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S&P Global Ratings, one of the big three credit rating agencies, has lowered Mississippi’s outlook from stable to negative, citing concerns about weak state economic trends, continuing tax cuts and the state’s massive government pension plan.

S&P lowered the outlook — usually considered a fiscal warning shot to governments — in March, but did not lower the state’s relatively good credit rating of AA on its general obligation debt or its ratings on other types of debt. But it said the outlook on all Mississippi’s ratings is negative.

It appears neither Moody’s Investor Services nor Fitch Ratings, the other two agencies, has recently lowered the state’s outlook or bond ratings.

Lawmakers during Senate debate on Tuesday over the state’s government employee retirement system obliquely referred to the lowered credit outlook.

“If you think our bond rating has issues now, that ain’t going to help it,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, arguing against a move to strip the retirement system board of authority to require increased employer contributions to the plan.

A downgrade in credit ratings can cost taxpayers millions when the state refinances debt or borrows money. In 2016, with the state budget tanking from numerous tax cuts and a flagging economy, Fitch downgraded the state’s credit rating from AA+ to AA and Moody’s lowered its outlook to negative.

S&P in a March statement about Mississippi said: “The outlook revision reflects our view of elevated credit risks stemming partly from persistently weak economic and demographic trends, which could result in an increasingly challenging budget environment as the state manages through its phased-in income tax reductions. The risk of future budgetary pressure is further elevated due to pension contributions falling short of their actuarially determined contribution amounts in each of the past three years and a relatively high level of unfunded pension liabilities. Finally, recurring delays in adopting the state’s annual revenue forecasts or a reduced commitment to debt management policies could worsen our view of the state’s budgetary performance and Financial Management Assessment.”

State Treasurer David McRae said he questions whether S&P is overreacting in its analysis and outlook downgrade, but said he takes all such reports seriously.

“While our credit rating remains strong and unchanged, this is a warning of where S&P may go if the issues they highlighted are not addressed,” McRae said. “S&P has always been an outlier and all too quick to assume the worst when other credit-rating agencies provide a more nuanced analysis of complex issues. That said, I take all recommendations seriously and encourage the Legislature to address the underlying issues without tax increases, whether direct or indirect on Mississippians.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, questioned the outlook change, saying “we are in the best financial shape we’ve been in in our history.”

“Our rainy day account is full … and we haven’t borrowed any money in three years,” Lamar said.

The S&P outlook references tax cuts passed the Legislature in 2022. This was the largest personal income tax cut in state history, which began being phased in 2023 and will continue through 2026, eventually reducing state revenue by an estimated $525 million a year.

Mississippi’s revenue and state coffers, like those in many states, has seen huge increases from the federal government spending billions during and after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

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A trial judge has rejected the request of a mother of four for a new trial, despite the state’s pathologist reversing his original ruling and saying the death was more likely a suicide.

“Nothing in Mississippi statutory and case law requires that the Forensic Pathologist must determine the manner of death to be homicide before a jury may convict a defendant of murder,” wrote Circuit Judge James Kitchens Jr.

A Clay County jury convicted Tameshia Shelton of murder in the 2009 shooting death of her sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Shelton, who was sentenced to life, won’t be eligible for parole until 2043.

“Every day that passes represents an incalculable hardship to Ms. Shelton, to her children and her loved ones, as she serves her life in prison for a crime that never happened,” said her lawyer, Sandra Levick. “We will definitely appeal. We trust the higher court will correct this injustice.”

The prosecution never presented a motive for why Shelton, now 45, would have killed Young. 

In April 2022, Kitchens presided over the last of three days of hearings over whether Shelton deserved a new trial. Those post-conviction hearings revealed evidence never shown to the jury, including an apparent suicide note Young wrote.

In 2009, forensic pathologist Dr. Liam Funte ruled Young’s death a homicide, basing that decision on the trajectory of the bullet from the front of the chest to the back “without significant deviation to left or right.”

Under questioning by Levick at one hearing, Funte said at the time he had not seen that in a suicide, but he said he has seen such cases since and was “leaning toward suicide.”

In reversing the original ruling, he cited scientific studies on bullet trajectories in suicides and homicides. In one study, more than 36% of suicides had bullet trajectories that did not deviate to the left or right.

After a verbal argument in which Shelton’s sister said she told Young that she didn’t want to live with him, Young walked to Shelton’s trailer.

Shelton told authorities that she was already in bed with her infant daughter when Young knocked on the window of the trailer. She went to the front door, and she said he told her that he only needed one bullet to kill a racoon.

She said she replied that he might need more than one bullet and loaded her .22 pistol and gave it to him.

When he failed to return, she said she went outside, found him collapsed on the gravel driveway and called 911.

In the autopsy report, Funte concluded the gun was fired from less than an inch away.

Both he and another forensic pathologist, Dr. Randall Frost, demonstrated at hearings how the small gun could fire a self-inflicted shot, following the same path the bullet traveled through Young’s body.

Funte said he would now rule the death “undetermined.”

Kitchens never addressed either the demonstrations or the apparent suicide note in his 15-page decision. In that note, Young wrote, “I have no life without her [Shelton’s sister]. … Tell [your daughter] Treasure about me one day. Bye. Bye.”

Under cross-examination at the post-conviction hearing by Special Assistant Attorney General Jackie Bost II, Funte acknowledged one scientific study showed that more than 82% of suicides by gunfire were shots to the head, while 16% were shots to the chest.

Other pathologists, who testified for the defense at the hearing, said Young’s death should have been ruled a suicide or undetermined.

At trial, Funte cited the lack of history that Young had suicidal thoughts or attempts, but said he had since seen impulsive suicides with no such history.

Asked how many suicides he had seen that were impulsive, Funte replied between 15% and 20%, with studies that put that number beyond 20%.

Bost asked, “So, four out of five suicides are not impulsive?”

“Correct,” Funte replied.

During the hearing, Judge Kitchens said Funte’s changed testimony “is probably the most damning to the conviction … That’s hard to get around.”

But in his new ruling, the judge found no problem.

Although the last hearing took place in April 2022, Kitchens had yet to rule in the case when Shelton’s lawyers complained to the Mississippi Supreme Court in November 2023. A clerk told justices that Kitchens should rule in December 2023.

When that didn’t happen by Jan. 22, justices ordered Kitchens to complete an order in 45 days. He took 53 days.

Matt Steffey, professor of law at the Mississippi College School of Law, said both dynamics and legal reasons make it difficult to persuade a trial judge to reverse a conviction in a case that he presided over a trial.

During a trial, a defendant is presumed innocent, but after a conviction, the law presumes the defendant is guilty, Steffey said. “It’s not enough to persuade a court that an error has been made.”

The defendant also has to prove the error likely impacted the verdict, he said. “This is a difficult standard to meet.”

Cognitive science shows how difficult it is to persuade people of their errors, and there are political dynamics as well, he said. “Trial judges are elected officials. Vacating convictions or ordering new trials can provide fodder for potential political opponents eager to claim a judge is insufficiently tough on crime and criminals.”

The simple truth is post-conviction relief offers “narrow grounds and a slim chance for success,” he said.

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The Senate voted 38-7 Tuesday to prevent the board that governs the state’s public employee pension plan from increasing the rates government agencies pay to fund the system.

But in passing the legislation, Senate leaders, including Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, told the Senate they supported providing state money to improve the long-term financial viability of the Public Employees Retirement System.

Under current state law, the board that governors PERS can act unilaterally to increase the amount employers, such as state agencies, city and county governments and education entities, contribute to PERS.

But the Senate proposal would give the Legislature the final authority on whether to impose the rate increases.

The financial issues surrounding PERS have come to the forefront this session after its board voted to increase by 5% over a three-year period the amount government entities contribute toward the paycheck of each employee. Various agencies, especially city and county governments, complained they could not afford the increase that would require them to raise taxes and-or cut services.

In response to the increase the PERS board approved, the House proposed to suspend the increase and to dissolve the board. The board, composed primarily of people elected by current public employees and retirees, would be replaced primarily by members appointed by the governor and lieutenant governor under the House plan.

The Senate killed the House plan much to the consternation of the House leaders. But on Tuesday the Senate amended a House bill designed to allow certain retired members to go back to work and continue to draw their retirement. The Senate amendment gives the board the authority to make a recommendation to the Legislature on increasing the employer contribution rate.

The PERS board under the new Senate proposal also would be required to include an analysis by its actuary and two independent actuaries on the reason the increase was needed and the impact the increase would have on governmental entities.

When passing the amendment, which now goes back to House, Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Chair David Parker, R-Southaven, said the Legislature also should infuse cash into PERS this session to help improve its long-term financial outlook.

But Parker said that infusion of cash would have to be done through an appropriations bill later in the process.

“I agree with the concept we need to put a significant amount of funds into the system this year,” Senate Appropriations Chair Hopson told his fellow senators during debate.

The 2% increase in the employer contribution rate that the PERS Board intends to enact on July 1 unless blocked by the Legislature would cost about $150 million cumulatively for local governments, education entities and state agencies, Parker said. An additional 3% increase would be enacted over the next two years unless blocked by the Legislature.

READ MORE: Public retirement system debate may not be dead yet this session

A small bipartisan group of senators voted against the proposal on Tuesday. They objected to taking away the PERS board’s authority to increase the employer contribution rate unilaterally and also expressed concern that the House would not agree to a Senate proposal to pump additional funds into the program.

After the Senate action, PERS Executive Director Ray Higgins, said, “We are aware of recent legislative developments and are monitoring closely. PERS is a very important system to so many, and additional funding in some manner is necessary for the long-term needs of the plan. We look forward to continued work with the Legislature on this important topic.”

Former Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who is a member of the PERS board elected by the retirees, said, “There has not been enough dialog between the board and the Legislature on what needs to be done to preserve the pension funds for Mississippi public retirees.”

Dale stressed that PERS could meet its financial obligation for current retirees. But he said there could be problems in the future unless action is taken to improve the financial position of the system.

He also said altering the makeup of the board would not change the issues facing the system.

Parker said the Senate has no plans to change the composition of the board, and the amendment passed by the Senate on Tuesday included language stressing that there is no intent to change the benefits for current retirees and public employees.

The plan now goes to the House where members can concur with the Senate proposal and sent it to Gov. Tate Reeves or invite conference or negotiations between the two chambers.

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House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have both agreed to negotiate final details of a bill to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor in public meetings, an increasingly rare occurrence at the state Capitol.  

The House last week voted to “invite conference” with the Senate to try and work out a compromise on a bill to expand Medicaid coverage to more Mississippians. In recent years the vast majority of conference committee negotiations don’t take place in public. 

White, a Republican from West, first called for the negotiations to be public in a recent interview with Mississippi Today. The new speaker said he doesn’t believe it’s realistic for lawmakers to have public conference committee meetings on every relevant bill but believes Medicaid expansion rises to the level of holding such a public meeting.  

“I think the public on this issue is probably going to demand it to some degree, is going to want to see where people are on it,” White said. 

Hosemann, a Republican who leads the Senate, also said in a statement that he believes major issues should be “conducted in public and not behind closed doors,” including conference committees. 

“Such conversations create a better end product,” Hosemann said. “The Senate has demonstrated its own commitment to transparency by holding public conference committees in the past, equipping committee rooms with webcasting and archiving abilities, and robustly debating issues on the floor.” 

A conference committee is formed when the House and the Senate pass different versions of the same bill, such as the case with Medicaid expansion. When this occurs, the speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor each appoint three lawmakers from the chamber they lead to work out the differences in a conference committee.

For the first time since the federal Affordable Care Act became law, the two legislative chambers have each passed plans to expand Medicaid coverage. But each has proposed vastly different proposals, making the conference process extremely important on a measure that could provide health insurance to poor Mississippians. 

The House’s expansion plan aims to expand health care coverage to upwards of 200,000 Mississippians, and accept $1 billion a year in federal money to cover it, as most other states have done.

The Senate, on the other hand, wants a more restrictive program, to expand Medicaid to cover around 40,000 people, turn down the federal money, and require proof that recipients are working roughly 30 hours a week. 

If the lawmakers, called conferees, cannot reach an agreement, the bill would die. But if they do reach an accord, the revised bill, called a conference report, gets brought back to the full Senate and House again for consideration.

The joint rules of the Legislature, which the vast majority of lawmakers voted in favor of this year, state that all official conference committee meetings “shall be open to the public at all times.” 

The reality, though, is conference committees often involve lawmakers simply talking over the phone or exchanging text messages. Other times, lawmakers may skip an actual meeting and just email proposals back and forth.

The practice often leaves the public and rank-and-file lawmakers in the dark about what happens in these meetings and how the reports are drafted.

Hosemann and Senate leaders upended these norms in 2022 by calling for a public conference committee meeting for the House and Senate to haggle over the final details of a proposal to increase public K-12 teacher salaries. 

“I’ve encouraged all of my chairmen to meet with all of their chairmen and to do it in a public forum,” Hosemann said at the time. 

Hosemann’s push for a public process that year resulted in several committee leaders having public meetings.

Former House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, at the time was less encouraged to deviate from the conference process norms and asserted that “the overwhelming majority of bills don’t require a show.”

“We don’t have to get in a room with everybody sitting around the table and negotiate,” Gunn said. “They can talk on the phone. They can just send written letters back and forth.”

It appears White, currently in his first term as speaker, is willing to have more public conference meetings than his predecessor, though he has continued the practice of holding private Republican caucus meetings at the Capitol, which effectively gives the supermajority House GOP a chance to formulate and debate policy outside public view.

Under Hosemann, the Republican-majority Senate does not conduct any formal, closed-door GOP caucus meetings. 

The Senate also since 2020 has live-streamed its committee meetings, open to the public online, while the House has not.

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The Senate on Tuesday voted down House legislation to rewrite and remove the objective formula used to determine the amount of money local school districts should receive for their basic operations.

The Senate had the option under legislative rules of inviting conference to negotiate differences in education funding formula bills passed by the House and Senate or accepting the House proposal and sending the bill to the governor.

Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, made the unusual motion to not concur but did not make a motion to invite conference. That essentially killed the bill.

Theoretically, a senator could make another motion Wednesday and revive the legislation. But DeBar said his goal is to work with House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, the state Department of Education and outside experts in the legislative off session on the complex issue of how the education funding formula should be adjusted or changed.

“I am willing and committed to work in the off session … to address the funding formula for education …,” DeBar said.

DeBar said he did not see the House’s education funding formula proposal until relatively late in the session.

“I think it is imperative to look at it together and move slowly in doing it,” he said. “I don’t think when we address a third of the state budget we should do it in a rush.”

DeBar said it is the Senate’s intention to put an additional $206 million into kindergarten through 12th grade public education this session and to study the funding formula to possibly be changed or replaced in the 2025 session.

Plus, the Senate is proposing funding $50 million in pay raises for K-12 teachers and $50 million in salary increases for university and community college faculty.

The Senate’s intention to place more funds into education could lead to a legislative showdown in the coming weeks as efforts are made to finalize a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, beginning July 1.

House Speaker Jason White, R-West, has said he would not support placing additional money into public education unless the longstanding Mississippi Adequate Education Program is replaced.

The MAEP was passed in 1997 and fully enacted in 2003. In recent years many members of the legislative leadership have tried to replace MAEP, saying the state could not afford it.

House leaders, though, say their current proposal would place an additional $230 million into education and would provide extra funds for low-income students and others who face educational challengers, such as non-English learners.

After the Senate action, White said in a statement, “By refusing to have meaningful discussion on this issue and enter into the conference phase of the legislative
process, the Senate has moved to preserve the status quo which will result in less funds to
public schools and inadequate distribution in an unfair and inequitable manor.
As speaker of the House, I have clearly communicated with Senate leadership the House
position that we have funded MAEP for the last time. As we near the end of the legislative
session, the House will continue to look for ways to fund education with a student-centered
formula.”

READ MORE: Fight over school funding formula could lead to big bucks for schools

But many education advocates have been critical of the House plan because it does not include an objective formula to determine the amount of money needed for the basic operation of schools.

Nancy Loome, executive director of the Parents Campaign, a public education advocacy group, said the House plan had laudable features. But she said her group opposed the plan because it left it up to the Legislature to determine the amount of money needed to provide for the basic operation of schools. She said the plan has a feature requiring education experts to make a recommendation on the funding level to legislators, but the plan does not mandate that recommendation be adopted by legislators.

The Senate proposed changes to MAEP, but DeBar said any rewrite should include an objective funding formula.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include additional information about proposed teacher and higher education faculty pay raises and updated comments from House Speaker Jason White.

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Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive access to legislative analysis and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson is glued to the legislative debate over Medicaid expansion.

The leader of more than 50,000 Catholics in 65 Mississippi counties, Bishop Joseph Kopacz has good reason to tune in. Priests in his diocese serve poverty-gripped Mississippi communities where so many people cannot afford basic health care. Church leaders regularly visit the state’s hospitals and see firsthand how dire the financial crisis has become for hospitals struggling to cover the costs of serving uninsured patients. Kopacz himself has served on the board of St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, which has been forced to eliminate numerous services in recent years as its leaders struggle to balance its budget.

As lawmakers for the first time seriously consider Medicaid expansion, which experts say would provide health insurance to hundreds of thousands of Mississippians and save the state’s hospitals millions each year, Kopacz is one of many faith leaders watching closely.

“This opportunity is golden,” Kopacz told me in an interview on Holy Thursday. “All the factors are in place to bring this about for the common good and the real care for the people of our state. It’s too important to ignore when we know the need is there, and we know there’s a real financial capacity to implement this in our state.”

READ MORE: Negotiations begin: Where do House, Senate, governor stand on Medicaid expansion? Is there room for compromise?

I wanted to hear Kopacz’s thoughts about Medicaid expansion for a few reasons. First, he and others at the diocese have been front-and-center as a coalition of faith leaders work to get expansion — long believed to be a pipe dream in conservative Mississippi — across the finish line this session. Continuing a long and impactful legacy of social activism in Mississippi, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergy have led calls this session for lawmakers to expand Medicaid.

Second, we’ve heard a cascade of cries lately from opponents of expansion — some self-proclaimed conservatives — about the dangers of using Christian faith principles to advocate for such a policy change. “Jesus is not a political weapon to be turned on our political enemies and Scripture does not exist to be twisted to fit our political agenda,” one commentator wrote recently. I thought calling in an actual biblical expert might be helpful to us all.

Third, two of the most important Republican leaders at the table for this debate — Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Sen. Kevin Blackwell — are devout Catholics. Hosemann and Blackwell have led the Senate’s development of an expansion plan, which experts say isn’t considered expansion at all. Their plan, if implemented, would insure far fewer Mississippians than traditional expansion, would leave hundreds of millions of federal dollars at the table, and would likely never go into effect at all because of a strict work requirement that the federal government will not approve. And in passing their plan, the two Senate leaders tossed aside an earlier House proposal that would have actually gone into effect, insured hundreds of thousands more Mississippians, and drawn down the full $1 billion-plus of annual federal funds available.

READ MORE: Senate passes pared-down Medicaid expansion plan with veto-proof majority

Kopacz, ever humble and mild-mannered, declined to speak directly about Hosemann and Blackwell during our interview. But he did speak very specifically about aspects of the two Senate leaders’ plan.

“The work requirement (under the Senate plan) could make this unnecessarily insurmountable,” Kopacz said. “It would be really unfair and unjust not to be able to move this plan forward because of too rigid of an approach to work. And look, I certainly embrace work. Part of our Catholic social teaching demands that of us. Work is a big part of being a productive citizen. But so many people cannot work at all for various reasons. I understand it’s important to many lawmakers, but the work requirement cannot be absolute. It could just completely derail the whole effort.”

Several times in our interview, Kopacz referenced Catholic social teaching. Being a Presbyterian preacher’s kid with a strong tendency to go down theological rabbit holes, I wanted to know more about that and did some reading. What I found was an extraordinary distillation of the Christian argument for expansion — and a clear set of principles for why Kopacz is so strongly advocating for it in this moment.

There are seven themes of Catholic social teaching, and all but one of them have direct bearing on Mississippi’s current debate about Medicaid expansion. This literature is not biblical scripture, of course, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops base their writing directly and clearly in biblical passages.

Italicized text is pulled directly from the bishops’ text, followed by quotes from Kopacz that add further context.

Life and dignity of the human person. The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society.

“Another way of appreciating that is a real integral pro-life vision for our communities and our state would be all that helps life to flourish. Health care is a very important part of this,” Kopacz said.

Option for the poor and vulnerable. A basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition recalls the story of the Last Judgment and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first.

“There’s economic opportunity in this state, but often where it falls short is when people haven’t had necessarily the best conditions educationally or certainly with health care,” Kopacz said. “Poverty can really hurt a person’s well-being, and that’s why something like Medicaid expansion is so important. So many people in this state are hurting. Medicaid expansion can help.”

Rights and responsibilities. The Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met.

“Health care is a right, and it should not be denied when it can be provided,” Kopacz said, echoing decades of Catholic leadership writings on the matter. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a right.”

The dignity of work and the rights of workers. The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.

“Work is a big part of being a productive citizen. I’m all for it,” Kopacz said. “However, there are just too many pieces to life in terms of health. Situations of loss in people’s lives, whatever could happen that knocks people on their heels for a long time. There are just too many complex areas of life that cannot be overlooked right now. I believe a vast majority of people are working and will work. But not everyone can.”

Perhaps non-Catholic lawmakers and readers of this column aren’t moved by the bishop’s words and some papal and conciliar documents. For those folks, here are just a handful of biblical scriptures cited by Christian leaders advocating for Medicaid expansion at the Capitol this session: Matthew 25:40; Luke 10:35; Proverbs 11:25; Romans 13:10; John 13:34-35; and Luke 6:20.

Meanwhile, Kopacz and other clergy are planning at least one more Capitol rally as Senate and House leaders begin trying to hammer out an expansion plan in the conference committee process.

The way these leaders see it, they aren’t twisting scripture for political purposes. They’re letting it guide their advocacy for a transformative policy that would save lives and help so many Mississippians in need.

“There seems to be a groundswell of desire that there be a more just reality in our state for people in need of health care,” Kopacz said. “I do think in a way there’s no turning back here. To wait another year is really just — people are in need now. The people of Mississippi, in the last several years, have indicated they support it. I’m just hoping the lawmakers can make this a reality.”

PODCAST: Inside faith leaders’ push to expand Medicaid in Mississippi

The post The Christian argument for Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Defending national champion UConn will play Purdue for the NCAA men’s national championship tonight, and it should be a competitive and thoroughly entertaining game.

But before we go there, let’s examine the team that best exemplifies the remarkable transformation of college basketball in recent years with the transfer portal, NIL and a pandemic, which have made for a general state of fruit basket turnover.

That team would be the Alabama Crimson Tide, a thoroughly eclectic group of vagabond talents who came together for an amazing NCAA Tournament run before losing a hard-fought battle to UConn in the semifinals. The final score of 86-72 was in no way indicative of how competitive the Crimson Tide was against the team favored to win a second consecutive national title.

Even the most diehard of Alabama basketball fans needed a program to know the players when the season began. They came from everywhere. You had Grant Nelson, from Devils Lake, North Dakota (population 7,192), who had played his first three college basketball seasons at North Dakota State of the Summit Conference. You had dynamic point guard Mark Sears, who transferred in from Ohio University of the Mid-American Conference year ago. Sears, who hails from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, had a pit stop at Hargraves (Va.) Military Academy before his two seasons at Ohio.

We are just getting started. New Jersey native Aaron Estrada, the shooting guard and second leading scorer behind Sears, who began his college odyssey at St. Peters, transferred to Oregon and then to Hofstra of the Coastal Athletic Association, before finally winding up at Bama.

Want more? South Carolinian Nick Pringle, who played power forward, started his college basketball at Wofford College of the Southern Conference, where he played sparingly as a freshman. From there, Pringle went to Dodge City Community College where he spent a season before landing at Bama, where he has improved mightily in two seasons.

There’s more, but you get the point. Of the five Crimson Tide starters against UConn, only one — wingman Rylen Griffin from Dallas — began his collegiate days the traditional way at Alabama.

Credit fifth-year Tide coach Nate Oats for bringing together such a divergent cast and weaving it together to lead the nation in scoring, win 25 games and play its way into the national spotlight. And Oats would be the perfect guy to assemble such a group of guys who mostly began their careers at mid-major schools, some making multiple stops, before winding up at Bama. After all, Oats played at Division III Marantha Baptist (Wisconsin) University, and coached there first before moving to Wisconsin-Whitewater, Romulus (Michigan) High School and then the University of Buffalo (Mid-American Conference).

Clearly, Alabama players took similarly circuitous routes to reach college basketball’s big-time and lead the Tide to the first Final Four in school history.

Alabama is probably the most successful illustration of college basketball’s sea change, but it’s happening all over. North Carolina State, another Final Four darling, came from out of nowhere with seven transfers, including all five starters. UConn has three transfers among its key players. Only Purdue, among the Final Four teams, relies primarily on its own recruits. The Boilermakers have had just two transfers over the past four seasons.

Here in Mississippi? Fruit basket turnover, it is. At Ole Miss, Matthew Murrell was the only Ole Miss regular who began his college career in Oxford. At State, five of the seven highest scorers began their careers elsewhere. At Southern Miss, none of the 10 leading scorers began their college basketball careers in Hattiesburg. 

Who knows what the rosters at all three schools will look like next year? Answer: At this point, nobody.

What does this mean for college basketball’s future? No question, the fan bases that invest most generously in NIL collectives will have the best chance of making the turnarounds that Alabama and North Carolina State have enjoyed this season.

Seems to this observer it will become much more difficult for the so-called mid-majors to pull the stunning upsets and make the Cinderella runs that have made the NCAA Tournament so thoroughly entertaining through the years. Schools such as Davidson, Loyola (Chicago), Butler, Virginia Commonwealth, Loyola Marymount and St. Peters have slayed Goliaths and won multiple tournament games. Now that the power conference schools can cherry pick mid-major talent through the portal, that will be more difficult. You think North Dakota State couldn’t have made some noise if Grant Nelson hadn’t moved on to Alabama?

There’s a flip side to all this. With so much roster turnover, the turnarounds will go both ways. Not only will schools like Alabama and North Carolina State make unexpected runs, but proud programs like Michigan (8-24 this year), Notre Dame (13-20), West Virginia (9-23), Georgetown (9-23), UCLA (16-17 and Southern Cal (15-18) will have some disastrous (for them) seasons. The portal giveth, the portal taketh away. Lose a couple players in the portal, make a couple more bad portal selections and even the best programs can go south in a hurry.

It’s a new world in college basketball. A strange, unpredictable world.

The post In college hoops, ‘maybe next year’ could now mean a whole new team appeared first on Mississippi Today.

An Indianola mother whose call to police for help in a domestic disturbance left her 11-year-old shot in the chest by one of the officers could lose custody of her son along with his younger sister and cousin. 

The children’s presence and Aderrien Murry’s injury on the early morning of May 20, 2023, serve as the basis for neglect allegations and potential action by the Sunflower County Youth Court, according to Carlos Moore, the family’s attorney. 

“If it was really about the best interest of the children, I think this would have been set much sooner, not 11 months later,” he said Friday.

The action comes after Nakala Murry, Aderrien’s mother, pushed forward with a criminal affidavit against Sgt. Greg Capers for misdemeanor simple assault after a grand jury in December declined to indict him. 

Moore will represent Aderrien and his mother in an April 17 youth court adjudication hearing to determine whether the children have been neglected and need to be placed in the custody and care of someone else. 

A petition alleging neglect was filed in August, several months after Aderrien called for help and officers from the Indianola Police Department responded. Standing in the doorway, Capers shot the boy as he rounded the corner. Capers has previously said in court records that the shooting was an accident and he expected to encounter Nakala Murry’s partner who came to the house. 

Aderrien suffered a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver, and he was taken nearly two hours away to a Jackson hospital where he was treated with a chest tube and placed on oxygen. 

The petition states that Aderrien “got hurt because of the domestic violence between the mother, Nakala Murry, and her boyfriend,” who is the father of Nakala’s daughter, according to court records shared with Mississippi Today. Additionally, the petition states domestic violence has occurred between them for years and the partner was known to assault Nakala Murry in front of the children. 

“The reporter wanted someone to check on the children because something worse can happen next time,” the petition states. 

In over 20 years of practicing law, Moore said he has never encountered a situation, such as the one Murry is in, where someone is facing potential loss of custody of their children because they have been a victim of domestic violence. 

He also believes the youth court proceedings are retribution for an ongoing federal lawsuit Nakala Murry filed against Capers, Police Chief Ronald Sampson and the city of Indianola. 

Under state law, the identity of those who report child abuse and neglect are confidential.  

Nakala Murry has been distraught about the neglect allegations and upcoming youth court hearing, but Moore is reminding her that going through this is better than if her son had died last year. 

“She is an awesome mom and shouldn’t have to endure something like this because her son was shot by a police officer,” Moore said. 

The post Mom whose 11-year-old was shot by police after she sought help now at risk of losing her kids appeared first on Mississippi Today.

BOONEVILLE — Northeast Mississippi Community College was running out of space, so after years of saving, it bought an empty furniture warehouse five minutes outside this small town. 

The plan is to fill the 350,000 square feet with the college’s growing career-technical education programs, setting up everything from classrooms, labs and offices to conference space that could support economic development in the five rural counties that comprise the northeastern-most state lines of Mississippi. 

“I can see it in my mind,” said Chris Murphy, the college’s vice president of finance, standing in the mostly empty warehouse on a recent Thursday. 

Two years later, the warehouse is still mostly empty. In the cavernous space, there are ant hills next to cardboard boxes belonging to a tenant whose business helped the college pay off the building’s roughly $3 million note (the total cost was about $7 million). Outside, weeds poke through the cracked pavement. 

Without help affording at least half of the estimated $15 million in renovations, the warehouse will stay that way, Murphy said.

Until then, the community college and its students will make do with the current career-technical facilities, housed in decades-old brick buildings on the main campus, where conditions are moldy, grimy, cluttered and water-damaged. 

Though $15 million may not sound like much, it’s a big ask for the state’s historically neglected community college system. And NEMCC isn’t alone: Many community colleges across the state are struggling with unmet needs, especially on the infrastructure side, even though lawmakers have drawn from the state’s excess revenue to provide what may be more funding than ever before. 

Not every college has benefited equally. Though all 15 schools have received routine funds for new buildings, repairs or renovations, some colleges have gotten additional appropriations for line-item projects while others, including NEMCC, have not. 

Lawmakers acknowledged this disparity earlier this year and said they are working to fix it. 

“I want to make sure that I keep the big boys happy, and they get their fair share, but just, also … we’ve got to do something for the smaller community colleges to keep them afloat,” said Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee during an appropriations hearing earlier this year. 

But it may not be enough to correct for years of paltry funding. Mississippi has historically used bonds to fund capital projects for state entities. In 2021, the most recent year lawmakers gave out bonds, the entire 15-college system received $35 million, according to the Mississippi Community College Board. 

That’s about the highest amount ever received in bonds by the community college system. And yet, the eight universities got more than $86 million in bonds that year, despite educating fewer students than the community colleges. 

For colleges tasked with shepherding the state’s ambitious workforce development programs, the meager funding means they’re educating students in facilities that are falling behind the conditions of private industry. 

“The idea that working in a factory is dark, dangerous, dingy is not true,” said Greg James, NEMCC’s director of workforce systems. Students “need to see the environment they’re gonna be working in.”

“I don’t think I need new equipment anytime soon,” he added. “I need buildings to put it in.”

Dead ladybugs line the windows, which aren’t insulated. A wide refrigerator is broken; another fridge can’t get cold enough. A sink in the back galley is out of commission, the pipes rusting and broken. One time in recent years, water leaked through the floor onto computers in the office below. 

Other career-tech classes are in brick buildings with flat roofs prone to leaking. In a classroom with dead cockroaches and chalkboards, air-compressor equipment is squished together in rows that don’t resemble a factory. In an industrial lab, a basin sink is covered in grime, and the door to the nearby tool room is metal. 

“That looks like a prison to me,” said Nadara Cole, NEMCC’s vice president for workforce training and economic development. But, she joked, at least the leather-and-chrome chairs the college can’t afford to replace are back in style. 

Cole is getting ready to retire. She’s worked at NEMCC since the early 1990s, and in that time, the college has been unable to build any new career-tech facilities. The existing buildings, which she said were all constructed during an older push for vocational programs in the 1960s, are almost as old as she is. 

All the community colleges struggle with funding. With roughly 90,000 students, the community colleges educate more students than Mississippi’s public universities, but they are expected to do so with lower tuition and less state appropriations. 

This imbalance, Cole and others say, is directly reflected in the way the community colleges look which, in turn, affects recruitment. Students who tour NEMCC sometimes come from high schools that are in better shape, she said. 

“It’s subliminally telling them, ‘you’re the stepchildren,’” Cole said.

“That is the image we sometimes feel we are projecting because we don’t look as nice,” she added. 

The 15 community colleges received $396 million in operational support and capital funding last year, compared to the more than $1.1 billion appropriation for the eight universities, a figure that doesn’t include state financial aid. 

It’s not a recent phenomenon: From 1989 to 2021, the community colleges have received one-third the bond funds the universities have, according to figures compiled by MCCB. This means capital projects at the colleges move slower, because they must wait years to accumulate enough bonds, all while the cost of construction increases with inflation. 

Kell Smith, the MCCB director, said he doesn’t know why lawmakers don’t appropriate an equitable amount of bonds to the colleges, except possibly because state laws require counties within a community college district to provide additional tax revenue for the “enlargement, improvement and repair” of the campuses. 

“I hate to say that’s the way it’s always been,” Smith said. 

People are growing more skeptical about the value of higher education. More rural residents are graduating from high school, but people in those communities remain less likely than their suburban and urban peers to continue their education. This 10-part series from the Rural News Network, made possible with support from Ascendium, explores how institutions and students are meeting their educational needs and the demands of today’s rural workforce. 

For rural colleges like NEMCC that don’t have the tax base of a Tupelo or DeSoto County, this means they don’t have significant funding alternatives when state appropriations are low. NEMCC is located in Prentiss County, where nearly 17% of its population of less than 25,000 lives below the poverty line.

NEMCC gets about $4 million a year from millage from its five counties, Murphy said. 

The formula that lawmakers use for routine appropriations for repairs and renovations also poses another funding ceiling for rural colleges. Last year, lawmakers appropriated $50 million such funds based on a formula that is one-half evenly split among the colleges and one-half full-time equivalent enrollment, meaning colleges got more money if they had more students.

With about 2,500 students, NEMCC isn’t the smallest colleges in Mississippi, but it can’t compete with ones that draw enrollment from the state’s metro areas.  

Jason Mattox, the associate vice president for career and technical education, said NEMCC receives federal funds for career-tech programs, but the amount is too small to address all the equipment issues in any given year. The money is also shared with the college’s health science programs. 

Without newer facilities, the stigma associated with career-tech education will continue to kneecap the programs, Mattox said. 

“It’s dirty, it’s greasy, it’s what we call the ol’ vo-techs,” Mattox said. “In reality, we’re not that way at all. We’re training students for highly technical, high-demand jobs, and we need facilities that replicate what students should see when they get out into the working industry.”

The difference is noticeable, said Cole Thacker, a 24-year-old culinary arts triple major who worked in restaurants before enrolling at NEMCC. 

The kitchen is so small, he’s burned himself trying to prevent hot pans from touching other students. Because there are not enough stand mixers, he’s had to wait for his turn hours after class to finish assignments. The fridges have ruined his classmates’ projects, making it harder to learn advanced techniques like mirror glazing. 

Thacker views this program as an investment in his future; he hopes to work at Disney World after he graduates in 2026. Going directly into the restaurant industry could only take him so far, he said. 

“I tried to climb my way up, and I found out you can only climb so high without knowing … fundamental stuff that usually isn’t discussed in the professional environment,” he said.  

Toward the back of the shop are gray-and-white automated machines. They’re brand new — not to mention expensive, costing a total of $816,000. They can be used to cut material into a range of shapes to be used in the manufacturing process for anything from car parts to surgical implants. This skill set is so desirable that NEMCC’s programs have helped attract major defense contractors and international companies like Toyota to the area. 

“The sky’s the limit,” said Jonathan Shaw, an instructor in the program. 

It’s also something Shaw thinks about more than he should have to. When it rains, the ceiling leaks. The location of the five machines, Shaw said, was strategic. Still, the machines are just a few feet from a wall that he said contains a “splashing risk.” 

The morning a Mississippi Today reporter visited the lab, Shaw had to vacuum up water that pooled on the floor. It’s what he signed up for when he decided to become a teacher, taking a $40,000 pay cut because he wanted to pass on the skills he’d learned to others.

When it comes to requesting state funds for capital improvements, the community colleges are often on their own, according to interviews with state and local college officials. Unlike the state’s public universities, which are under the umbrella of the Institutions of Higher Learning, the community colleges operate more autonomously, with individual governing boards. MCCB supports the college’s requests but isn’t involved in crafting them. 

Mississippi’s workforce development office, called Accelerate MS, is a source of funding for programs and equipment — they helped NEMCC get the new machines. While brick-and-mortar projects aren’t Accelerate’s main focus, the office has acted as a pass-through for construction projects that lawmakers funded with federal pandemic money, said Courtney Taylor, its new director.

Last year, those funds went to community colleges, Taylor said, and the year before that, $20 million went to the private William Carey University for a new primary care institute. 

“Building buildings is very different than building people,” she said. 

Smith said he doesn’t know the scope of deferred maintenance at the colleges, and that the Department of Finance and Administration Bureau of Buildings would have that information. The colleges do provide a 5-year capital plan to MCCB, Smith added, that shows $131 million in repair-and-renovation needs for the upcoming fiscal year. 

What can end up happening is the colleges, like other public entities, receive funds based on how powerful their local delegation is. 

“Our legislators, they do what they say, but we’re one little corner of the whole state,” Cole said. 

At the same time, Cole said she isn’t blaming lawmakers for NEMCC’s needs. 

“There’s just not enough funds to do everything we need to do,” she said. “We’re a poor state. I get it. We can’t depend on just the state, although that is where a lot of it is going to come from.” 

That mentality also leads state agencies like MCCB to craft budget requests based on what they believe lawmakers will fund. According to a 2007 law, community colleges are supposed to receive “mid-level funding,” an amount in-between the budgets of K-12 and IHL. But lawmakers have never done that, so MCCB stopped asking for it on behalf of the colleges. 

“What the statute required us to request was such a high amount that we knew this is not reasonable, this is something we can expect to get,” Smith said. 

There’s also a lack of transparency in how funding decisions are made. Though Smith regularly talks with “budget writers” — lawmakers on the appropriations committees — he couldn’t tell Mississippi Today how they decide what to fund other than the state has finite resources. 

And two college presidents whose schools have not received as much state support as others declined to talk with Mississippi Today for this story. The presidents of Copiah-Lincoln Community College and East Central Community College said they did not have time for an interview. 

At Mississippi Delta Community College, the law enforcement training academy is struggling with mold and a roof that’s falling in, lawmakers learned during the House appropriations committee earlier this year. Tyrone Jackson, the president, said he wouldn’t talk with Mississippi Today for this article because the colleges advocate with one voice during the session.

But the colleges don’t receive state funding as one. 

In NEMCC’s industrial maintenance classroom, instructor Brian Warren demonstrated how to cut dice while trying not to sweat. The air compressor in the decades-old building’s AC blew out that morning. 

What really gets to Warren — who, like Shaw, took a roughly $40,000 pay cut for this job — is the lack of space. 

One day, he hopes he will finally have a shop large enough to teach students how to work with a manufacturing robot, donated by a nearby Toyota supplier, that has been sitting wrapped in plastic for four years because he doesn’t have enough space to safely use it. 

James, the workforce systems director, asked the council for feedback on what NEMCC could be doing to help local employers find qualified workers. If NEMCC can secure funding, the council would likely meet in the renovated furniture warehouse, in a grander space befitting the group’s ambitions.

“Are we working on something you think is a waste of time?” James asked the group. 

One person suggested NEMCC should offer a lineman class. Several people said they wanted to see NEMCC teach common sense skills, from a work ethic to how to read a clock and use a tape measure. Leon Hays, the executive director of the Prentiss County Development Association, added that “getting a diploma doesn’t give you life skills.” 

Rusty Berryhill, the president of a furniture company in Union County and a past chairman of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, said NEMCC should consider creating a distribution list for employers of recent graduates, an idea that generated a lot of interest. 

Then Forrest Bryan, an ecosystem coordinator from Accelerate MS, invited members of the council to a roundtable discussion with industry, not lawmakers or nonprofits, about funding opportunities. 

“If we’re not listening to industry, we’re not listening to the people who really matter, okay?” Bryan said. “Politicians really don’t matter. I mean, obviously they matter, but they have their place over there. So the industry leaders and the industry needs are what we are wanting to address at this particular discussion.” 

“Somebody should shout, ‘Amen!’” Taylor, NEMCC’s finance person, said, tapping Mattox on the shoulder. 

The council’s next stop after the meeting was to tour a brand new robotics lab the college did up itself with painted floors and new lighting.

Before checking out the new classroom, Berryhill paid NEMCC a compliment, saying the college was working hard to be beneficial to local industry. He recently hired one NEMCC graduate at his small company, where he employs less than 125 people, and is employing another NEMCC student part-time. 

But are lawmakers appropriating enough to help the college sustain its programs? 

“I’m not answering that,” Berryhill responded. He later said he felt like it wasn’t his place to comment on funding matters, because he doesn’t want lawmakers to feel criticized for appropriating too little or make them think they are giving too much, adding “it’s a no-win situation on my part to answer that question.” 

Murphy said he thinks lawmakers support Mississippi’s community colleges — they just need to know how. By purchasing the furniture warehouse, NEMCC made a commitment to help citizens in its five-county region, an area where the free-trade agreements of the 1990s led the economy to suffer.

“We need the Legislature behind us,” Murphy said. “I think they are, especially on the workforce equipment and program side. But we need help on the capital side as well.” 

The post ‘The stepchildren:’ Community colleges struggle to fund buildings for growing workforce programs appeared first on Mississippi Today.