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Tupelo — The Northeast Mississippi Addiction and Recovery Summit drew community members and professionals to the Cadence Bank Conference Center on Sept. 17. Organized by Terry Baber, director of the Northeast Mississippi Health Alliance, and hosted in collaboration with the United Way of Northeast Mississippi and Mississippi State University’s Department of Psychology, the event aimed to empower attendees with tools for tackling addiction.

The day began with registration and networking, leading to a welcome lunch that highlighted the critical role of community support in recovery efforts.

Keynote speaker Dr. Brent Boyett, an addiction medicine specialist and the former chief medical officer of Pathway Healthcare, addressed the opioid crisis. He discussed the $55 billion national opioid settlement, noting that the pharmaceutical industry is being held accountable for its role in fueling the epidemic. Boyett also challenged the rationale for continuing opioid prescriptions for chronic pain.

“Addiction isn’t a failure of willpower; it’s a disease that rewires the brain,” Boyett said. “You can’t place logical thought on addictive thinking.”

Mississippians who struggled with addiction spoke at the summit. 

“I just remember feeling that rejection and kind of abandonment at a small age,” Casey Wortman of Saltillo said. “I tried to commit suicide at age 11, and my drug use began. When I was using… I was a mess, and I hurt everybody around me.”

Patrick Davis of Tupelo reflected on how recovery impacted his relationships.

“I couldn’t really connect with anybody,” Davis said. “I had nothing to talk about unless we were using. I got clean, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have a sister.’”

Breakout sessions focused on crisis intervention and substance use prevention, including Narcan training. Rep. Sam Creekmore, who chairs the House Public Health and Human Services committee, provided a legislative update on addiction initiatives, including a bill that allows the state Health Department to distribute naloxone to more groups. Community leaders explored collaborative recovery strategies.

“Our goal this year was to bring all the stakeholders in our region together, give them the resources to help empower, educate, and expand our recovery ecosystem. It was a collaborative effort among community stakeholders, professionals, and individuals in treatment,” Baber said. “We think our community is on board in helping us expand that recovery ecosystem. That’s our focus going forward.”

The attendance at the event indicates a community interest in addressing addiction and mental health services as local communities face challenges from the opioid crisis.

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All summer, Christopher Best II eagerly awaited his first day of kindergarten. But instead of joining his classmates at school in August, he stayed at home. 

Five-year-old Christopher depends on a mobile ventilator and a tracheostomy tube to breathe. His doctor recommends that a one-on-one nurse attend school with him to manage his care and respond in case of an emergency.

But two months into the school year, Madison County Schools has not hired a dedicated nurse to care for Christopher, a scenario disability rights advocates say is not uncommon for children with complex medical conditions. 

Emily Catazaro, Christopher’s mother, is frustrated by the delays that have inhibited her son from attending school. 

“He cries every day because he can’t go to school,” said Catazaro, who moved her family from Copiah County based on recommendations from Christopher’s doctors about the special education services in Madison County schools. 

A week before the school year began, district officials informed Catazaro they had assigned an interim nurse to care for Christopher at school. Concerned that the nurse did not have adequate tracheostomy experience, including practice completing an emergency tracheostomy tube change on Christopher, Catazaro, a registered nurse herself, requested that the nurse receive further training. 

But by the time school officials met with Catazaro and agreed to allow her to provide additional training to the nurse on Aug. 13, two weeks later, district staff said they would have to re-offer the position to the interim nurse. 

Since then, neither an interim nor permanent nurse has been assigned to Christopher. Without a nurse to care for him at school, Christopher receives a total of five hours of instruction at home each week. 

On Sept. 30, the district told Catazaro in a meeting it will contract with a private nursing company to provide one-on-one nursing care for Christopher at school. 

A school staff member contacted Catazaro to schedule the meeting Sep. 20, eight days after Mississippi Today reached out to Madison County Schools about Christopher’s case. 

Madison County Schools declined to answer questions about Christopher’s case. The district also declined to respond to inquiries about its special education, one-on-one nursing and homebound instruction policy and staffing, saying those responses could be construed to violate student privacy. 

“The teachers, staff, and administrators of Madison County Schools are committed to ensuring they meet the unique and individualized needs of all their students. The District is committed to following all state and federal laws, regulations, and policies with respect to providing services to its students,” district communications director Gene Graham told Mississippi Today in an email.  

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, first passed in 1975, children with disabilities are entitled to receive a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive setting possible. The federal law marked a growing effort to include all children in schools by providing support services to children with disabilities instead of educating them in self-contained classrooms. 

School districts are required by law to provide a full-time nurse to students if their health condition necessitates it, said Lily Moens, Christopher’s attorney and a law fellow at the Mississippi Center for Justice who focuses on special education advocacy. 

Moens spoke to Mississippi Today about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education challenges in Mississippi, but did not answer questions about Christopher’s case. 

“There is an obligation for the school to provide an education that is in the least restrictive environment,” she said.

Given Christopher’s dependence on a ventilator, it is “recommended and preferred” that a specially trained, one-on-one nurse care for him during the school day, Christopher’s doctor wrote in a letter provided to the school district.  

Christopher faces severe health risks in the classroom, including low levels of oxygen, which can be difficult to detect without a trained eye, or equipment failure. Because Christopher is non-verbal and predominantly conveys ideas with sign language, it is crucial for him to have a dedicated nurse who can communicate with him and understands his complex health needs, said Catazaro. 

“Christopher is a bright and capable student who deserves the experience of learning in a classroom setting among his peers,” said Christopher’s doctor in the letter. 

Staffing challenges

Staffing shortages can challenge the ideals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, said Diana Autin, the executive director of National PLACE, a nonprofit membership organization that advocates for families.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of teachers, speech and occupational therapists and nurses have caused difficulties for school districts aiming to provide adequate special education services to students, she said. 

Registered nurse vacancies at Mississippi hospitals reached their highest numbers in over a decade last year. 

Madison County Schools officials assured Catazaro in a meeting on July 25 that the district would provide a one-on-one nurse for Christopher. 

But there is no enforceable timeline for employing such staff if the school district is not able to hire for the position, said Moens. 

Catazaro herself interviewed for the job and received a rejection letter dated Aug. 21. 

“It is very difficult to get any kind of one-on-one assistance in our state,” said Pam Dollar, the executive director of the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities and Christopher’s advocate through the Mississippi Parent Training and Information Center. “… If the support that a child needs is too costly, the school district is going to push back.” 

The Mississippi Parent Training and Information Center, a program of the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, educates parents of children with disabilities about their educational rights and supports them as they navigate the process of developing an individualized education plan with school districts. 

“Especially in regions of the state that are much more underfunded in terms of their local school systems, (staffing) presents a big challenge,” Moens said. 

Madison County School District has the fifth highest revenue of all school districts in the state. It received $189 million from local, state and federal sources during the 2022-2023 school year.

‘He’s getting left behind’

In late April, Christopher began attending Madison County’s public preschool with a one-on-one nurse hired by the school district and trained by Catazaro. 

But as the school year came to a close, Catazaro said she learned that Christopher’s one-on-one nurse would not continue working with him during Extended School Year, a program public schools are required to provide to qualifying students with disabilities. 

She was told a nurse would check on Christopher at 15-minute intervals, despite his doctor’s recommendation that he have a full-time nurse. 

“The nurse will be in Christopher’s ESY classroom to assess him every 15 minutes,” wrote Vicki Doty, the director of special education for Madison County Schools, in an email to Catazaro on June 3, the first day of extended year programming. 

Given his complex health needs, check-ins only every 15 minutes could have dire consequences for Christopher, said Catazaro. 

She opted to remove Christopher from extended school year programming until a one-on-one nurse could be hired, and requested a mediation with the school district to resolve the disagreement. 

Madison County later offered Christopher one additional hour of instruction each week at home to make up for lost extended school year classroom time. 

In mediation, the school requested a medical review from a medical doctor rather than Christopher’s usual nurse practitioner, said Catazaro. After reviewing Christopher’s doctor’s recommendation that he be assigned a one-on-one nurse, the county told Catazaro they would secure a nurse for Christopher while at school.

But two months later, the school still has not provided a nurse.

“What about no child left behind? He’s getting left behind,” Catazaro said.

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“So, how far do you go back with the Sanderson Farms Championship?” a friend asked the other day.

The answer was easy: All the way back.

Back to 1968, when it was known as the Magnolia State Classic and was played at the Hattiesburg Country Club. That’s where I was making lots of bogeys for my high school golf team as a 15-year-old 10th grader.

I caddied in the first round of the first Magnolia State Classic. My pro shot 83 that day, knocking the bark off of several pine trees and cussing his way around the beautiful, old course. Red-faced and still cussing, he slammed his clubs into his car trunk afterward, and I never saw him again. He would have had to shoot 57 in the second round to make the cut, and, trust me, that wasn’t happening. I showed up for the second round, and he did not. Never paid me for the first round either.

I watched PGA rookie Mac McClendon, a 22-year-old fresh out of LSU, win the first Magnolia, beating 52-year-old Pete Fleming in a nine-hole playoff after they had already played 36 holes that day. As McClendon sank the winning putt at dusk, cars were already streaming out of the parking lot, all with their lights on.

This week will mark the 57th playing of what has become the Sanderson Farms Championship. I’ve seen and covered the large majority of the previous 56, except for about 10 years when I assigned myself to go cover another little tournament, the one they call The Masters.

Matter of fact, I have covered Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament under all eight of its different names. Here’s the list: The Magnolia State Classic, the Magnolia Classic, the Deposit Guaranty Classic, the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, the Viking Classic, the True South Classic, and, of course, the Sanderson Farms Championship, which it has been since Joe Sanderson saved the tournament in 2013.

I covered it in Hattiesburg, at Annandale in Madison and at the Country Club of Jackson. I covered it in April, in May, in July, in September, October and November. I’ve covered it brutal heat and, much more often, in monsoon-ish weather fit only for frogs, fish and ducks. At least twice, I have gone to cover the tournament for the sports department and wound up covering a flood for the news department. Once, at Annandale, we in the media center narrowly escaped an evil tornado.

From its humble beginnings — the total purse in 1968 was $20,000 — the tournament has grown into an $8.2 million, full-fledged PGA TOUR event. That’s right: Several caddies will make more cash this week than McClendon made in ’68. 

Truth is, I have covered some of golf’s greatest players before they became household names. I covered Johnny Miller when he was, as they say, a can’t-miss prospect straight out of BYU. I covered Tom Watson when he was fresh out of Stanford and sported a mustache. Somebody back then told me back then I had to see Watson’s rhythmic golf swing, and so I went to see it. I found him on the fifth hole, the most difficult at the grand, old Hattiesburg Country Club course. I was standing behind the green, looking down the fairway, when a golf ball, hit from the left rough, took two big bounces, rolled about 10 feet and dropped into the cup. There was no roar from the gallery. Hell, I was the gallery. Watson came bouncing up to the green looking all over for his ball.

“Check the hole,” I told him.

He did and then he flashed that gap-toothed smile that would become famous worldwide.

Watson didn’t win in Mississippi and neither did Miller, but Payne Stewart surely did. That was before he wore knickers. I saw future Mississippian Jim Gallagher Jr. win it long before he married Cissye and became a Ryder Cup hero. I saw the late, great Chi Chi Rodriguez play in it and thoroughly entertain all who watched him.

I walked the fairways with John Daly, back when he was a skinny, chain-smoking rookie just back in the states from having honed his game on the South African Tour.

I covered Pro Ams that included the likes of Dizzy Dean, Clint Eastwood, Glen Campbell, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath and so many more. Dizzy Dean beat his pro in the 1970 pro-am, taking only 73 shots, nearly all of which started far to his left and moved far to his right.

”How come you slice the ball so much?” someone in the gallery hollered at Ol’ Diz.

Dean answered laughing, “Podnuh, if you had to swing around a belly as big as mine, you’d slice it, too.”

He had a point.

In 1980, Roger Maltbie, a helluva player and later a famous golf broadcaster, shot a first round 65, then sat through three days of torrential rains that flooded Hattiesburg. He sat through most of the storms in EJ’s, a bar at the Ramada Inn on Highway 49. That’s where I found him after he was declared the winner on a rain-soaked Sunday.

“How much do I get?” Maltbie asked.

“Five thousand,” I answered.

“Hell,” Maltbie said, “that’ll barely pay my bar tab.”

It has been widely reported — accurately, I am afraid — that this could well be the last Sanderson Farms Championship, which for so long has been Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament. That’s a shame on many fronts, but mostly because the tournament has donated nearly $25 million to Mississippi charities, most for Children’s of Mississippi, which provides medical care for nearly 200,000 children a year. If it goes out, it should go out with a bang. The weather forecast is perfect. The field is excellent with such established stars as Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler headed this way.

Here’s hoping a new sponsor appears out of nowhere — as Joe Sanderson did — and saves the event. If not, please allow me to say publicly about a tournament I have come to appreciate like an old friend: Thanks for the memories.

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The lack of accessible child care in Mississippi is keeping 7% of the state’s labor force out of work and costing the state billions of dollars.

If those 7% of people constrained from full-time employment because of child care needs rejoined the labor force, it would add about $8 billion to Mississippi’s gross domestic product per year, according to a new report from the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance, which advocates to improve early childhood education in the state.

“Mississippi’s elected leaders have done great work bringing in new corporations offering high-paying jobs,” said Biz Harris, executive director of MELA. “Now we need to ensure that Mississippi parents have access to stable and reliable child care for infants and toddlers, and all children during traditional and nontraditional work hours so that Mississippi can fill those jobs.”

MELA’s recently released report explores how the lack of child care access is weakening Mississippi’s labor force. The report also highlights the financial problems within Mississippi’s child care industry.

Child care costs about $100 to $200 per week on average, depending on the location, the child’s age and other factors. Even if there are slots available in child care facilities, they may not have the right hours, price or services for every family.

Economists consider the child care industry a “broken market,” meaning it hasn’t been able to balance its supply and demand by itself. There is high demand and high prices for child care, but limited supply. 

On top of that, many child care workers are leaving the field due to low wages and difficult conditions. Their median annual wage is $22,620, which is below the federal poverty level for a family of three or more. This despite a 2023 survey finding that about 70% of Mississippi’s child care workers work 40 hours a week or more. 

There is state and federal support for child care in Mississippi. The state is part of two federal block grant programs and one food reimbursement program. There’s a 50% income tax credit for employers who provide child care during work hours. 

There’s also 37 state-funded, early learning collaboratives composed of school districts, Head Start agencies, child care centers, and private, non-profit organizations that are funded and overseen by the state Department of Education. However, they only reach about a quarter of Mississippi’s 4-year-olds, and do not provide child care to infants and toddlers.

And according to MELA’s report, Mississippi still spends less per child on early childhood education than any other Southern state. Mississippi spends $601 per child. By comparison, Arkansas spends $3,009 per child. 

Public and private entities are working to help children and their parents. 

Last year, the Mississippi Department of Human Services contracted with child care platform Wonderschool for $8.3 million. Wonderschool is a platform that assists child care providers in setting up at-home programs for a percentage of their earnings. 

The program assisted new child care providers with starting their programs and established the first statewide pool of substitute child care teachers. MDHS provided start-up grants of $10,000 for in-home facilities or $25,000 for centers and gave reimbursements. The Mississippi Department of Human Services streamlined the process for establishing a child care business.

“The heart is there to work in child care, but you’ve got to be able to economically make it, you know, and that’s something that, in collaboration with the department, you know we’ve been seeking to do in different ways,” said Jason Moss, head of New Government Initiatives of Wonderschool, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2016. 

So far in Mississippi, the program has helped establish 95 child care programs and counting, adding 3,274 child care slots. Mississippi’s substitute teacher pool has 249 substitutes and counting.

Providers say the program helped them with marketing, funding, logistics and more. They used Wonderschool’s platform and self-serve modules and could work one-on-one with business coaches. 

Providers like Melissa Riddle, director of IPL Christian Academy in Byhalia, received support at every step. “I was told before starting this journey that it will not be easy, but [with] Wonderschool I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for all the help that I am provided,” she said. 

Janice Spann of JJ’s Afterschool Nursery in Raymond learned how to advertise and run her business, as well as receive funding and one-on-one coaching. So far, the only children in her daycare are her two grandchildren. 

Spann wants lawmakers to know that child care is a necessity. “It is a necessary foundation for our children and for their future success, which will ultimately affect us all,” she said, “Not to mention the absolute need for working parents to have a safe haven for their children, as they learn and grow.”

MDHS’ chief communications officer Mark Jones said “If we fail to invest in child care, we’re not only letting down today’s workforce, but also letting down the workforce of tomorrow.”

Much of the funding for this collaboration came from COVID-19 relief funds and the Child Care Development Fund, a federal fund to help low-income families get child care. 

While MDHS and Wonderschool are helping providers, the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative has a program for parents. MLICCI, like MELA, is  working with the state Senate’s Labor Force Participation Study Group and Study Group on Women, Children, and Families. 

MLICCI is a nonprofit organization working to make child care more accessible to single mothers in Mississippi. MLICCI’s Employment Equity for Single Moms program offers job training, education, child care and more so that low-income single mothers can find higher-paying jobs.

The program provides training and coaching for single mothers. It provides child care by either signing up moms for the state’s child care assistance program or with its own private funds. MLICCI also covers transportation.

Carol Burnett, executive director of MLICCI, said that women often get steered into low-paying jobs and an “overwhelmingly large number of workers in those jobs are women.” 

“Those jobs where most of the workers are women pay less than the occupations where most of the workers are men. And so one of the solutions is to try to make sure that those higher-paying occupations are among the options presented to moms.”

Over 2,700 mothers across the state have benefited from the program, Burnett said. About 35% of participants got into a higher-paying job, and over 20% got into training and education. 

One of them is BreAnna Wilson, mother of two who joined the program after learning about it from her boss. She moved to Mississippi after her divorce and was struggling financially.

“It’s been very helpful on my end because some of the jobs, when I started off with my jobs, I really wasn’t getting that much pay, and so once I did get my check it was enough to pay a bill and maybe to get my daughter some diapers or get a few things,” she said. 

Now, she can save and continue working towards her goal of being a marriage and family therapist.

UPDATE 9/0/24: This story has been updated to correct Jason Moss’ title with Wonderschool and correct the name of the agency that streamlined the process for establishing a child care business.

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Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman, who served in multiple state elected offices, including all three branches of government, has died.

A news release from the state Supreme Court announced Pittman, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 2001 until 2004, died earlier this week at his Ridgeland home. He was 89.

Pittman was elected to the state Senate in 1964 representing his hometown of Hattiesburg. He went on to serve in the state elected offices of treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general. He served as attorney general from 1984 to 1988 before running unsuccessfully for governor.

After losing the gubernatorial bid in an ultra-competitive Democratic primary that included other statewide elected officials and a past governor, Pittman came back to capture a seat on the state Supreme Court in 1989.

“Chief Pittman provided exemplary leadership to the Mississippi Judiciary as chief justice,” said former Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who served with Pittman on the state’s highest court “His accomplishments for efficiency, transparency and access to justice had a profound effect on our legal system. He championed the establishment of (shorter deadlines for hearing cases … brought rule changes to allow cameras in the courtroom and improved access to justice for the poor and disadvantaged, to name a few.

“The court system today is better for his untiring efforts and dedication to duty.”

As chief justice, Pittman was credited with making the Supreme Court more transparent, posting dockets and oral arguments online, according to a court press release. He also led the effort to put in place regulations to allow news cameras in the courtroom at a time when only a handful of states were allowing them. Pittman worked to garner public funding to provide access to the judiciary for the needy.

Pittman said at the time, “We have to recognize the fact that we in many communities are frankly failing to get legal services to the people who need it … It’s time that the courts help shoulder the burden of rendering legal services to the needy in Mississippi.”

In 2011, former Gov. Haley Barbour awarded Pittman the Mississippi Medal of Service.

 “The people of this state have honored me with a wonderful trip through life,” Pittman said at the awards ceremony.

Current Chief Justice Mike Randolph said, “Even though he served in all these important government positions, he never lost his common touch. I regret that I didn’t get to serve with him. I hope that when I’m done, that I will be as well thought of as he was.”

Randolph, also from Hattiesburg, now holds the post on the court that was held by Pittman.

“He was a consummate politician and public servant. He’s an important figure in Mississippi’s history,” said U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Graves. Graves was the third Black Mississippian to serve on the modern Supreme Court. Earlier in Graves’ career, he was hired to a position in the Attorney General’s office by Pittman.

Pittman was last in public view when he was asked by then-Attorney General Jim Hood to look at the legality of a frontage road being built in Rankin County to provide easier access to busy Lakeland Drive for a small neighborhood where then Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves lived.

The end result of the controversy is that the access road was not built.

After retiring from the Supreme Court, Pittman joined a law firm in Madison County.

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A group of nonprofits in and around the capital city are teaming up to build new green spaces in Jackson, looking to offer environmental benefits such as limiting both flooding as well as a phenomenon known as “heat islands.”

Dominika Parry, a Polish native, founded the Ridgeland-based 2C Mississippi in 2017, hoping to raise awareness around climate change impacts in the state. The group has attempted relatively progressive ideas before, such as bringing climate curriculums to public schools and establishing the state’s first community solar program. 

With a lack of political appetite, though, those projects have struggled to get off the ground, Parry explained – “I realized that no one in Mississippi talks about climate change,” she told Mississippi Today. But she’s confident that the green spaces initiative will have a meaningful environmental impact. 

In one project with the Farish Street Community of Shalom, 2C Mississippi is building green spaces along the historic Farish Street in downtown Jackson. The groups recently acquired $1.5 million through the Inflation Reduction Act for the idea. 

A 2020 study in Jackson from consultant CAPA Strategies identified “heat islands,” or urban areas that absorb more heat because they have fewer trees and bodies of water. The study found that at times during the summer, parts of downtown were over 10 degrees hotter than areas around the edge of the city. 

The idea for the spaces, which will go in courtyards between Amite and Griffith Streets, includes new trees, vertical gardens, and a maintained grassy area for gatherings and events like the neighborhood’s Juneteenth celebration (renderings of the project from 2C Mississippi are shown below). Parry said they’ll start to plant the trees in January and have the whole spaces done sometime next year. Then, she plans to monitor the impacts, including on the energy needs of surrounding buildings. 

Dorothy Davis, Shalom’s president, said that the new tree canopy will give shelter from the simmering temperatures that brew over the city concrete. It’s a concern in an area where, Davis said, many live without reliable or even any air conditioning. Over a few weeks this summer, as an extension of the 2020 study, she and a group of local students measured the heat index along Farish Street, which Davis said never dipped below 100 degrees. 

“It wasn’t surprising because I’ve been in Mississippi all my life, I know how Mississippi heat is,” said Davis, who has been in Jackson since 1963. “But it was very concerning because we have a lot of elderly people in this area especially.”

According to the National Weather Service, which has temperature records dating back to 1896, five of the top 10 hottest years in Jackson have occurred in the last 10 years. 

In addition to the Farish Street project, 2C Mississippi is also working on building “microparks” around west Jackson. Voice of Calvary Ministries, another local nonprofit, partners with the city of Jackson to eliminate blight, and, along with some other groups, is working to restore and build new homes in about 150 properties around West Capitol Street near the Jackson Zoo. 

“We have a lot of lots that we can really do some reinvestment in, not just with housing, but the parks,” said VOCM’s president and CEO Margaret Johnson. “I think we can offer something new and different to an impoverished area of the city.” 

Johnson explained that the area is near a flood zone, and the microparks are a preemptive measure to reduce risk as well as the financial burden of flood insurance. 

Many of the lots have been abandoned for years, she said, often after people moved away or an owner died without a family member coming to take care of the property. With no one to tend to the land, it deteriorates, turning into an eyesore. 

“It seems to be more concentrated in west Jackson than some other parts of the city,” Johnson said, adding that the area doesn’t have a real park for children to play in or for people to get together. “There hasn’t been any real, new construction in west Jackson, of any significant level, in the last, 20, 25, 30 years.”

So far, VOCM and 2C Mississippi have picked about six neighboring lots on Louisiana Avenue to turn into microparks, which Parry said will be done by the end of 2025. The groups also plan to hold a community meeting Oct. 15 to invite residents’ feedback. Johnson hopes they can eventually expand the idea to other parts of Jackson.  

 “I think once we do this and people see it, we can go to other parts of the city and do the same thing,” she said. “So, I think this is just the start of something great for the city of Jackson.”

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The head of Mississippi Medicaid told lawmakers on Thursday that the agency is working with the federal government to get approval of a new law that allows uninsured, low-income women short-term Medicaid coverage while they wait for their application to be approved.

The program, called presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, has been hailed as a way to get pregnant women earlier access to prenatal care in states that have not expanded Medicaid and to mitigate bad health outcomes for mothers and babies.

Mississippi is one of 10 states in the nation not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. 

Mississippi lawmakers wrote in the bill that women must provide proof of income before qualifying for presumptive eligibility, which is potentially at odds with federal regulations. 

“CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) does not like proof of income or proof of pregnancy,” Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder said Thursday in an annual legislative budget meeting. “To the current federal administration, a person’s word should be sufficient to get the temporary pregnancy coverage … I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to come to a resolution that is faithful to the state law and satisfies federal expectations.”

It’s not clear whether the state agency will be able to negotiate the details with the federal government or whether the Mississippi Legislature will need to rewrite the law during the 2025 legislative session.

Following the meeting, Snyder quickly left the building and refused to answer questions from a reporter about the status of the program. Mississippi Today has been allowed to communicate about pregnancy presumptive eligibility with the Division of Medicaid solely through email exchanges.

House Bill 539, spearheaded by Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, would allow low-income pregnant women to get prenatal care while waiting for an official Medicaid application to be approved. The way the bill is written, these women would need to bring proof of income, such as a paystub, to their doctor’s office. 

Federal guidelines, however, state that while the agency may require proof of citizenship or residency, it should not “require verification of the conditions for presumptive eligibility” – which are pregnancy and income. 

“It is my understanding that the Division of Medicaid is currently working with CMS for approval of our presumptive eligibility law, specifically with the language around proof of income,” McGee told Mississippi Today. “This is part of the process and I am optimistic that it will be approved.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tasked with approving or denying the state’s plan for implementing presumptive eligibility, has until Oct. 9 to make a decision. 

CMS declined to comment on the status of Mississippi’s state plan amendment.

A spokesperson for Medicaid told Mississippi Today via email the agency is moving forward with implementation of the program despite the federal government’s concerns.

The Division is accepting applications from health care providers and conducting eligibility determination training sessions – the final requirement for providers before they can begin treating women under the new policy. Nine medical providers have had their applications approved so far, according to the Division of Medicaid. 

The Division hosted a training for participating Federally Qualified Health Centers Thursday and will be hosting a training for participating hospitals Oct. 10 and 11, according to a participating provider. 

In addition to the nine providers that have been accepted, the University of Mississippi Medical Center – the state’s largest public hospital and largest Medicaid provider – told Mississippi Today it submitted its application on Thursday. 

Below is a list of the nine providers that have been approved to participate as of Sept. 25: 

• Physicians & Surgeons Clinic – Amory
• Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. Renia Dotson – County Health Dept. (Family Planning Clinic)
• Family Health Center – Laurel
• Delta Health Center, Inc (Dr. H. Jack Geiger Medical Center) – Mound Bayou
• G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center Providers – Belzoni, Canton, Yazoo City
• Coastal Family Health Center, Inc. – Biloxi 
• Delta Health System – Greenville
• Delta Medical Group – Women’s Specialty Clinic – Greenville
• Southeast MS Rural Health Initiative Inc. – Women’s Health Center – Hattiesburg

Gwen Dilworth contributed to this report.

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