fiscal year 2025, about a $500,000 drop, according to city budget documents. 

Police budget dominated by cost of employees

Brackney said this shortfall will prevent the department from upgrading certain equipment, such as 16-year-old patrol cars. Most of JPD’s budget goes to salaries, benefits and overtime, according to the department’s presentation to the city council during last year’s budget talks. 

Even as the department spends most of its money on personnel, JPD’s command staff has long complained of understaffing due in part to unattractive salaries. 

In an effort to grow the ranks, the city council in recent years has approved raises for the police. But this is one of the reasons for Jackson’s current financial position, said Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer, because the city was paying for those raises out of its savings account. 

JPD is no stranger to the grants process, and currently has in hand five state and federal grants totaling more than $2 million, according to information obtained through a public records request. These include support for the bomb team and a grant to ensure sexual assault kits are tested. 

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Brackney requested the council allow the department to apply to five more federal grants and another state grant. The department has yet to receive this money, which would total more than $2 million. 

State and federal grant possibilities

The sole state-funded grant that JPD is seeking would come from the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security. The department is requesting more than $125,000 to help it respond to “acts of terrorism,” primarily by equipping the SWAT team with new vests, armor, shields, helmets, guns and a small tactical vehicle.

“The City of Jackson faces an increased threat of terrorism as weapons of mass destruction are increasing (sic) being illegally possessed and used for a number of violent crimes,” the department’s grant writer, Mary Manogin, wrote in documents included in a packet submitted to the city council. 

Manogin added that JPD’s current ballistic vests are “limited in quantity” and potentially fall short of “modern standards for adequate protection.” The application also states the department’s other SWAT vehicles are “large and highly visible,” which is why JPD is seeking a smaller SUV.

A federal grant worth more than $220,000 would help the department obtain “critical equipment and patrol vehicles that cannot be purchased due to budget constraints,” according to city documents. Of that, JPD wants to allocate $208,000 to “mounting docks, dash cameras, field laptops” and drones equipped with thermal imaging.

The drones, Brackney said, would allow JPD “to start overlaying blight with crime, which often (are) very connected.” 

Another $700,000 federal grant would include de-escalation training and the potential adoption of virtual reality technology. A $500,000 grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention related to youth gangs would also support targeted enforcement efforts in areas experiencing gang-related crimes. 

JPD is also seeking a $300,000 federal grant to “identify, investigate and prevent crimes” involving bias, prejudice or violent extremism. The department wrote in a document submitted to the council that it planned to allocate about $207,000 of that to purchase 10 computers and a 12-month subscription to a “threat intelligence software” platform.   

And, $20,000 would go to a hate crime analyst to assist the department’s Real Time Command Center, with the remainder providing 800 brochures, resources guides and information sheets “outlining how to identify and report hate crimes” that would be distributed by a local nonprofit organization.

JPD is seeking another $300,000 in federal grants to help Brackney build a ballistics team. The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center grant would pay for officer overtime and help JPD hire two staff members to do data entry. 

“That allows us to connect guns to crimes to incidents to persons,” Brackney said. 

Dozens of states sued the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday over the agency’s finalized loan caps that would limit the federal funds available to professional degree-seekers.

The limits officially go into effect on July 1. For borrowers going to medical school, law school, dentistry school, pharmacy school or other programs that the Education Department categorizes as “professional,” students would face a $200,000 aggregate limit for their time in that program and a lifetime limit of $257,000 for any federal student loan.

The complaint from 25 states and the District of Columbia, with Mississippi not included, argues that the Education Department is not acknowledging or including all programs and professional degrees. The lawsuit cites several degrees, including nursing, speech language pathology, physician assistant and physical therapy as programs the agency is overlooking.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that these gaps in particular could weaken the health care industry even further. By excluding certain degrees from the “professional” category, those students would face a tighter $100,000 limit intended for graduate students. Someone pursuing an advanced practice nursing degree, for example, would be limited to $20,500 annually.

A bipartisan pair of senators, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Mississippi’s Roger Wicker introduced a bill on Tuesday to overturn the Education Department’s removal of nursing from the list of professional degrees.

“This legislation would make nursing a more achievable profession by expanding the loan limits for nursing students. Classifying post-baccalaureate nursing degrees as professional degrees would give these students more financial freedom after graduation,” Wicker said in a press release.

A study by Philadelphia’s Federal Reserve Bank found that 28% of students in graduate or professional programs borrow more than the limits the agency is implementing.

The lawsuit called the agency’s distinction of professional degrees “arbitrary and capricious.” The states also questioned the blanket loan cap for all degrees in just two categories, rather than creating caps based on the price of the program.

But the Education Department previously said its goal with capping loans was to cut the price of these degree programs by forcing the hand of institutions. What remains unclear is whether institutions will large-scale lower costs as a response, or if the loan limits will create a greater burden for borrowers who may need to lean into the private loan system instead.

“For years, Democrats parroted illegal student loan forgiveness to ‘end the debt crisis’ and buy votes, and now the same people are fighting against the Trump Administration’s legal efforts to drive down the cost of college,” Nicholas Kent, the under secretary of education, told NOTUS in a statement. “After decades of unchecked student loan borrowing that gave schools no reason to control costs, these commonsense loan caps – created by Congress – are already incentivizing colleges and universities to lower tuition.”

A spokesperson for the Education Department also cited a few examples of institutions lowering costs after the loan caps were made public. The University of California at Irvine cut its tuition by 20% and the University of Santa Clara Law School created a $16,000 scholarship designed to “cover the cost of tuition for Santa Clara Law within new federal loan limits.”

The loan limits are a part of the “Working Families Tax Cuts” that President Donald Trump signed into law in July 2025. It’s been a long-stated goal of the administration to cut the bureaucracy within the Education Department, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon has furthered that agenda by reassigning programs and grants to other agencies instead of dissolving the department, which would require congressional approval.

The agency remained steadfastly behind the policy in its response to the lawsuit.

“Clearly, these Democratic governors and attorneys general are more concerned about institutions’ bottom-line rather than American students and families’ ability to access affordable postsecondary education,” Kent said.

The lawsuit primarily includes states with Democratic leadership, but Vermont, Nevada, Kentucky and Pennsylvania have a Republican governor or attorney general.

This story is provided by a partnership between Mississippi Today and the NOTUS Washington Bureau Initiative, which seeks to help readers in local communities understand what their elected representatives are doing in Congress.

Today’s Crooked Letter menu has several flavors: college baseball, the Ferriss Trophy, Aaron Rei’s much-deserved PGA Championship victory, another remembrance of Charlie Rugg, the NBA phenom named Wemby and much, much more.

Stream all episodes here.