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Mississippi’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is being paused because of the federal government shutdown, the Mississippi Department of Human Services said Friday. 

“No new SNAP benefits will be issued for November unless federal guidance changes,” the department said in a press release. 

This move comes more than three weeks into the federal shutdown, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would not tap into its $6 billion contingency fund to cover food assistance next month.

Nearly 400,000 Mississippians receive food assistance through SNAP, and the vast majority are families with children or elderly people. That is about 13% of the population, slightly higher than the 12% nationwide who use SNAP to help buy groceries.

The Associated Press reported that officials in Louisiana, Vermont and Virginia pledged Thursday to keep food aid flowing to recipients in their states, even if the federal program is stalled next month because of the government shutdown.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services encourages members to use up their current benefits before the end of October to buy shelf-stable foods, such as canned goods. It’s not clear whether SNAP clients will be able to use pre-existing benefits beyond Oct. 31, the department said. 

The department will continue to process new applications. Current enrollees are also reminded to fulfill all requirements to remain eligible. 

New work requirements for SNAP are slated to fall into place next month, as well, as a result of a federal budget law that President Donald Trump signed during the summer. Work requirements already exist, but the law increases the upper age limit on those from 54 to 65 and extends the requirement to those previously exempt: veterans, those facing homelessness, and young people aging out of foster care. There is still a caregiver exemption, but parents must have children younger than  14 – down from 18. 

A list of Mississippi food pantries by county can be found on the website of Delta Health Alliance, a nonprofit group that works to improve health outcomes. 

CLEVELAND – An independent autopsy has yet to be released for Demartravion “Trey” Reed, the student who was found dead on the Delta State University campus in September, and speculation continues to swirl on campus and online.  

The initial examination by the Bolivar County coroner and the autopsy completed by the Mississippi medical examiner’s office concluded the death of the 21-year-old Black man was a suicide, and no foul play occurred.

The independent autopsy, conducted later, was paid for by civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick, a former NFL quarterback.

Reed’s body was found hanging in a tree. Some members of his family and activists say they believe he was lynched, and they point to Mississippi’s racist history of lynchings of Black people.

Jeremy Marquell Bridges, an activist from Alabama, said he’s been in recent contact with Reed’s mother, Sophia, and Ben Crump, a nationally prominent attorney representing Reed’s family.

Bridges said this week that Crump needed more time to complete a reenactment as part of the independent investigation. Crump did not specify when that would be complete.

Bridges said the independent investigation revealed injuries sustained from a recent attack by white male students, but he did not provide any proof to Mississippi Today as of Friday.

Delta State University confirmed that Reed had listed his grandmother, Sharon Candy Tillman, as his emergency contact. Tillman said she is waiting to see what the independent autopsy says about claims that Bridges and others are making. 

In an interview with The Chicago Crusader, Bridges said preliminary findings from the independent autopsy alleged that Reed lacked significant bruising around the neck consistent with a suicide by hanging. Bridges also claimed to Mississippi Today that the state crime lab was late supplying Reed’s organs and X-ray imagery to Nebraska pathologist Dr. Matthias Okoye, who the Reed family retained to conduct the independent autopsy.

On Oct. 16, Mississippi Today reached out to Bridges to ask for proof of these claims. Bridges had also claimed that Reed had defended a Black female student who was harassed by white students, and that the buckle was missing from the belt that hung him.

Bridges was unable to provide proof, but he and a member of the Reed family said they were expecting the independent autopsy last week.

Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bailey Martin did not address Bridges’ claims that Reed’s organs were delivered late to Okyoe, but confirmed the funeral home had them as of Oct. 17, she wrote in an email to Mississippi Today.

Reed’s funeral was held at Abundant Life Assembly church in his hometown of Grenada on Sept. 27. 

Reed’s mother joined members of the New Black Panthers Party at a protest Oct. 18 on the Delta State campus in Cleveland. They alleged that his death was the result of a lynching. They repeated claims that Reed suffered “blunt force trauma to the back of the head,” which was not found in the coroner’s examination or the autopsy completed by the Mississippi medical examiner’s office.

Rumors have swirled online in the weeks since Reed’s death with videos and posts on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram echoing the allegation that he was beaten before his hanging. Some garnered more than 130,000 likes.

One TikTok user with nearly 30,000 followers removed his September video echoing many of the allegations surrounding Reed’s case. He attributed his decision to a Facebook post by Tillman, Reed’s grandmother. She clarified that the second autopsy was not yet released – and the initial findings have not yet been substantiated.

“I don’t usually respond to social media, but I’m tired,” Tillman wrote in an Oct. 3 Facebook post.

Security footage from campus is still with law enforcement agencies and can’t be shared due to the active nature of the investigation, according to the university.

The medical examiner’s office received the results of the toxicology report on Sept. 26. Those results have been given to the family, but the Department of Public Safety has not publicly released them.

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Few topics in education stir as much passion as school choice.

On the surface, the idea sounds simple and appealing: Give families state dollars and let them decide where to send their children to school. But beneath that slogan are serious consequences for Mississippi’s children, communities and future—consequences we cannot afford to ignore.

As Mississippi’s public education system experiences its most impressive gains in decades, we must ask an important question: Why now? Why introduce a policy that would destabilize a system that is clearly working?

Over the past decade, Mississippi has seen remarkable growth, with 87% of districts now earning a C or higher, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.

Notably, eight of the 19 districts rated D, F or not rated at all are charter schools. Our state’s national ranking for K–12 achievement has climbed from 50th to 16th, and Mississippi now leads the nation in early literacy gains and fourth-grade reading growth. These results were not achieved through privatization or vouchers. They were  achieved through focus, consistency and intentionality by teachers and administrators across our state.

When a system is continuously improving, research is clear—now is not the time to blow it up. It is the time to double down on what works.

The path forward for Mississippi lies in refining and strengthening our current educational system, not  abandoning it for one that lacks accountability or proven results. 

Accountability should apply to everyone  

Public schools in Mississippi operate under one of the most transparent and rigorous accountability systems in the nation. Every school and district receives an annual letter grade — A through F — based on clear, publicly reported indicators such as student  achievement, academic growth, graduation rates and college and career readiness.

Those results are not hidden in a report or spreadsheet. They are published statewide each year, tied directly to state and federal funding decisions and used to guide support and improvement efforts.

When schools fall short, the state steps in. The Mississippi Department of Education provides targeted assistance, professional development and intervention strategies to help struggling schools improve.

Local school boards are required to discuss results in open meetings, and the public has full access to performance data by school, grade and subgroup. In short, the public knows exactly how their schools are performing and can hold leaders — like me — accountable for results.

Private schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers, however, face none of these same expectations. They are not required to administer state assessments aligned with Mississippi’s academic standards, report graduation rates or publish any data showing whether students are actually learning. They are not required to have certified teachers.

There are no annual report cards, no performance frameworks and no transparency measures that allow parents or taxpayers to see results.

That lack of oversight raises a serious question. If public money is funding private education, how are families — or lawmakers — supposed to know whether “school choice” is actually working? Without data, there is no way to compare outcomes or determine whether students receiving vouchers are gaining ground, standing still or falling behind.

If public dollars are going to private institutions, the public deserves to know what they’re getting in return. Accountability should not stop at the schoolhouse door simply because the sign out front doesn’t say “public.”

Transparency is not a punishment. It’s a promise. It’s the reason Mississippi’s public education system has achieved record gains in the last decade.

We turned years of stagnation into a story of improvement precisely because we were willing to measure results, confront reality and act on what the data showed. If accountability has helped strengthen our public schools, shouldn’t it be expected of any school that receives public funds? 

The cost of disruption  

Universal school choice would drain critical resources from public schools – the very institutions that anchor our communities.

When public dollars follow students out the door, the schools left behind still carry the same responsibilities: Teaching every child who walks through their doors, keeping class sizes manageable and providing programs in the arts, athletics and career-technical education. What disappears are the resources to sustain that work.

Unlike public schools, private schools that receive vouchers are not required to serve all children. They can – and often do – set admissions criteria that exclude students with disabilities, English language learners or those with behavioral or academic challenges.

Private schools may decline to provide transportation, limit access for low-income families or charge additional fees beyond the voucher amount. That’s not freedom or fairness; that’s selective access.

Public schools, by contrast, open their doors to every child, every day. They are the great equalizer – places where opportunity is not limited by income, background or ability. Public schools don’t get to choose their students. They simply choose to serve  them all.

In every community, the public school is more than a building. It’s a gathering place, a unifying symbol and a promise that every child deserves a fair start. To weaken that promise by diverting funds to institutions that operate without the same responsibility or transparency is to risk unraveling one of the most essential threads in the fabric of our state. 

A better path forward 

At its core, education is a public good, not a consumer good. It exists not to serve individual preference but to ensure the collective well-being of our communities and the strength of our democracy.

Public education thrives on shared responsibility,  transparency and inclusion – values that cannot be reduced to marketplace competition or transactional choice. 

When we begin to treat education as a commodity to be bought and sold, we risk eroding the foundation of equal opportunity and civic unity that has anchored this nation for more than a century. Public schools are where our children learn not only  academics, but empathy, cooperation and the responsibilities of citizenship. 

Mississippi’s recent success story proves what’s possible when we invest in what works — early literacy, teacher development, career pathways and continuous  improvement.

Rather than expanding programs that siphon resources away from public schools, we should continue building on the practices that have moved Mississippi from the bottom of national rankings to one of the most improved states in the country.

The future of Mississippi’s children depends on the decisions we make today. If we want every child, in every community, to have a fair shot at success, we must protect and strengthen our public schools. Let’s continue to refine what’s working instead of dismantling a system that is finally moving in the right direction. 

Education is not a marketplace — it’s a promise. And that promise belongs to every child in Mississippi.

Bio:  Bradley Roberson has served as the superintendent of the Oxford School District since 2021. Before then, he served in the district in various capacities, including teacher, coach and principal. Roberson was a finalist for the National Superintendent of the Year honor. 

Greenwood Leflore Hospital, plagued by financial hardship for years, saw a bright spot this spring when it was selected for a new federal payment status. But a dispute with Mississippi Medicaid could jeopardize the Greenwood public hospital’s ability to keep services open if a resolution is not reached, its leader says. 

“Access to services will be reduced for residents of the central Delta region,” Interim CEO Gary Marchand told Mississippi Today. He said no decisions about service changes have been made yet. 

The Mississippi Division of Medicaid informed the hospital in June it is recouping $5.5 million overpaid last year to Greenwood Leflore Hospital in state-directed payments, Marchand said. These amounts beef up low Medicaid reimbursements. The payments were high because they were calculated using old data, which did not take into account the hospital shuttering its labor and delivery and intensive care units in 2022. 

The amount is not insignificant. The hospital’s total operating expenses were $74.7 million in the 2023 fiscal year, according to an audit performed that year. 

Mississippi Medicaid has withheld $2 million so far this year and will continue recovering payments at a rate of $900,000 a quarter beginning in December, Marchand wrote in an Oct. 20 memo sent to hospital employees and board members. 

“Supplemental payments withheld to date along with the scheduled quarterly Recoupments will place a significant strain on hospital operations,” Marchand warned. 

Additionally, the hospital’s Medicaid tax assessments should have been lower to reflect the reduced service levels, which could have offset about half of the total recoupment, he added.

Greenwood Leflore Hospital proposed several options for repayment to the Division of Medicaid that would buy it time to first begin receiving higher payments for Medicare patients, said the memo. The anticipated larger payments are the result of the hospital’s acceptance to the federal Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program, which allows selected hospitals to be reimbursed based on their actual costs for inpatient care instead of a fixed amount. The higher payments are expected to begin by the end of the year and retroactively reimburse services provided since May 1. 

Next month, the hospital will begin providing skilled nursing care for people recovering after hospital stays, but will not begin receiving the higher payments for these services until late 2026. 

The Division of Medicaid advised the hospital in September that it did not agree with the solutions proposed by the hospital, Marchand said in the memo. On Oct. 9, the hospital appealed the decision and requested an administrative hearing on the matter, which has not yet been scheduled. 

The Division of Medicaid did not respond to a request for comment. 

Greenwood Leflore is one of 30 hospitals overpaid a total of $48 million during the state’s 2024 fiscal year, Marchand said.

Greenwood Mayor Kendrick Cox said he has been working with state and federal lawmakers to resolve the dispute. 

“We desperately need our hospital,” he said. “… There’s a lot of people in our community that aren’t financially able to transport themselves or their relatives to other towns or states for health care services.”  

The state-directed payments helped to stabilize Greenwood Leflore’s finances after it was forced to close valued services. But now, the closure of those services could put others at risk, and the new payment model hasn’t yet provided the relief it’s expected to. 

This is just one piece of what Brock Slabach, chief operations officer of the National Rural Health Association, called the “brutal mix of issues” that rural hospitals, which often have low patient volumes and high overhead costs, face when trying to break even.

“These are different environments than some of our larger, urban facilities,” he said.  

Rural hospitals across the U.S. are struggling. Over half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure or have experienced losses on services, according to a recent report from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform.  

Greenwood Leflore Hospital serves approximately 300,000 patients in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the state with limited access to medical care, according to its website. The 35-bed hospital operates a physician-staffed emergency room and offers general, vascular and outpatient orthopedic surgery, cancer care and a full suite of diagnostic services. 

The hospital has faced a litany of financial challenges over the past several years. Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the hospital was losing $7 million to 9 million a year, Marchand previously told Mississippi Today.

The pandemic only worsened the hospital’s precarious financial condition. To keep its doors open, the hospital shut down departments and clinics, went up for lease multiple times, drew down millions of dollars in credit, applied for grants from the state Legislature, and pursued a more lucrative hospital designation. In 2023, the hospital suspended the use of 173 beds to control costs, according to an audit. 

Marchand, who will step down at the end of the year, repeatedly warned local leaders and state lawmakers that the hospital was on the verge of closure. 

To become more financially secure, the facility vied in 2023 to be designated a critical access hospital. These facilities are reimbursed by Medicare at a rate of 101%, theoretically allowing for a 1% profit. But its initial application was denied because critical access hospitals must be located 35 miles from the nearest hospital, and South Sunflower County Hospital in Indianola is closer, at 28 miles away. 

Greenwood Leflore was one of three hospitals in the state chosen for the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program in April. 

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson called the designation a “meaningful victory.”

“For far too long, rural hospitals have operated at a disadvantage, being underfunded, understaffed, and overburdened,” he said in a statement. “This program is a step toward leveling the playing field.” 

The program’s payment model can help stabilize rural hospitals, but it only increases reimbursements for inpatient care — even though many hospitals are seeing higher outpatient volumes, said Slabach.

And the reimbursement challenges rural hospitals face are worsened by workforce shortages, since rural hospitals often have to offer higher pay to attract providers — money they don’t have due to low reimbursement rates.

“It’s a vicious circle,” Slabach said. 

State-directed payments like those recouped from Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which were championed by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, have been a vital source of cash for Mississippi’s struggling rural hospitals, especially in a state that has gone a decade without expanding Medicaid.

But those payments are set to be reduced over time beginning in 2028 as a result of federal cuts to Medicaid included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed by President Donald Trump in July. 

Mississippi is expected to receive at least $500 million over the next five years as a part of a major federal investment meant to offset the cuts’ impact on funding for rural health care. States must submit applications for the funding to the federal government by Nov. 5. 

The funding aims to strengthen access to health care by investing in lasting improvements to preventive medicine, collaboration between health care facilities, workforce development and innovations in care and technology.

“It could well be a lifeline for a lot of hospitals that are struggling,” said Harold Miller, the director of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.

But the money is a one-time, lump sum, and there is no telling how states will choose to spend it or if it will go to struggling rural hospitals, he said. 

Reeves is responsible for the state’s one-time application for the funding, which is due in less than two weeks.

The latest meeting of the House committee studying school choice opened with a bold statement: Private schools could be convinced to support “school choice” and take public dollars — as long as there are no strings attached. 

The hours-long hearing Thursday marked the third meeting for a group of representatives tasked with studying school choice. This refers to a number of policies that provide families more options, in and outside of the public schools system, including using public tax dollars for private schools. State legislative leaders, including House Speaker Jason White, have said expanding school choice will be a top issue in the coming legislative session.

The first speaker, Barrett Donahoe, executive director of the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools, said repeatedly at the meeting that private schools would not make their students take state assessments, nor would they change their faith-based curriculum or their ability to turn some students away, even if the schools were to take state money through school-choice programs. 

It’s a popular argument among school-choice opponents — that voucher programs would allow private schools to accept tax dollars without being held to the same standards as public schools. But Donahoe did little to rebut it, instead doubling down on his stance.  

When Rep. Greg Holloway, a Democrat from Hazlehurst, questioned his logic, Donahoe replied, “I don’t think we have to compromise anything. I think our schools do a good job.” 

READ MORE: Lawmakers want to expand ‘school choice’ in Mississippi. Here’s what it looks like in neighboring states

Many lawmakers were curious about accountability standards for private schools. Donahoe said that, mostly, private schools are held accountable by parents who pay tuition, typically between $7,200 and $7,500 a year. 

Other representatives were less skeptical about private-school accountability.

“I don’t want to force our Christian schools to teach secular curriculum,” said Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville and co-chair of the select committee, after the meeting. ”I don’t want the state’s involvement to infringe on that in any way.”

Owen and Donahoe suggested that private schools serve many low-income students, but data says otherwise. In 2016, just 8% of private school students lived in poor households, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Donahoe predicted that if school choice laws are passed, private schools wouldn’t get an influx of students, calling it a “false narrative” perpetuated by opponents of the choice policies.

It’s true that in other states, a majority of school-choice vouchers went to children who were already enrolled in private school, and school-choice programs don’t necessarily make private schools more accessible for low-income students or students with disabilities. 

Next, officials from the Mississippi High School Athletics and Activities Association told lawmakers that expanded school-choice policies would “completely upset” the competitive balance of high school sports and activities. 

“There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to have movement based on academic needs, but I promise that the vast majority of our movement will be because of athletics,” said Chad Harrison, president of the association. 

He encouraged lawmakers to consider allowing MHSAA to maintain its eligibility rules for students. That means if a student living in one district transfers into another district, they wouldn’t immediately be eligible to play sports. 

Owen said the association’s concerns were addressed in a bill that failed last session, and they’d likely be able to find a compromise this year. 

Mary Werner, a Mississippi Board of Education member, and Sam Duell from yes. every kid., a pro-school choice advocacy organization funded by the Koch brothers, concluded the meeting. 

Werner, who said she wasn’t speaking to the committee on behalf of the board, suggested establishing a lottery would be the most equitable school-choice solution. 

Duell presented a number of polls and surveys that showed parent satisfaction is higher when they get to make choices about their child’s education.

House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville, said the select committee on school choice would likely meet again once or twice before the legislative session begins in January.

Jackson State University students, faculty, staff and alumni have the opportunity to sound off on qualities and qualifications they want to see in their next university president. 

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board announced this week that trustees and AGB Search, an executive search firm IHL hired to assist with the presidential process, will hold listening sessions Monday and Tuesday at the Jackson State Student Center. 

The campus sessions are happening after the board announced it would start naming constituent members to serve on an advisory group to provide insight and recommendations to trustees during the search process. It is an action the board said it hasn’t taken in years. 

IHL said it has also released a new survey link to collect community input to develop the job profile for university president. The responses will go directly to AGB Search. Previous comments made through IHL’s portal will also be shared with the firm. The surveys will close on Tuesday at 10:59 p.m. CST. 

Schedule for listening sessions: 

• Staff – 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.
• Faculty – 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. 
• Students – 11 a.m .and 3 p.m.
• Alumni – 4 p.m.

The campus listening sessions will also be livestreamed on IHL’s website. 

Knolyn Bailey, a bright-eyed, just-turned-16-year-old, 10th grade running back, has grown up attending football games at Lanier High where his mother teaches. Most years, he says, there was little to cheer where the Bulldogs were concerned.

“We usually got blown out,” Bailey says. “It was a sight to see, not in a good way.”

That’s an understatement. Four of the last 15 Lanier football seasons have been winless. During the first four years of Bailey’s life, the Bulldogs lost 38 consecutive games. Lanier, traditionally a basketball powerhouse with 17 state championships, has won only three football playoff games in school history and has never made it past the second round of the playoffs.

And that brings us to one of the most startling developments in Jackson Public Schools football history. The current Lanier Bulldogs are a perfect 8-0 heading into a Friday night showdown at Florence. Despite moving up to Class 5A, the Bulldogs have out-scored opponents 282-62. Bailey has run for 1,540 yards and 15 touchdowns. 

Surely, Richard Wright, the famous author and a Lanier grad, would have loved to write this story. Lanier, the proud little school on Maple Street, celebrates its 100th year of existence with its best football team ever.  You can’t miss the biggest – and I mean, BIGGEST reason – for this sudden success. He is 6-feet, 6-inch, 315-pound Tommy Kelly, the former Mississippi State and NFL standout, who towers over nearly all his Lanier players.

Says Knolyn Bailey, a smart young man who already attends some college classes at Tougaloo, “Coach Kelly changed the culture here. He has given us structure.”

In the three seasons prior to Kelly’s Lanier arrival in 2024, the Bulldogs won only seven games while losing 24. In 2024, Kelly’s first Bulldogs finished 8-3 and made the Class 4A playoffs. The current eight-game win streak is the longest in school history.

First question: How did this happen?

“Discipline and structure,” Kelly answers. “What can I say? The kids have bought in. At every level of football I played, I learned from some great coaches. I try to coach these kids the way I was coached, and besides that I have a really good coaching staff.”

Second question: Why in the world is a man who once signed a $50 million NFL contract coach a high school football team for about $60,000 a year? Clearly, he doesn’t need the money.

“My players ask me that sometimes,” Kelly says. “The answer is I’ve always wanted to coach, even back when I was playing high school ball at Provine, I knew I was someday gonna coach. This is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life. This is my dream.

“You know, I played for Willie Collins, a great coach, at Provine. I played for Jackie Sherrill, a great coach, at State. I played for coaches like Bill Belichick and Bruce Arians in the pros. I’ve learned from all of them. It’d be a shame to waste all that.”

Both Collins and Wayne Brent, who coached Kelly in basketball at Provine, remember him as a teen-aged sports junkie. Says Brent, “In my 35 years of coaching, I’ve never had another one like Tommy. He knew everything there was to know about players and teams in all the sports. He was a sports encyclopedia.”

Basketball was Kelly’s first love and he played on Provine’s state championship teams. After playing football and basketball as a freshman, he concentrated on basketball as a sophomore and junior before finally returning to football as a senior, graduating in 1999. He instantly became a highly valued college football recruit. Nick Saban came to Provine from Michigan State to recruit him. Virtually every school in the country wanted him. He committed to Ole Miss first before eventually winding up at State, where Sherrill called him “a diamond in the rough who just needs to be polished.”

Sherrill now says he isn’t the least surprised by Kelly’s success as a coach. “He was very smart, especially when it came to football,” Sherrill says. “He picked up things easily.”

Kelly came to Lanier from Provine, where he was the defensive line coach and coordinator for his alma mater. And this will give you another idea of Kelly’s impact: In 2023, his last year there, Provine beat Lanier 40-0. But Kelly’s first Lanier team beat Provine 16-6 and, this season Lanier routed Provine 30-8.

Says Kelly, “I am still a Provine fan 364 days a year, but not on the day we play them.”

Darrell Roberts, a 16-year-old junior and Lanier’s starting quarterback and safety, has experienced the remarkable transformation of Lanier Bulldogs football.

“The year before Coach Kelly got here, we weren’t locked in as a team,” Roberts says. “We had a lot of guys who didn’t care about football. There’s just a lot more discipline now, at lot more focus on football.”

Jamison Kelly, a 17-year-old senior running back and cornerback, doesn’t know anything about Lanier football before Tommy Kelly. All the other Bulldogs call Tommy Kelly “Coach.” Jamison Kelly calls him “Dad.”

Jamison transferred to Lanier from Madison Central, where he had started at safety as a sophomore. Jamison, one of several Bulldogs who play both offense and defense, has committed to play college football at Southern Illinois. He expects to play a lot more Lanier football first.

“I believe we can go all the way to the state championship. I really do,” Jamison says.

At Lanier, Jamison and his teammates practice on a hardscrabble, unkempt and un-lined field, bare in some areas and ankle-high in weeds in others. They lift weights in shifts because of the weight room is so small.

“It’s what we got,” says Tommy Kelly. “You gotta make do with what you’ve got. We just go with it. I think it motivates our guys when we go to other places and see the nice facilities they have. We play with a chip on our shoulder.”

Knolyn Bailey, the sophomore who takes college classes and scores touchdowns in bunches, has had the opportunity to transfer to private schools where the facilities are much nicer. He has remained at Lanier where his friends are and where Kelly teaches life lessons.

Bailey remembers making a critical defensive mistake last year as a freshman and returning to the sideline to face Coach Kelly. Instead of a tongue lashing, he got a huge arm around his shoulder and a softly spoken but matter-of-fact explanation of what he did wrong and what he should do instead the next time.

“It’s tough love you get from Coach Kelly,” Bailey says. “He can be funny, but when it’s time to work, it’s time to work, and we work. We plan to go all the way. Why not?”

Besides Florence Friday night, Lanier has games remaining with Cleveland Central and Vicksburg. None of the three figures to be easy. Should the Bulldogs get to the Class 5A playoffs, the likes of traditional powerhouses West Point, South Jones and Brookhaven would stand in the way.

Tommy Kelly says he loves the fact that his players believe they can compete with anybody and win a championship.

“You gotta believe in yourself,” he says. “You gotta believe in your dreams.”

He should know. He dreamed of being a pro football star and making millions. He did.

He dreamed of becoming a winning high school coach. He has. He dreamed of coaching his son. He is.

His football hero in high school was Warren Sapp. He wound up playing beside him as an Oakland Raider for four seasons.

“Can you believe that?” Kelly says. 

Yes. It’s a lot easier to believe that than believe this sudden transformation of Lanier football.

LAMAR – Kimberly Todd sat in a brown and gold upholstered chair on her front porch at the end of a long dirt driveway on a cloudy September afternoon. Wearing jeans and a crimson blouse, it’s the most dressed up she’s been in months, she says. 

Tight clothing, socks and shoes make her skin feel like it’s on fire – a symptom of fibromyalgia she has lived with for four years without health insurance. A single mother of five, Todd also has endured numbness in her abdomen, pain in her uterus and two periods a month as a result of complications from a C-section in 2021. 

Todd qualifies for Medicaid, but the difficulty she has faced getting on the program over the last few months reveals the cracks poor people fall through when trying to get assistance from the social programs that purportedly exist to help them. Mississippi has among the strictest Medicaid income eligibility requirements in the nation. People must meet the income threshold, which amounts to less than $500 per month for a family of three and is a fraction of the federal poverty level. They also face bureaucratic red tape and punitive measures for missteps that often force them into deeper holes. 

Her most recent barrier to getting health care? The state has asked Todd to file for child support from her ex-boyfriend. This little-known Medicaid requirement has translated to four months of back-and-forth with caseworkers, miscommunication among state agencies, delayed medical care and the possibility of sending the father of her two youngest children to jail. 

“I want to take care of my family – that’s it,” Todd said. “Something I never had growing up.”

Whether or not it’s intentional, social safety net programs end up shutting out eligible people through “unnecessary complexity,” explained Daniel Dawes, an attorney and founding dean of Meharry Medical College in Nashville who helped write the Affordable Care Act, widely considered the most progressive health care legislation since the formation of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. 

“Many of these programs are designed as if they’re intended to keep people in perpetual poverty,” Dawes said. “Instead of making allowances and helping people to maneuver out of that.”

By all accounts, people in circumstances like Todd motivated lawmakers to create the Medicaid program. Todd has worked multiple jobs, from cleaning houses and hotels and working in convenience stores to fixing cars and broken phones. She has worked in grueling conditions so that she can care for the three children ages 4 to 18 in her custody – two of whom have autism. 

She has no family in the state and lives in what she calls “a shack” on an acre of wooded land without the resources to put her kids in afterschool activities like art classes or programs for autistic children. Todd and her children lack the community safety net most people take for granted. 

“Most people have family, friends – I don’t even have a friend,” Todd said. “I don’t have one friend.”

Medicaid would be her safety net, at least in theory. But the system has been failing her. 

“I will work myself literally to death and not have any health care coverage,” Todd said. “Who’s going to take care of my autistic child when I pass away? Where is she going to go? She can’t talk. Who’s going to hurt her while I’m not here?”

‘I didn’t want that for my kids’

The child support requirement aims to help single parents. In practice, research suggests it can be harmful for families – yet it pervades most social safety net programs. 

“It may be that a family already has informal arrangements for all the parents to financially contribute to the child’s wellbeing, and complying with this requirement through the state can disrupt those informal arrangements that are working better for families in many cases,” explained Matt Williams, director of research with the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. 

That’s the case with Todd. She said she is on good terms with her ex-boyfriend and often gives him a place to stay. She said she is hoping to help him get back on his feet so he can start working again after his own mental health conditions and lack of insurance made working impossible. He doesn’t qualify for Medicaid because his biological children are not in his custody. Mississippi’s version of Medicaid does not insure childless adults. 

In other cases, being forced to file for child support with the non-custodial parent could have dangerous repercussions. 

“For any one of a number of reasons, including concern for their own physical wellbeing, they might be reluctant to identify someone,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, who previously told Mississippi Today “the child support system in Mississippi is f-cked up, and no one knows how to unf-ck it.”

Exemptions to the rule technically exist for those who are concerned for their own or their children’s safety. In practice they are very difficult to obtain, explained Williams. 

“It’s not always the case that they are granted that exemption if they don’t have the right kind of legal paper trail, court documents or restraining orders,” Bryan said. “If they’re unable to prove through documentation that they are experiencing domestic violence or fleeing domestic violence, they may not get that exemption.”

In Todd’s case, filing for child support from her former partner in August was an impossible decision. She worries the missed payments that she knows he will incur will put him in jail. 

“How is he going to help me from jail?” Todd asked. “What sense does that make?”

She knows this situation all too well. Her own driver’s license was revoked twice in the last year after she fell behind on child support payments to the father of her two children who are not in her custody. She has not been able to pay off the most recent fine since she is out of work, making it harder for her to find work and to take her non-verbal autistic daughter to therapy. 

What makes the child support requirement even more harmful in Todd’s case is that evidence suggests it was implemented incorrectly. States are only allowed to ask applicants to agree to comply with requirements at the time of application, according to several national Medicaid experts who spoke to Mississippi Today. States cannot force applicants to file for child support before they are approved for Medicaid. But according to Todd, they did. 

“Part of that’s just practicality,” said Jennifer Wagner, director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “In the application timeframe, filing for child support is not something that can always be completed before the state’s deadline and it’s counter to the concept of Medicaid and providing timely care.”

Mississippi Division of Medicaid Spokesperson Matt Westerfield confirmed applicants cannot be required to file for child support until after their Medicaid application is approved. He did not respond to a request for comment on Todd’s case.

Once Mississippi Today informed her of state and federal law, Todd went back to her case worker in mid-October with the information, at which point they told her she should expect an approval letter in the mail in a week.

According to Todd, the caseworker alleged over the phone that Todd had been approved for Medicaid in August, failed to comply with the child support requirement, and had her coverage rescinded. But Todd says the application in her online portal went from “processing” to “denied,” and she never got an approval letter in the mail. 

Her online portal finally said “eligible” on Wednesday – nearly four months after her initial application. But Todd has yet to receive her official approval letter and insurance card in the mail  – and she can’t start using her coverage until then, according to the Mississippi Division of Medicaid site.  

It’s not uncommon for Medicaid requirements to be implemented incorrectly at the local level, according to Tricia Brooks, a research professor at the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. 

“Although we don’t have hard data, we consistently hear about errors made by eligibility workers or misinformation provided by call center staff,” Brooks said. “Unfortunately, applicants and enrollees are often unaware of their right to a fair hearing and hit roadblocks in getting accurate information.”

Before Todd got sick, life wasn’t much easier. 

The last time Todd and her former partner were working full-time, they were told they made too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Together, they struggled to cover rent and utilities and had no money left over for food – much less health insurance. They got by on provisions from a nearby church, but they only ever ate “peanut butter and jelly and noodles,” Todd said. 

Since then, her health has deteriorated to the point that she can no longer work. As a result, Todd qualifies for Medicaid. Advocates for Medicaid expansion in Mississippi have long sounded the alarms on this paradox. In one of 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid, Mississippi could have covered tens of thousands more working people who do not earn enough to pay for their own insurance – people like Todd. 

Nearly a quarter of people in Marshall County, where Todd lives in the northern part of the state, are living below the poverty line, according to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. That’s more than double the national average. Todd grew up in poverty, but she always thought it was an escapable fate. She has since lost all faith in the system.

“I grew up in nasty houses with roaches and rats and holes in the floor and no money and starving – I grew up like that,” Todd reflected. “I didn’t want that for my kids. But there’s nothing I can do. I see how hard it is now.”

Widening gaps

Government programs are not universally difficult to apply for. Those serving poor people tend to be far more wrapped up in red tape, unequally levying what’s called “the time tax.” A 2021 Atlantic article written by Annie Lowrey sums it up: The time tax is regressive. 

“Programs for the wealthy tend to be easy, automatic, and guaranteed. You do not need to prostrate yourself before a caseworker to get the benefits of a 529 college-savings plan. You do not need to urinate in a cup to get a tax write-off for your home, boat, or plane. You do not need to find a former partner to get a child-support determination as a prerequisite for profiting from a 401(k).”

Application processes for government programs aimed at the wealthy are so much easier that many affluent people don’t even realize they’re benefiting from them, according to a survey conducted by political scientist Suzanne Mettler at Cornell University. 

In Mettler’s survey, the majority of high-income participants initially said they had never used a government safety net program. When told what counted as a government program, 96% reported they had. 

The wealth gap will widen and the time tax inequality will increase under President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, experts warn. The new law contains the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, or food stamps, in history. 

“We know that programs like SNAP and Medicaid reduce poverty, and so if they’re less available, we can expect poverty and hardships to rise,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute. “And we also know that the tax cuts for higher income groups are designed to boost those incomes, so you can just do the math without even having to do the math.”

Strict policies and cuts to Medicaid and food aid disproportionately harm women – a fact Todd knows firsthand. In her community, she says many mothers she knows are dropping dead because of heart attacks, too sick to take care of their kids, or committing suicide – a fate she almost fell prey to except that she didn’t want to repeat the generational trauma with which she grew up. 

“I know how it is to live without a parent because my mom mentally and emotionally wasn’t there, and I would never do that to my kids,” Todd said. “That’s the only reason why I’m here. I promise you, if it wasn’t for them, I would not be here. This world is too much for me, trying to just survive with nobody.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn asked state lawmakers for help raising money for the city’s water system during a Thursday committee hearing at the Capitol.

JXN Water, the city’s third-party water manager, raised the alarm several times this year over funding shortfalls and said last month the system was “insolvent.” The utility is losing $3 million a month, it says.

“We think that the state’s assistance is going to be required,” Horhn told members of the Capital City Revitalization Select Committee. “We have to come up with an additional revenue stream, at least temporarily, over the next few years until we can get the water system back to solvency.”

The mayor, a Democrat who took office July 1, listed a few avenues for funding, such as increasing tax diversions from the Capitol Complex Improvement District or increasing the city’s 1% sales tax. The latter, though, may put local businesses in a tough position, he added.

JXN Water’s funding shortfall includes money for debt payments. The utility warned in September that if it can’t make debt payments, the state would have to start diverting some of the city’s sales tax revenue. Horhn confirmed that was the case, but said Jackson was able to pay the $5 million owed by December. It’s unclear how much longer the city would be able to cover those payments without additional water funding.

The mayor went on to address what happens to the city’s water and sewer systems, which are both under the control of JXN Water, after the third-party manager steps aside. Horhn said he wants control of the systems to return to the city, and laid out a plan for an independent advisory board to run them separately from Jackson’s public works department.

His vision of the advisory board includes a majority of appointees from the Jackson mayor’s office. Because the city serves places outside of Jackson, such as Ridgeland and Byram, Horhn said a minority of appointees could come from the state or from those other municipalities. The board would then hire a third-party company to manage and operate the utilities.

Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson and the committee’s co-chair, asked how Horhn’s plan would differ from lawmakers’ past attempts to put the city’s utilities under a separate utility authority. Those plans, the mayor said, gave the state a majority control. Moreover, a bill last year from Sen. David Parker, a Republican from Olive Branch, would have taken away Jackson’s ownership of the systems.

The governor would have likely vetoed Parker’s bill because it would have made the state responsible for Jackson’s debts, added Horhn, who served in the state Senate at the time.

Ted Henifin, who runs JXN Water, was invited to speak at Thursday’s hearing but couldn’t attend because of a “traveling conflict,” Yates said.

Both the mayor and Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Democrat whose district includes part of Jackson, criticized JXN Water over its handling of billing issues. The utility, for instance, doesn’t have a process to challenge bill amounts, Horhn said, adding his proposal would include an “appeals judge” to handle such cases.

“I have 10 constituents that have reached out to me in the last 24 hours with $37,000 water bills, $70,000 water bills, and they’ve all been told that it’s due to a leak,” Nelson said. “Every last one of them has had plumbers verify that it’s not a leak.”

Adding to the challenges, the utility doesn’t have anyone who customers can talk with in-person about billing issues, and constituents are having trouble getting answers through JXN Water’s phone helpline, he said.

“I have a lot of questions, but these are mainly geared toward JXN Water, which did not show up today,” Nelson went on to say. “This has to stop. We have people whose water is being turned off every single day.”

JXN Water told Mississippi Today earlier this month that it was shutting off about 1,000 accounts per week over nonpayment.

Yates said she would coordinate another time to bring Henifin before the committee. The chairwoman asked Horhn about a Jackson City Council vote earlier this month, which approved a resolution asking U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate to place control of the water and sewer systems back under the city. Council members echoed similar concerns from residents about communicating with the utility.

Wingate, though, has the ultimate say about when to turn over management of the systems, the mayor said. Henifin has projected he’ll be the third-party manager until 2027.

JXN Water is still awaiting a decision from the judge, who appointed Henifin to his role in 2022, regarding a proposed rate increase the utility first requested in April. The current water bill rates, even with perfect collections, wouldn’t be enough to fund operations and pay for the system’s debt, Henifin has said. The collection rate is now about 70%.

In a statement after Thursday’s hearing, the utility said it had told lawmakers ahead of time that Henifin couldn’t attend.

“The creation of JXN Water itself was born out of a period when collaboration and coordination around solutions for Jackson’s water system were lacking,” the statement said. “We welcome any dialogue aimed at strengthening the system for the people of Jackson and ensuring that future governance structures are grounded in transparency, accountability, and apolitical leadership.”

Correction 10/23/2025: This story has been updated to show Rep. Shanda Yates is an independent.

The Jackson Public Schools board voted unanimously to deny a charter school’s request to expand into high school grades — but that isn’t stopping Ambition Prep’s plans, its leader said. 

The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board approved Ambition Preparatory Charter School’s request to expand into grades nine through 12 at its July meeting. The school currently serves kindergarten through eighth-grade students. However, leaders of the local public school district voiced their disapproval at their board meeting Tuesday night.

“The establishment of this high school will have significant long-term implications, including decreased enrollment in existing high schools, particularly smaller ones, resulting in an impact on district fiscal operations,” JPS Superintendent Errick Greene said. He also noted that a new high school would likely affect teacher recruitment at the public school district. 

Greene made clear in an impassioned speech that the district views Ambition’s foray into higher grades as the establishment of a new school, not an expansion.

It’s an important distinction.

According to state law, charter schools can only be established in areas where the local school district is rated A, B or C if the local school district’s board approves. There’s no appeal process, so if the school board denies the request, the process ends. New charter schools can only be established without local school board approval in areas rated D or F. 

But expanding an existing charter school to serve more grades is relatively new territory. The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, which is tasked with approving new or expanded charter schools, established a new policy in 2023 that addresses charter schools that want to expand.

Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the authorizer board, says that, in this instance, Ambition Prep is not starting a new school, so it doesn’t have to follow the state law for establishing new charter schools.

The JPS vote came as a shock to Karmacharya when reached by Mississippi Today. 

“I am absolutely speechless,” she said. “My mouth dropped open.”

Karmacharya said that DeArchie Scott, Ambition’s executive director, completed a “healthy and robust application for the expansion” under the new policy and should continue with the process. 

That’s exactly what Scott plans to do, he said. 

“It’s not a new application, so it goes based on what the (local public school) district was rated at the time of approval, which was an ‘F,’” he said. “It’s already been approved by our authorizer board, so we don’t need approval from JPS.”

Ambition Prep, which opened in 2019, got a C in the latest Mississippi school report card, as did Jackson Public Schools. 

Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School in the Delta was previously approved as the state’s first charter high school, but that was through a merger. Ambition is the first school in the state to take advantage of the charter board’s new expansion policy to start serving higher grades. If the charter’s buildout is completed in fall 2027, it would make Ambition Prep the second charter high school in the state and the only charter high school in Jackson.

It’s not clear how the dispute will be resolved, or if it will escalate to litigation.

A spokesperson for Jackson Public Schools said the district’s board of trustees would “pursue all available options at its disposal to support its position regarding Ambition Prep’s request.”