Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau, Bobby Harrison, and Taylor Vance break down last week’s special session in which lawmakers appropriated at least $350 million to close a deal that will bring a new green energy plant to north Mississippi.
The post Podcast: The ironies of Mississippi’s new green energy plant appeared first on Mississippi Today.
BELZONI – Deep in a crumbling building, there is a room filled with folders.
Just a sliver of the room’s walls peek over the top of the manila piles. There are too many folders to count, with thick stacks of documents inside them, containing precious, forgotten information about a forgotten community, a community once cared for in this very building.
The only hospital in Belzoni, Patients’ Choice Medical Center of Humphreys County, closed in 2013. Besides the piles of paper, this building is empty, and the town is following suit. In the decade since the hospital’s closure, Belzoni has suffered.
Belzoni calls itself the “heart of the Delta” because of the town’s central location — people driving to various places in the region must pass through Belzoni, particularly those coming from Jackson.
After driving over the last hill just north of Yazoo City, U.S. 49 opens up into the Delta’s vast fields of green, leading straight to the city of Belzoni, just a speck flying past on the right. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
But to miss it would be to miss one of the rural communities that comprise the beating heart of Mississippi.
Rural towns, where the majority of Mississippians make their lives and homes, are often powered by hospitals that provide health care and jobs that sustain small but significant economies. When these small-town hospitals like Belzoni’s close, it can be devastating to so many people.
It’s not just a loss of health care — economies collapse, as does a sense of safety. Almost everyone in Belzoni seems to have had a near-death experience, or a family member who has a near-death experience, after the hospital closed. The nearest hospitals are at least a 25-minute drive away.
And not all citizens suffer equally.
In the Delta, the power dynamic and wealth gap between Black and white residents borne out of a history of slavery and Jim Crow laws are still prevalent. Poverty, race and health are inextricably connected.
Belzoni’s story may be the future of other small towns in Mississippi. Nearly half of the state’s rural hospitals — just like the one that shuttered here — are at risk of closure.
Most Mississippians support Medicaid expansion. Ample national and state research shows that the policy is financially beneficial, and medical experts have said for years that it would help Mississippi’s hospitals and residents. But Gov. Tate Reeves continues to vehemently oppose the policy.
Meanwhile, hospital closures loom across the state, due in large part to huge uncompensated costs from caring for uninsured Mississippians. The Delta, the sickest region of the state, is in particular danger.
At least 12 hospitals, including long-term care facilities, besides Patients’ Choice have closed since 2008, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health.
But the impact of Medicaid expansion goes beyond financial viability for hospitals — it means making health care accessible for more people. As of 2019, 8.9% of people in Humphreys County were uninsured and would qualify for coverage if Medicaid was expanded, the highest rate of any county in the Delta and tied for the fourth-highest rate in the state. That’s slightly less than half of the total population of uninsured adults in Humphreys County. Statewide, an additional estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people would qualify under Medicaid expansion.
The lack of a hospital didn’t stop Emily Donovan from moving to Belzoni from Vicksburg in 2015. Her love of the lush Mississippi Delta and small-town life outweighed her concerns. After all, growing up in rural Mississippi, she was used to driving at least half an hour to get to the closest hospital.
But now, almost a decade and two kids later, Donovan is worried about her family and the vitality of her community.
She and her husband, who own an internet and phone cable business, have been turned down by prospective hires because of the lack of emergency care in Belzoni. And Donovan is the executive director of the county’s economic development board. It’s hard to do her job — boosting the town’s economy — when there’s no hospital for 25 miles in any direction.
Though Donovan estimates about a dozen businesses have opened in Belzoni since she moved there, an even greater number have closed.
“When you don’t have a hospital, businesses don’t usually want to come into a community,” she said.
As Donovan’s kids grow up, the issue also hits closer to home.
At a sleepover Donovan’s son hosted at her house a few months ago, he and his friends climbed up on the roof in a fit of boyish play during the night. When Donovan’s husband realized where the teenagers were, he hollered up to them, “We don’t have a hospital anywhere near here, so y’all need to get down!”
“What are you going to do in the middle of the night?” Donovan asked one afternoon in November, lines of motherly worry creasing her forehead.
A number of people in Belzoni could tell her the answer: Drive like hell and hope you make it.
A bell jingles as Mayor Joe Jackson opens the door and shuffles into a restaurant a few steps away from City Hall.
“Hey, mayor,” the owner behind the counter says, while others murmur their greetings to him.
Many of the patrons have known Jackson for a long time, long before he was elected mayor in 2020. He was born and raised in this community, like many of them. Belzoni is that way — a town where there are no strangers.
It’s a rainy day. Jackson orders gumbo, looks out of the window and starts a story.
“Our small town hospital didn’t offer a whole lot,” he begins. “But it was something.”
Jackson was born in Belzoni by a midwife in 1960, the same year his hometown reached a population peak of 4,071 residents.
Though the town’s population had been dropping for decades, three strikes hit the town in the latter half of the century. First, the factory operated by retail company Jockey and employing at least 300 people closed in 1993.
Then, Belzoni’s largest industry was devastated. Once called the world’s catfish capital, the town couldn’t keep up with the rise of imported fish. Belzoni is hesitant to let go of its moniker — painted catfish sculptures still leap from its sleepy downtown sidewalks — but the days of leading in catfish exports are well behind them.
The final nail in the coffin was the hospital closure in 2013.
“When the hospital closed, it was kind of a surprise to most people,” Jackson said. “It was almost like they were open one week, and then closed the next week.”
At first, residents, including Jackson, were hopeful the hospital would reopen. He had worked at the hospital for 20 years as an EMT, from 1985 to 2005. It seemed unfathomable to him that the hospital would close for good.
At the time of its closure, rumors were flying about hospital mismanagement — it seemed like most people hoped that new leadership could reopen the facility and turn the hospital around, Jackson said.
But months went by.
Suddenly, there just seemed to be fewer people in town. Some of the hospital’s 100-plus employees left Belzoni, and those who didn’t had to find jobs elsewhere.
“There were people in town every day because they worked at the hospital,” he said. “Now, they’re working out of town, so even the restaurants and stuff around town failed … downtown got a lot quieter.”
Despite repeated requests for data about city revenue, the city clerk never provided any information. State data shows, though, that Belzoni has collected less and less in sales tax since the hospital closed. In 2013, the city’s share of sales tax was $536,960. Ten years later, despite inflation, it’s down to $461,588.
Jackson has seen the hospital issue from all sides: as a longtime citizen, as a former hospital employee and now, a town leader. No matter how you look at it, he said, Belzoni is a shell of its former self.
“You can’t really convince people to move to a small town that does not have a hospital,” he said. “It just breaks your heart.”
In 2020, the same year Jackson was elected mayor, Belzoni’s population dropped below 2,000 for the first time in a century.
Five men sit at a table in a stuffy room on the top floor of the Humphreys County courthouse.
At the center is Humphreys County Board of Supervisors president Richard Stevens, known to most as just “Dick” or “Dickie.” Stevens, the sole white person on the board, is flanked by the other four supervisors.
All eyes are turned toward them and the woman Stevens is currently in a screaming match with, Timaka James-Jones, the county’s circuit clerk.
One hour into the board of supervisors meeting on Nov. 6, a discussion about county affairs has devolved, but no one seems particularly surprised.
This sort of thing isn’t uncommon in a county where the gaps between members of the community are so wide and deep.
People who live in Belzoni don’t agree on why the hospital closed and whether it’s had an impact on the town’s economy. Even its leaders can’t reach a consensus on the hospital. And for some of the town’s residents, these meetings are the easiest way to be heard by the five men who make decisions for them all.
Stevens is perhaps the most powerful man in Humphreys County.
He was the board’s longest serving member until his retirement in December, and the owner of the county’s largest employer, Consolidated Catfish Co., located just a few miles north of Belzoni in a pinprick of a town called Isola.
Stevens and Roy Broomfield, who also retired at the end of last year, were the only two board members serving in December who were also on the board when it voted to sell the hospital to a private owner, Ray Shoemaker, a few years before its closure.
However, the two long-serving board members have differing ideas about how important a hospital is to Humphreys.
Stevens has lived in Humphreys County since 1949. He was 6 when his family moved from Tremont, a small town in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. His father was a crop duster, so instead of flying back and forth every summer, the Stevens patriarch made the move permanent.
Stevens started farming catfish in the late 60s, and his plant, a result of two merged catfish processors, has been around for decades. The company processes more than a million pounds of catfish every week, and it employs around 600 people, who are some of the only people in Humphreys County with health insurance, Stevens said.
He decided to run for the board seat 24 years ago because he wanted to protect the county’s economic vitality.
However, two decades later, one of the town’s biggest economic drivers is closed, according to the mayor and other city leaders.
Stevens doesn’t see it that way. He said the hospital had been losing money for a long time, and it wasn’t even doing its job that well.
“It wasn’t comparable to nearby hospitals,” he said.
Stevens complained that residents were misusing the emergency room, treating it like “free” primary care.
Though there are two health clinics in Belzoni that offer primary care, emergency rooms are the only health care option for many uninsured people because they cannot turn away patients, regardless of insurance status. There are few, if any, primary care or preventative care options for people without health insurance — the hospital was likely their only option.
By the time the board of supervisors sold the hospital, it was millions of dollars in the hole, Stevens said. He hoped Shoemaker would be able to turn things around but doesn’t consider it much of a loss that he ended up being unable to.
“I think he did what he could do to make it work,” Stevens said, placing much of the blame on Belzoni’s already-slowing economy, which he doesn’t think the hospital’s closure significantly affected. “There were many negative factors.”
Stevens is, at best, resigned and, at worst, indifferent: “It’s just the way of life here.”
Dr. Sidney Gorton II feels similarly. He and his father are the only two full-time doctors in Belzoni. They run a family rural health clinic in Belzoni, and both used to work at the hospital.
He agreed with Stevens that misuse of the emergency room was one of the things that led to the hospital’s decline. The hospital’s inpatient census was always pretty low, too, he remembers, and when patients did have Medicaid coverage, low reimbursements rates didn’t cover hospital expenses.
But the doctor said he was not sure that Medicaid expansion was the solution to Belzoni’s health care desert, and that issues leading to the hospital’s closure were more far-reaching.
Broomfield’s recollection is a little different — and much more painful.
While Broomfield, who’s been on the board for two decades, agrees that perhaps Belzoni didn’t have the population or dollars in the community to sustain the hospital, he believes the lack of emergency care in Belzoni is dangerous. He knows it’s dangerous.
Because even Broomfield, another powerful and well-known Belzonian, isn’t immune to the effects — he lost a son to lack of health care in the Delta a little over a decade ago.
It was supposed to be a happy occasion.
Back in 2010, Broomfield’s son, 39-year-old Roy Jr., was home visiting his parents. He lived states away in Dallas, and Broomfield was thrilled to have his son in town.
But at about 2:30 a.m., Broomfield’s son woke him up, complaining about feeling sick. His father guessed it was indigestion or something similar, but thought they should go to a hospital anyway, just to be safe.
Broomfield figured they had a little time, so he didn’t take his son to Patients Choice, which had a reputation as a declining hospital at that point, referred to as the local “Band-Aid station.” So Broomfield decided to take him to Greenwood Leflore Hospital, a little over 30 minutes away.
On the way, his son suffered a massive heart attack. An ambulance Broomfield called never arrived, and the son was brain dead before they reached the Greenwood hospital.
Broomfield has regrets — he always will. But at least he had the option to take his son somewhere closer.
“At least we had a place to go to get a Band-Aid put on,” Broomfield said. “Now we don’t even have that. A lot of people’s lives could have been saved if we had a hospital here.”
The circuit clerk, James-Jones, shares Broomfield’s perspective, as do many Black leaders in town. James-Jones grew up with Broomfield’s son, and she was born at what was then-Humphreys County Memorial Hospital.
Not only was the hospital a huge employer, James-Jones said there were also impactful community advocacy programs being run by the hospital. In her eyes, the hospital was central to the community.
That’s why James-Jones, who was recently elected to the state House of Representatives, isn’t afraid to speak her mind to the board and fight in public with its leader. She has suffered immense loss — friends and family — from the lack of emergency care, which she directly attributes to the board’s actions. One of the most well-known examples is the death of one of her relatives, Harmony Ball-Stribling.
Everyone in town seems to know Harmony’s story, every grisly and heart-wrenching detail.
During the summer of 2021, Harmony was days away from giving birth when she began experiencing pregnancy complications as a result of preeclampsia, a condition that results in high blood pressure and organ damage.
Her husband, Byron Stribling, raced her to the hospital in Yazoo County. Harmony was his high school sweetheart, the love of his life. She was pregnant with his first child, a baby they had tirelessly prayed for and underwent an arduous in vitro fertilization process to conceive.
But before they arrived at the hospital, Harmony went into cardiac arrest in the passenger seat. Byron, who operates a funeral home, buried his own wife and baby days later.
After her death, Harmony’s mother, Shenelle Ball-Burks, and Byron implored the board of supervisors to figure out how to reopen the Belzoni hospital. Harmony’s mother remembers how defeated she felt when the supervisors told her there was nothing they could do.
James-Jones says the hospital closure is “the most devastating thing that has happened” in Humphreys County.
Amid the competing opinions and recollections of the demise of Belzoni’s only hospital, one of the few people who should be able to explain the hospital’s closure isn’t keen on providing many details.
Much of what happened with the hospital is lost to time, thanks to a specific kind of small-town Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
No one can say where the hospital’s financial reports are. The county’s board attorney, state Rep. Willie Bailey, didn’t know where they would be and said the county wouldn’t be in possession of them, if they even still existed. He suggested the hospital board might still have them.
But the hospital board is, obviously, disbanded. Several of its previous members have died in the past 10 years.
Even Mack Liddell, the Humphreys County chancery clerk since 2020, couldn’t say where the records were.
“Those records are not in my care at this time,” he responded to Mississippi Today’s records request.
Liddell said his predecessor had taken a great number of county records “home with him” when he left office, and then promptly died, too. Perhaps the records are somewhere in that man’s house, or they’re in one of the many manila folders in the run down hospital building that sits on the edge of town.
One would think that Ray Shoemaker, the hospital’s last owner, would have all the answers, but it doesn’t seem like he particularly wants to talk about the hospital’s decline.
After all, Shoemaker was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison in 2012 for multiple counts of health-care fraud, most of the malfeasance related to another hospital he ran.
“I don’t want my story played again,” he said when reached by phone.
Though hesitant to talk, he explained that he became interested in owning the hospital because he grew up in Walnut Grove, another small town in east central Mississippi, and recognized the need for rigorous health care in the state’s rural communities.
When the board of supervisors heard Shoemaker was interested — he was being lauded then for turning around Tri-Lakes Medical Center in Batesville — they jumped at the opportunity. Shoemaker took over the Belzoni hospital’s management in 2007, and a year later, he bought the 34-bed hospital outright, taking on its $5.4 million in debts.
When asked what made him think he could turn the hospital around, Shoemaker joked, “Insanity.”
He went on to take charge of several other hospitals across the state. Shoemaker says he reduced the Belzoni hospital’s debt and increased its services by sharing resources among his facilities.
Then in 2012, Shoemaker was prosecuted for health care fraud committed at the Batesville health center.
Despite purported strides at the Belzoni hospital, when Shoemaker started experiencing “legal challenges,” as he puts it, the facility was suddenly in danger. He could no longer manage the hospital’s daily operations.
Inspection reports show that the hospital faced difficulties in its final years, even before Shoemaker took over.
Apparently, record-keeping has long been a struggle for the facility. Since 2007, state evaluators have been taking issue with the unorganized mountains of records stored in the hospital. In December 2012, “the administrator stated that he could not find documentation that the facility had conducted an annual evaluation of its total program during the past year,” according to one inspection report.
The reports show that by July 22, 2013, Patients’ Choice was no longer in operation.
As it turns out, Shoemaker can’t speak to the hospital’s final days. He was in prison.
Joann and Joseph Wilson walk through the dark halls of the dilapidated hospital building.
The ceilings are falling in, and there’s graffiti on the walls. There are rooms upon rooms of documents. But they think the building still has some life in it.
The old hospital was recently bought by an investor who has partnered with the Wilsons to turn the building into a clinic for people struggling with mental health issues and substance abuse.
For Joseph, the project holds special meaning — his life was saved at the Belzoni hospital when it was in operation. He was rushed here in 2008 because he slipped into a diabetic coma, and doctors in the emergency room stabilized him.
“If this facility had not been here when I was sick, I might not be alive today,” he said.
The Wilsons say they’re open to allowing someone to open an emergency room in the clinic building. They agree it’s a major need for the community.
Several people who mourn the loss of the hospital have cited efforts in recent years to reopen an emergency room in Belzoni.
As mayor, Jackson has met with countless politicians and health care leaders to bring back emergency care in Belzoni. It’s hard to see any kind of future for the town without it, he said. James-Jones and Liddell, the chancery clerk, have been invested in this effort, too.
The efforts went as far as a packed town hall, where prolific hospital owner Quentin Whitwell spoke about new legislation that might have made it possible to reestablish emergency care in Belzoni.
Senate Bill 2735, passed during the 2022 legislative session, was created in an effort to operate freestanding emergency rooms in rural Mississippi. But ultimately, according to Whitwell, “The law wasn’t sufficient to get that accomplished.” No county has gotten an emergency room from this legislation, according to the state Health Department.
The bill’s principal author, Sen. Benjamin Suber of Bruce, said the legislation was an attempt at getting health care to parts of the state that needed it most, but admitted that he wasn’t sure if “it was gonna work or not.”
Suber did not know that Whitwell considered the bill flawed.
“No one’s ever told me that, but we can do what we can to amend it,” he said. “If we needed to fix something, I would fix it. But that’s the first time someone’s ever said that to me.”
It was news to many residents that this law would not result in an emergency room in Belzoni. They had been waiting for years.
Liddell was one of them surprised by the update.
“This is hurtful,” he said. “Until the governor and every ally associated with him believes that the Delta is worthy of health care or other vital services … It doesn’t matter what color you are. You are a human being, and one day you’re going to get sick.”
Belzoni’s sons and daughters who moved elsewhere know that. The ones who stay, such as Byron, know that. The businesses that choose to establish themselves elsewhere know that. Broomfield, the county supervisor who lost his son, knows it, too.
But after years of feeling like the state doesn’t care about his home, Broomfield doesn’t know what to do.
“The Legislature, they don’t do anything for the Delta,” he said. “They just don’t care nothing about us.”
There’s something different about downtown Belzoni on an afternoon in early December: Specifically, noise.
A hum emanates from the center of town, where a towering Christmas tree, framed by a citrine Delta sunset, overlooks 5 p.m. traffic. For Belzoni, that means just a few more cars on the street than usual.
Emily Donovan, the economic foundation director, is bustling about, setting up tables and greeting guests at Belzoni’s Second Annual Christmas Tree Lighting and Farmers Market.
State Rep. Timaka James-Jones is here, too, talking to longtime neighbors and friends. Vendors are selling local wares, such as Southern chow chow relish and a variety of pickled vegetables. Kids are chasing each other, breaths like little clouds in the cool evening air.
This is the Belzoni that Donovan knows and loves. This is the Belzoni that Donovan wants to see survive.
Five-year-old Treasure Dulaney is one of the many children staring up at the Christmas tree in awe.
Her mom, Tiffany Ceasar, a lifelong Belzoni resident, didn’t think twice about raising her family in Belzoni. It’s home.
But before Treasure can go play with the other kids, Tiffany crouches down and zips up her daughter’s jacket.
She’s always been prone to colds, and with no hospital in town, Tiffany doesn’t want to take any chances.
This story is part of “The Holdouts,” a reporting collaborative focused on the 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid, which the Affordable Care Act authorized in 2010. The collaborative is a project of Public Health Watch.
The post A small town struggles to survive in the heart of Mississippi’s hospital crisis appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Due to icy roads and freezing temperatures, Mississippi universities across the state are moving classes online, with one school asking students to delay moving onto campus until the weather improves next week.
As of Thursday, the state’s only public universities that were open for regular business were Mississippi State University in Starkville and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
Delta State University and Mississippi Valley State University moved to virtual work and classes where possible, according to those universities. So did Jackson State University, which is also experiencing “water woes” due to boil-water notices and low water pressure primarily in west and south Jackson stemming from the winter weather.
The University of Mississippi announced yesterday it was postponing the start of the spring semester to Jan. 25 and asking students not to return to Oxford, where the roads are impassable, until Jan. 23. Oxford is located in the northern part of the state that has been hit hardest by the winter storms.
In a campuswide message, Chancellor Glenn Boyce wrote that the university’s facilities crews need above-freezing temperatures in order to clear the slick ice covering the campus roads, parking lots and sidewalks. The mayor of Oxford, Robyn Tannehill, has asked residents to stay off the roads.
This will affect about 5,400 students, both in and out-of-state, who live on campus and have yet to return, Jacob Batte, a spokesperson, wrote in an email to Mississippi Today. He estimated about 300 students are already on campus.
At least one dorm, Stewart Hall, has sustained leaks and water damage from the storm, Batte added. The Thad Cochran Research Center also saw some damage, but Batte wrote that the university had learned how to effectively prepare for winter weather from past freezes.
The university’s food pantry, Grove Pantry, has been open for limited hours this week, and university police have distributed supplies to eight international students who moved in this week, Batte wrote. Hourly employees who were scheduled to work this week are eligible for administrative leave.
Delta State opened its food pantry for emergency hours earlier this week and delayed move-in by one day, according to the university.
“Our facilities staff have worked extra hard to ensure our halls have had heat and water,” Eddie Lovin, the vice president for student affairs, said in a statement. “Our food services staff have ensured that meals were available for students on campus, as well as any essential staff helping keep the halls open. Our Counseling Staff has made themselves available to our students through virtual counseling, to assist any student who may need assistance during this time.”
Alcorn State canceled its mobile pantry for Jan. 18. Mississippi University for Women kept its offices closed this week and extended drop/add until Jan. 23.
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The Legislature wasted little time Thursday appropriating at least $350 million to entice a partnership of automakers and technology companies to locate a $1.9 billion green energy plant in Marshall County in north Mississippi.
The plant — a joint venture of Paccar Inc., Cummins Truck Holdings, and Germany-based Daimler Truck Holdings, and China-based Eve Energy — will build batteries to power electric commercial vehicles and possibly for industrial use. The names of the companies involved in the project were not unveiled until after the Legislature on Thursday passed the incentive deal.
Gov. Tate Reeves said the plant, which will located at the Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park on a 500-acre site located near the Tennessee state line, would provide the largest payroll commitment ever offered for a new Mississippi project. The plant is slated to employ 2,000 people by 2031 with an average salary of $66,000, including supervisory level positions.
“I can’t imagine a better way to kick off the new year…” Reeves said. “This historic investment by these industry-leading companies will enshrine our state at the forefront of the automotive industry for years to come and create 2,000 good-paying jobs in the process. Today’s announcement further demonstrates to the world that Mississippi is a top destination for business.”
Only two senators and one House member voted against the project. While Democrats had complaints about the project, they all voted for it.
The session began Thursday at 9:30 a.m. and was completed by mid-afternoon. House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, had worked out an agreement to move the legislation quickly through the process. Work will continue tomorrow in the regular 2024 season, though various sources indicate the governor will call another special session next week for an additional economic development project.
While debate was limited, Rep. Robert Johnson, a Democrat from Natchez who serves as House minority leader, unsuccessfully offered two amendments. One amendment would have mandated that 70% of the employees be Mississippians, and another that the companies involved in the project commit to support the local community. Johnson said that the community service requirement was placed on the casinos when they moved into the state in the 1990s.
Johnson called it “abhorrent” that there was not a mandate to require most of the workers to be Mississippians since state taxes were being spent to lure the plant to Mississippi.
The amendments failed, with most of the Democrats in the House voting for them and most Republicans, who enjoy a supermajority, voting against.
Sen. David Jordan, a Democrat from Greenwood, lamented that the project was being recruited to the state, but still nothing was being done to support the Mississippi Delta.
Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said studies indicate the project could draw employees from some Delta counties.
“We must do something for the people who live on the west side of I-55,” said Rep. John Hines, a Democrat from Greenville, referring to the Delta.
Bill Cork, who recently was named as executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority by Reeves, though his appointment is still pending Senate confirmation, said the “goal (for the companies building the plant) is to enter the zero emissions environment” for commercial vehicles.
The Legislature passed three bills with sparse debate to commit the at least $349 million for the project. Those funds will go into a variety of areas, such as for site preparation, jobs training and infrastructure, including a major interchange on the west side of the plant on U.S. Highway 72 with another likely in the coming years on the eastern side of the plant. The money will help purchase additional land, making the total site 1,700 acres. The additional land will be available for ancillary companies that might locate in the area to support, the battery plant.
The Legislature also passed $489 million in bonds to finance the project through multiple years, though the goal is to use surplus funds to pay for the project and not incur or limit the debt from having to issue bonds. In addition to the $349 million incentive package, the state also has committed to build an additional $127 million eastern interchange in future years if traffic from the new plant and any ancillary companies reaches a certain level.
The plant also will receive some local tax breaks as well as an exemption on corporate taxes for 10 years and on sales and use taxes during construction and for 12 months post construction.
The three primary companies partnering in the project — excluding the China-based company — have agreed to repay funds if certain benchmarks and commitments are not met.
The plant is slated to be in production by 2029 and have at least 2,000 employees by 2031.
READ MORE: Reeves asks lawmakers to appropriate $350 million in state funds to Marshall County EV battery deal
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A few of Mississippi’s health outcomes are improving, but the state has a long way to go in others, according to State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney.
Surrounded by white coats, Edney gave an update on the steps of the Capitol rotunda on Thursday about Mississippi’s public health outlook, drawing from personal experience as a health care provider from the Delta.
“I have earned the gray hair on my head practicing medicine in west Mississippi,” Edney said. “I know what regular folks are up against in our communities, trying to have appropriate access to high quality care.”
Edney, flanked by posters with various health data points from the state’s newest health report card, said it’s not all bleak — Mississippi has both made strides and fallen behind in the past year.
“I did want to share with you some good news,” he said. “It’s better than it was, compared to a year ago.”
Human immunodeficiency virus, tuberculosis and obesity rates are trending down, according to the 2023 State Health Report Card, which was unveiled Thursday by the Mississippi State Medical Association and the Mississippi State Health Department. The state’s diabetes ranking has also improved to 48th in the country.
Edney drew particular attention to the lower obesity rates. While Mississippi is still 45th in obesity rates, he said the lower numbers will result in decreases across the board, including in hypertension, diabetes and vascular and maternal health.
“We will see powerful dividends 10 years from now with population health,” he said, regarding the improvements. “We cannot take our foot off the accelerator.”
Though the report card notes that Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate in the nation, that may soon change. Last year, a federal judge ruled that parents in Mississippi can opt out of vaccinating their children for school for religious beliefs. As of September, the state has approved 1,800 religious vaccine exemptions for school children.
The state remains dead last in the nation for infant mortality, which Edney said combined with the state’s abysmal maternal morbidity rates are the “driving force” of his agency’s work. And while there have been some positive results in congenital syphilis, the crisis is ongoing.
The leading causes of death remain heart disease, malignant neoplasms and accidents, and the latter actually trended upward this past year.
Edney said malignancies cost his father his life. He died at 54 from colon cancer, a preventable illness. The state’s health issues all have solutions, Edney said, but the agency can’t do the work alone.
“We’re proving that public health, science and policy works in partnership,” he said. “When our elected leaders are part of that partnership, then it works powerfully. If we choose the right policies for our people, we will see us move off the radar from having the highest rate of preventable death (in the country).”
MSMA president, Dr. John Mitchell, said there’s another effective way to help stem the state’s health crisis.
“One such way would be to expand access to health care to working Mississippians,” Mitchell said.
Medicaid expansion will be a top issue of this legislative session, as it has been for many years. The policy, which has been adopted by most other states, would expand Medicaid eligibility to the working poor in Mississippi. Researchers estimate between 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians fall into a “coverage gap,” which means they make too much to qualify for Medicaid currently but can’t afford insurance on their own.
In most cases, uninsured Mississippians don’t have access to preventative health care. Many rely on emergency rooms for help, where they cannot be turned away because of lack of insurance. Edney said access to preventative care for all Mississippians is integral to combatting Mississippi’s poor health.
“I will continue to preach that until Mississippians, and that’s everyone, have appropriate access to medical care … we will continue to suffer with these outcomes which none of us are proud of,” Edney said.
The post ‘Better than it was’: Mississippi health report card shows mixed results appeared first on Mississippi Today.
About 12,000 customers, largely in west and south Jackson, are seeing low to no water pressure after this week’s winter freeze, third-party manager JXN Water reported Thursday morning.
JXN Water subsequently issued boil water notices to those customers in the following areas:
Those parts of the city have historically seen the most pressure issues because of their distance from the water treatment facilities, where water enters from the Pearl River and gets sent out for consumption.
Ted Henifin, head of JXN Water, said the demand for water was 40% higher by Wednesday afternoon than on a typical day, and that the plants were “using up pretty much all the margin in our system.” He attributed the issues to pipe breaks in the distribution system, but he also suspected delays with fixing leaks on private properties, which are outside of JXN Water’s authority.
“Last Christmas’ (of 2022) outage, we learned that a lot of private property plumbing that broke wasn’t getting repaired quickly,” Henifin said.
In addition, JXN Water said “deliberate” misinformation in social media posts about the water system’s condition led to “isolated pressure issues.” The social media posts, JXN Water said in a Wednesday news release, claimed that the city’s water treatment plants would shut down and that residents should prepare by filling up bath tubs and jugs.
The press release said those posts were directly causing an increase in water demand.
When asked why he thought it was deliberate, Henifin called the messaging “well crafted” and that it cited JXN Water staff as a source. He also called the timing “suspect” because the system was already under stress.
He added that JXN Water was working with law enforcement agencies to find the original source of the posts and determine if there was any “malicious intent.” JXN Water declined to say which agencies Henifin was referring to.
Overall, compared to the Christmas 2022 event, which led a citywide boil water notice lasting nearly two weeks, Henifin said the weather conditions this week weren’t much different, but that the city has responded better by having 14 crews to make repairs versus just the two the city had in 2022.
“I think our estimation is we would’ve lost the system, probably (Tuesday night) without the crews and without the plants and the condition they’re in today,” he said.
Henifin added that it may take “a day or two” to restore pressure, and asked customers to minimize water use over the next day.
Jackson Public Schools, which closed its schools this week due to icy conditions, announced that it would shift to virtual learning on Thursday because of the pressure issues. Henifin said he recommended that JPS continue virtual learning on Friday, too, because the issues wouldn’t be resolved by then.
The drinking water disruptions, a familiar occurrence for Jacksonians this time of year, come just after the state Mississippi State Department of Health issued a citywide boil water notice after detecting E.coli in the city’s supply. JXN Water disputed the test results, and ultimately the Health Department lifted the notice after just a day. MSDH also issued a notice for Flowood’s water system after finding E.coli, but lifted that one after two days.
UPDATE 1/18/24: This story has been updated to include screenshots of the social media posts JXN Water said were deliberately promoting misinformation.
The post Jackson sees 12,000 lose water pressure, JXN Water takes aim at misinformation appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Thank the Lord for those who fix our homes’ busted pipes.
The post Marshall Ramsey: Saving Our Pipes appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Days after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves pledged to be a governor for all Mississippians, several Democratic lawmakers said Reeves uses his power to invest in certain parts of the state while ignoring others.
The governor demonstrated his favoritism just this week, the legislators said in a Wednesday interview with Mississippi Today, when Reeves called a special session to ask lawmakers to spend $350 million in state funds to finalize an economic development deal in north Mississippi’s Marshall County.
READ MORE: Reeves asks lawmakers to appropriate $350 million in state funds to Marshall County EV battery deal
The legislators say none of the state’s recent economic projects have gone toward communities west of Interstate 55, an area where the Mississippi Delta and population hubs of Black citizens are located, or to the state’s capital city.
“Not taking anything away from Marshall County, but I do believe the impact of having 1,500 or 2,000 jobs west of I-55 would change the whole status of this state,” Democratic Rep. John Hines of Greenville said.
The Delta remains one of the most impoverished places in the nation. The region’s hospitals are at risk of closing, and its citizens are continuing to leave for other areas of the state and other states, according to U.S. Census data.
The Democratic officials argue that economic investment like the Marshall County project would give a major boost to west Mississippi, an area struggling to survive.
Rep. Robert Johnson III, the Democratic leader of the House, believes the Delta and southwest Mississippi, despite disinvestment, has an educated workforce that can staff major industries and an infrastructure system to transfer any goods produced — if only state leaders would give the area a chance.
“You’ve got I-55 to the east, you’ve got the largest river in the country to the west and you’ve got railways to go back and forth,” Johnson said. “It makes more sense to develop jobs in that area where you’ve got an infrastructure in place.”
The multibillion-dollar project on the table this week is, instead, scheduled to be constructed at the Chickasaw Trails Industrial Park near the Tennessee state line, where half of the state’s proposed investment is planned to go toward infrastructure development.
The Mississippi Development Authority, the economic agency directly under Reeves’ control, recently invested around $1.1 million in the Chickasaw Trails center, as well as over $15 million in 12 other industrial parks. None of those sites are located in the Delta, Hinds County or in west Mississippi.
“At the end of the day, you look at the population west of I-55, and that’s almost one-fourth of the state’s population,” Democratic Rep. Bryant Clark of Pickens said. “And they’re being totally ignored.”
Corey Custer, deputy chief of staff to Reeves, said in a Wednesday statement that the governor supports investing in all areas of the state, including the Delta, Hinds County and communities west of I-55.
“Private companies — not state government — determine which sites best meet their needs,” Custer said. “This project will help strengthen our state’s economy, which is a benefit to all Mississippians. Gov. Reeves will continue to use every tool at his disposal to bolster every region of our state.”
This is the second type of economic package that Reeves has called on lawmakers into a special legislative session to finalize. In November 2022, he signed legislation into law that gave money and tax incentives to benefit a Steel Dynamics expansion in Columbus, also located in northeast Mississippi.
The governor, at a Tuesday press conference, said the public can expect more state economic development projects to be announced in the future, though he did not give a specific timeline or disclose which areas of the state would be impacted.
Democratic Reps. Fabian Nelson of Jackson and Daryl Porter of Summit said on Wednesday if the governor pledges to unify the state along partisan and racial lines, then he should follow through and implement an economic plan that includes all areas of the state.
“It’s been said that Mississippi is open for business, but I think we need to define what part of Mississippi is open for business,” Nelson said.
The post ‘They’re being totally ignored’: Lawmakers say Gov. Tate Reeves isn’t focusing economic development in majority-Black regions appeared first on Mississippi Today.
The bitter 2023 election between Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley was the most expensive governor’s race in Mississippi’s history, according to campaign finance reports filed last week.
Documents filed with the Secretary of State’s Office show that Reeves spent $12.7 million last year, and Presley spent $13.1 million, totaling around $25.8 million spent between the two candidates. Excluding outside political action committees, the 2024 race shattered spending records in prior gubernatorial campaigns.
The most expensive governor’s race before the 2023 election was the 2003 race between Republican Haley Barbour and Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, when Barbour pumped $11.3 million into the race and Musgrove spent $7.7 million — collectively $19 million spent.
The candidate who spends more money on a campaign typically has a higher likelihood of prevailing at the ballot box, such as the case with Barbour in 2003. Presley, however, spent more money than Reeves, and the Democrat still lost with just 47.7% of the vote.
The campaign cycle left Reeves with $23,000 in his main campaign account and Presley with $172,000. But Reeves still has around $1.9 million in a “legacy” account, which he can spend however he sees fit or even pocket the funds. Reeves’ legacy account, which was created before state campaign finance law changed in 2017 to implement tighter spending requirements, has steadily accrued interest earnings since 2018.
The latest reports also show Secretary of State Michael Watson, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Auditor Shad White — all of whom are rumored to be eyeing a run for governor in 2027 — with a substantial amount of campaign funds on hand.
Here’s how much money Mississippi’s other seven statewide officials have on hand as of last week:
The post The Reeves-Presley 2023 campaign was the most expensive governor’s race in state history appeared first on Mississippi Today.
