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Another lawsuit has emerged in the aftermath of presidential hires at Jackson State University.

Jerome Tinker, who serves in a leadership position in JSU’s Alumni Affairs office, is suing former president Marcus Thompon and the university in federal court for being turned down for the position of office director.

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 12, represents one side of a legal argument. It says Thompson instructed Monica Lewis, then interim vice president of institutional advancement, not to select Tinker as the interim director of Alumni Affairs or for the permanent post even though as alumni engagement officer he was second in command. The lawsuit alleges Thompson’s motivation was retaliation because Tinker had reported the “unlawful conduct toward a female employee” by Thompson’s predecessor, Thomas Hudson.  

“We are aware of the lawsuit and do not comment on pending litigation,” said John Sewell, communications director for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees the state’s eight public universities.

Thompson could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that Thompson, who was then working for IHL, was tasked with investigating the allegations against Hudson. It identifies Thompson as Hudson’s “friend and confidante.”

 “Thompson did not interview the female employee during his so-called investigation. Thompson also was aware of Tinker’s complaint to IHL that Hudson attempted to dissuade him in January of 2023 from suing Hudson and JSU retaliation,” according to the lawsuit

Tinker applied for the director position in November 2024. Lewis and Patrease Edwards, president of the JSU National Alumni Association, interviewed the applicants. According to the lawsuit, Lewis told Thompson that Tinker was one of her top choices, but Thompson ordered her not to offer him the position. When she refused to name someone else, Thompson replaced her as the interim vice president with Sloan Cargill, even though a selection committee had chosen her.

Tinker reapplied for Alumni Affairs director when Cargill re-advertised the position, and Thomspn directed Cargill not to select Tucker, according to the lawsuit. The position remains open.

Hudson resigned as president on March 15, 2023. The IHL Board of Trustees appointed Thompson as his successor on Nov. 16, 2023, and he resigned for unstated reasons in May. The IHL board is in a presidential search process now for his successor.

Tinker seeks either instatement to the position of Alumni Affairs director or front pay, equitable back pay, economic damages for his lost pay and fringe benefits, together with compensatory and punitive damages against Thompson for intentional retaliation as determined by a jury. 

In the aftermath of the Hudson and Thompson presidential selections, IHL has faced two lawsuits, one settled for an undisclosed amount and the other winding its way through federal court.

Debra Mays-Jackson, former vice president and chief of staff at Jackson State University, is suing the board of trustees, alleging that despite being qualified to lead Jackson State, she was passed over in 2023 in favor of Hudson, who had less experience. 

IHL trustees had claimed qualified immunity, a legal protection from liability for government officials, in an effort to dismiss the case. But last week, a federal appears court said the sex discrimination case can go forward.

Over the summer, the board and JSU settled a months-long federal lawsuit filed by a former faculty senate president whom Thompson placed on leave pending termination in fall 2024. The settlement gave Dawn Bishop McLin her job back as a tenured professor.  

The exact circumstances of Bishop’s termination were never released, but members of the faculty senate executive committee said she was apparently placed on leave without any written warning and accused of harassment, malfeasance and “contumacious conduct,” a term stemming from IHL policies that means insubordination. 

A faculty panel reviewed the university’s basis for McLin’s termination and recommended she be reinstated, but Thompson never responded, leaving Bishop in a state of limbo.

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

When I think of a student who “has it all,” Julie springs to mind. A cheerleader and beauty pageant contestant, she excels in sports and math.

Part of my inclusion class last school year and this year as an 8th grader, she works hard throughout her schoolday—from history to math to computer courses—completing in-class and homework assignments on time.

Yet, despite her many strengths, Julie faces a serious challenge: reading fluently. When she looks at a piece of printed text, her mind sees a jumbled mess of words, like a foreign language. As her teacher, I see her struggle to sound out words, and the frustration on her face breaks my heart.

Julie, like 10% of the world’s population, has dyslexia. She gets support from tutors in all her classes and, as part of her classroom accommodations, can have information read aloud to her whenever that helps her learn better. With these supports—whether from a teacher or a computer program—she is able to bridge the gap caused by her disability and succeed academically.

Because of this, Julie’s reading scores grew from 40% last spring to a 90% this fall, showing strong comprehension skills. Her face lit up when I shared the results with her. 

About 15% of students in our state are in special education, which is similar to the national average. However, when students like Julie take the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) required for graduation, only the questions are read aloud—not the passages. The test is designed to measure reading comprehension, which is Julie’s strength—if she can understand the text. MAAP unfairly limits her ability to show what she knows, turning the happy “All-American” girl into a deflated version of herself who worries that not being able to read the passage independently will derail her dream of becoming an engineer.

More than half of states—29 of them—allow state assessment reading passages and stimulus materials to be read to students who have dyslexia and other disabilities. Mississippi must follow suit, switching on the reading lightbulb for our learners and improving our ability to measure what they truly know.

To achieve this, the state should start by creating a task force that includes educators to study the academic benefits and economic implications of allowing students with documented learning differences, including those with dyslexia like Julia, to have state testing passages read aloud. 

As part of its work, the task force could gather case studies from teachers like me who have seen their students grow tremendously in their ability to understand what they read when it’s read aloud to them.

For Julie, the confidence she has gained this school year means she can fully participate in history class discussions about American explorers and Teddy Roosevelt’s visit to Mississippi. Now that she can access more information in her computer course, she is solving advanced math word problems and creating code to make her own video game.

As her future as an engineer seems more likely these days, she beams when she shares she has an A in that class. I know there are many other stories just like Julie’s across Mississippi that make the case for MAAP read-aloud accommodations.  

With the help of the read-alouds in class and continued fluency skill-building, Julie now has a favorite author: Lurlene McDaniel. Like the heroines in the novels that overcome serious illness, she is able to overcome her fear of reading fluently. The reading lightbulb has been switched on for her.

Mississippi must help ensure it turns on for all students in the Magnolia State.  

Brandy Richardson is a 7th and 8th grade special services teacher at Lake Middle School in Lake in Scott and Newton counties and 2025-26 Teach Plus Mississippi Senior Policy Fellow.

Days before this past Halloween, Aidan Girod received a frightening note atop her water bill: “FINAL NOTICE.” The letter said Girod had three weeks to pay her outstanding balance before JXN Water would turn off her tap. 

At the start of the year, the north Jackson waitress received a $2,000 statement that included the several previous months she hadn’t gotten a bill for. As the utility revamps its historically plagued billing system, residents throughout the city have recently received an invoice for the first time in months, if not years. 

Girod, a mother to three young children, agreed to send $300 a month as part of a payment plan. Then in September, she received a bill again charging her $2,000, which JXN Water told her was due to a leak. But a plumber, to whom Girod paid $180, said they couldn’t find it. 

She said a second plumber also couldn’t find a leak. After one of her dozens of phone calls with the utility, JXN Water applied a credit to her bill, although it wasn’t clear to Girod how they decided on the amount. Then in October, she received two water bills, including the one with a final notice, that showed two different balances.

Months later, she still isn’t sure how much she owes, whether she has a leak, or if the utility is getting ready to shut her water off. 

“It has been very stressful,” said Girod, who said she’s had to skip paying other expenses to afford her water bill. “I have a 3-month-old daughter, I’ve given birth during all of this. A lot of that strain has been on simply making sure I have running water for my children.”

Ted Henifin, whom residents, business leaders and public officials have credited with rescuing Jackson’s water system from its darkest moments, says his hands are tied. JXN Water, the third-party utility he runs, needs a surge in revenue to keep afloat, and it needs to come soon. 

But procuring those funds, Henifin admitted, is all the more complicated in a city with a strained relationship between its water supply and residents, many of whom haven’t trusted what comes out of their faucets or what shows up on their bills for years. 

Just last month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived a class-action lawsuit by residents against Jackson, alleging the city misrepresented the water’s safety after detecting levels of lead over the legal limit in 2015.

In the first two years after he took over in 2022, Henifin knew he needed a proof of concept for residents to buy in. In that time, JXN Water resolved widespread pressure issues, winterized a treatment plant that succumbed to recent cold snaps, and repaired hundreds of sewer line failures. Also, for the first time in a decade, Jackson’s system is in compliance with all federal drinking water requirements, the utility said recently, including the lingering lead violation. 

While residents praised the utility for its work, they soon learned it came with a high cost. This spring, JXN Water announced it had exhausted $150 million in funds from Congress set aside for daily upkeep of the system, which includes paying staff and routine maintenance. 

The utility is a few years away from sustaining itself financially, Henifin projects, and reaching that point means both increasing monthly bills and more aggressively pursuing unpaid balances. With a collection rate of about 70% – far below the national average of over 90% – JXN Water is losing over a million dollars a month. 

“We figured we’d get around to the billing at some point,” Henifin said in a recent interview at his Belhaven office. “Unfortunately the timing between running through the ($150 million of) federal funds and us getting to the billing weren’t exactly aligned.

“So we’re finding the need to get the billing done and collections up faster than we would’ve liked. But I still don’t think we would’ve done it any differently. You got to get the water system and sewer working before you can start beating on people about paying their bill.”

In September, JXN Water shut off water to nearly 1,800 accounts, and Henifin said he expected that number to be higher in October. Based on those counts, the utility has turned off service to roughly 10% of Jacksonians in 2025 alone. 

One of those ratepayers, Dominique Grant, had no idea when she would catch up on her past due balance. A single mother of three, Grant recently fell behind after not receiving a bill for two years, she said. JXN Water told her to make a down payment of $1,900, half of her total balance, to initiate a payment plan, Grant said. 

After she didn’t come up with the money, instead prioritizing bills like her mortgage and car loan, the utility shut off her water in October. 

“I have to ask myself, am I going to take my whole check and pay this water bill, or spread it out to pay my car note, insurance, light bill, mortgage,” said Grant, a case manager at a local hospital. “Unless I take out a loan, I just don’t have $1,900 to give them.”

Between bathing and meals, Grant said she spent over $100 a week on bottled water for her family, or about what JXN Water charges her for a whole month. 

Henifin and other local officials referenced  a “culture of nonpayment” in Jackson that spread after the city installed a faulty metering system from Siemens in 2013. Since then, residents became accustomed to inconsistent and inaccurate billing. Amid metering issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, city officials forewent water shutoffs for much of the past decade. 

With that track record in mind, JXN Water in 2023 proposed a billing system based on property values so customers would see the same amount every month. The state Legislature, though, passed a law blocking the idea soon after. 

Henifin also set up a discount on water bills for homes that receive food benefits through the federal SNAP program. But a recent court ruling blocked JXN Water from automatically applying the discount because of privacy laws. Henifin recently estimated fewer than 600 accounts receive the discount, which is about $30 a month. 

About 11,000 homes in Jackson, or nearly one in five, receive SNAP benefits, according to Census data, which means just 5% of eligible customers are receiving the water discount. 

Since the utility began its widespread shutoffs, both officials and residents have increasingly spoken out against JXN Water, citing a lack of affordability in a city where more than a quarter live below the poverty line. Heightening those tensions is a pending proposal to increase rates, which the utility says would increase the average bill by 12%.

At a recent court hearing, City Attorney Drew Martin panned the utility for not sooner considering its revenue and billing strategy, leading to steeper rate hikes that are tougher for residents to swallow. In October, the Jackson City Council voted to recommend reversing the 2022 order putting Henifin in charge of Jackson’s water system, in large part because of recent shut offs and billing disputes. 

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate, who appointed Henifin as third-party manager, has not acknowledged the city’s vote. Wingate did, though, order an injunction against Henifin’s recent attempt to push through the rate increase without the judge’s approval. Wingate said he would make a ruling on the increase no sooner than Dec. 19. 

Sitting with Mississippi Today in his brightly lit office, Henifin stood firm on the high bill amounts that Jacksonians have contested over the past year, even the ones that somehow tallied into the tens of thousands. Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Democrat whose district includes Jackson, recently submitted letters to Wingate from residents with bills as high as $70,000. 

With new meters at nearly every property, the manager was confident the utility had accurate readings of customers’ usage. In most cases with abnormal balances, JXN Water tells the resident they have a leak. 

While some, such as Girod in north Jackson, hired plumbers who dispute the diagnosis, Henifin doesn’t budge. JXN Water can tell there’s a leak, he said, simply by looking at a meter and seeing the consumption run up continuously throughout the day. 

Henifin suspected a number of residents have “slab leaks” under their home’s foundation, which the average plumber may not be able to find. That’s why the utility now recommends specific contractors for customers to call, he said.

On the customer service side, Henifin conceded there’s much room for improvement, saying residents too often leave phone calls with inconsistent answers. In addition to better training, he’s hoping to have more capacity for in-person appointments, a service JXN Water recently opened at the city’s Medical Mall. 

“People seem to forget we weren’t born a fully functional utility,” Henifin said. “ We were born out of no utility, essentially, and had to create everything along the way. 

“We (first) focused on getting the infrastructure to deliver water, get the sewer to stay in the ground. And now we get into the customer service experience and the billing. There’s nowhere to go but up.”

Yet in the meantime, residents and landlords who either can’t afford their bills or get answers through the call center are left with few options if they want to keep their water on. 

Jennifer Welch, a property manager in Jackson who sits on the city’s newly created Housing Task Force, criticized JXN Water over limited transparency. Welch and other landlords, who in some cases went two or three years without receiving a bill, have tried to ask the utility for clarity around their accounts but received little response, she said. 

“I have reached out to (Henifin) personally to let him know I have real concerns about the billing department,” said Welch, who said she’s met with Henifin throughout his time in Jackson. “He’s downplaying (the billing issue). I’ve just talked to too many people who are struggling.”

A group of nonprofits, including Forward Justice, the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, and the ACLU of MS, argued in court filings that JXN Water has shown little flexibility in its shutoff process, especially for residents who simply aren’t able to make down payments on the large debts they’ve accumulated after years of not receiving bills.

“The threat of losing water service cannot make people quickly find money they don’t have, unless it comes at the expense of forgoing other essential needs like food and medicine,” the groups wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Wingate.

During a recent hearing at the Capitol, Democratic Sen. Sollie Norward said a woman in his Jackson district recently received a $20,000 water bill. While JXN Water allows customers to enter into payment plans, its policy requires customers with debt to make an initial down payment beforehand.

After forgiving some of the owed balance, the utility asked the woman to pay $4,000, the senator said. But that was still higher than she could afford, Norwood said, and eventually JXN Water shut her water off.

“I don’t know how she got there, and she doesn’t know how she got there,” he said. “Yes, shutting off water gets attention, but it also creates other problems.”

Grant, the single mother whose water was disconnected, cobbled together the $1,900 she needed for a down payment and, after four weeks, finally got her tap back running. After feeling the toll of not having service, she decided to take out a small loan and put off other bills to come up with the money. Still, Grant said JXN Water has unfair expectations of residents’ financial flexibility, especially when many had no idea what they owed for months or years.

“They need to just have a better grasp on things,” she said. “Nobody has thousands of dollars just sitting around to spare.”

Nearly 4,000 teaching positions remain unfilled in Mississippi, hundreds more than last year. 

The Mississippi Department of Education released results from the latest iteration of its annual teacher shortage and educator recruitment surveys Thursday at the state Board of Education’s last meeting of 2025. The surveys paint a sobering picture of the education sector in Mississippi, and validate what teachers have been ringing the alarm bell about for years — low pay is driving the state’s teacher shortage.

Responses from the state’s public schools show that, as of November, there were 6,907 vacancies among teachers, administrators and school support staff across the state. That’s 1,747 more than last year. 

The increase is the biggest jump in recent years. Teachers received pay raises during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years and, subsequently, there were fewer vacancies during that period. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, licensure testing suspensions that made it easier for college students to become teachers likely contributed to fewer vacancies, the agency said in a news release. 

Teacher vacancies are concentrated in special education and elementary education, Courtney Van Cleve, executive director of the Office of Educator Continuum, told state board members. Together, the two categories account for half of all teacher vacancies in Mississippi.

“This does indeed remain one of our greatest areas of need,” she said.

Another area of concern, according to Van Cleve: teacher assistant vacancies. She said that pool is often where the agency looks for prospective teachers. 

A retention and recruitment survey, which the state Education Department released for the first time in conjunction with the educator shortage survey, provided insight into the reasons behind the vacancies. Teachers say a top reason is low pay. 

The National Education Association says Mississippi’s average teacher salary is $53,704, nearly $20,000 less than the national average. That average salary is also the lowest of all 50 states and third-lowest when adjusted for cost of living. 

Educators recently told Mississippi Today they have to take second jobs or forgo necessities to make ends meet financially, and State Auditor Shad White released a report this week drawing attention to the low salaries. 

In recent months, education researchers, teachers and administrators have called on state lawmakers to raise the teacher pay floor once again during the 2026 legislative session, which kicks off in January. 

“The pay has to go up if we’re going to entice people coming from other professions,” said Darein Spann, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators. “We’re going to need more base pay for those with families and those coming from more competitive industries.”

His statewide organization, which advocates on behalf of teachers, regularly contacts educators to poll them about their needs. Spann also hears from mayors and superintendents about obstacles they face in counteracting high teacher vacancies in their communities.

Vacancies increased the most in U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson’s 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses the Delta, the region with the largest population of Black people and low-income households in the state. While some districts offer financial stipends to bolster teacher pay, many Delta districts can’t afford to do the same. 

“The tax base is not as lucrative to support pay supplements that might entice new teachers,” Spann said. “This has been a problem in southwest Mississippi and the Delta for a while.”

Moving forward, the agency plans to address the growing crisis by continuing to loosen licensure standards, especially in crisis areas. 

In response to last year’s educator shortage survey results, the agency allowed college students studying education to start teaching elementary school classes on a provisional license while taking a free course to satisfy the Foundation of Reading test requirements. The state Education Department also removed its reading test requirement for prospective special education teachers with “mild to moderate students” or special education students who can be taught in general education classrooms. 

The education agency is reviewing its criteria for secondary mathematics education supplemental endorsements. 

Some educators have scrutinized those licensure decisions. Others, like Spann, say they’re necessary to recruit teachers. 

“I do think we need to open up more opportunities for people to become certified while we work on recruitment statewide,” he said. 

This year, the state Education Department rolled out a revamped teacher recruitment website aimed at making the pathway to teaching more accessible, and the Legislature put $3 million toward the state’s teacher residency program, which paid for tuition and expenses associated with teacher licensure for 201 additional students at nine Mississippi universities. 

Van Cleve said in an email that the state Education Department hopes to address regional shortages through the residency program and will continue to promote the recruitment website. 

Delta reporter Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report.

Denise Jones Gregory, Jackson State University’s interim president, is now eligible to apply for the permanent position thanks to a one-time policy waiver. 

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees the state’s public universities, voted Thursday to waive part of a policy that would prevent an interim president from applying for the permanent position at the institution they lead, according to a news release from IHL.

The waiver only applies to the current JSU president search, and the vote was unanimous, said John Sewell, IHL’s communications director. 

Without the waiver, if Jones Gregory wanted to apply for the permanent role as president, she would first have to step down from the interim position. 

The vote reflects feedback the board received from JSU alumni and some students this summer questioning the fairness of the search process and criticizing the approach for a repeated lack of transparency. At a July meeting, some JSU stakeholders asked if Jones Gregory would get a fair shot at the permanent role. 

Jones Gregory, a JSU alumna, was the university’s provost and vice president of academic affairs before stepping into the interim leadership role. 

In a statement released in May after her appointment as a temporary leader, Jones Gregory expressed her appreciation for the chance to lead the university. 

“It has been my privilege to serve Jackson State as provost, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to continue serving my alma mater in this new role,” she said. “My commitment is to uphold the standard of excellence that defines Jackson State in every area of university life.

“As a proud graduate of JSU, I know what this university means to the people it serves because it has shaped every part of my life. This legacy grounds me and guides me.”

Jones Gregory could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. 

The Thursday vote was not the first time the IHL board temporarily waived its policy related to interim presidents applying for the permanent position. 

In 2023, the IHL board voted 7-5 to allow Elayne Hayes Anthony, who was the temporary acting president, to apply for the permanent role. Dr. Steven Cunningham, the only Jackson State alumnus on the board and the trustee leading that university’s presidential search, voted no. He said he didn’t want to dissuade outside candidates from applying for the role. After conducting an international search and interviewing 79 applicants, the board hired Marcus Thompson. 

The top role at Jackson State has been vacant since May, when Thompson resigned as president less than two years into his tenure.

Jackson State’s next president will be its fourth since 2020, when then-President William Bynum, who was appointed in 2017, left after his arrest on multiple charges including possessing marijuana, giving a “false statement of identity” and “procuring the services of prostitute.”

OXFORD – The Mississippi Department of Mental Health said significantly fewer people they oversee who needed mental health services in the state ended up in county jails over the last year, findings it attributed to a 2024 bill lawmakers passed to reduce how often people are placed in that position.

Sharing statistics from the department’s fiscal year 2025 annual report at the agency’s board meeting Thursday, Executive Director Wendy Bailey said there was a 31% decrease in state hospital admissions from jails since the House Bill 1640 became law in July 2024. 

Before the new legislation, people going through the civil commitment process could be jailed if county officials determined they did not have another place to hold them. Now, local community mental health center staffers screen people who are reported to be a potential danger to themself or others before they are taken into state custody and must note why a less restrictive treatment is not an option. A person cannot be held in jail unless all other options for care have been exhausted, they are “actively violent” and never for more than 48 hours. 

Among people jailed while awaiting mental health treatment at a state hospital, the department found that their wait behind bars decreased from about two days before the law went into effect to about one day after. Bailey attributed these changes to a part of the law that requires a provider to screen someone being committed for severe mental illness before they are sent to jail. 

In 2023, Mississippi Today and ProPublica found that the state routinely jailed people in need of severe mental health treatment who were never charged with a crime, which often endangered their lives. It was the only state in the country that regularly did that, according to a survey conducted by the newsrooms. 

The mental health department’s statistics are only one measure of how many people end up in jails with mental health needs and no criminal charges. Chancery clerks and community mental health centers are also supposed to keep track of the number of people in this position. Unlike the state agency, their statistics include those who are released to places other than the state hospitals. 

In January, Mississippi Today found that these three groups of recordkeepers had inconsistent numbers, making it difficult to say whether the 2024 law was doing what lawmakers said it would. 

After the board meeting, Adam Moore, spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health, said that although the agency’s annual report findings did not account for everyone, they still indicated that the new law was having a positive effect.

“We think it’s a correlation, and we think it’s a positive correlation,” he said.

House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, was the lead sponsor of the 2024 bill, and he said the Mississippi Today and ProPublica’s Investigation was a big reason he co-authored it. 

After the board meeting, Creekmore said he was proud of the Legislature’s efforts to reform the civil commitment process. But that law alone won’t ensure that the most mentally vulnerable Mississippians will avoid danger while trying to get help. 

He said that goal would take more work from the Legislature next year.

“It’s not perfect by any means.”

Community Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth contributed to this story.

Greenwood Leflore Hospital and the Mississippi Division of Medicaid reached an agreement Thursday in a dispute that hospital leaders said could otherwise force the facility to close.

The compromise, reached during a Hinds County Chancery Court hearing, gives both sides more time to negotiate a plan for the hospital to repay $5.5 million in Medicaid overpayments made last year. The agency has already recouped about $2 million of the funds. Under the deal, the Greenwood public hospital must secure a property bond by Jan. 31 to guarantee repayment of the debt or the Division of Medicaid could withhold scheduled payments to the hospital.

The conflict began after the Division of Medicaid notified the hospital in June it would recoup $5.5 million in state-directed payments, or supplemental funds intended to offset low Medicaid reimbursement rates. Hospital leaders warned the agency in September that the proposed repayment schedule of $900,000 a quarter — with about $2 million already recovered this year — would severely strain the long-struggling hospital and could lead to its closure. The facility serves about 300,000 patients in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the state with limited access to medical care. 

The overpayments stemmed from calculations by the Division of Medicaid based on old data that did not reflect lower patient volumes after the hospital closed its labor and delivery and intensive care units in 2022. Hospitals were notified two years ago that a reconciliation would occur in 2025, according to the Division of Medicaid, though they did not know at the time how much they would owe. 

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

The recoupment amount is significant for the 35-bed hospital, which operates a physician-staffed emergency room and offers general, vascular and outpatient orthopedic surgery, cancer care and a full suite of diagnostic services. The hospital’s total operating expenses were $74.7 million in the 2023 fiscal year, according to an audit performed that year. 

Tensions escalated this month after the Division of Medicaid reversed an earlier repayment agreement and instead accelerated the recovery, saying it would withhold $2.5 million in supplemental payments this month, according to an affidavit filed in court by the hospital. Weeks earlier, on Dec. 1, the agency said it would pause recoupments until March of next year, according to hospital leaders. 

“We will make our last payroll tomorrow,” interim hospital CEO Gary Marchand testified at the Dec. 18 court hearing before the agreement was reached. He warned that once the hospital announces layoffs, licensed professionals on staff will take jobs elsewhere and make it difficult to reopen the hospital, even under new leadership.

After the Division of Medicaid paused recovery of the funds for two months, Greenwood Leflore Hospital proposed several plans for repayment within three years. The hospital said these plans would buy it time to first begin receiving higher payments for Medicare patients, which are expected as a result of the hospital’s acceptance to the federal Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program earlier this year. The program allows selected hospitals to be reimbursed based on their actual costs for inpatient care instead of a fixed amount. The designation is expected to increase the hospital’s Medicare inpatient payments by about $1.3 million a year, said Marchand in a Dec. 18 memo to staff and board members.

“We thought we had finally climbed out of the COVID hole,” Marchand said Thursday of the hospital’s acceptance into the program. The hospital also began providing skilled nursing care for people recovering after hospital stays this year, but will not begin receiving the higher payments for these services until late 2026.

But the Division of Medicaid said in September it did not agree with the solutions for repayment proposed by the hospital and denied the hospital’s request for an administrative appeal process on the matter. The hospital then appealed the matter in Hinds County Chancery Court, asking a judge to uphold the hospital’s right to recourse and pause the pending recoupments. 

Janet McMurtray, an attorney representing Mississippi Medicaid, argued the hospital did not have the grounds to appeal and it is not the responsibility of Medicaid to bail the hospital out of its ongoing dire financial straits. 

“They have not put their house in order,” she said. “…I don’t know what is going to save this hospital, but it’s not going to be Medicaid.”

The Division of Medicaid said it needed security before discussing a repayment plan, she said, emphasizing the agency’s responsibility to recoup the payment in order to keep the supplemental payments program in balance for all hospitals. 

In a letter dated Dec. 17, Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, and House Public Health Committee Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, encouraged Judge J. Dewayne Thomas to pause the repayments to give lawmakers time to pursue remedies during the upcoming Legislative session. 

“Greenwood Leflore Hospital serves as a critical lifeline for thousands of residents, providing essential medical services that would otherwise be inaccessible,” wrote the chairmen. “Greenwood Leflore Hospital also serves as an important economic anchor in the Leflore County and wider Delta communities, employing more than 400 individuals.”

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

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

Marchand, who plans to step down Jan. 1, repeatedly warned local leaders and state lawmakers that the hospital was on the verge of closure. 

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

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

The state-directed payments helped to stabilize Greenwood Leflore’s finances after it was forced to close valued services. But those payments are set to be reduced over time beginning in 2028 as a result of federal cuts to Medicaid included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed by President Donald Trump in July. The hospital will remain open for now, but its long-term financial outlook may depend on how it adapts as those payments are gradually reduced.

Cientos de agentes fronterizos llegaron a Nueva Orleans y Mississippi la semana
pasada en lo que se conoce como “Operación Catahoula Crunch,” según The
Associated Press. Se dice que los funcionarios federales tienen como objetivo a
personas con antecedentes penales, aunque los datos muestran que más del 70% de
los inmigrantes detenidos actualmente en todo el país no tienen antecedentes penales.

Se espera que los agentes del orden permanezcan en la zona durante un período de
dos meses y su objetivo es detener a unas 5.000 personas. Sin embargo, en otras
ciudades donde se han llevado a cabo acciones similares, como Chicago y Washington
D. C., esta presencia se ha reducido, pero sigue vigente.

Los defensores han informado a Mississippi Today sobre la presencia de oficiales de
inmigración en todo el estado, incluyendo el área metropolitana de Jackson, y nuestros
periodistas están trabajando para cubrir estas historias. Pero necesitamos su ayuda.

Si tiene información o alguna pista, por favor contáctenos:

Señal +1-601-281-8952
Correo electrónico: tips@mississippitoday.org
Teléfono: 601-533-4860

On Saturday afternoon, Ole Miss will become the first Mississippi team – ever – to compete in the NCAA FBS College Football Playoffs. 

We’ve got the Rebels vs. the Tulane Green Wave, 2:30 p.m., at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. It’s time to put aside all the game’s peripheral aspects, of which there are so many. It’s time, finally, to forget Lane Kiffin and his messy exit from Oxford. It’s time to put aside the transfer portal – who’s staying and who’s leaving – at least until the new year. It’s time to stop talking about the movement of assistant coaches, too. It’s time, as coaches say, to spot the football.

It’s time to see which team, Tulane or Ole Miss, will advance to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Ole Miss, which comes in with an 11-1 record, is a 17-point favorite to win handily over Tulane, the American Athletic Conference champion that comes in at 11-2.

That point spread, it would seem, is based primarily on the fact that, when the same two teams played on the same field 12 weeks ago, Ole Miss smashed Tulane 45-10. That game was every bit as one-sided as the score would indicate. The Sept. 20 game wasn’t a case of Ole Miss capitalizing on Tulane turnovers or making several big plays in the kicking game. It was no fluke. The turnovers were even. Tulane threw an interception; Ole Miss lost a fumble. The Rebels nearly doubled the Green Wave in yardage. Indeed, Ole Miss punted only once. The Rebels won nearly all the big downs. Tulane converted just six of 15 third downs and zero of three fourth downs. 

“We played rotten, they played good,” Tulane coach Jon Sumrall said earlier in the week. “They are clearly a big-time team, but I want us to play like a better version of ourselves. I think we’re a better team, but we gotta go prove it.”

There were some extenuating circumstances the average fan probably did not realize at the time. For one, Tulane quarterback Jake Retzlaff, a transfer from Brigham Young University, was making only his fourth start after arriving at Tulane in July. For whatever reason – and the Ole Miss defense was a big part of it – Retzlaff played the worst game he would play all season. The numbers were ugly: He completed only five of 17 passes for 56 yards. He did run eight times for 51 yards, but that was more rushing yardage than any of his running backs.

One reason for that is that redshirt freshman running back Jamauri McClure carried the ball only three times for Green Wave in that earlier game. Since then, he has emerged as Tulane’s best back. He ran for 94 yards on just 10 carries against Florida Atlantic on Nov. 15, for 122 yards on 17 carries against Temple on Nov. 22 and for 121 yards on 22 carries against North Texas in the AAC championship game on Dec. 5. McClure averaged nearly seven yards per carry.

No doubt, his emergence has greatly enhanced Retzlaff’s play, which has been remarkably better than what he showed back on Sept. 20. Retzlaff has thrown for 2,862 yards and 14 touchdowns (vs. six interceptions). Perhaps more impressively, he has run for 610 yards and and 16 touchdowns. He really is a dual threat.

An even bigger reason for Tulane’s offensive woes in the earlier meeting was a key injury in the offensive line. Left tackle Derrick Graham, a fifth-year senior and a transfer from Texas A&M, did not play against Ole Miss because of an ankle injury. That caused a wholesale shuffling of the offensive line with guard Shadre Hurst moving out to tackle, and a back-up guard moving into the lineup. Any coach at any level of football can tell you how disruptive an injury to a key offensive lineman can be. It changes what you can do on offense. Against Ole Miss, Tulane could not do much of anything.

Pete Golding summed it up this way: “This is not Week 4 Tulane,” he said. “They are playing at a much higher level.”

High enough to make up for a five-touchdown deficit in the earlier game?

“We’re playing a conference champion that beat the ACC champion,” Golding said.

Still, if Ole Miss is focused and ready to play – despite all the peripheral distractions – the Rebels are surely the more talented team. But keep in mind, every week in college football, 17-point underdogs – and even higher – win football games. 

So, spot the ball. Here we go…

Houston might as well be considered far west Jackson. 

After moving to the nation’s fourth-largest city in 2021, Jackson native Elizabeth Evans said she’s had an easier time meeting new people because of Houston’s offerings – popular concert tours, Texans NFL games, fitness-driven outdoor functions, Jazzy Sundays in the park. Many of these new Houston friends hail from Jackson State University. 

Evans, 33, is among the thousands of Jacksonians who have left home for other states. A majority of these expats from Hinds County, where Jackson is located, remained in the South – hundreds in Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana in the last few years.

But from 2017 to 2022, the county saw a whopping 5,500 of its residents move to Texas, according to Internal Revenue Service data analyzed by researcher Jake McGraw at Rethink Mississippi.

“Dallas and Houston are the two biggest recipient locations of people moving out of Mississippi, but very few make the move back east from those places,” McGraw told Mississippi Today.

Evans had never lived outside Mississippi’s capital city, but she’d gotten a remote job in communications for a nonprofit organization and realized she could work from anywhere. 

“I’m a Southern girl to the core, and I didn’t want to immediately leave the South,” Evans said. 

Since 2020, Jackson’s population has declined 8%, by more than 12,000 people, according to the Census Bureau. To be sure, when people leave Hinds County, the two most common destinations are adjoining Madison and Rankin counties, McGraw said, but when they leave the state entirely, Texas is by far the most popular landing spot.

Though Texas is politically similar to Mississippi – Republican state leaders, a six-week abortion ban and growing anti-immigrant sentiment – Evans said she feels like the issues she cares about are amplified in Houston. She has found a community that believes in what she values, such as reproductive justice and voting access. Part of her political awareness began because she grew up in Jackson, a city that she said is plagued with issues of racial inequity and environmental challenges. 

“It’s easier to distract yourself from those things when you are in other places, but I think here (in Jackson), being so deeply connected to people and the landscape of the city, it will certainly radicalize you,” Evans said. 

More than 200 miles away in Dallas, another Jackson native is advancing in a marketing career. Bianca Tatum said Texas has offered her an opportunity to be ambitious with work that Mississippi didn’t. The Mississippi State University graduate lived in Illinois and Alabama before making the journey to Houston, then Dallas.

“Dallas and Houston, I feel like, are safe for Mississippians,” said Tatum, 32. “It’s not so far that you won’t know anybody or you’ll get a culture shock, because Houston and Dallas are a lot like Jackson.”

The similarities are simple – tight-knit neighborhoods, good food and a close circle of friends. But that wasn’t enough to offset the lack of recreation and low salaries for Tatum to justify staying in Mississippi. 

“I think they need to make it more desirable for young people to be there,” she said. “Give us more things to do. Give us more money.”

Tatum said moving around the country opened up her worldview. She’s proud of being from Mississippi, but she said the change of scenery pushed her out of her comfort zone. 

“I’m just grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to develop myself in other ways before taking the route of getting into a serious relationship or becoming a mom,” Tatum said. “I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to meet more of myself before making these big life decisions.” 

The issue of brain drain isn’t new for Jackson. Since the 1980s, when its population crested over 200,000, the number of residents has declined – sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. 

Jackson native Charles Miller moved back to his hometown with his wife after graduating law school in 1979. Even at the height of Jackson’s population, the capital city made them restless. They moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1982 after Miller found work as an in-house attorney for an energy company.

“I was frustrated,” said Miller, 71. “Everything seemed a little bit slower after my time at Vanderbilt and at Emory. My internal clock had changed. I wasn’t happy in Jackson.”

Since making the journey west, Miller has raised a family, taught business classes at a university and retired. For a brief period, he said he considered moving back to Mississippi. 

“I could not go back to Jackson now. I realized that about 15, 20 years ago,” Miller said. “I go back to visit, but for no other reason. Texas is where I am and who I am.”

Sondra Collins, senior economist with Mississippi’s University Research Center, said in order to combat brain drain, the state has to find ways to attract more young people and prioritize jobs that compensate employees fairly. Mississippi has fewer positions available for people with bachelor’s degrees, Collins said, which means some with a degree may end up taking a pay cut just to remain employed in the state.

“Having a population that doesn’t have as many people with bachelor’s degrees, even some skilled certificates, tends to mean that the jobs that are in the state are going to be jobs that are for people without a bachelor’s degree, without certificates, and those jobs tend to be lower-paid than jobs that require more,” Collins said. 

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show the private average hourly income in Mississippi is $28.10, compared to $34.28 in Texas, which adds up to thousands of dollars per year in earned income potentially left on the table for those remaining in Mississippi 

Collins said while other states also experience brain drain, their populations are replaced by people moving in. For people looking for larger city life, Mississippi doesn’t get consideration.

“We have to land some of those young people from other states who are wanting to explore,” Collins said. “We want them to come explore here in Mississippi. That has to be a bit of a priority.”

Jackson native Adam Luckett moved to San Antonio right after he graduated from the University of Mississippi with his degree in chemical engineering. He and his wife Tera Eichelberger love their neighborhood and its offerings – authentic Hispanic and Asian food, and a diverse community. But they also miss the familiarity of Jackson.

“There was more of a community in Jackson,” Luckett, 31, said. “You feel a lot more connected to the people around you, even if you don’t know them, if it’s a smaller town.”

Eichelberger, 34, said in order to move back to Jackson, she’d like to see more jobs created in the tech field. The city would also need to invest in public transportation and infrastructure. Jackson has long struggled with its water system, from a city-wide outage due to a winter storm in 2021 that left residents without running water, to a federal receivership that led to the system being controlled by a private utility, JXN Water.

“The water situation is something you really can’t stress enough,” Eichelberger said. 

While they’ve grown in their careers since moving, they both agree they would be able to see themselves in Jackson long-term if there were opportunities to earn more money. 

“Your life isn’t going to magically get better because you move to a larger city,” Luckett said.

Since 2010, Mississippi has lost 80,000 more people than it has gained, according to the Census Bureau. Justin Ransburg, who went to college in Texas, is one Jackson native who made the decision to return home. What he anticipated to be a few-month stint ended up capturing his 20s.

“ I’ve always said that I wanted to move outside of Mississippi to see what else is out in the world,” Ransburg said. 

The visual artist and comics teacher attended Texas Southern University, a historically Black university in Houston. He’d only planned to return to Mississippi for six months after graduating in 2012, he said, but once he was home, he didn’t want to leave. He became a part of the local art scene and worked at various galleries. But most importantly to him, he was able to take part in his nieces’ and nephews’ lives. 

“When I actually did come back, a lot of the things that I was looking for that I found in Houston, I found here in Mississippi,” Ransburg said. 

Ransburg said he was searching for more opportunities to create art, try out coffee shops and restaurants and attend events where he could meet like-minded creatives. He found that in the Fondren and Midtown districts, and at one point, he and a friend created a group called the Jackson Drawing Club.

“ I’ve been able to meet people that I wouldn’t have in Houston,” he said. “ As a person, it showed me things that I value more than I realize, and how to care for those things to make sure that they last a long time and also what to let go of.”

People discredit Mississippi’s rich history and focus only on the issues that persist, such as bad infrastructure and homelessness, he said. To him, Mississippi isn’t just the sum of its problems.

“ People need to have their own perception of a place or of people,” Ransburg said, “because if you’re just going by stereotypes or things you’ve heard, it’s like you’re letting the propaganda get to you.”