The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
A bill proposing to divert a portion of local taxes from large developments to the state generated a stir at the Capitol this week.
Rep. Trey Lamar, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and the bill’s author, did not bring up the bill in committee before Tuesday’s deadline, letting it die without a vote. But it could signal some leaders are reevaluating the incentives given to the massive data centers sprouting up in Mississippi and across the South and whether the state is getting a good deal.
When asked about why he didn’t bring his bill up, Lamar responded, “stay tuned.” It’s unclear whether he would try to revive the measure this session.
If the proposal in House Bill 1635 were enacted, for projects over $1 billion in investment, 80% of local ad-valorem taxes collected over $1 billion would go into a new state fund, with 20% going to the local government and school district. Money in the new fund would be earmarked for infrastructure and economic development projects across the state.
Katherine Lin
Local leaders have pushed back against this proposal. The director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority, Joey Deason, told WLBT that the bill would disincentivize major investments. He also said it would reduce the county’s new tax revenue from the construction of an Amazon data center from $70 million a year to $20 million a year.
Last year, the Center for Economic Accountability named the Compass Datacenters project in Meridian the country’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year.” The center cited the “breadth and length” of the state and local tax incentives as the primary reason for labeling it a bad deal.
Data centers remain attractive projects for local leaders and developers. The centers bring in billions of dollars in investment, new tax revenue and create more jobs. But there has been pushback from residents who are concerned about environmental impacts and the lack of transparency. Data centers create relatively few jobs compared to the scale of investment and demand large amounts of power and water.
Other news: Ag land being bought up, Siemens expanding in Rankin County, hotel and conference center planned for Madison
Siemens Energy is expanding its presence in Mississippi. On Tuesday, the company announced it will build a $300-million manufacturing plant in Rankin County. The project is expected to create almost 300 jobs. The company’s Richland facility has been in operation since the 1970s.
The developer of Topgolf is planning to build a new luxury hotel and 50,000-square-foot conference center in the Prado Vista development in Madison County. The plan is for a 250-room hotel next to the conference center. The hotel will include four restaurants. The developer, Gabriel Prado, has announced a slew of new projects over the last year. The most recent announcement was a $50-million luxury loft development in Jackson.
The Golden Triangle Development LINK announced Iain D. Vasey will be its new president and chief executive officer starting March 15. The organization is the economic development arm for Clay, Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties. It gained national recognition for attracting over $10 billion in investment under its previous CEO, Joe Max Higgins. Higgins left abruptly in August reportedly due to workplace behavior. Vasey is an experienced economic developer and was most recently the director of development services for the city of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Previously, he was president and CEO of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development, where one of his projects was with Steel Dynamics, who has a presence in the Golden Triangle.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
As school closures continue into a second week after Winter Storm Fern, the Mississippi House has voted to extend the amount of time districts can close without making days up.
The storm ravaged the state in late January, leaving downed power lines, icy roads and fallen trees in its wake. Schools across the Southeast are still dealing with closures, including Oxford School District and Holly Springs School District in Mississippi.
House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville, was successful in amending an unrelated bill on the floor in its entirety on Thursday, replacing it with language that gives districts in north Mississippi impacted by the ice storm up to 15 canceled school days due to emergencies.
State law currently only allows 10 missed days for weather emergencies and natural disasters. Any more, and schools have to add extra time to their academic year.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” he said. “Some of these school districts still don’t have electricity … frankly, a lot of these teachers don’t want to have to come back in and make these days up in the summer.”
The law, which passed unanimously, would only apply this year. Next school year, they would return to 10 allotted weather emergency days.
Absenteeism from severe weather can impact learning, according to the Northwest Evaluation Association. The organization says that missing a day of school from a weather-related closure is almost equal to four days of lost learning time.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
A south Mississippi man who vandalized and set fire to a Mormon church will serve 30 years in federal prison.
Stefan Day Rowold was sentenced Tuesday on civil rights and arson charges for the July 2024 fires set at the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Wiggins.
“This was a deliberate, hate-fueled attack on a place of worship meant to intimidate an entire community,” J.E. Baxter Kruger, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said in a statement. “Attacks like this will be met with the full force of federal law. Today’s sentence demonstrates our commitment to protecting the right to worship in safety and without fear.”
Church members were unable to hold service for months because of the fire damage. At Rowold’s sentencing, the court awarded the church about $176,000 in restitution.
Prosecutors argued during a September 2025 trial that the 37-year-old targeted the church because of “animosity toward what he believed to be their religious views,” according to a news release from Kruger’s office.
Those beliefs were on display in the messages Rowold wrote on the church’s walls, including “False Prophets” and “you will never reach heaven,” according to the indictment. Other messages he wrote alleged sex trafficking and child sexual abuse by the church.
The Wiggins resident confessed to police how he broke a glass door with a cinderblock to get inside the church. After writing on the walls, Rowold gathered hymnals, paintings and other religious objects from across the church and used them as kindling to set a fire in a multipurpose room, according to court records. He tried to spread the fire by adding a desk and piano, but the fire eventually went out on its own.
Days later, a church member arrived for service and saw the damage. Officers from the Wiggins Police Department saw Rowold in the area of the church when they arrived at the scene and put up tape. Rowold realized he had not burned the entire building, according to court records.
He returned later that day and tried to set another fire, staying in the area as first responders arrived. Rowold went back to the church building to observe, which is when law enforcement saw him again and identified him as a person of interest, according to court documents.
The FBI Jackson Field Office investigated the case with help from federal, state and local law enforcement, including the Wiggins Police Department and the state fire marshal.
Rowold’s sentencing comes weeks after a fire was set at Jackson’s Beth Israel Congregation, the largest synagogue in the state.
Days later, Stephen Spencer Pittman, 19, confessed to his father how he used an ax to break into the synagogue, poured gasoline and lit it with a torch lighter. He was indicted on state and federal charges. Pittman has pleaded not guilty to the federal arson charge and remains jailed awaiting trial.
Correction 2/5/26: This story has been updated to correct Rowold’s sentence.
A new law takes effect immediately that will make it easier for health facilities to make costly improvements and limit where the University of Mississippi Medical Center can open new locations without state approval after Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation into law Wednesday.
Lawmakers passed nearly identical changes to the state’s certificate of need law last session, but this year, they removed a provision that led Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to veto the legislation in April.
Certificate of need law requires providers to receive state approval before opening new services or paying for expensive upgrades by proving that people need the services in their area. The regulations are meant to lower costs and enhance the quality and accessibility of health care by preventing duplication of services, but stakeholders are divided on whether the law accomplishes its goals.
Reeves signed the bill Wednesday, doubling the cost thresholds that triggers the requirement. For clinical improvements other than major medical equipment, hospitals will now require approval for changes over $10 million, up from $5 million. It also seeks to level the playing field between the University of Mississippi Medical Center and other health care providers by limiting UMMC’s certificate of need exemption to the area around UMMC’s main campus and the Jackson Medical Mall. For years, UMMC has been exempt from certificate of need requirements for facilities or equipment that is used for education.
Critics argue that certificate of need stifles competition and fails to decrease costs. Advocates say it ensures that communities have access to a range of health services, not only those that are profitable. In Mississippi, where over half of rural hospitals are at risk of closing, some argue that the laws prevent struggling hospitals from opening profitable service lines that could shore up their bottom lines.
Both chambers of the Legislature have made efforts to loosen certificate of need laws to help rural areas.
The House passed a bill with a vote of 121-1 Wednesday to exempt existing rural hospitals from certificate of need regulations. The change would allow 55 hospitals in Mississippi to open new health services or make improvements within a 5-mile radius of the hospital’s main building without state approval.
The bill also exempts Humphreys and Issaquena counties entirely from certificate of need law, and directs the Mississippi State Department of Health to study requiring hospitals to treat a certain percentage of uninsured patients.
“House Bill 1622 is about giving our rural hospitals a fighting chance while still protecting the stability of the rest of our hospitals,” House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, said Wednesday.
House Medicaid Chairwoman Rep. Missy McGee, a Republican from Hattiesburg, cast the only dissenting vote on the bill, arguing that allowing hospitals to open new facilities, like outpatient dialysis centers, could harm existing health care services and spread resources too thin. She said there are already outpatient dialysis centers close to several rural hospitals in the state.
“It seems like it’s a really broad bill, and … I’m concerned that it’s blowing the whole (certificate of need) open in our state,” McGee said.
The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee passed two bills Feb. 3 that would loosen certificate of need provisions. One would create a pilot program that tasks the state health officer to issue licenses for three outpatient dialysis units, three ambulatory surgery centers and one geriatric psychiatric facility connected to rural hospitals. The facilities would be required to be within five miles of the rural hospital’s main location.
Certificate of need law has long been criticized as cumbersome and time-consuming, frequently delaying the opening of new health care services when competing health providers appeal the state’s issuance of a certificate.
Another bill passed by the Senate committee would require any party requesting a hearing on the state’s decision and losing, pay the fees associated with the hearing. Senate Public Health and Welfare Chair Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, said there has only been one instance in which a party has won an appeal on certificate of need, but that numerous appeals have held up the process without prevailing.
“There’s no good that’s coming from the endless litigation,” Bryan said.
Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican from Picayune, said the process resembled a “kingdom,” making it harder to challenge the health department’s decisions. The system would be better without certificate of needs altogether, she said.
“We gotta quit picking and choosing and let the market work,” Hill said. “And let people bring in health care and deliver health care where it’s needed. And God knows, it’s needed all over Mississippi.”
The state’s certificate of need law is a familiar target for legislative reform in Mississippi, but few substantial changes have been made to the law in a decade.
The legislation approved by the governor Wednesday also directs the health department to study easing some approval requirements for small hospitals for dialysis and geriatric psychiatry services, a move that could lead to future reforms. The bill also requires the agency to study requiring psychiatric facilities to treat a certain percentage of uninsured patients, and approves or revises certificates of need for specific facilities in Madison, DeSoto and Harrison counties.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
The House on Wednesday passed a bill aimed at increasing regulation and transparency of pharmacy benefit managers, an issue advocates argue is critical to protecting patients and independent pharmacists in Mississippi against the risk of rising drug costs.
The legislation, authored by House State Affairs Chairman Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs, passed by a 76-38 vote. It requires pharmacy benefit managers — the middlemen between drug manufacturers, insurers and pharmacies — to reimburse pharmacists at least their cost of acquiring a drug. Among other provisions, it would also outlaw requiring a patient to use a specific affiliate pharmacy and prohibit spread pricing, the practice of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists in order to inflate pharmacy benefit managers’ profits.
Joe Mohamed, the president of the Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association, said he welcomes the bill and looks forward to working with the Senate to strengthen transparency, ensure fair reimbursement and support local, independent pharmacies across the state.
Independent pharmacists have warned that if legislators do not pass reform legislation, pharmacies may be forced to close. They say the companies’ low reimbursements to independent pharmacies and unfair business practices have left them struggling to break even.
Mohamed said 54 independent pharmacies have closed in Mississippi since 2021.
“When a local pharmacy closes, patients lose access, especially in small towns and rural communities,” said Mohamed, who is also the co-owner and pharmacist of G&P Pharmacy in Belzoni.
Lawmakers in Mississippi have proposed bills to regulate pharmacy benefit managers unsuccessfully for the past several years. A pharmacy benefit reform bill last year made it further in the legislative process than in years past, but died in the House after a lawmaker raised a procedural challenge.
Crafting a successful reform bill is daunting due to the competing demands of independent pharmacists and the business community, Zuber said to fellow lawmakers Wednesday.
“I’m just going to be very blunt with all of you up front, you can not make everybody happy with this bill,” he told fellow lawmakers.
Still, he said, his measure would provide significant benefits for independent pharmacists and their patients. The bill would move the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers from the Board of Pharmacy to the Commissioner of Insurance. He also noted that it is the lone bill remaining this session aimed at pharmacy benefit manager reform after several bills failed to meet Tuesday’s committee deadline.
“This is the only game in town,” he said. “The Senate, for whatever reason, does not have a bill.”
Sen. Rita Parks, a Republican from Corinth, authored a bill that died Tuesday. Parks, who has spearheaded pharmacy benefit manager reform efforts in the Senate, told Mississippi Today she was disappointed that Public Health and Welfare Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, did not bring up the bill for consideration. But she said she remains hopeful that the House’s legislation would allow room to continue advancing reform efforts.
“Our independent pharmacists will suffer,” Parks said.
Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, a Republican from Picayune, offered an amendment on the floor Wednesday to strike the bill’s text and replace it with the language of a bill authored by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, a Republican from Ellisville.
“This is the bill that would actually help our independent pharmacists and help our constituents lower their drug costs,” Hobgood-Wilkes said.
She said the proposal would require pharmacy benefit managers to reimburse pharmacists at no less than the Medicaid rate for dispensing drugs, which includes set acquisition costs. It also keeps the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers at the Board of Pharmacy, the agency that has overseen them for years.
Zuber opposed her proposal. “Let’s send it over to the Senate and get this over with,” he said.
The amendment failed in a 64-52 vote.
Hobgood-Wilkes served as chairwoman of the House Drug Policy Committee last session, but she was removed from her post last June. She told Mississippi Today her removal was a direct result of her advocacy for reforming pharmacy benefit manager practices.
Fair Jones, the co-owner and pharmacist of Sav-Mor Drugs and Gifts in Grenada, said though she originally supported Scoggin’s bill, the legislation that passed the House Wednesday is “a good starting point” for lawmakers to hammer out the details of pharmacy benefit manager reform this year.
She said she has watched as several independent pharmacies have closed since last year, when she came to the Capitol to advocate for reform, underscoring the urgency of passing legislation this year.
We are proud to announce two journalists joining the Local Investigations Fellowship and the newly established Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center created in collaboration with The New York Times.
Mukta Joshi
The Local Investigations Fellowship, led by Dean Baquet, the former executive editor of The Times, gives journalists the opportunity to produce signature investigative work focused on the state or region they’re reporting from. Last year, Deep South Today announced that it would create a new regional investigative reporting center in collaboration with the fellowship, which is committing substantial resources in addition to several fellowship positions.
The new fellows are from Mississippi and Louisiana. They are:
Mukta Joshi
Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter for Mississippi Today. She has a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School and a law degree from the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. Before pursuing journalism, she worked in India as a lawyer and legal researcher. One of her investigations was selected by the Global Investigative Journalism Network as one of eight best investigations from India in 2023. Mukta will continue to examine law enforcement and the justice system in Mississippi.
Rosemary Westwood
Rosemary Westwood
Rosemary Westwood is a reporter based in New Orleans with a focus on health policy. She previously covered health with a focus on reproductive rights and vaccines for NPR, KFF Health News and the Louisiana public radio stations WWNO and WRKF. She is a recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award and has also won awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Associated Church Press. Rosemary will report on public health in Louisiana.
Their reporting will be copublished by Deep South Today newsrooms and The Times and made available to local news organizations for copublication.
“The Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center represents a vital new chapter for regional accountability journalism,” Dean said. “We are proud to welcome Mukta and Rosemary as fellows and look forward to supporting them as they pursue the difficult, essential stories that define the mission of this new center.”
These are the first fellows joining the 2026-27 Local Investigations Fellowship cohort. Additional journalists joining the class and investigative reporting center will be announced soon.
“Mukta and Rosemary have already proven themselves as smart, detail-oriented journalists who are determined to hold the powerful to account,” said Emily Wagster Pettus, editor in chief of Mississippi Today. “Their participation in the Times fellowship and as inaugural fellows for the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center will provide an important service to readers.”
The Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center includes support from Big Local News, a program at Stanford University that empowers journalists with data, tools and collaborations. Big Local News will be working with fellows on obtaining and analyzing data for their projects and providing ongoing training on investigative data techniques.
This initiative was made possible through a grant from Arnold Ventures. Deep South Today and The Times view it as an opportunity to create a new sustainable, replicable model for building strong regional investigative teams that can produce high-impact local, state and regional stories in underserved communities.
Open positions for the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center are posted on the Deep South Today website. Journalists interested in a fellowship based in Mississippi or Louisiana can visit this application form year round.
A letter sent Tuesday by Sen. Roger Wicker to the secretary of Homeland Security lent credibility to residents’ fears that federal officials were planning to buy a Byhalia, Mississippi, warehouse to convert into a massive immigrant detention center.
In his letter to Secretary Kristi Noem, Wicker wrote that it had come to his attention that immigration officials were in the “final stages” of the purchase and that the warehouse would have at least 8,500 beds, making it larger than any existing immigrant detention center by far.
The letter does not explain where the Republican senator got his information about the warehouse purchase. His office did not return calls and emails seeking clarification.
Wicker’s letter said many of his constituents had voiced concerns regarding “public safety, medical capacity, and economic impacts” because Byhalia, a town of less than 2,000 people about 40 miles south of Memphis, does not have the infrastructure to handle so many detainees.
The potential purchase of the Byhalia warehouse is one of several across the country that have faced opposition after local residents were told they were being scouted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Under the Trump administration, ICE has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire industrial warehouses, part of a $45 billion plan to expand detention facilities as agents ramp up efforts to detain and remove immigrants.
Enforcement actions by ICE have sparked unprecedented resistance in several cities across the country, which in recent months have seen major demonstrations that intensified after masked ICE agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.
A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
For weeks, some residents of Byhalia had feared the warehouse would be a part of the effort to expand ICE detention. Local government officials in mid-January had said they had no information and did not know if the plans were real.
The whispers began when an apparent screenshot of a list of addresses started circulating on social media and in community group chats. It was described online as a leaked ICE document that included the locations of “processing sites” and “mega centers.” Alongside each address was additional information, including the number of beds, square footage, and the dates and times of proposed site visits.
The list included the Byhalia warehouse, which is owned by JLL Real Estate. When local residents, including Democratic congressional candidate Cliff Johnson, showed up on Jan. 16 at the listed time, a group of people appeared to be touring the warehouse.
Chelsea Howard, an activist from neighboring DeSoto County, said sheriff’s deputies arrived soon after and asked the citizens to leave.
Fox13 Memphis reported that the sheriff’s department had confirmed that the call to the department had been made by “federal officials” who wanted trespassers removed from the property.
Brokers for the property listed on the JLL Real Estate website did not respond to a request for comment.
Mississippi Today reporters Mina Corpuz and Gwen Dilworth contributed to this article.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
The House voted Wednesday, for the third year in a row, to legalize online sports betting in Mississippi.
Proponents say this could generate tens of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue, but critics warn it would fuel gambling addiction and hurt brick-and-mortar casinos.
The approval of HB 1581 sets the House up for another showdown with the Senate, where legislation to legalize online betting has died amid opposition from the casino industry and concerns over gambling addiction. The measure is mostly the same as one the House passed last year, but an amendment introduced on the House floor before the bill passed Wednesday, with an 85-31 vote, marks a significant change. The amendment would require Mississippi to eventually make a one-time $600 million transfer from its Capital Expense Fund to help shore up the state’s pension system.
In remarks on the House floor, Gaming Chairman Casey Eure, a Republican from Saucier who authored the bill, said Mississippians have attempted to place around 10 million online sports wagers in Mississippi since September of 2025. Of those, he said, 81,000 traveled to other states to bet. These figures show that Mississippi is missing out on between $40 million and $80 million a year in taxes as a black market continues to thrive, he said.
“These are Mississippi residents crossing into other states, and the outcome of that is that Mississippi receives zero tax revenue, there’s zero oversight, zero consumer protection against these people placing bets, and problem gambling goes undetected and unmanaged,” Eure said.
The bill would require gambling platforms to partner with a brick-and-mortar casino before operating in the state, and casinos would be allowed to partner with up to two platforms. The gambling platforms would be required to utilize geofencing technology intended to ensure that wagers are only accepted from players located within Mississippi.
It would also create a $6 million fund, generated from taxes on sports betting and replenished each year until 2030, that casinos could draw from if their revenues decrease as a result of legalized online betting. Any money remaining in that fund would be diverted to the Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has unfunded liabilities of about $26 billion.
Tying online betting legalization to PERS is the primary change in this year’s legislation. The amendment approved on the floor and authored by Rep. Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs, would allow for tax revenue from mobile sports betting to keep flowing to PERS as long as the pension system’s assumed investment return rate stays at or above what it was on January 1, 2020. If that rate drops below the 2020 level, the money would stop flowing to the pension system.
Most notably, once the pension board sets its assumed return rate at or above that 2020 benchmark, the state must make a one-time $600 million transfer from the Capital Expense Fund into the pension system. The Capital Expense Fund pays for things such as equipment purchases and infrastructure projects, such as water systems and emergency repairs to state buildings.
Democratic Reps. Robert Johnson of Natchez and Omeria Scott of Laurel said it would be unwise to divert money away from the Capital Expense Fund amid budgetary pressure from state tax cuts and slashes to federal programs by the Trump administration.
“When we talk about taking 600 million out of (the Capital Expense Fund) is this an appropriate fast-paced use of these funds?” Johnson said.
The House and Senate are still at loggerheads over how to shore up the Public Employees’ Retirement System. The Senate has already sent the House a bill to put half-a-billion dollars of the state’s current surplus into PERS, in addition to putting $50 million a year over the next decade. House leaders have proposed a recurring revenue stream for PERS, either from the state lottery or by legalizing mobile sports betting.
When the bill passed out of committee on Monday, some House lawmakers said the legislation wouldn’t do anything to stop platforms from partnering only with the state’s largest casinos, raised concerns over gambling addiction and questioned the revenue-generating potential of mobile betting amid the rise of largely unregulated prediction markets.
Addressing concerns over addiction, Eure said his bill would require gambling companies to collect player data to identify problem gamblers and to implement age verification services on their platforms.
The bill would also permit the Mississippi Department of Human Services to identify gambling winners who owe child support and to have casinos withhold gaming winnings, a policy some lawmakers have been trying to pass for years.
Senate Gaming Chairman David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who has thus far opposed mobile sports betting legalization, did not take up a similar bill in his committee. He told Mississippi Today in January that the rise of “prediction markets,” exchanges where people bet on the outcomes of future events, erodes the revenue the state could generate through traditional online betting. These markets, dominated by platforms such as Kalshi, are different from traditional sports betting because traders set prices.
Under the Trump administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken a lax approach to regulating prediction markets, allowing platforms to expand their offerings in states around the country, including states such as Mississippi, where mobile sports betting remains illegal.
Eure told Mississippi Today that he agreed that prediction markets would cut into the revenue online betting would produce. But he said the U.S. Supreme Court could resolve ongoing legal challenges involving platforms such as Kalshi, and that federal regulation could help Mississippi claw lost revenue back.
HB 1581 now heads to the Senate for consideration.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
As Mississippi prepares to spend tens of millions of federal dollars to strengthen rural health care, lawmakers in both state legislative chambers have advanced bills aimed at increasing transparency and oversight.
In December, Mississippi was awarded nearly $206 million as a part of the Rural Health Transformation Program. This fund was designed to support rural health care and offset the disproportionate impact already-struggling rural hospitals are expected to bear as a result of federal spending cuts Congress passed into law last summer. All 50 states were allocated funding as a part of the five-year, $50 billion program, which will be doled out in annual installments.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves led Mississippi’s application for the funds, with support from the Mississippi State Department of Health and Division of Medicaid. According to a December press release, Reeves’ office will also oversee and coordinate distribution of the one-time funds.
Some lawmakers, including House Speaker Jason White, have expressed frustration with their limited role in the funding application process. Senate Public Health and Welfare Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, echoed those concerns during a committee meeting Feb. 3.
“There is a feeling among some of us in the Legislature that at minimum, the Legislature should have some input into those funds,” Bryan said. “I’m of the old school that it’s always useful to have people sit around a table and have a conversation and try to work something out, but none of that has occurred yet.”
A bill passed the House Wednesday with a vote of 121-1 to enhance legislative oversight. The Senate Public Health and Welfare committee passed a similar bill Tuesday. Both would require state agencies that distribute grants or funding under the program to submit quarterly reports to the Legislature.
The bills would also require vendors or subcontractors, including those tasked with performing a statewide assessment of rural health needs, providing medical equipment, creating workforce programming or designing a statewide health information system, to be selected by a competitive bidding process.
The legislation would prioritize subgrantees in rural areas and, for medical equipment or facility upgrades, those that have not received appropriations for similar projects in the past five years.
“House Bill 1067 does not pick winners and losers,” said Public Health and Welfare Chairman Sam Creekmore, the Republican from New Albany who sponsored the bill. “It simply says if you want to do business in Mississippi on this $206 million program, you’ll compete in daylight and we’ll send the money out as grants — we deliberately point out — toward the rural communities with the least resources and the most to lose.”
Reeves did not respond to a request for comment on the bills or his engagement with the Legislature on the program.
Ryan Kelly, the executive director of the Mississippi Rural Health Association, said he supports efforts to steer funding to rural areas or programs that benefit rural communities. Urban providers that do not directly serve rural areas should not receive the funds, he said.
“It’s not for them,” Kelly said. “It’s for rural providers that are struggling.”
Nationally, supporters have lauded the Rural Health Transformation Program as a boon for struggling rural hospitals, which will allow states to make innovative investments in care. But critics have called the fund a “Band-Aid,” pointing to the fact that it will not offset funding cuts to hospitals, or a “slush fund” that could enable state leaders to fund pet projects or providers in urban areas with little oversight.
In Mississippi, cuts to state-directed payments, which help hospitals offset low Medicaid payments, will amount to a loss of $160 million a year statewide beginning in 2029, Mississippi Medicaid Director Cindy Bradshaw told lawmakers last September.
Mississippi’s application for the funding includes a plan for program oversight. An organization will help to distribute the funds, track milestones, evaluate outcomes and ensure compliance, according to the application. The state issued a request for qualifications to hire a company to fulfill these tasks in December.
Mississippi plans to fund an array of projects. The program application proposes using the funding to perform a statewide assessment of rural health needs, which it projects will be complete in September, to inform funding decisions for the program. The state will conduct procurement for these services, according to the application.
Other proposed uses of funding included in the application include:
Creating regionalized EMS systems to share data and resources.
Piloting a program that encourages EMTs to treat patients in place and reduce unnecessary emergency room visits.
Establishing remote medical assistance and nurse navigation lines for real-time symptom assessment, treatment planning and care coordination support.
Developing workforce recruitment incentives like signing bonuses, relocation support and retention awards, establishing “earn while you learn” programs and increasing residency slots in rural areas.
Funding technology upgrades for rural health providers, including upgrades to outdated electronic health record systems and for enhanced cybersecurity.
Creating a statewide health information exchange to support real-time data sharing between providers.
Supporting purchases of telehealth equipment and subsidizing provider reimbursements for telehealth care.
Funding infrastructure projects, including facility upgrades, clinic expansions and equipment acquisition.
The governor’s office published a copy of the state’s full application with funding estimates redacted.
Nationwide, states’ programs are being led by a range of state agencies. Most programs are being led by state departments of health or Medicaid divisions, according to a report from Princeton University’s State Health & Value Strategies program. Mississippi and New Hampshire are the only states where the governor is leading implementation.
States’ awards averaged $200 million this year, ranging from $147 million to $281 million. Mississippi received $260 million — above the median award — but ranked lower when compared to its rural population.
According to a report from KFF, Mississippi received $118 per rural resident — roughly $40 below the national average — while several states received over $500 per rural resident. More than half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are at risk of closing, one of the highest rates in the nation, according to a recent report by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
Half of the $50 billion federal program is to be distributed evenly among all states with approved applications. Awards for the other half of the funding are determined based on a formula that calculates states’ rurality, the quality of its application and implementation of several policies aligned with the White House’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
Scoring also privileges states that have eliminated or loosened certificate of need laws, which require hospitals to obtain permission from the state before opening new facilities and services or purchasing expensive equipment this session.
A bill raising the threshold that triggers state approval for capital improvements passed the Legislature on Jan. 28. Lawmakers are weighing additional changes to the law.
State legislators have taken additional steps to exert greater control over parts of the program’s rollout. On Jan. 21, the House passed a bill to designate a state-recognized health information exchange, an element included in the state’s Rural Health Transformation Program application. The measure would require that a single nonprofit entity be selected by the health department through a competitive bidding process to build an information system used by all state hospitals and community mental health centers to share patient admission, discharge and transfer data, as well as bed availability.
Some lawmakers raised concerns about patient data sharing on Jan. 21, but a proposed amendment to require patients to opt in to the system failed. The bill was sent to the Senate Public Health and Welfare committee for consideration.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, states’ funding through the program for coming years will hinge on their progress implementing the proposed initiatives. This makes it especially important to demonstrate measurable impact and maintain transparency, said Khaylah Scott, program manager for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program.
“The ball is really in our court to perform well and follow through on our promises,” Scott said.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
Every Mississippi lawmaker has voted so far to give teachers a pay raise.
House Bill 1126, which was passed unanimously on Wednesday, would raise teachers’ annual salaries by $5,000. The Senate unanimously passed its own $2,000 teacher pay raise bill last month. Senate leaders said they want to increase that number by the end of the session.
The House bill would increase the state’s minimum annual teacher salary from $41,500 to $46,500 and would also give special-education teachers another $3,000 a year. The House raise proposal would cost $225 million a year, according to House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville.
Mississippi educators have been asking for another raise since their last meaningful one in 2022, which teachers say was quickly eaten up by inflation and rising health insurance premiums. Mississippi teachers are, on average, the lowest paid in the country. The new rate would put Mississippi’s starting teacher salary right at the national average, according to the National Education Association.
But the House bill also addresses another major complaint from educators, thanks to an amendment made during discussion on the House floor: Teachers going more than a month without a paycheck over the holidays.
State law currently requires that teachers be paid by the end of their last working day in December, which can come early in the month. Then, most don’t receive another paycheck until the end of January. Educators say it can make the holiday season stressful, on top of trying to make ends meet on low pay.
The bill, which was passed out of two House committees yesterday right before a deadline, would require that districts pay teachers at least once a month — up to twice a month — and remove the language that requires their December payday to be teachers’ last working day that month. That means teachers could get their December salaries later in the month, addressing that weeks-long gap between paychecks.
The law could also pave the way for more districts to adopt bimonthly pay, which state law has allowed since 2022. Only four of Mississippi’s 138 school districts have adopted it, a Mississippi Today analysis found.
Superintendents previously told Mississippi Today that paying teachers consistently through the holiday months could be a recruitment strategy in a state struggling to fill thousands of vacancies.
The bill would allow lawmakers to give assistant teachers a pay raise in the future, though a raise isn’t included in the current language. A previous House Bill that included an assistant teacher raise was killed by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday afternoon.
Roberson told Mississippi Today that lawmakers will try to hammer out the details for an assistant teacher raise later in the session.
House Bill 1126 also addresses superintendents’ pay, which state leaders have increasingly scrutinized and claimed takes up a disproportionate amount of school funding. The bill would cap school superintendents’ maximum pay at 250% of what they would make as a teacher based on their experience, education and local district supplements.
The state’s base per-student spending would also increase by $500 under the bill to $7,447 per student.
Also included in the legislation: Earlier retirement eligibility provisions for first responders and state employees, a program focused on improving underperforming districts and pay raises for school attendance officers, school psychologists and occupational therapists.
The Senate and House now have each other’s teacher pay bills before them.
