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Cuts to public health and mental health funding in Mississippi have doubled – reaching approximately $238 million – since initial estimates last week, when cancellations to federal grants allocated for COVID-19 pandemic relief were first announced.

Slashed funding to the state’s health department will impact community health workers, planned improvements to the public health laboratory, the agency’s ability to provide COVID-19 vaccinations and preparedness efforts for emerging pathogens, like H5 bird flu. 

The grant cancellations, which total $230 million, will not be catastrophic for the agency, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney told members of the Mississippi House Democratic Caucus at the Capitol April 1. 

But they will set back the agency, which is still working to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic decimated its workforce and exposed “serious deficiencies” in the agency’s data collection and management systems.

The cuts will have a more significant impact on the state’s economy and agency subgrantees, who carry out public health work on the ground with health department grants, he said. 

“The agency is okay. But I’m very worried about all of our partners all over the state,” Edney told lawmakers. 

The health department was forced to lay off 17 contract workers as a result of the grant cancellations, though Edney said he aims to rehire them under new contracts. 

Other positions funded by health department grants are in jeopardy. Two community health workers at Back Bay Mission, a nonprofit that supports people living in poverty in Biloxi, were laid off as a result of the cuts, according to WLOX. It’s unclear how many more community health workers, who educate and help people access health care, have been impacted statewide.

The department was in the process of purchasing a comprehensive data management system before the cuts and has lost the ability to invest in the Mississippi Public Health Laboratory, he said. The laboratory performs environmental and clinical testing services that aid in the prevention and control of disease. 

The agency has worked to reduce its dependence on federal funds, Edney said, which will help it weather the storm. Sixty-six percent of the department’s budget is federally funded. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled back $11.4 billion in funding to state health departments nationwide last week. The funding was originally allocated by Congress for testing and vaccination against the coronavirus as part of COVID-19 relief legislation, and to address health disparities in high-risk and underserved populations. An additional $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was also terminated. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the Department of Health and Human Services Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

HHS did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about the cuts in Mississippi.

Democratic attorneys general and governors in 23 states filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday, arguing that the sudden cancellation of the funding was unlawful and seeking injunctive relief to halt the cuts. Mississippi did not join the suit. 

Mental health cuts

The Department of Mental Health received about $7.5 million in cuts to federal grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 

Over half of the cuts were to community mental health centers, and supported alcohol and drug treatment services for people who can not afford treatment, housing services for parenting and pregnant women and their children, and prevention services. 

The cuts could result in reduced beds at community mental health centers, Phaedre Cole, the director of Life Help and President of Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, told lawmakers April 1. 

Community mental health centers in Mississippi are already struggling to keep their doors open. Four centers in the state have closed since 2012, and a third have an imminent to high risk of closure, Cole told legislators at a hearing last December. 

“We are facing a financial crisis that threatens our ability to maintain our mission,” she said Dec. 5. 

Cuts to the department will also impact diversion coordinators, who are charged with reducing recidivism of people with serious mental illness to the state’s mental health hospital, a program for first-episode psychosis, youth mental health court funding, school-aged mental health programs and suicide response programs. 

The Department of Mental Health hopes to reallocate existing funding from alcohol tax revenue and federal block grant funding to discontinued programs.

The agency posted a list of all the services that have received funding cuts. The State Department of Health plans to post such a list, said spokesperson Greg Flynn.

Health leaders have expressed fear that there could be more funding cuts coming. 

“My concern is that this is the beginning and not the end,” said Edney.  

The post Federal cuts to Mississippi health agencies surpass $230 million; will impact community health workers, bird flu efforts, substance use programs appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Candice Wilder has joined the newsroom as our newest higher education reporter.

Wilder takes over higher ed coverage from Mississippi Today reporter Molly Minta, who built the beat starting in early 2021 but has since moved to the newsroom’s team covering the city of Jackson.

“I’m thrilled to join a talented and ambitious team of journalists who provide critical news and information to Mississippians,” Wilder said. “Reporting on the state’s colleges and universities at this moment is more important now than ever. My goal is to develop thoughtful coverage and tell crucial stories that will continue to serve and reflect these communities.

Wilder, an Ohio native, was one of 19 founding staff members of Signal Cleveland, an inaugural nonprofit newsroom part of Signal Ohio. There, she developed a beat that provided accessible health news and information to residents of Cleveland. Her work has led to recognitions from the Cleveland Press Club and the Association of Healthcare Journalists.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Candice to our newsroom,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “So many aspects of the higher education system are under intense scrutiny and attack across the country — from free speech to funding to accountability — and Mississippi is certainly no exception. Our colleges and universities are at the heart of critical conversations about equity, access, and the future of our state as a whole. Candice brings a sharp eye, strong reporting skills, and genuine curiosity to our team, and I’m confident that her work will help Mississippians navigate the often complicated and evolving nature of higher ed here.”

“We’re so happy to have someone with Candice Wilder’s passion and experience to pick up the mantle of higher education reporting at Mississippi Today,” said Debbie Skipper, who will serve as her editor. “Molly Minta set a high standard in our reporting in this area, and I know Candice will maintain that while offering her own professional perspective.”

The post Candice Wilder joins Mississippi Today as new higher education reporter appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Ole Miss basketball season draws to a close in the Sweet 16, just as college baseball (and the weather) heat up. Rick opines on how the season is shaping up, while Tyler wonders whether the Braves will ever win.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: Springtime in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to lift a stay on programs offering incentives for solar power. The same commission voted to suspend the programs last April.

The PSC initially voted in 2024 to suspend three programs: “Solar for Schools,” which allows school districts to essentially build solar panels for free in exchange for tax credits, as well as incentives for battery storage and low-income participants in the state’s “distributed generation” rule. Mississippi’s “distributed generation” rule is similar to net metering in other places, but reimburses customers for less than what most states offer.

Net metering is a program where power companies — in this case Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power — reimburse customers who generate their own solar power, often with rooftop panels, and sell any extra power back to the grid.

The PSC suspended the programs in 2024 because, at the time, the federal government was also offering funds through its “Solar for All” initiative. The commission reasoned that the state didn’t need to add incentives, which the previous commission approved in 2022 on top of the new funding. After learning that the state government didn’t receive any “Solar for All” funding, the PSC decided on Tuesday to reverse course.

While the State of Mississippi didn’t receive any of the funding, Hope Enterprise Corp. did get $94 million last year through the program to bring solar power to low-income and disadvantaged homes in the state.

The previous PSC created the “Solar for Schools” program as a way to save school districts money on their power bills to help with other expenses. While no districts were able to make use of the program before the PSC suspended it last year, other districts have seen savings after installing solar panels. Any of the 95 school districts within the Entergy and Mississippi Power grids are eligible for the PSC incentives.

Solar advocates disagreed with the PSC’s assertion that federal “Solar for All” funding would have replaced the PSC programs, which went into effect in January 2023, arguing that the commission’s ruling would scare off potential new business. Those advocates applauded Tuesday’s reversal, saying the incentives will support professions within the solar supply chain such as electricians, roofers, manufacturers and installers.

“Yesterday’s actions by the MPSC sends a strong signal that Mississippi is open for business,” Monika Gerhart, executive director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, said via email. “For schools and homeowners that want to save money on their light bill, yesterday’s vote creates additional savings to install solar.” 

The post PSC revives solar programs a year after suspending them appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“Somebody died in here?” asked one of the guests at the glum election watch party.

On Tuesday night, under a dozen supporters of Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba sat silently with news reporters on the low couches at a downtown marketing office, watching the results of the Democratic primary that played over muted televisions and fanning themselves in the sweltering heat. 

The incumbent had nearly lost the mayoral election outright, earning 17% of the vote compared to Sen. John Horhn’s 48% in the last unofficial count of the night. It was a stacked race of 12 candidates and turnout was low – just 23% of the city’s registered voters participated.

Seven blocks away at The Rookery event venue, Horhn’s watch party was livelier. Around 8:45 p.m., about 100 supporters whooped and cheered as Horhn, his family and his pastor, Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr., walked into the shiny marbled room. 

“That appears to me to almost be a mandate, for one candidate to secure that much percentage of the vote,” Horhn, the state senator of 32 years, said.

The 2025 Democratic primary for Jackson mayor shaped up to be somewhat of a rematch, with the roles reversed this time. After meeting defeat against Lumumba in the same race in 2017, Horhn nearly avoided a runoff in the unofficial count Tuesday, securing 12,318 of the total 25,665 votes. It is his fourth time running for mayor.

“We knew it was gonna be close and had turnout been a little higher, had we worked a little harder, we might’ve been able to get there.”

Unless he receives nearly all of the mail-in absentee and affidavit votes left to be counted, Horhn will face a runoff, likely with Lumumba, on April 22. Lumumba received 4,267 votes. Tim Henderson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel known by few at the start of the race, finished close in third with 3,482 votes. 

In a speech, Horhn thanked his father, Charlie, his family, members of the Legislative Black Caucus, and his campaign supporters, shouting out many by name, including well-known restaurateur Jeff Good, whose support of Horhn was seized on by some mayoral candidates as a reason to not vote for the state senator. 

“You know, a lot has been said by some of my opponents about the fact that we were reaching out across different party lines, racial lines, socioeconomic lines, but everybody wants Jackson to do well,” he said. “And in time, Jackson will be well.” 

Good’s support was one reason Horhn’s competitors in the primary tried to paint him as a Trojan Horse for white business interests in the city. He also received endorsements from sitting state representatives and the unions of public sector workers and Jackson firefighters.

“Anyone who thinks that John Horhn is bought by anyone obviously hasn’t seen the depth and breadth of the people that he’s worked for 40 years, and all the endorsements that he has received,” Good said. “The endorsements read like a who’s who of Black leadership. Those are facts. I mean, listen. This is a who’s who room. There’s former supervisors in here, there’s former state senators, current state senators, it’s amazing.” 

The accusation is not grounded in a factual understanding of the Legislature, said Rep. Justis Gibbs, D-Jackson, who noted that Horhn is one of 52 senators in a statehouse led by Republicans, not Democrats. 

And, Horhn’s district is larger than Jackson, so he has other cities to think about, like Edwards and Pocahontas.

“I think he has done well,” Gibbs said. “I know if I need something done … that I have an advocate, not an adversary.” 

Good helped cater the watch party, with Broad Street sandwiches and Sal and Mookie’s pizza. He said he hoped Horhn could continue the vision of former mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. and finally bring a hotel to the downtown convention center, what many hoped would be the starting point of revitalizing the city.

“What was supposed to be the beginning was the end,” he said. 

Last year, Lumumba was indicted on federal charges alleging he took bribes in the form of campaign donations from supposed developers of that same property in exchange for moving up a proposal deadline. He pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled for 2026.

“I am going to be clear that I am not guilty of any wrongdoing. I am not guilty of any wrongdoing,” Lumumba told reporters after the election results. “I admit that I love this city so much, and I am going to fight relentlessly in order to make sure that everybody gets the quality of life they deserve.” 

Lumumba arrived at the Fahrenheit Creative Group office for his watch party, a location change from the luxury bed and breakfast where it was originally planned, a little after 9:30 p.m.. His wife Ebony and their two daughters accompanied him. He chalked up his low performance in the race to misinformation.

“When they tell Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary, we should not be standing here,” Lumumba said, dabbing at his brow. “They gave every reason for us not to be standing here, and yet we are standing here.”

One guest, Amina Scott, said she’s supporting Lumumba no matter what. 

“He’s the only option for people in the city of Jackson as a progressive city that’s run by progressive American people,” Scott said.

She points to attempts by the state to take over Jackson Public Schools and the airport. 

“It’s not a new concept that has happened in cities across this country where Black people run the cities and states to try to take them back, and they’re doing the same thing to Jackson,” she said.

“…We have to look at our history and understand it’s not a new thing and it’s an old game, and we need to win this time. And the only way we can do that is as a unit.”

Lumumba became mayor in 2017 after winning 55% of more than 34,000 total votes in the Democratic primary against eight challengers, including the incumbent, making a runoff unnecessary. Horhn, who was running for his third time that year, came in second to Lumumba with 21% of the vote. After his first term, Lumumba won reelection after receiving 69% of the vote in the Democratic primary in 2021 with under 20,000 Jacksonians turning out.

The 2025 election saw similarly low voter turnout of under 25,700 votes in the last tally of the night. Mail-in absentee ballots and affidavit ballots are still left to be counted. With all of the issues voters had identifying their correct precinct due to redistricting last year, an election official said they saw a higher number of affidavit ballots – those cast due to irregularities at the polls. 

The 2025 election represented a drop in nearly 10,000 votes from 2017, but the city has lost more than that in population during that time.

If Horhn is victorious, his pastor Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr. said he hopes Horhn can hit the ground running to reverse depopulation in Jackson, which has experienced some of the steepest losses in the country since the last census.

“We’re in a really tough and hurtful place in the city of Jackson right now,” he said. “Years ago, we experienced white flight in Jackson to the suburbs, and now we’re experiencing Black flight. People are feeling hopeless.” 

Johnnie Patton, whose family owns the Big Apple Inn, a famous restaurant on downtown’s historic Farish Street, said she wants to see Jackson return to the city she knows it can be. 

“We’ve lost a lot,” she said.

Across town at the Jackson Medical Mall, candidate Tim Henderson gathered with members of his family and volunteers around 7:30 p.m. while the election results trickled in. 

Henderson, a military consultant who went from little name recognition to finishing third in the primary, said people liked him precisely because he was an outsider, having moved back to the city just two years ago.

“We keep electing the politicians that have been around, and we keep getting the same thing,” he said.

Inside the mall, also a voting location, the poll workers were packing up the precinct. In the center of the mall, empty tables and chairs waited for Henderson’s supporters who were steadily showing up for the watch party. Slow jazz music was playing.

Henderson set up his campaign headquarters here in an office he also uses for his consulting business. Since it was close to a precinct, he had to take down his office signage.

But the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel said he would stand outside the medical mall and talk to potential voters as they walked in, including one woman whose mother was killed in a shooting earlier this year.

“People are tired in this city,” he said.

That was reflected in the city’s anemic turnout, he added. At the medical mall, for instance, officials recorded just 115 official votes from the 541, as of 2024, registered there.

“When people have been in such a depressed and distressed state for so long psychologically it impacts them,” he said.

As he spoke to a reporter in his campaign office, someone called his desk phone. “Please, Mayor Henderson, give me a call back,” they said, but Henderson couldn’t answer it in time.

The post Role reversal: Horhn celebrates commanding primary while his expected runoff challenger Mayor Lumumba’s party sours appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson’s Democratic primary, which has historically decided the city’s next mayor, saw a field of 12 mayoral candidates this year. Incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who has deployed a relatively small-dollar campaign, ran against other past or present elected officials such as state Sen. John Horhn, former county supervisor David Archie and former Edwards mayor Marcus Wallace.

Also on the ticket were Tim Henderson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and military consultant, personal injury attorney Delano Funches, businessman and city contractor Socrates Garrett, as well as two nonprofit operators, a nurse practitioner, former TV personality and retired plumber.

With all 80 precincts reporting just after 9 p.m., Horhn was well in the lead with 11,909, 48%, of the roughly 24,800 votes, but did not receive enough in the unofficial count so far to avoid a runoff. Lumumba came in second with 4,124 votes, or about 17% of the vote. Absentee ballots — 876 — and affidavit ballots were not included in this count.

Mississippi Today retrieved the ballot counts from the election commissioners as they came in. See the results of the election below.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held on April 22.

Lumumba became mayor in 2017 after winning 55% of more than 34,000 total votes in the Democratic primary against eight challengers, including the incumbent. Horhn, who was running for his third time, came in second to Lumumba with 21% of the vote. After his first term, Lumumba won reelection after receiving 69% of the vote in the Democratic primary in 2021, this time with under 20,000 Jacksonians turning out.

The post Live results: Horhn leads, but receives under 50% of unofficial votes in 2025 Jackson mayoral race appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After months of bitter Republican political infighting, the Legislature appears likely to end its session Wednesday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown if they don’t come back and adopt one by June 30. 

After the House adjourned Tuesday night, Speaker Jason White said he had presented the Senate with a final offer to extend the session, which would give the two chambers more time to negotiate a budget. As for now, the 100 or so bills that make up the state budget are dead.

The Senate leadership was expected to meet and consider the offer Tuesday evening, White said. But numerous senators both Republican and Democrat said they would oppose such a parliamentary resolution, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has also said it’s unlikely and that the governor will have to force lawmakers back into special session.

White said he believes, if the Senate would agree to extend the session and restart negotiations, lawmakers could pass a budget and end the 2025 session by Sunday, only a few days later than planned.

But if the Senate chooses not to pass a resolution extending the session, White said the House would end the session on Wednesday.

It would take a two-thirds vote of support in both chambers to suspend the rules and extend the session. The Senate opposition appears to be enough to prevent that. 

Still, the speaker said he believes Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders are considering the proposal. But he said if he doesn’t hear a positive response by Wednesday, the House will adjourn and wait for Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session at a later date. 

“We are open to (extending the session), but we will not stay here until Sunday waiting around to see if they might do it,” White said.  

White said leaving the Capitol without a budget and punting the issue to a special session might not cool tensions between the chambers, as some lawmakers hope. 

“I think when you leave here and you end up in a special session, some folks say, ‘Well everybody that’s upset will cool down by then.’ They may, or it may get worse. It may shine a different and specific light on some of the things in this budget and the differences in the House and Senate,” White said. “Whereas, I think everybody now is in the legislative mode, and we might get there.”

The Mississippi Constitution does not grant the governor much power, but if Gov. Tate Reeves calls lawmakers into a special session, he gets to set the specific legislative agenda — not lawmakers. 

White said the governor could potentially use his executive authority to direct lawmakers to take up other bills, such as those related to education, before getting to the budget. 

“When we leave here without a budget, it is entirely the governor’s prerogative to when he (sets a special session) and how he does that.”

While the future of the state’s budget hangs in the balance, lawmakers have spent the remaining days of their regular session trying to pass the few remaining bills that remained alive on their calendars. 

House approves DEI ban, Senate could follow suit on Wednesday 

The House on Tuesday passed a proposal to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from public schools, and both chambers approved a measure to establish a form of early voting. 

The House approved a conference report compromise to ban DEI programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. If the Senate follows suit, Mississippi would join a number of other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump, who has made rooting DEI out of the federal government one of his top priorities. 

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers follows hours of heated debate in which Democrats, all almost of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. Legislative Republicans argued the legislation will elevate merit in education and remove from school settings “divisive concepts” that exacerbate divisions among different identity groups. 

The concepts that will be rooted out from curricula include the idea that gender identity can be a “subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.” The move reflects another effort to align with the Trump administration, which has declared via executive order that there are only two sexes.

The House and Senate disagreed on how to enforce the act, but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law, but only after they go through an internal campus review process that would give schools time to make changes. The legislation could also withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. 

Legislature sends ‘early voting lite’ bill to governor 

The Legislature also overwhelmingly passed a proposal to establish a watered down version of early voting, though the legislation is titled “in-person excused voting,” and not early voting.

The proposal establishes 22 days of in-person voting before Election Day that requires voters to go to the circuit clerk’s office or another location county officials have designated as a secure early voting facility, such as a courtroom or a board of supervisors meeting room. 

To cast an early vote, someone must present a valid form of photo ID and list one of about 15 legal excuses to vote before Election Day. The excuses, however, are broad and would, in theory, allow many people to cast early ballots. 

Examples of valid excuses are voters expecting to work on Election Day, being at least 65 years old, being currently enrolled in college or potentially travelling outside of their county on Election Day. 

Since most eligible voters either work, go to college or are older than 65 years of age, these excuses would apply to almost everyone. 

“Even though this isn’t early voting as we saw originally, it makes this more convenient for hard working Mississippians to go by their clerks’ office and vote in person after showing an ID 22 days prior to an election,” Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England said. 

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves opposes early voting, so it’s unclear if he would sign the measure into law or veto it. 

Both chambers are expected to gavel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to debate the final items on their agenda. 

The post Feuding GOP lawmakers prepare to leave Jackson without a budget, let governor force them back appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Johnny Byrd knew that when his south Jackson neighborhood Carriage Hills changed wards during redistricting last year, his neighbors would have trouble finding their correct polling place on Election Day.

So he bought a poster board and inscribed it with their new voting location – Christ Tabernacle Church.

“I made a sign and placed it in front of the entrance to our neighborhood that told them exactly where to go so there would be no confusion,” said Byrd, vice president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods.

Still, on April 1, a car full of voters from a senior living facility who should have gone to Christ Tabernacle were driven to their old polling place. 

“I thought it was unfortunate they had to get there and find out rather than knowing in advance that their polling location was different,” said Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson who was on the ground Tuesday helping constituents with voting.

One of those elderly women became frustrated and said she no longer wanted to vote, Norwood said, though her companions tried to convince her otherwise. By midday Tuesday, 300 people had voted at Christ Tabernacle, one of the city’s largest precincts currently in terms of registered voters, but among the lowest in turnout historically.

Voting rights advocates and candidates vying for municipal office in Jackson are keeping an eye on issues facing voters at the polls, though without official results, it remains to be seen if that will dampen turnout this election with the hotly contested Democratic primary.

“I still believed it was gonna be low,” Monica McInnis, a program manager for the nonprofit OneVoice, said of turnout. “I was expecting it would be a little higher because of what is on the ballot and how many people are running in all of the wards as well as the mayor’s race.”

The situation is evolving as the day goes on, but the main issues are twofold. One, thousands of Jackson voters have new precinct locations after redistricting last year put them into a new city council ward. 

Two, some voters didn’t realize their polling place for the municipal elections may differ from where they voted in last year’s national elections, which are run by the counties. 

In Mississippi, voters are assigned two precincts that are often but not always the same: A municipal location for city elections and a county location for senate, gubernatorial and presidential elections 

“People in Mississippi, we go to the same polling location for three years, and that fourth year, it changes,” said Jada Barnes, an organizer with the Jackson-based nonprofit MS Votes. “A lot of us are confused. When people are going to the polling place today, they’re seeing it is closed, so they’re just going back home which is making turnout go even lower.” 

Barnes said she’s hearing this primarily from a few Jackson voters who called a hotline that MS Votes is manning. Lack of awareness around polling locations is a big deterrent, she said, because most people are trying to squeeze their vote in between work, school or family responsibilities. 

“Maybe you’re on your lunch break, you only got 30 minutes to go vote, you learn that your polling location has changed and now you have to go back to work,” she said. 

Norwood said he heard from a group of students assigned to vote at Christ Tabernacle who had attempted to vote at the wrong precinct and were told their names weren’t on the rolls. They didn’t know they had been moved from Ward 4 to Ward 6, Norwood said, meaning they expected to vote in a different council race until reaching the polls Tuesday.

Though voters have a duty to be informed of their polling location, Barnes said city and circuit clerks and local election commissioners are ultimately responsible for making sure voters know where to go on Election Day. 

Angela Harris, the Jackson municipal clerk, said her office worked to inform voters by mailing out thousands of letters to Jacksonians whose precincts changed, including the roughly 6,000 whose wards changed during the 2024 redistricting. 

“I am over-swamped,” she said yesterday. 

Despite her efforts, at least one voter said he never got a letter. Stephen Brown learned through Facebook, not an official notice, that he was moved from Ward 1 to Ward 2. 

A resident of the Briarwood Heights neighborhood in northeast Jackson, Brown’s efforts to vote Tuesday have been complicated by mixed messages and a lack of communication. He has yet to vote, even though he showed up at the polls at 7:10 this morning. 

His odyssey took him to two wrong locations, where the poll managers instructed Brown to call his ward’s election commissioner, who did not answer multiple calls, Brown said. Brown finally learned through a Facebook comment that he could look up his new precinct on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website — if he scrolled down the page past his county precinct information.

This afternoon, Brown has a series of meetings planned, so now he’s hoping for a 30-minute window to try voting one more time, even though he’s skeptical it will make a difference. 

“I’m a very disenchanted voter, because I’ve been let down so much,” he said. “I vote because it’s the thing that I’m supposed to do and because of the sacrifices of my ancestors, but not because I truly believe in it, you know?” 

Brown’s not alone in facing turbulence. Back at Christ Tabernacle, one Jackson voter, who declined to give her name, said she’s frustrated from having to drive to three polling locations in one day.

“I’m dissatisfied with the fact that I had to drive from one end of this street and all of the back to come over here when I usually vote over here on Highway 18,” she said. “This was a great inconvenience, gas wise and time wise.”

The same thing happened to Rodney Miller. He called the confusion some voters are facing in this election “unnecessary.” 

“That ain’t the way we should be handling business,” he said. “We should be looking out for one another better than that, you know? It’s already enough getting people out to vote, and when you confuse them when they try? Come on now. That’s discouraging.”

Christ Tabernacle is the second largest precinct in the city in terms of registered voters, with 3,330 assigned to vote there as of 2024, according to documents retrieved from the municipal election committee. But it had one of the lowest voter turnout rates – 10% in the 2021 primary election before redistricting and before it became so large.

Byrd mentioned the much higher turnout in places like Ward 1 in northeast Jackson, compared to where he lives in south Jackson. Why does Byrd think this is?

“Civics,” Byrd said. “They took civics out of school. If you ask the average person what is the role and responsibility of any elected official, they can’t tell you.”

The post ‘A lot of us are confused’: Lacking info, some Jacksonians go to wrong polling place appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hotly contested legislation that aimed to increase the transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers appeared dead in the water Tuesday after a lawmaker challenged the bill for a rule violation.

The bill was sent back to conference after Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, raised a point of order challenging the addition of code sections to the bill, which will likely kill it. 

House members in the past have chosen to turn a blind eye to the rule, which would require the added code sections to be removed when the bill is returned to conference. This fatal flaw will make it difficult to revive the legislation. 

“It will almost certainly die,” said House Speaker Jason White, who authored the legislation. “And you can celebrate that with your pharmacist when you see them.”

“…This wasn’t ‘gotcha.’ Everybody in this chamber knew that code sections were added, because the attempt was to make 1123 more suitable to all the parties.”

The bill sought to protect patients and independent pharmacists, who have warned that if legislators do not pass a law this year to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, which serve as middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry, some pharmacies may be forced to close. They say that the companies’ low payments and unfair business practices have left them struggling to break even.

The bill underwent several revisions in the House and Senate before reaching its most recent form, which independent pharmacists say has watered the bill down and will not offer them adequate protection. 

House Bill 1123, authored by White, originally focused on the transparency of pharmacy benefit managers. The Senate then beefed up the bill by adding provisions barring the companies from steering patients to affiliate pharmacies and prohibiting spread pricing – the practice of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists in order to inflate pharmacy benefit managers’ profits. 

Independent pharmacists, who have flocked to the Capitol to advocate for reform this session, widely supported the Senate’s version of the bill. 

The Senate incorporated several recommendations from the House into its bill, saying that they believed that the legislation would have the House’s support. 

Instead, the House sent the bill to conference and requested additional changes, including new language that would eliminate self-funded insurance plans, or health plans in which employers assume the financial risk of covering employees’ health care costs themselves, from a section of the bill that prohibits pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to specific pharmacies.

This language seeks to satisfy employers, who argue that regulating pharmacy benefit managers’ business practices will lead to higher health insurance costs. 

Sen. Rita Parks, R-Corinth, who has spearheaded pharmacy benefit manager reform efforts in the Senate, previously said that adding the language to the bill would “remove any protection out of the law.” But she signed the conference report that included the language Monday after a heated conference meeting between lawmakers. 

Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs and co-author of the bill, said the bill has something for everybody, gesturing to its concessions for employers and independent pharmacists. He said the bill gives independent pharmacists 85% of what they wanted. 

Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association director Robert Dozier was not available for comment by the time the story published. 

Zuber told House members Tuesday to “blame the Senate” for the slow progress of pharmacy benefit manager reform in Mississippi, citing the body’s failure to take up a drug pricing transparency bill half a decade ago, for three years in a row.

“If the Senate had followed the leadership and the legislation that we drafted those many years ago, we would not be here,” Zuber said. “We would have the information on drug pricing, we would have the information and transparency on (pharmacy benefit managers) and we would have the ultimate reason as to why drug costs continue to rise.”

Members of the House expressed dissatisfaction with the legislation Tuesday, arguing it did not do enough to ensure lower prescription drug costs for consumers. 

“I’m going to try to do something next year that goes even further,” Zuber responded.

For the past several years, lawmakers have proposed bills to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, but none have made it as far as this session. 

“We’ll go another year,” said White. 

The post ‘We’ll go another year’ without relief: Pharmacy benefit manager reform likely dead appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The lawyer for Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey defended the sheriff’s use of trusties on his family’s chicken farm, saying it was part of an inmate work program authorized by statute. But four trusties who said they worked at the farm were released from the Rankin County Detention Center before 2021, when the only statute governing a work program for jail inmates was passed.

Mississippi Today and The New York Times reported in a joint investigation Thursday that Bailey allegedly used inmates under his supervision to spray weedkiller, cut grass and muck out chicken houses on McLain Farms, owned by Bailey’s mother. Former trusties said they were expected to keep that work secret. 

In a statement released Thursday to a few local news organizations, the lawyer, Jason Dare, acknowledged that trusted inmates, known as trusties, had worked on the farm, but insisted they were always paid “according to statute.” 

“That’s absolutely a lie,” said one of the former trusties who worked on the farm. He maintained he was never paid for that work. 

Dare’s statement makes apparent reference to a section of a 2021 state law that authorized Rankin County to establish a pilot work release program for jail inmates. That law requires participating employers to pay inmates at least the “prevailing wage” for their position. While that statute empowers the department to keep 15% of the inmate’s wages, Dare said the sheriff keeps none. 

Mississippi Today interviewed two former trusties who participated in the work release program, which allows inmates to work at local businesses and deposit their earnings in personal savings accounts. Those former trusties said they used their savings from work release to pay their fines, hire lawyers and save for cars. 

But jail logs show that the four former trusties who told Mississippi Today they worked on the farm were released from the jail before the sheriff’s department established the work release program in 2021. There is no statute covering the payment of jail trusties who do not participate in a work release program.

It is unclear how trusties were paid prior to the work release program. The sheriff’s department did not fulfill a request made early this month for records of any payments made to trusties for their work on or off jail property, for which Mississippi Today paid the department $150.

At least three former trusties said they were never paid for their work on the farm. Those who witnessed some trusties getting paid said the sheriff would pay them in cash – “rolls of twenties,” one specified. Dan Pacholke, a corrections consultant and co-founder of the Sustainability in Prisons Project, raised concerns about transparency in such an arrangement, because cash payments are impossible to track.

Ted Booth, executive director of the Mississippi Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review, said as far as he knew, a list of eight participating employers in his committee’s 2024 report on Rankin County’s work release program was exhaustive. McLain Farms does not appear on that list.

But even if McLain Farms had been on the list, former state Rep. Nick Bain, who voted for the law in 2021 and has since served on the Mississippi Ethics Commission, said it could be unethical for a sheriff’s family business to be a participating employer in such a program. He said that could be a potential violation of the state’s constitution and ethics code, which prohibit public officers from having an interest in any contract with their county of employment while in office.

Bailey did not respond to a request for comment.

Steph Quinn is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today.

This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures, a nonprofit research foundation that supports journalism.

The post Statute invoked to defend Rankin sheriff didn’t exist when inmates worked on family farm appeared first on Mississippi Today.