The University of Mississippi Medical Center has identified the three people killed in Monday’s helicopter crash.
The two UMMC employees were Dustin Pope and Jakob Kindt, and the Med-Trans pilot was Cal Wesolowski.
Kindt was a critical care paramedic from Tupelo. Pope, a Philadelphia native, was a flight nurse and the base supervisor for AirCare in Columbus. Wesolowski was from Starkville.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transport Safety Board are investigating the crash. Meanwhile, UMMC is temporarily halting its AirCare program and providing support to the passengers’ loved ones.
Columbus-based AirCare 3, one of four helicopters UMMC leased from Med-Trans, had dropped off a patient and refueled for a return trip when it crashed shortly after noon in a heavily wooded area of Madison County near the Natchez Trace Parkway, killing all aboard.
“UMMC is offering support to the team members and families affected by this loss and will continue to support the AirCare and Mississippi Center for Emergency Services teams and Medical Center employees in any way possible,” according to a UMMC news release.
Editor’s note: Lynn Spruill is the second term mayor of Starkville. This piece is part of an ongoing Mississippi Today Ideas series showcasing perspectives of mayors across the state.
Starkville was founded in 1835 and Mississippi State University was founded as a land grant college in 1878. We have virtually come of age together. Our goal is to be a place where people want to live, work, play and learn.
Like our good friends to the north and south, as college towns we enjoy the cyclical fortune of having much of our community geared to the excitement of youth, learning, sports, and the rise and fall of population driven by the regular beat of each semester. I would venture to say that of the three, Starkville has the distinction of being even more impacted by Mississippi State’s ebb and flow than our counterparts because of our somewhat less diverse business population.
With that seasonal influx of students, comes the challenge of expanding our services to reflect that increased population without breaking the fiscal bank. This means being prepared for those events that bring not just the students but the alumni and visitors to our doorstep. Every city department rises to that challenge through their own respective techniques of excellent planning and execution.
The city of Starkville has one of Mississippi’s few nationally and state accredited police departments. That accreditation keeps our police force on the cutting edge of both the use of technology and the current norms for interaction with our residents, students and visitors.
Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill Credit: Rogelio V. Solis, AP
Policing is one of the most critical and fundamental requirements of a city. For a city that sees large influxes of visitors throughout the year, having an innovative police department is even more crucial.
One of the ways that we have managed that challenge and have pledged to continue to manage it is the heavy use of security cameras throughout our community. This force multiplier gives us great and lasting budgetary advantages over the ever-escalating cost of personnel and vehicles. The Board of Aldermen has adopted the recommendations of the police chief to invest in security cameras and the operations center that oversees the cameras so that our forces can be deployed quickly and efficiently to areas that become hotspots.
Our fire department is rated a 3. Only Biloxi and Gulfport have better class ratings with ratings of 2. The cities of Hattiesburg, Southaven, Columbus and Jackson are the only other 3 rated fire departments in the state.
That rating is important as it creates an understanding in the community for the businesses and the residents that we are capable of protecting with the highest order of first responders. The rating is a testament to the training equipment, personnel and water service capabilities that the city has invested in over the past 10 years. The challenge of training and equipment and pay remains a constant and must be evaluated every budget year.
The infrastructure that lies underground is one of the greatest challenges of any older municipality. Each city in Mississippi that is over 100 years old is facing the same issues of how to replace aging water, sewer and storm water lines.
In 2018 the city developed plans to replace an entire neighborhood’s water and sewer lines. We were spending an excessive amount of manpower hours on repairs in this neighborhood. This was eroding the public trust in our city services. The best and most efficient way to address this was to totally replace the water and sewer lines. We have not had a maintenance call in that neighborhood since the replacements. We have since completed two other neighborhoods and the plan is to evaluate each remaining neighborhood based on the data and begin those remedial efforts in a methodical method as we are able to afford them.
Fresh asphalt overlays are always a politician’s best friend, but they are budget busters if you have multiple miles of roads to address. Starkville recently enlisted a company called Civil Link to assess all our streets and provide us with a status of the streets on a scale of 1 to 10.
The goal is to bring all our streets up to a minimum of a 5 and keep them there. The options for extending the life of our streets include various cost-effective treatments. These treatments extend the life of the streets and, in some cases, cost one-third of what the traditional mill and overlay costs.
Our parks are the other aspect of what makes a city a place where people want to live. We have pledged to invest over $40 million in new and updated parks in the coming three years. Starkville has a 2% food and beverage tax that allows us to both pay for and pledge toward bonds for updating our older parks and constructing new ones. We conducted a master planning effort in 2016 and set about implementing it in 2017. Our success has been a testament to the participation of our community in helping us address their needs and desires.
Listening and understanding, communicating and acting are what is expected of any local government.
I believe that Starkville is succeeding because we are making positive things happen and not simply letting things happen to us. We are always looking for new ways to improve on our basic obligations of public safety and the provision of services.
If I’ve heard it said once this basketball season, I’ve heard it a couple hundred times: “The Southeastern Conference is better than it’s ever been.”
I agree with that statement in one regard. That is, SEC basketball, from top to bottom, is better than ever. The league has more teams, more really good teams, more balance and is more competitive than it has ever been. It is the best league in the country by far.
This week’s Associated Press poll says as much: Three of the top five teams are from the SEC. What’s more, four of the top eight, five of the top 14, and six of the top 15 are all SEC teams.
You could make the case that in order to win this week’s SEC Tournament at Nashville, the eventual champion will have to beat more top shelf teams than it would have to beat to win the NCAA Tournament. The league is that good.
But don’t tell me the quality of SEC basketball is better than it was during a period in the late 20th century when Wimp Sanderson was at Alabama, Sonny Smith at Auburn, Nolan Richardson at Arkansas, Dale Brown at LSU, Joe B. Hall and Rick Pitino at Kentucky and Richard Williams at Mississippi State.
Don’t tell me the SEC has the star power now that it had back when players as splendid as LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal, Auburn’s Charles Barkley, Georgia’s Dominique Wilkins and Kentucky’s Jamal Mashburn played three years of college ball before going pro. That’s the biggest difference. Back then, players stayed in college for at least two or three years. Not now.
When Mississippi State shocked Kentucky (and the college basketball world) and won the 1996 SEC Tournament Championship, 11 of the players in that championship game went on to play in the NBA. Nazr Mohammed, a 6-foot, 11-inch bruiser, could scarcely get off the bench for Kentucky in 1996, but went on to play 18 NBA seasons. My point: In 1996 there were 11 future NBA players in one game. Now, there might not be 11 NBA players the entire conference.
Another way to say it: The SEC has more good basketball players now than it has ever had. It had more truly great players during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Think about it. Besides those already mentioned, you had Allan Houston at Tennessee, Vernon Maxwell at Florida, Chuck Person at Auburn, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauff (then Chris Jackson) at LSU, Derrick McKee, James “Hollywood” Robinson and Latrell Sprewell at Alabama, and so, so many more.
Heck, Wimp Sanderson had Sprewell, Robinson, Robert Horry, Jason Caffey and Marcus Webb – all future NBA players – on the same team and still somehow found plenty to frown about.
Richard Williams, still radio analyst for Mississippi State (and recovering nicely from a health scare weeks ago), agrees the league is better, top to bottom, than ever. He says it is by design.
Richard Williams at the Final Four in 1996.
“The commissioner (Greg Sankey) made basketball a priority,” Williams said. “He hired an associate commissioner for basketball and strongly suggested that all SEC members upgrade their schedules, and invest in both facilities and coaches. We’ve seen that happen and now we see them also investing in talent.”
You can do that legally now via NIL. This is not to say some programs weren’t “investing” in players under the table back in the late 20th century.
The SEC Tournament begins Wednesday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Mississippi State plays LSU in a first round game Wednesday at 6 p.m. Ole Miss, by virtue of its better league record, doesn’t have to play until Thursday at noon when the Rebels will play the winner of the first round game that matches Arkansas and South Carolina.
Should State beat LSU, the Bulldogs would play Missouri in the second round. Win that one, and Florida would be next. Should Ole Miss win its Thursday game, the Rebels would play top-seed Auburn in the quarterfinals. Clearly, both Mississippi teams face really difficult tasks. Regardless, both will play in the NCAA Tournament.
If you ask me, Auburn, the best overall team, is the odds-on favorite, but Florida, Alabama and Tennessee are all capable of winning the championship. For that matter, all four are capable of winning the national championship. That’s perhaps the best measure of how strong the league is.
Mississippi State sophomore Josh Hubbard won the Bailey Howell Trophy as Mississippi’s top men’s college player, announced Monday at a luncheon at Pearl River Resort in Philadelphia. Ole Miss senior Madison Scott won the Peggie Gillom as the top women’s player.
Three crew members aboard an AirCare helicopter from the University of Mississippi Medical Center died in a crash in remote Madison County near the Natchez Trace Parkway Monday afternoon.
Those killed were two UMMC medical personnel and a pilot with Med-Trans, which leases the medical center the helicopters, said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for Health Affairs.
“We suffered a terrible tragedy and a loss,” Woodward said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
“We want to express sadness and support for our AirCare team,” she said. “To see them have to respond to one of their own is beyond words.”
Woodward said the Columbus-based AirCare3, one of four helicopters in the fleet, had just dropped off a patient and refueled for a return trip when it crashed shortly after noon.
Madison County Sheriff Randy Tucker said calls started coming in about 12:40 from citizens reporting. “It’s a tough area to get to,” he said, noting the site is in a wooded area.
“Any time first responders are hurt, it affects us all in the same manner,” he said.
Since the families of those killed have been notified, UMMC is not releasing their names out of respect for their privacy, Woodward said.
Tucker said the Federal Aviation Administration has arrived and the National Transportation Safety Board is en route, and they will handle the investigation.
“We do not know the cause,” Woodward said.
UMMC began its helicopter flight program in 1996. “In the history of our program, this is our first crash,” Woodward said, adding that under other circumstances that would be something worth bragging about.
The site of the crash is in a heavily wooded area south of the Natchez Trace and north of Pipeline Road.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Department, Gluckstadt Fire Department and several other first responders arrived at the scene.
UMMC’s flight program, AirCare, includes helicopters based in Jackson, Meridian, Columbus and Greenwood. The helicopters are used to transport patients to and from UMMC and other hospitals.
Mississippi River levels have risen in the lower basin again, as annual snowmelt makes its way south. Mayors of cities and towns along the river have experienced increased flooding, heavier rainfall, and more frequent droughts in recent years. Now they are lobbying Congress for help.
“Everything that has to do with the river affects Vicksburg,” said Mayor George Flaggs Jr., co-chair of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, a nonprofit organization advocating for town and city leaders. Mississippi experienced catastrophic flooding in 2019, with its namesake river rising up to a height of 50 feet in Vicksburg, where the flood stage is 43 feet.
Members of the initiative traveled to Washington last week to ask leaders to support funding for flood control programs and shipping infrastructure along America’s largest river. While the group is not shying away from using words like “climate” and “resilience” in their policy goals, its members are uncertain how much federal support they can count on, given recent government cutbacks.
“We have learned recently to temper our expectations and look more aspirationally to how we can achieve these goals,” said Mitch Reynolds, mayor of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and co-chair of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, during a press conference Thursday.
Flaggs hopes focusing on the economic value of the river and its bipartisan business interests will “make certain that our voice is heard.”
Wide-ranging budget cuts
The group’s meeting in Washington took place amid the chaos surrounding threats of federal funding freezes, firings and strict import tariffs. Firings at the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could have far-reaching impacts on flood mitigation and reducing agricultural pollution in the river.
”When everything is up in the air … all of the uncertainty that that brings also makes it really challenging to move forward,” said Kelly McGinnis, executive director of the Mississippi River Network, an advocacy group. She and Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative members expressed worries about firings at NOAA, the agency that monitors severe weather and works with the National Weather Service to issue flood warnings.
“There’s a lot of concern that they just don’t have the capacity to implement the programs that they’re supposed to implement,” McGinnis said.
“We’re like the rest of the world,” Blytheville, Arkansas, Mayor Melisa Logan said. “We’re waiting, we’re kind of watching to see what happens.”
LaCrosse mayor Reynolds said the effects of trade tariffs could be “debilitating” for river shipping.
McGinnis and Logan are watching Washington as river restoration projects and green infrastructure, intended to address flooding, could be subject to funding and staff cuts.
“We understand that any working river needs a working ecological system,” Logan said.
Flood mitigation and shipping
More frequent flooding was the main subject at the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative’s annual meeting. Its leaders pushed for three key policy items: reviving previous proposals such as the Facilitating Hazard Mitigation Projects Act and the Shelter Act as well as reauthorization of the Agricultural Improvement Act, more commonly known as the Farm Bill, a wide-reaching measure with billions of dollars in appropriations typically renewed every five years.
Introduced by U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Gary Peters, D-Michigan in October 2023, the Facilitating Hazard Mitigation Projects Act aims to simplify the way FEMA gives out hazard mitigation grants, making the money easier to get.
Logan and the group’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp, who is also a state representative in Missouri, said the water subcabinet, established under Trump’s first term, could help address key policy gaps such as flood and drought control as well as disaster response for cities and towns in the Mississippi River basin.
The Shelter Act, introduced in June 2023, would give tax credits of up to 25% on flood mitigation projects, such as elevating homes or installing flood proofing, a way to curb the worst effects of catastrophic flooding for individuals and communities on the front end and avoid more costly disasters.
The latest version of the Farm Bill has been caught up in Congress since 2023. MRCTI urges passage before it expires in September, providing funding for flood control and hazard mitigation programs, and supporting farmers with services such as crop insurance and funds for climate resilient farming.
“The importance of our region and its impact on U.S. trade, the U.S. supply chain … it’s pretty indisputable,” Logan said.
The Mississippi River is a major vein of shipping in the United States, moving hundreds of millions of tons of agricultural cargo such as soybeans and corn across the globe. The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative supports a $2 million increase in grant funding for the Marine Highway Program, which funds shipping infrastructure, including terminals, along the river.
McGinnis said that “using that economic message” as a way to drum up support for funding and policy can be an effective tool, “but making sure you’re really still talking about conservation and what you can do to help mitigate some of these impacts” plays a role in whether that funding happens.
In an exchange on the floor of the Mississippi Senate last week, lawmakers debated the economic uncertainty coming from the Trump administration’s burgeoning trade war and helter-skelter policy decisions.
“You never know what’s going to happen with — you know, what we’re going through with increases in cost for things, whether it’s guardrails or bolts or whatever,” said Transportation Chairman Chuck Younger, a Republican from Columbus. He was outlining a bill that would increase the amount of money MDOT could add to a road contract without rebidding from $100,000 to $250,000. This, he said, would prevent highway projects facing long delays from potential huge increases in cost of materials.
“But we’re not in COVID any more, we shouldn’t have those supply chain problems,” said Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, questioning the need for the measure.
“No, we’re not (in) COVID. It’s Trump, and we’re going through all these tax things (tariffs) that are going through for other countries,” Younger said. “… It’s fixing to happen.”
Mississippi is a poor state with a fragile economy. There’s an old adage that we’re usually “first in and last out” of a national recession, and another that, “What other states call a recession, we call Tuesday.”
Some of Trump’s threatened or enacted policies, tariffs and slashing of federal spending appear tailor-made to hammer Mississippi’s economy.
But staring down the barrel of potential economic chaos or calamity, Mississippi lawmakers are not drastically cutting spending, hoarding tax dollars or even proceeding with caution. Their main focus this legislative session is a total overhaul of the state’s tax structure including massive tax cuts combined with fairly massive tax increases — an unprecedented economic experiment betting that the state’s fortunes will rise and cover the spread.
Mississippi, under one plan, would become the first state ever to eliminate an existing individual income tax, which accounts for nearly one-third of the revenue that funds state government. Increases in sales and gasoline taxes would shift the tax burden to use or consumption taxes — a move some point out would be regressive, hitting poor people, of which Mississippi has many, hardest.
What could go wrong?
For starters, Mississippi is perennially among the most federally dependent states, with more than 40% of its annual budget coming from federal dollars and the state receiving nearly a 3-to-1 return for every dollar in federal taxes it pays. The trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending Trump and Elon Musk are promising with the Department of Government Efficiency could easily cripple Mississippi’s economy.
Agriculture is, depending on how you measure, Mississippi’s No. 1 industry. Trump’s proposed trade war with other countries and other policies could hit Mississippi farmers hard. Already, China has announced retaliatory tariffs on soybeans, chicken and other products Mississippi grows. In a smaller scale trade war in his first term, Mississippi farmers lost nearly $270 million in profits from soybeans and cotton from Chinese tariffs and fallout. U.S. taxpayers later had to bail farmers out from that smaller-scale trade war in Trump’s first term.
Mississippi might not have the direct exposure to tariffs as some states, but it is the 22nd largest exporter of agriculture products and 31st of other goods. In 2024, Mississippi exports totaled $13.7 billion, and they make up about 10% of the state’s GDP. Canada is perennially the state’s top trading partner, with Mexico also usually in the top three, and Mississippi also exports chicken and soybeans to China. Reductions in exports or other fallout from Trump’s promised trade wars with Canada, Mexico and China could be devastating for the Magnolia State.
The list goes on for potential impact of Washington’s moves on Mississippi.
Mississippi has long been in the automobile manufacturing business, with large Nissan and Toyota plants. Experts are warning Trump tariffs on Mexico and Canada could almost instantly cause North American auto production to drop by a third, cause massive layoffs and even closure of plants.
Mississippi leaders have recently celebrated several large economic development wins, including the state landing a massive aluminum rolling mill in Columbus. Mississippi taxpayers invested $247 million in state incentives to land a $2.5 billion investment from Steel Dynamics. The company’s goal is to provide more aluminum and steel for auto manufacturing, and the Columbus site will work along with satellite recycling centers in the U.S. and Mexico. While some speculate Steel Dynamics might benefit in the long run from Trump tariffs on Chinese steel, tariffs coming and going from Mexico and upheaval in the auto industry could impact one of Mississippi’s biggest economic development wins.
Another recent economic development coup for Mississippi is the Amplify Cell Technologies plant. The $2 billion to $3 billion joint venture including Daimler Trucks and China-based EVE Energy, helped by $482 million in state tax incentives, plans to produce electric vehicle batteries by 2027. Such projects were a result of Biden-era subsidies and rules promoting a switch to electric vehicles. Trump has vowed to roll back these subsidies and rules.
Mississippi has also celebrated Amazon’s commitment to spend an estimated $16 billion over 10 years to build two huge Amazon Web Services data centers in Madison County. It’s hailed as “the single largest capital investment in Mississippi history.” Mississippi taxpayers have provided $278 million in incentives and hundreds of millions in tax breaks and exemptions for the centers.
AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon, and some say AWS could help insulate it from tariffs to and from China. But the mother company is a retailer with massive exposure on about 25% of the goods it sells. And spikes in construction and materials costs on a $16 billion project are not to be taken lightly.
The AWS centers also hinge on a $2 billion to $3 billion deal with Entergy for the power company to up its game to feed the massive power needs. Renewable energy — of which Amazon is a big proponent — is a major part of that plan for powering the AWS centers. Besides that, Mississippi has seen major development in solar and wind production. Around 40 solar farms have been approved for construction and operation in Mississippi.
But the Trump administration has vowed to reverse course from the Biden administration’s policies and spending on renewable energy. This includes an executive order to suspend spending from the Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure acts, and the Trump EPA is fighting about $20 billion Biden allocated to clean energy.
Energy production and costs, at least in the short term, are in limbo like everything else with the new administration’s maneuvers.
So, apparently, is expansion of broadband internet, which Mississippi leaders have heralded as a game changer for a poor, rural state on the magnitude of electrification in the 1920s and ’30s. On his first day in office, Trump put funding for broadband expansion, including Mississippi’s $1.2 billion plan, in question with an executive order.
Trump has warned that Americans may feel “a little pain” from his economic and spending policies in the short term. But Mississippi is positioned to potentially feel great pain with an economy less diversified than others and the state struggling with generational poverty.
But Mississippi lawmakers and Gov. Tate Reeves appear nonplussed by this. They are forging ahead with one of the biggest economic experiments in history, betting that revenue largely from sources Trump is vowing to stifle will continue to grow.
Reeves has recently on social media said, “Mississippi’s economy is on fire!” There’s a potential, with looming trade wars, other D.C. policy and a state tax experiment, for that to take on a new meaning.
“Noooo!” the vast majority of House State Affairs Committee members shouted for voice votes on two controversial bills aimed at overhauling the state employee retirement system last week.
Despite what sounded like no more than one or two of the 11 members present saying “Yes,” Committee Chairman Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, ruled each time that the yeses had it. The bills were moved forward. He ignored pleas from several members, including his committee Vice Chairman Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, calling for real vote counts.
A similar “vote” transpired in the House Education Committee recently, with members’ pleas to Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, for a real vote count being ignored on a hot-potato bill and a voice vote sounding uncertain.
This has drawn criticism from some lawmakers and advocates and renewed questions of whether committee hearings and votes are just to rubber stamp what legislation the GOP leadership has decided it wants to move forward.
In recent years, particularly in the House, publicly held committee hearings and votes have become pro forma. Real decisions appear to be hashed out, and straw polled, in closed door Republican Caucus meetings.
And given the GOP holds a supermajority, it’s akin to the House holding secret sessions and votes on legislation.
Also recently, in a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi Free Press over the closed-door caucus meetings, a Hinds County judge ruled the Legislature is not subject to the state’s open meetings law — that the Legislature imposes on other state and local government bodies.
These are ill omens for the public and press and their right to witness what their elected lawmakers are doing, including how they spend billions of tax dollars. It also concentrates legislative power to a very small handful of folks, and it strips rank-and-file lawmakers of input or even the ability to speak out on issues.
Vice Chairman Johnson, who’s also House minority leader, said he believes House rules require chairmen to allow a roll-call or counted vote when requested. But House Speaker Jason White, Zuber and others have argued that’s not the case.
House rules are unclear or conflicting. One passage says the House shall allow “division” or a counted vote if 1/5 of members demand it. Another says committees will follow the rules for the full House, but then goes on to make that sound optional.
Johnson, along with opponents of the PERS changes in the two bills, which included some of the universities’ lobby, were angry and cried foul after the non-vote votes.
“Most committee chairmen have always abided by, if one person wants a roll call, they do it,” Johnson said. “There were only 11 members in the room, and you heard it, several called for a roll call. This is the second time this session this has happened.
“Now you can’t even vote in committee,” Johnson said. “We have not formally addressed this with the speaker yet, but I think we will. We just can’t operate that way.”
Oddly, the two PERS bills that caused the dustup both died — without a vote — after they were forwarded to another committee. Apparently a tentative deal the leadership had on the measures fell through, so the chairman of the second committee let them die with a deadline without calling them up.
WATCH
Quote of the Week
“I want my sweet potato. Everybody got one but me. Somebody stole mine. I want it back.” — Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, in a committee meeting last week before a vote on a measure to make the sweet potato the official state vegetable. Before an earlier House vote weeks ago, sweet potatoes were placed on lawmakers’ desks.
In Brief
Clark laid in state at Capitol
Robert Clark, elected in 1967 as Mississippi’s first Black lawmaker in the modern era and who rose to the second-highest leadership role in the state House of Representatives, laid in state at the Mississippi Capitol on Sunday.
Clark
Hundreds came to the Capitol to pay tribute to Clark who was a lifelong advocate for public education and Black representation in state and local government. As chairman of the House Education Committee, he played an instrumental role in the transformational Education Reform act of 1982 that saw the establishment of public Kindergarten statewide.
House Speaker Jason White, who is also from Clark’s native Holmes County, told House members last week that Clark was “a trailblazer and icon for sure”who had always been gracious to him. The House and Senate last week held a moment of silence in his honor. — Taylor Vance
Paid family leave bills survive
Two bills to create paid family leave for state employees survived a crucial deadline in the Legislature.
Both bills would give state employees who are primary caregivers six weeks of paid leave – although the original House version offered eight weeks for primary caregivers and two weeks for secondary caregivers.
If either bill is signed into law, it would apply to employees working for state government agencies but would not include public school teachers. – Sophia Paffenroth
DEI restrictions to be ironed out in conference
Senate and House lawmakers aim to negotiate in conference a final proposal to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the state’s public schools.
One sticking point between the chambers is whether to keep legislation aimed at the state’s universities and colleges, as the Senate bill does, or to include K-12 schools, as the House bill does.
The Senate Universities and Colleges Committee this week inserted language from the Senate DEI ban into the House bill, while the House let the Senate bill die. The move sets up negotiations down the road in a conference committee.
The measures passed by each chamber differ in who they would impact, what activities they would regulate and how they aim to reshape the inner workings of the state’s education system. The Senate bill also would create a task force to look for inefficiencies in the state’s higher education system. The House bill contains a provision that would force all public schools to teach and promote that there are two genders. It also threatens to withhold state funds based on complaints that anyone could lodge. – Michael Goldberg
One bill that could act as the vehicle for Medicaid expansion is alive in the Legislature, though lawmakers have made it clear that expansion is unlikely to come up this year with a sea change to Medicaid funding expected to take place under the new Trump administration.
Senate Bill 2386 is a “dummy bill,” meaning it brings forth the necessary code sections to expand Medicaid eligibility, but includes no details on the policy. – Sophia Paffenroth
Lawmakers trying to revive PBM measure
A bill pushed by pharmacists that would have strengthened regulation of pharmacy benefit managers died on Tuesday in the House, but Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee members have proposed adding its language to a similar House bill with a strike-all amendment.
Pharmacists prefer the Senate’s language because it would tighten appeal procedures, ensure pharmacy benefit managers promptly pay certain claims, and mandate that affiliate pharmacies are not paid more for dispensing drugs than other pharmacies. – Gwen Dilworth
Nurse scope of practice legislation dies
Legislation that would have allowed advanced practice nurses and certified registered nurse anesthetists with a certain amount of training to practice without a collaborative agreement with a physician died on Tuesday.
After strong lobbying against the bill from the Mississippi State Medical Association and other physicians, House Bill 849 died in the Senate Public Health committee on Tuesday. – Kate Royals
Postpartum depression screening bill dies
A bill authored by Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, that would require health care providers screen mothers for postpartum depression and prohibit insurance companies from implementing step therapy protocol for FDA-approved postpartum depression drugs also died on deadline day.
House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Chair Kevin Ford, R-Vicksburg, did not bring up SB 2874 in his committee. – Kate Royals
Senate trying to revive CON reform
A bill that would have reformed the state’s certificate of need law died, but the Senate Public Health and Welfare committee proposed that some of the bill’s language be added as a strike-all amendment to HB569.
The prevailing proposal would raise the capital expenditure limits for health care facilities and order the Mississippi State Department of Health to study the exemption of small hospitals from being required to acquire a “certificate of need” from the state to open dialysis and geriatric psychiatric units.
It would also require the department to study the feasibility of requiring acute adult psychiatric units to treat a certain percentage of uninsured patients and exempt the University of Mississippi Medical Center from certificate of need requirements in a certain area in Jackson. – Gwen Dilworth
By the Numbers
479
The number of bills alive in the Legislature after last week’s committee passage deadline, according to Mississippi Statewatch legislative tracking service. Normally, at this point in a legislative session, there would be hundreds more alive. Senate committees last week killed 85 bills the House had passed, and House committees killed 105 bills the Senate had passed. There were 3,216 bills introduced this session.
Full Legislative Coverage
New Mississippi legislative maps head to court for approval despite DeSoto lawmakers’ objections
Voters from 15 Mississippi legislative districts will decide special elections this November, if a federal court approves two redistricting maps that lawmakers approved on Wednesday. Read the story.
The Mississippi Legislature on Thursday honored longtime, award-winning journalist Emily Wagster Pettus for her decades of legislative news coverage. Read the story.
PERS overhaul sputters: Securing the future, or giving new state employees ‘worst of both worlds’?
Proponents say failing to make major changes now endangers current employee and retiree benefits and taxpayers down the road. Opponents say drastically reducing benefits for future state employees will make it impossible to recruit, and especially retain, teachers, police and others in relatively low-paying government jobs. Read the story.
Senate says ‘school choice’ transfer bill is dead as House tries last ditch effort to save it
A bill that would make it easier for K-12 students to transfer to other public schools outside their home districts will die in the Mississippi Senate, the chamber’s leaders said as a Tuesday night deadline loomed. Read the story.
House chairman pushes for absentee ballot expansion instead of early voting
Elections Committee Chairman Noah Sanford has successfully pushed some House members to scrap a Senate proposal to establish early voting in Mississippi and expand the state’s absentee voting program instead. Read the story.
Trailblazing Mississippi lawmaker Robert Clark dies
Robert Clark, the first Black person elected to the Mississippi Legislature in the modern era, has died at age 96. Read the story.
Mississippi lawmakers keep mobile sports betting alive, but it faces roadblock in the Senate
A panel of House lawmakers kept alive the effort to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi, but the bill does not appear to have enough support in the Senate to pass. Read the story.
House absentee voting plan might still require voters to lie
The worst-kept secret about Mississippi’s elections is that any voter can vote by absentee each cycle if they are willing to lie. Read the story.
Key lawmaker reverses course, passes bill to give poor women earlier prenatal care
A bill to help poor women access prenatal care passed a committee deadline at the eleventh hour after a committee chairman said he wouldn’t bring it up for a vote. Read the story.
Legislation to license midwives dies in the Senate after making historic headway
A bill to license and regulate professional midwifery died on the calendar without a vote after Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, did not bring it up in committee before the deadline Tuesday night. Read the story.
Podcast: Mississippi Legislature enters homestretch, still facing uncertainty from Trump admin maneuvers
Mississippi Today’s politics team outlines some challenges lawmakers face in the final month of their session from uncertainty of the affects Trump administration moves will have on the state level. They also discuss what lived and died with last week’s deadline for committee passage. Listen to the podcast.
Former State Representative and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark, Jr., lies in state at the State Capitol rotunda, Sunday, March 9, 2025 in Jackson. Clark was also the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Former Mississippi Rep. Robert Clark Jr. lay in state Sunday in the Capitol Rotunda as family, friends, officials and fellow citizens paid respect to the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction.
Clark, a Holmes County native, was elected to the House in 1967 and served until his retirement in 2004. He was elected speaker pro tempore by the House membership in 1993 and held that second-highest House position until his retirement.
The Senate and House honored the 96-year-old veteran lamaker last week.
A Mississippi state trooper salutes the coffin of former State Rep. and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark Jr. before the changing of the honor guard in the State Capitol rotunda Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Jackson. Clark was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
“Robert Clark … broke so many barriers in the state of Mississippi with class, resolve and intellect. So he is going to be sorely missed,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said last week.
Hosemann was among those who came Sunday to honor Clark. So did House Speaker Jason White, who like Clark hails from Holmes County.
Rep. Bryant Clark (center) chats with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on Sunday, March 9, 2025, in the State Capitol Rotunda where Rep. Clark’s father, Robert Clark Jr. lies in repose. Robert Clark Jr. a former state representative and House speaker pro tem, was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Clark was the only Black Mississippian serving in the Legislature from until 1976 and was ostracized when first elected, sitting at a desk by himself for years without the traditional deskmates. But he rose to become a respected leader.
An educator when elected to the House, Clark served 10 years as chair of the House Education Committee, including when the historic Education Reform Act of 1982 was passed.
Clark served as the only Black Mississippian serving in the Legislature from 1968 until 1976.
“He was a trailblazer and icon for sure,” White said last week.
Former state Rep. and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark Jr. lies in state at the State Capitol rotunda on Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Jackson. Clark was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayRespects are paid to former state Rep. and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark Jr. lying in state at the State Capitol Rotunda on Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Jackson. Clark was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayRespects are paid to former state Rep. and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark Jr. lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda 0n Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Jackson. Clark was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayFamily and friends gathered in the Capitol Rotunda to pay their respects to former state Rep. and House Speaker Pro Tem Robert Clark Jr. lies at the State Capitol on Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Jackson. Clark was the first Black legislator in the state since Reconstruction. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
A Lafayette County circuit judge ended an attempt to prosecute Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., the son of a prominent north Mississippi church family who is accused of killing a fellow University of Mississippi student named Jimmie “Jay” Lee, for evidence tampering.
In a March 7 order, Kelly Luther wrote that Herrington cannot be charged with evidence tampering because of the crime’s two-year statute of limitations. A grand jury indicted the University of Mississippi graduate last month on the charge for allegedly hiding Lee’s remains in a well-known dumping ground about 20 minutes from Herrington’s parent’s house in Grenada.
“The Court finds that prosecution for the charge of Tampering with Physical Evidence commenced outside the two-year statute of limitations and is therefore time-barred,” Luther wrote.
In order to stick, Luther essentially ruled that the prosecution should have brought the charges against Herrington sooner. In court last week, the prosecution argued that it could not have brought those charges to a grand jury without Lee’s remains, which provided the evidence that evidence tampering occurred.
The dismissal came after Herrington’s new counsel, Jackson-area criminal defense attorney Aafram Sellers, filed a motion to throw out the count. Sellers did not respond to a request for commend by press time.
