OurTupelo

The Ole Miss women’s basketball team will make their fifth straight NCAA Basketball Tournament appearance when they play Gonzaga in the first round at 2 p.m. Friday in Minneapolis.

Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin doesn’t take that for granted.

“It’s hard, y’all,” McPhee-McCuin said after the pairing was announced. “Not everybody gets to dance in March.”

Ole Miss is the fifth seed in the NCAA West Regional. Gonzaga is the 12-seed. The Gonzaga-Ole Miss winner will play the winner of 4-seed Minnesota, the host team, and 13-seed Green Bay in Sunday’s second round. The winner of Sunday’s game will advance to the Regional finals at Sacramento next week.

Ole Miss has advanced to the Sweet 16 in two of the past three years.

“Our goal is to get past the Sweet 16,” McPhee-McCuin said. “Our schedule has prepared us to play anyone, whenever and wherever. This is an exciting time.”

Hard to believe that it was just six years ago that Ole Miss, in McPhee-McCuin’s second season in Oxford, went winless (0-14) In the Southeastern Conference and and finished 7-23 overall. The Rebels were 15-12 the next year, reaching the NIT finals, and have been in the NCAA Tournament ever since. Ole Miss has won 127 games over the last five seasons.

The current Rebs will take a 23-11 record into the tournament, having defeated three top-five teams during the course of the season. Ole Miss beat fifth-ranked Oklahoma 74-69 on the road Jan. 8, defeated fifth-ranked Vanderbilt 83-75 at Birmingham Jan. 30, and beat fifth-ranked Vandy again in the SEC Tournament 89-78 on March 6. This marks the first time Ole Miss has beaten three top-five teams in a single season.

The Rebels also own victories over No. 18 Notre Dame and No. 21 Tennessee. Perhaps just as impressively, they extended then-undefeated and second-ranked Texas to the final buzzer in a 67-64 defeat at Austin. Clearly, Ole Miss has shown it can compete with the nation’s best teams. 

But Gonzaga (24-9) will come into the tournament playing its best basketball, having defeated Oregon State 76-66 for the West Coast Conference championship on March 10. Gonzaga has won five of its last six and 10 of its last 12. The only loss since Feb. 14 came in overtime, 92-91, at Portland.

Gonzaga and Ole Miss have played in the NCAA Tournament once before in 2023, when the Rebels won a first-round game 71-58 at Stanford.

Minnesota (22-8) will have a decided home floor advantage at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, where the 18th ranked Golden Gophers won 13 of 16 home games during the regular season.

Ole Miss senior Cotie McMahon leads the Rebels with a 19.9 points per game scoring average and was recently named a second team Sporting News All American. She will be no stranger to Williams Arena, where she played as a three-year starter and standout at Ohio State before transferring to Ole Miss.

McMahon is one of eight transfers who have helped Ole Miss this season after the Rebels suffered heavy graduation losses from last season’s Sweet 16 team.

Welcome to Mississippi Explained, our weekly news quiz to test your knowledge of this week’s news. 🧠

It’s time for lawmakers to set the state’s over $7-billion budget, but can they do it without Gov. Tate Reeves calling a special session?

The House and Senate still have not agreed on one of the biggest budget issues, teacher pay. The House’s latest proposal includes language that could expand school choice. 

Quiz question: What can the governor do to partially reject appropriation bills?

Email your answer to newsletter@mississippitoday.org with your first name and last initial, and we’ll shout you out in the next quiz post.

Last week’s answer: Send a bill to conference committee

READ MORE: Can they do it? Time for House, Senate to set a budget: Legislative recap

Think you know the news? Take more quizzes like this one: sign up for The Today, our daily newsletter, and never miss a chance to test your knowledge.

A new exhibit at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson showcases the diversity of the state’s contributions to the United States as the nation celebrates its 250th birthday.

The Mississippi Made exhibit consists of 250 individual artifacts that showcase Mississippians’ work and achievements in the fields of agriculture, manufacturing, music, fashion, science, literature, sports and the arts.

Items on display include a 19th century cotton gin, Elvis Presley’s bathrobe, a cartoon by Marshall Ramsey and a box of Wheaties featuring the late Walter Payton, a NFL Hall of Fame running back, on the front of the box. Another one of the Mississippi Made exhibits is the NASA flight jacket worn by Mississippi astronaut Richard Truly of Fayette, who also served as the administrator of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1989 until 1992.

“I think everyone can find something that they find interesting in this exhibit,” said Jessica Walzer, curator of collections and exhibits at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

She added that the exhibit would be great representation for young Mississippians.

“Mississippi Made brings together objects that tell a broader story about the state’s creativity, industry and innovation,” Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums, said in a press release. “Each artifact reflects how Mississippians responded to local needs in ways that shaped life far beyond the state.”

This exhibit is part of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s celebrations for America250, a national initiative in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There are events and initiatives at the national, state and local levels leading up to July 4.

The exhibit is on the second floor of the Two Museums. It opened in early March and runs through Nov 6.

Sen. Bradford Blackmon discusses the wild frontier of artificial intelligence, and the potential harm deepfakes can cause if left unchecked. He offered two bills this session that, while unsuccessful, prompted much discussion in the Legislature. One would have protected Mississippians’ right to their name, image and likeness, another would have required AI-generated political ads to disclose the technology’s use.

Judge E. Grady Jolly, who served 35 years on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, died Monday. He was 88.

On the appeals court that handles cases from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, Jolly was viewed as a conservative who followed existing law and Supreme Court precedents.

In 1986, Jolly wrote the majority opinion for a three-judge panel that found unconstitutional a Louisiana law requiring schools to teach creationism. The Supreme Court affirmed the panel’s decision in the case Edwards v. Aguillard.

In 2014, Jolly wrote a majority opinion finding as unconstitutional a Mississippi law requiring physicians who perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital. The law was an attempt by then-Gov. Phil Bryant and the Republican-led Legislature to shut down the state’s only abortion clinic, and the clinic sued the state before the law could take effect in 2012. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 allowed the appeals court ruling to stand.

Jolly, a native of Louisville, Mississippi, was recommended to the 5th Circuit by Thad Cochran, who was at the time the state’s sole Republican U.S. senator.

Jolly took senior status in 2017, meaning he no longer served as a full-time member of the 5th Circuit. In a tribute at the time, Cochran wrote that Jolly had an exemplary tenure on the bench.

Cochran recalled that when he recommended Jolly for the post, he said Jolly was “’well suited for this important job by reason of his education, philosophy and experience, and I’m confident that he would be one of the outstanding members of the court.’ Now, 35 years later, I am convinced Grady’s service has proven those words accurate.”

Jolly and Cochran became close friends at the University of Mississippi, where they both earned their undergraduate and law degrees. Jolly served as Cochran’s campaign chairman when he first won the Senate post in 1978.

When Jolly was nominated to the bench, he was serving as a private attorney in Jackson. He had previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Mississippi and as a trial attorney for the tax division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

At his swearing in, Jolly said, “I do not approach this task believing at all that federal courts are all-wise and all-knowing. Some judges are criticized for arrogance and self righteousness, for attempting to play God. Our powers may seem near that sometimes, but our wisdom falls far short. When I get out of line, I deserve to be criticized.”

Cochran said he had to persuade Reagan to nominate Jolly. 

“I joked with Grady that by the time his nomination was official he would have to take senior status,” Cochran said.

After Jolly was finally put forward, the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination without a dissenting vote.

When Jackson’s federal courthouse was named for Cochran four months after Cochran retired from the Senate in 2018, Jolly spoke at the ceremony on behalf of the Cochran family. Cochran died less than a year later.

Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who has been in that chamber since 2007, said in a statement Monday that Jolly “was an outstanding and respected jurist —  a credit to the federal bench and to his native state.”

“He had a quick wit and an even quicker mind,” Wicker said. “He was dedicated to the Constitution and the rule of law. I have been privileged to know him and benefit from his counsel. Mississippi has lost a giant.”

Jolly was known for his sense of humor.

Ilya Shapiro, who served as a law clerk to Jolly, said upon learning the judge was a Johnny Cash fan, he became familiar with the country music legend and told the judge how much he liked Cash.

Without missing a beat, Shapiro, said Jolly responded, “Well, you know, Ilya, I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

In his 2017 tribute, Cochran said, “ Grady is the epitome of a ‘Renaissance man’ with an acerbic wit and contagious humor.”

State authorizers may force SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy, a Canton-based charter school, to close because of faulty financial reporting and poor fiscal management.

The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board voted Monday to hold a public hearing to determine SR1 CPSA’s fate. The authorizer board’s executive director would have to appoint a hearing officer, who would schedule the public hearing. 

The authorizer board did not provide a timeline for completing the process. State statute requires notifying charter authorizer board members, school officials and other relevant parties of an administrative hearing at least 30 days in advance.

SR1 CPSA would be the state’s first charter school to reach this stage of the revocation process. No one from SR1 CPSA attended the board’s meeting on Monday. 

The hearing would initiate “a formal review process outlined by state law and the school’s charter school contract,” a statement the charter authorizer board released Monday states. “Revocation proceedings allow the school an opportunity to respond and participate in the process before any final decision is made.”

The authorizer board began the process of revoking SR1 CPSA’s charter at its December board meeting by jumpstarting revocation review, which included setting up a corrective action plan with school leadership and allowing them the opportunity to prove financial solvency.

The board began the most recent process of shuttering the school because it had one day’s worth of cash on hand and submitted its financial audit 23 days late, which does not meet the standard set by the board. The board also recommends schools have 30 to 60 days worth of cash on hand. 

SR1 CPSA has never met its enrollment target, which meant it received less funding from the Mississippi Department of Education. The state funds schools based on a head count and recoups money the following year from schools that overproject their enrollment.  

The authorizer board approved a charter for SR1 CPSA in December 2020 after multiple failed application attempts by Gregory Tamu Green, the CEO of SR1, a Ridgeland-based nonprofit organization that operates the charter school. The school delayed its start from 2022-23 to 2023-24 because of struggles securing space as well as challenges recruiting.

The charter authorizer board has questioned SR1 CPSA’s financial solvency for the past two years. At a March 2024 meeting, board members questioned the school’s ability to fund itself. They also expressed concern with the school’s budgeting.

Green founded SR1 CPSA. His wife, Dorlisa Hutton, serves as the chief operating officer of SR1, the nonprofit parent company, and bears the title of Vanguard Ambassador at the charter school. 

Neither Green nor Hutton could immediately be reached for comment.

A judge considers what should happen with a child who’s been neglected or abused – without ever hearing from the child’s foster parent.

Kids and teens in court can’t bring their trusted relatives and friends for support. 

Biological parents of children in custody are told they could go to jail if they talk to anyone about their situation. 

And attorneys can’t access basic court filings to properly represent their clients.

These are some of the realities inside one of the most secretive systems in the state: Mississippi’s youth courts.

Created in 1979 to oversee both juvenile delinquency and child abuse and neglect cases, Mississippi’s youth court proceedings have long been closed to the public and the records deemed confidential.

A bill gaining traction this legislative session could change that.

Supporters of closed courtrooms say confidentiality protects children. The concern is that, if information spreads, children accused of crimes may be locked out of future opportunities and children who are victims of abuse or neglect may be retraumatized or face stigma and embarrassment. 

Those who favor transparency say that public visibility is more likely to result in accountability – righting institutional wrongs – and better outcomes for children. Judges would still have the discretion, as they have in other courts, to seal sensitive information or bar disruptive people from hearings. 

But, they say, removing the blanket confidentiality could lead to more open communication between families and their communities. This would help the court arrive at better solutions, such as identifying familiar people to care for a child until a judge decides on reunification.

Some folks who have gone through youth courts themselves say the secretive nature is one reason they had such a negative experience. When Zoey Tether was 14, for example, she was separated from the 5-year-old sister she had essentially parented. No one would answer her questions about where her sister was or how she was doing. Their older sister, who was 16 and spared from entering CPS, received even less intel, and at times didn’t even know in what town her siblings lived.

“I was very isolated during my stay in CPS,” Tether said. “It made it really hard to trust anything.”

Tether, who aged out of the system about a year ago, says she got lucky with her foster mom, who still supports her. She has little contact with her sister, who now lives in Florida with extended family. Tether is in college studying social work and political science with hopes of lobbying for positive child welfare changes. At just 20, she’s already identified part of the solution: open the courts.

“Change can’t happen in a closed system,” Tether told Mississippi Today. “If we want the court system to get better, you can’t fix that from directly inside of it.”

Senate Bill 2728, authored by Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins, a judiciary chairman from Pascagoula, is the latest piece of legislation in a string of youth court reforms considered in recent years. 

Among other changes, the bill aims to remove language in the law that prohibits the public from attending youth court hearings and requires an explicit judge’s order for the release of youth court records. 

“I have said this from day one that the blanket closure in these matters fosters distrust and fosters other negative consequences,” Wiggins said. “Every other court in the state of Mississippi is open, and I would submit that that is a hallmark of, honestly, our democracy.”

The Senate passed the bill mostly along partisan lines – most Democrats voting no – in February. The House replaced the bill with its own language, keeping the provisions related to openness, and passed it with almost no opposition in March. Now for the legislation to stay alive, a small conference of legislators from the Senate and House would need to hash out the details of a final bill that both chambers would pass.

“The issues we handle in youth court, I’m telling you, are too personal, especially when you’re dealing with abuse and neglect, for the public,” said Jeffery Harness, a family law attorney and Democratic representative from Fayette who expects to be included in the conference on the bill. “I’ve had to deal with horrible issues in youth court. And I don’t think that’s the proper venue for the public at all.”

Regarding supportive family members, Harness said, “They can still support them outside the courtroom.”

The youth court judges spread across Mississippi’s 82 counties represent one of the loudest lobbies when it comes to legislative changes to the system. But not all youth court judges are the same. Mississippi has a hybrid youth court, meaning some counties are served by permanent elected youth court judges housed inside county courthouses, while other areas have part-time judges – private attorneys appointed as “referees” to the cases – in chancery courts. This has led to wildly inconsistent outcomes for families from county to county.

Tether and others with youth court experiences recently spoke about confidentiality at a joint meeting held by two groups studying youth courts: the Court Improvement Program Statewide Multi-Disciplinary Task Force and the Mississippi Children, Youth and Families Collaboration Initiative. Judges were there.

Adrienne Williams spoke about how, as a foster parent, a judge barred her from courtroom discussions about her now-adoptive daughter, who is medically fragile due to brain damage caused in the early months of her life while under the care of her biological parents.

Initially, Williams said, the biological mother said she wanted the girl to stay with Williams. But over time, communication between the two fractured. Children in youth court are appointed a courtroom advocate called a guardian ad litem, or GAL, but Williams said a GAL never laid eyes on her daughter. 

Most frustratingly, Williams was never able to tell the judge about her daughter’s medical condition – or the countless weekly doctor’s appointments they attended – which would have provided crucial context in making a decision about what happened next.

“Because of this invoking and this confidentiality, it builds this hostility between the biological parent and the person caring for the child,” Williams said. “Because it’s almost like we’re separated, we’re not to talk to each other.”

Williams and her husband endured five years of this, sitting outside the courtroom doors, repeatedly learning little detail other than that the case had been continued.

“I’m truly sorry for that,” said Staci Bevill, a youth court judge in Lee County. “You should have never been treated that way. There are judges out there who would not do that.”

Bevill told Mississippi Today that blanket openness is worrisome especially in the age of social media.

“Our children and families’ futures shouldn’t be defined by their past mistakes or trauma, which are on full display in our courts,” Bevill said.

Certainly, the worst consequences of the secretive policy don’t occur in every courtroom. But the confidentiality clause does protect some judges from scrutiny, said attorney and parent defender Chad King.

“They don’t even know what’s happening in the county next to them,” King said of youth court judges. “Nobody knows what’s going on, and, by the time we hear about it, the damage has been done.”

Harness, who opposes opening the courtrooms, agreed that youth courts lack the structure of other trial courts – resulting in issues such as parties not being properly served. King said this is one reason why children can linger in state custody for so long. Confidentiality also means attorneys lack familiarity with the court, King said, creating a dearth of attorneys who want to practice in this arena and fewer appeals, meaning fewer checks and balances.

But Harness said training employees of the court would be a better solution than opening the courts. Bevill said those who have concerns about the decisions by youth court judges could file a complaint with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, an avenue she said few explore.

“Normally, youth court hearings are very informal. We do need to improve on due process issues,” Harness said. “The rules of evidence are not really being administered as they should.”

But the public would be exposed to “all kinds of evil stuff,” Harness warned, if youth court were opened.

“I might not win on that issue, but I’m going to stand firm on that,” Harness said.

While King and others have advocated for years for more youth court openness, the seismic proposal came quietly this session.

As part of a years-long effort to bring uniformity to the process, Wiggins’ initial bill contained sweeping changes – such as officially selecting the chancery as home of youth courts statewide. The judges were stunned. 

Bevill, who chairs the Council of Youth Court Judges, sent out a “kill bill” email urging her colleagues to speak against it. A swarm of youth court judges attended a February meeting of the Senate Judiciary A Committee, where the bill originated. The committee ended up passing a slightly watered down version of the bill, which would maintain a hybrid of county and chancery youth courts. But it still contained other striking changes, such as removing confidentiality. 

The judges stood and left the Capitol hearing room in unison, shaking their heads, after lawmakers advanced the bill. Their opposition had been so palpable, Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Randolph sent a memo to all local judges days later, asking them to read the rules of judicial conduct.

“Judicial officers must remain impartial, especially on policy issues, and excessive lobbying would likely violate these rules and erode public confidence in the judiciary’s independence and fairness,” Randolph wrote in his Feb. 12 memo.

If the bill passes, the handling of cases by youth court judges won’t be the only thing thrust into the sunlight. The Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, which investigates abuse and neglect and makes recommendations to judges about custody, also plays a role in what happens behind closed youth court doors. 

But CPS’s director, Andrea Sanders, said she favors opening the courts. 

“There’s been a myth propagated that because this is about children and the very sensitive details of their lives that we must seal it, and close it, and we must suspend rules of procedure,” Sanders said at the task force meeting.

Instead, Sanders said it is precisely because these cases involve children that they should come with the protections and due process that the existing legal system “is very elegantly designed to give.”

“My plea to the state is: Let’s have transparency in the courtroom,” she added. “Let’s treat it like a court.”

Adelaide Anderson, who spent most of her teenage years in foster care and now works as an advocate for foster youth, only ever saw a judge in her case one time. 

She remembers the excitement of that court date, laying out her clothes ahead of time, anticipating answers about what her future would hold. After that, she bounced from home to home – at least a dozen placements, she estimates, in a matter of three years. Each move was a decision made without her involvement. “Friends thought I went missing,” Anderson said. 

Anderson eventually opted to get her GED and emancipated herself at 17. “No one told me you get benefits if you age out,” she said.

If courtrooms were more open, Christina Simmons Saucier said she would have felt less intimidated in the aftermath of the state taking her five children into custody nearly a decade ago. She said that from the very beginning, parents are not offered the option of inviting a supportive person, such as a therapist, into the conversation.

“So right then, the parent is silenced,” said Saucier, who spent about a year in the courts before she was reunited with her children. She now works as a peer support specialist with the state public defender’s office.

Nationally, states are moving towards more transparency, though 29 still practice generally closed youth courtrooms and 37 do not allow public access to youth court records. Florida has had open youth court proceedings for decades, and Georgia recently made the same move.

“The sky has not fallen,” said Jay Blitzman, a retired judge from Massachusetts who is advocating for open courtrooms in his state. “Some of the dire predictions about all the harm that will befall children have not come to pass.”

Blitzman also pointed out that states that are concerned about privacy could enact a provision to prohibit the publication of names of minors while still keeping the proceedings transparent. Also, courts that choose to open should not expect a flood of onlookers, Blitzman said.

“People aren’t just going, ‘Man I’m bored on a Tuesday, I might as well go watch a family be ripped apart,’” Tether said. “That’s not what’s going to happen.”

When the state determines a child in its custody cannot safely return to his or her biological parent, it is a youth court judge who will order the Termination of Parental Rights or TPR. 

This order, Blizman said, is the familial equivalent of the death penalty – permanently severing a parent from his or her child. With stakes this high, Blitzman argues, courts should be held to the highest evidentiary rigor, but that’s not always the case in youth court.

“More harm than good is done in the name of protecting children and the so-called best interest of the child,” Blitzman said.

The 2026 Mississippi legislative session is getting down to the short rows, scheduled to wrap by the first week of April.

That means it’s time for lawmakers to bear down on setting an over $7-billion state budget, the main job of a legislature.

But that requires cooperation between the 122-member House and 52-member Senate. And that cooperation has been in short supply for the last three years, as the Republican leadership of the two chambers has sparred over nearly every major issue, including the budget. Last year, the feuding was so bad that they could not set a budget and had to be called back to Jackson in a special session by the governor to finish up.

The two chambers have been at it again this year, arguing over nearly every major initiative and killing each other’s bills left and right. So, many political observers are wondering whether the two chambers can set a budget without costing taxpayers upwards of $100,000 a day if they have to be called back into extra innings later to set a budget or parts of it.

Some major budget issues still pending:

K-12 education: The biggest single chunk of the budget, well over $3 billion, is spent on K-12 public education. Until lawmakers agree on this one, it’s nearly impossible to set the rest of the budget. This year, the House and Senate have dueling large teacher pay raise proposals, and each has killed the other’s plan. They’ve revived them, but are still at odds over how much and how to increase teacher pay.

PERS: Shoring up the underfunded state Public Employees’ Retirement System has been a perennial issue for the Legislature, and the House and Senate remain at odds over addressing it this year as well. The Senate has proposed sinking $500 million into the system this year, then $50 million a year over the next decade. The House has proposed finding a recurring revenue stream, such as its proposal to legalize online sports betting and earmarking revenue to PERS. Beyond that, the two chambers are also still haggling over proposed changes to the system.

‘Christmas tree’ bill: The Legislature has typically passed a $200 million to $400 million “Christmas tree” bill with dozens of special projects spread across the state. In lean years, they’ve borrowed money for the projects. In flush times, they’ve used cash. But last year, amid other budget fighting, the Senate refused to agree to such a bill. It’s unclear whether they can reach an agreement on such a measure this year.

One-time money: The state has been flush with cash since the unprecedented windfall of billions of federal dollars in COVID-19 relief and infrastructure spending after the pandemic. Mississippi has about $1.5 billion in cash, plus another $700 million in the “rainy day fund.” But that federal flow has dried up, and more federal cuts appear to be in the offing. Some legislative leaders are warning against the state continuing to increase recurring spending by large amounts. The GOP took over state government starting in the early 2000s in part as a backlash to using “one-time” money for recurring expenses and dealing with subsequent deficits. With current economic headwinds and tax policy changes, it’s a little hard to tell what recurring revenue will look like for Mississippi in the coming years.

Quote of the Week

In Brief

Lawmakers keep ICE measure alive

The House last week inserted language into a Senate bill from its legislation to require all state and local governments to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws.

The Senate made some tweaks to the original HB 538, but kept the measure alive.

The measure would expand Mississippi’s ban on “sanctuary” jurisdictions to require all state and local government entities to cooperate with ICE if requested. It would also waive sovereign immunity for those violating it. Opponents said the proposal would expose local Mississippi police officers to arrest if they tried to stop ICE agents from engaging in illegal behavior and would rope a wide range of Mississippi institutions into carrying out federal immigration policy. Supporters said most Mississippians support the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. – Michael Goldberg

Most education bills dead

Thanks to infighting at the Capitol, just a fraction of education bills are still alive as lawmakers enter the final weeks of the session. 

Lawmakers in both chambers filed several bills in January that would have enshrined students’ right to pray in school. But, two months later, none of those bills have survived. 

Among other notable dead education bills is one that would have established more oversight of technology. Mississippi schools spent millions on technology during the pandemic, House Education Vice-Chairman Kent McCarty said in a February meeting, but it’s unclear if it’s still in use. 

Another now-dead bill would have removed the requirement of a signed confidentiality pledge before mediation for special needs students — an issue the federal government has previously flagged. – Devna Bose

Election-night reporting bill dies in Senate

A bill that would have required local election officials to report election results to the secretary of state’s office on election nights died on a deadline last week in the Senate.

Other than media, no entity in the state provides real-time updates for election results after polls close. Secretary of State Michael Watson asked the Legislature to mandate local officials to report the results to provide more transparency on Election Day.

Though the measure received bipartisan support, some legislators expressed concern that voters could be confused by looking at unofficial results on an official government website. – Taylor Vance

Special needs, workforce bills revived

After both bills were killed, Sen. Nicole Boyd saved two programs she championed this session to support special needs students and fortify the state’s workforce.

HB 562 now contains language for the two programs, after the original bill’s language was completely replaced in committee and passed by the Senate.

The UPSKILL program would award grants to students at community colleges for in-demand careers, such as plumbing and construction. The money would cover students’ remaining balance after all aid and scholarships.

The bill would also establish the BRIDGE Act, intended to address the needs of students with disabilities. The act would direct the Mississippi Department of Education to evaluate the need for regional schools that serve special needs students and regional schools focused on career and technical education and workforce training. – Devna Bose

Committee to study impact of wind power

A House bill would establish a committee to study the agricultural and environmental impact of wind power.

The Senate replaced HB 1069 with language from its own wind tower bill. Sen. Joel Carter amended the bill so that for one year, the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks would review and approve all new wind projects based on their impact on the environment and waterfowl.

The amended bill passed the Senate and the House, but it was held on a motion to reconsider in the House. – Katherine Lin

Bill aims to keep kids safe online

Even though an education bill aimed at keeping kids safer online died earlier this session, another bill with the same goal is still alive. 

The Mississippi Keeping Kids Safe Online Act, which would be established under HB 1224, would prohibit interactive computer service providers from entering into contracts with minors without their parents’ consent and from allowing minors to access harmful material or communicate with adults without safeguards. 

It would also require providers to implement age-verification methods and allow the state attorney general to prosecute violations. – Devna Bose

By the Numbers

$328.5 million a year

Cost of the Senate’s proposed $6,000 a year teacher pay raise, once fully implemented. The proposal is to phase the raise in over three years, at a cost of $109.5 million more a year. It would bring starting teacher pay to $47,500 when fully implemented. The House has proposed a $5,000 a year teacher raise.

More Legislative Coverage

‘A good day for teachers’: Senate revives pay raise, ups House’s proposal to $6,000

The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a $6,000 teacher pay raise with an extra $3,000 for special education teachers. The House has proposed a $5,000 raise, with an extra $3,000 for special education teachers. Read the story.

Legislature passes law to take gambling jackpots from deadbeat parents after yearslong push

The Mississippi Legislature passed a bill on Tuesday that aims to prevent child support money for over 150,000 Mississippi children from being gambled away, the culmination of a yearslong effort to pass such a proposal. –Read the story.

Senate approves funding for Mississippi’s child care crisis. Will it survive the House?

The Senate voted Thursday to spend $15 million on child care vouchers to help alleviate the pressure on roughly 20,000 low-income Mississippi families waitlisted for subsidies since pandemic-era federal funds ran out in April. Read the story.

Mississippi is on track to increase spending on prisons for the coming fiscal year, a spike attributed to its medical care contract and rising payments to private prisons, according to a top budget writer for corrections in the state Legislature.

Lawmakers are considering spending over $480 million on the Mississippi Department of Corrections over the next fiscal year, said House Corrections Chairwoman Becky Currie, who presented the agency’s budget bill on Thursday. That’s an increase of roughly $12 million from this year. The largest single chunk of the budget goes to a prison medical contract currently held by Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies.

“This bill is higher because we are paying VitalCore more money this year,” Currie said. “By contract, it goes up from $124 million to $128 million, and next year it will be $133 million.”

Lawmakers spent much of the past week working on appropriations bills that will make up the over $7 billion state budget. The House and Senate will try to negotiate agreements on spending for each state agency in the final few weeks of the legislative session.

Currie has been a sharp critic of VitalCore, which was awarded over $315 million in emergency, no-bid state contracts by the Department of Corrections from 2020 to 2024. The company has since faced legal challenges and allegations that it routinely denies or provides inadequate care inside Mississippi’s prisons, some of which have come to light through Mississippi Today’s “Behind Bars, Beyond Care” investigation into prison health care.

Currie said she wants to make it possible for other entities to compete for Mississippi’s prison health contract after Gov. Tate Reeves leaves office in 2027. Reeves appointed current Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain, under whose watch VitalCore has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars.

“When this all goes forward, we will hopefully have a new commissioner and a new governor, new people, so hopefully we’ll be able to get these changes,” Currie said.

Currie successfully offered an amendment to the corrections budget bill on the House floor on Thursday to condition the department’s spending on the department’s solicitation of proposals for a new prison health contract in 2027.

As a condition of the department’s ability to spend any money from its central office, which includes the salaries of agency employees, the department would need to conduct a “request for proposals” that could allow other entities to compete with VitalCore for the contract. That could include other private health consultants, like VitalCore, or in-state hospitals. VitalCore could also submit a new proposal and renegotiate its contract under the proposal.

Currie had hoped to take the power to award health contracts away from MDOC and task the Department of Finance and Administration with the job, but legislative attorneys cautioned that such an approach might not pass muster, she said.

Other increases to corrections spending stem from a contractually-mandated rise in payments to private prisons of over $2 million, and $443,000 in unpaid utilities to the city of Walnut Grove for its operation of the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility.

Currie is also aiming to condition corrections funding on a requirement that the agency provide a report on spending connected to the Inmate Welfare Fund. Currie said she found seven bank accounts linked to the fund, but only obtained access to one. In that one account, she found about $32 million, but had trouble tracing much of it. The disparate info in the bank statements raises questions about whether the money has been spent on prisoners, she has said.

The budget proposal now goes back to the Senate for consideration.