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A legislative panel looking for ways to cut or eliminate state taxes in Mississippi on Wednesday heard from city, county and transportation officials about their need for adequate and stable infrastructure funding.

“Infrastructure, that’s our main need,” said Ocean Springs Mayor Kenny Holloway. “We’re an old city, and we’ve got crumbling water pipes, sewer pipes, sidewalks and roads. We’re growing, and it’s hard to keep up with needs.”

Holloway was one of four mayors to address the House Select Committee on Tax Reform during its second of several planned hearings for the summer and fall. The committee also heard from a representative of the association for counties, a transportation expert about the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s need for more funding, and the Department of Revenue.

Reps. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, and C. Scott Bounds, R-Philadelphia, co-chairmen of the tax committee, said helping keep up with infrastructure needs statewide and cutting taxes — potentially eliminating the state income tax — are not mutually exclusive. State coffers have remained flush since an influx of federal pandemic relief spending, even as the largest income tax cut in state history has been phased in over the last few years.

“There are three goals,” Lamar said at the outset of Wednesday’s hearing. “One, to learn as much as we can and recommend policy to the Legislature that will be transformational and provide us with the most competitive, most fair tax structure … Two, to be sensitive to the needs of local governments … government closest to the people … and three, to fix the funding model for the Mississippi Department of Transportation for the long haul.”

House Republican leaders have for several years promoted elimination of the state’s income tax. Their efforts have fallen short of elimination, but in 2022 resulted in passage of a $525-million a year income tax cut. When fully phased in in 2026, Mississippi will have a 4% income tax rate, one of the lowest among states that have an income tax.

Senate leaders, who have also formed a fiscal study committee to make recommendations for next year, previously balked at full elimination of the income tax that provides nearly a third of the state’s revenue. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other Senate leaders have appeared more focused on cutting or eliminating the state’s 7% sales tax on groceries — the highest such tax on groceries in the nation.

But city leaders — especially those in small cities — have for years been leery of talk of cutting the sales tax on groceries. Many small city budgets rely on sales taxes, and in many small rural cities, the main source of sales tax is from grocery stores.

On Wednesday, mayors of several Mississippi cities stressed to lawmakers how much their budgets rely on sales taxes and use taxes — sales taxes collected on internet and other sales outside of the state. The state collects the taxes, then provides cities a “diversion” of part of the taxes collected inside each city.

DOR officials said Mississippi appears to be the only state that provides such a diversion of sales taxes, but many other states allow cities to levy their own “local option” sales taxes on top of the state’s. But state lawmakers have been loath to allow cities to levy local option sales taxes. Lamar told the panel Wednesday he recently went to a seminar in West Virginia, and he got an itemized bill that showed nearly 20% in sales taxes all told.

“We in local government don’t have any problems that money can’t fix,” Louisville Mayor Will Hill joked with lawmakers. “… We have the infrastructure issue, and the increased cost of policing and fire protection. We’re interested in having conversations on the importance of sales taxes, whether it’s increased diversions of local options.”

Steve Gray with the Mississippi Association of Supervisors reminded lawmakers that counties do not receive such a sales tax diversion, but he said they are thankful for lawmakers diverting some use taxes to county road and bridge needs starting a few years ago.

Gray said needed road and bridge work — and the skyrocketing cost of construction and materials — are the biggest fiscal challenge facing counties.

“We’re excited to be at the table and helping work toward a solution,” Gray told lawmakers.

The panel also heard from an expert with a company that has helped the Mississippi Department of Transportation for decades with its long range planning.

Paula S. Dowell, with HTNB Corporation, said MDOT has perennially been short of money to maintain all its roadways, much less build new ones to keep up with demand. The agency is primarily funded by a flat, per-gallon gasoline tax that is not indexed to keep up with inflation.

Mississippi, at 18.4 cents a gallon, has the second lowest motor fuel tax in the nation — which hasn’t been raised in 30 years. Dowell said lawmakers could consider diverting more existing state dollars to MDOT, increase current taxes or enact new ones, such as an indexed sales tax devoted to transportation infrastructure.

She said other states have also implemented road user charges, or mileage fees, package delivery fees or container/cargo fees to help fund infrastructure. Dowell said some states have built toll roads, but that would have limited benefit in rural Mississippi.

In addition to the select committee hearings, House Speaker Jason White recently announced a tax policy summit, open to the public, on Sept. 24 at the Sheraton Refuge in Flowood.

“This Policy Summit is another step in the House’s commitment to building Mississippi up to have the most appealing tax structure in the nation,” White said in a statement. “It is the vision of the House of Representatives that we accelerate our pathway to eliminating the personal income tax so that we reward Mississippians’ hard work, not tax it. The Select Committee has been working hard in studying our grocery tax and providing relief to Mississippians when they go through the checkout line to provide for their families.”

Reps. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, and C. Scott Bounds, R-Philadelphia, co-chairmen of the tax committee on Wednesday’s panel meeting.

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Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Steph Quinn has joined the newsroom as a Roy Howard Fellow focusing on investigative journalism. 

In this role, Quinn will work directly with the investigative reporting team at Mississippi Today with a specific focus on criminal justice. 

“I’m so pleased to have Steph Quinn join our team,” said senior investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell, who oversees the criminal investigative reporting team at Mississippi Today. “She’s a talented young investigative reporter who is already helping us expose law enforcement abuses by the Rankin County ‘Goon Squad’ and others as well as examine the state’s criminal justice system.”

Quinn graduated in May 2024 with a master’s degree from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. She reported on juvenile justice for Capital News Service and was chosen as a student leader on two projects at UMD’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, including a partnership with the Associated Press on police use of force. Quinn also reported on Minnesota’s fragmented system of oversight of animal rescue organizations as an intern at the Minnesota Star Tribune.

With a Ph.D. in history, Quinn brings to her reporting years of experience researching how Black migrant laborers and women shaped urban life in Namibia during apartheid. After earning her doctorate in 2019, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

“I’m honored to join the talented journalists reporting on criminal justice at Mississippi Today,” Quinn said. “There’s a sign in the newsroom that says, ‘We ain’t done yet.’ The team’s track record and determination to continue pursuing accountability and justice make me really excited to get to work.”

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Delta State University announced the final number of faculty layoffs last week, signaling the end of the painful budget cuts at the regional institution in the Mississippi Delta. 

Nine faculty members received terminal contracts for the upcoming school year, in addition to seven faculty who have already resigned and two that will next school year, a spokesperson told Mississippi Today. 

“While Delta State, like every university, will continue to monitor revenues and expenses and make adjustments accordingly, the recent reorganization has positioned the university to live within its means,” Christy Riddle wrote in an email. “No further major cuts are envisioned or necessary.” 

Riddle added while Delta State hasn’t finished auditing last year’s budget, it appears much healthier than in previous years. The university will now be able to present a balanced budget to its governing board, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, she wrote. 

“Going forward, DSU will only take on additional expenses (including new employees and new programs) when there are sustainable resources available,” Riddle wrote. 

The university expects revenue to increase by a little over $1 million. The operating budget for this fiscal year also includes a 3.5% contingency that will help next year’s cash reserves. 

“At this point, Delta State will be able to present the IHL with balanced budgets that will continue to improve our financial position,” Riddle wrote. 

READ MORE: ‘Delta State’s future depends on $11 million, multi-year budget cut, president says’

Administration determined the number of personnel cuts after faculty green-lit most of the new interdisciplinary programs the president, Daniel Ennis, proposed earlier this summer to replace the 21 eliminated degrees. Those are secondary education, humanities and social sciences, and digital media communications. 

A fourth program, a visual arts and performing degree, was held for more discussion about arts accreditation, according to an all-staff email Ennis sent last week. 

“Delta State now has a healthy budget, and with diligence and care we can expect our revenues and expenses to remain in balance,” Ennis wrote. “I appreciate your patience and understanding as we have completed this difficult year of change together. I would not have asked this of you if I did not see it as necessary to protect the future of Delta State University.” 

As the laid-off faculty look for new jobs, Ennis added the university would support them with extended benefits and an employee assistance program. 

The faculty cuts are in addition to administrative cuts the IHL board approved last month and staff reductions that Ennis announced earlier this year. All told, Delta State eliminated 49 vacant positions, laid off 17 staff and cut two dean and four chair positions, Mississippi Today previously reported. 

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Federal mediation between the Communications Workers of America and AT&T is over, but the strike, now nearing a third week, is still on.

Over 17,000 CWA members are on strike across Mississippi and eight other Southeastern states, accusing the company of unfair labor practices for attempting to delay bargaining on a new union contract that would encompass such issues as pay, medical benefits and retirement.

In a statement release Tuesday, CWA accused AT&T of using mediation to stall negotiations.

Local president Jermaine Travis said the end of mediation did not mean the end of negotiations.

“I think it’s important to understand exactly what’s happening at the table right now as it relates to the federal mediator’s role. A federal mediator does not have the authority to force either side one way or the other,” he stated.

While he could not comment directly on the negotiations, he said, “The mediator has not been able to help both sides move this process further along; therefore, the union felt like the mediator wasn’t working for us.”

AT&T put out its own statement, calling the CWA’s decision “unexpected” and expressing its commitment to reaching an agreement.

“As we have said from day 1, we are focused on reaching a fair and competitive agreement that benefits our hard-working employees as quickly as possible, and this won’t change,” the statement read. “In the meantime, we will remain prepared for all contingencies to ensure our customers receive the excellent service they deserve.”
Travis said the union was also committed to reaching a fair agreement. “We are still working towards resolving our issues so that we can get our people back to work,” he said.

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If you want a good and telling look at the state of college football in 2024, take an in-depth gander at this Saturday night’s game that pits the Mississippi State Bulldogs against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Tempe, Arizona.

The effects of NIL, the transfer portal and conference movement will be fully on display.

The Sun Devils, who have spent the last 45 years playing in the Pacific 12 Conference, now play in the Big 12, which actually has 16 teams, including such natural Arizona State rivals as West Virginia and Central Florida. The Big 12 now spans all four U.S. time zones, which makes as much sense as the new two-minute timeout in college football. (Side note: The NCAA prefers “two-minute timeout” to the NFL’s “two-minute warning.” That’s interesting because two more timeouts of any kind are just what college football did not need. Teams already had three timeouts per half, plus 14 mandated “media timeouts.” So now, we have 28 timeouts total, not counting the stoppages for video replays of close officiating calls. And you wonder why games sometimes last four hours and longer, which means that Saturday night’s game in Tempe could end well after 1 a.m. central time.)

Arizona State’s quarterback is Sam Leavitt, who hails from Oregon, but played last season at Michigan State. Transferring is nothing new for Leavitt, who played at three Oregon high schools before signing with Michigan State, where he played in four games as a freshman. Leavitt won the battle with Jaden Rashada to be the Sun Devils’ starter. As soon as Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham named Leavitt the starter, Rashada did what seemingly any college quarterback not named Arch Manning would do in that situation. That is, he put his name in the transfer portal. He now resides in Athens, Georgia, and will play – or ride the bench – for you know who.

Mississippi State starting quarterback Blake Shapen also comes directly from the transfer portal. Shapen, a senior, has played the last three years at Baylor, where he was consistently good and often outstanding. If State’s dismantling of overmatched Eastern Kentucky was any indication, Shapen fits nicely into new head coach Jeff Lebby’s high-speed offensive scheme.

It certainly would have helped Shapen if, on occasion, he could turn and hand the ball to Woody Marks, the Bulldogs’ leading rusher last year. But no, Marks now plays at Southern Cal, where he rushed for two touchdowns, including the game-winner in the Trojans’ opening week victory over LSU in Las Vegas. Will Rogers, State’s leading passer last season, now throws his touchdowns for Washington. Zavion Thomas, one of State’s leading receivers last year, now plays for LSU. Teammates last year, Marks and Thomas played against one another for different teams last week. Crazy, no? Fruit basket turnover doesn’t even begin to describe it.

As is the case all over college football, State and Arizona State fans will need to purchase a game program in these early season games. So many of the players on both sides are new, including eight of the Bulldogs’ 11 offensive starters. State’s defense features six new starters. State’s new players include transfers from all over the land. One sample: Kevin Coleman Jr., who caught five passes for 88 yards and a touchdown last week, began his college career at Jackson State where he was the SWAC freshman of the year in 2022, before heading to Louisville where he was an 11-game starter last year. Playing for his third team in three seasons, Coleman also returned five punts for 117 yards against Eastern Kentucky. He is one of only eight Division I players to record over 200 all-purpose yards last week.

State also will feature new starters from Memphis, Texas Tech, North Texas, LSU, North Carolina, Purdue, Hinds Community College, South Carolina and Alabama. No, I wasn’t kidding when I said you need a program. 

Branden Jennings, a Bulldogs starter at outside linebacker, is as well-travelled as any. The Jacksonville, Florida, native was a part-time starter as a freshman at Maryland, then transferred from there to Central Florida and from there to Hinds. Presumably, Jennings has found a more permanent home in Starkville, although nothing is certain in college football these days. At his fourth college in four years, he still has a year of eligibility remaining after this one.

Arizona State’s roster is just as nomadic. The Sun Devils’ projected starters included eight players new to the roster. What’s more, 13 of the 22 back-ups are new players. These days in college football, it’s entirely possible to give it the “old college try” at five different colleges.

After Arizona State’s 49-7 unexpected trouncing of Wyoming Saturday night, Dillingham was asked if he thought his team had been overlooked and underranked by preseason prognosticators. “Nope,” he answered. “We’ve won three games the past two years and recruited a bunch of players nobody else wanted. We’re right where we should be.”

That could be. We’ll learn more late, late Saturday night. What we know for sure: In 2024, Mississippi State and Arizona State are college football in a nutshell. It reminds me of a game we played inside at Vacation Bible School when we would have rather been outside playing football. The game was called musical chairs. There were no two-minute warnings.

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The Clevelands review the first big weekend of college football and look forward to the second weekend, headlined by the Mississippi State visit to Arizona State. Brandt, one of the Associated Press’s two national Major League Baseball writers, covered the Sun Devils’ impressive opening victory over Wyoming.

Stream all episodes here.

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Kyle Wallace sat in the audience with his hand raised earlier this month so he could speak during an open discussion at the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s Solar Summit.

Wallace, an executive with the New Orleans-based rooftop solar developer, PosiGen, wanted to share information about solar energy with the relatively fresh-faced regulators. All three said earlier in the day they had many questions about how the renewable fuel would fit in in Mississippi, which still gets most of its electricity from fossil fuels.

But after another speaker, Brent Bailey, a former Republican Public Service Commissioner who advocated for clean energy and who now works for a local solar and energy efficiency company spoke, the commissioners cut off comments from that side of the room — abruptly ending the chance for any solar advocate or industry representative to speak.

“We want to hear from people who are not selling solar panels,” said De’Keither Stamps, a Democrat and a former state lawmaker who was elected to the commission last year.

Chairman Chris Brown backed him up.

“We’re turning into an infomercial,” said Brown, a Republican who also was elected to the three-member PSC last year after serving in the state House of Representatives.

Said Wallace: “We were sitting there in the audience thinking, ‘We have answers to these (questions); these are not new questions.’ We want to be able to address them, but we just weren’t provided the opportunity.”

In fact, the agenda for the Aug. 15 meeting included no one from the solar or clean energy industry. Serving in the role as an expert at the summit was a representative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded by the oil and gas industry that is adept at spreading its anti-renewable agenda nationwide.

Stamps later defended shutting down the pro-solar voices at the summit:  “It was a question-and-answer period,” he told Floodlight. “It wasn’t a ‘give-your-speech’ period.”

Keeping clean energy advocates out of the conversation is just one of a series of tactics the commission has used to discourage solar development in the Magnolia State. Earlier this year, the commission halted rules that would have made rooftop solar more affordable for homeowners and institutions including schools.

The Aug. 15 discussion comes at a time when climate change is approaching a tipping point, and the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has rolled out billions in tax breaks for clean energy to cut economy-wide carbon emissions 40% by 2030.

Lots of sun — but little solar

Mississippi is the 13th sunniest state in the United States. But when it comes to solar, the state ranks 37 out of 50, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, an industry trade group.

Mississippi’s neighbors in the South aren’t faring much better. Alabama ranks 32; Arkansas, 27; Louisiana is at 36, and Tennessee, 30. All figures are according to SEIA.

Wallace said the PSC staff member who was handing a microphone to audience members stopped walking toward where he and other environmental advocates were sitting. They all put their hands down.

He said members of the solar industry had been reaching out to the commissioners all year to help them understand the industry and the impacts of their policymaking on the future of solar in the state.

“It was disappointing,” Wallace said in an interview with Floodlight. “We had hoped that it would be more of an opportunity to have a dialogue and really engage. It obviously did not turn out that way.”

Policy expert is fossil fuel lobbyist

Those invited to speak were executives from the politically influential Mississippi Power Co., the Tennessee Valley Authority, the state’s agriculture and commerce commissioner and Brent Bennett, a policy director from the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Bennett noted that most new power generation is coming from wind and solar. He said that correlates with higher electrical prices in California and Texas, where adoption of renewables has been higher than most states. 

“For anyone that’s wanting to add more wind and solar to their resource mix, I think there’s a burden of proof there to show that, ‘OK, well, if you’re going to do that, how are you going to keep costs down?’ ” he said.

But pieces of that puzzle have been studied. A December 2023 report from the consulting firm Ernst & Young found the cost of producing and moving solar electricity over the life of the panels is roughly 29% lower than the cheapest fossil fuel. 

Bennett’s track record for creating barriers to renewable energy can be seen in a sweeping energy law the Texas Legislature passed in 2023. According to the Guardian, Bennett edited several amendments to the bill, which doles out incentives for new plants that burn natural gas, also known as methane.

The edits included adding new transmission costs on renewables as well as a requirement that developers ensure wind and solar — intermittent sources of electricity — have access to backup power from fossil fuels, according to the Guardian.

Monika Gerhart, executive director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, said a lot of the information shared at the meeting “raised some real red flags.”

She added, “Everyone wants progress in innovation, and I’m not sure this summit was designed to meet those needs.”

Stamps said the meeting was a first step and wasn’t set up, “to solve all of the problems in one day.” 

“It was just the start of the discussion, build some relationships, people can see people,” he said in an interview with Floodlight. “The anti people can come and be in the same room as the pro people … just put everybody in the same room together.”

When asked to respond to his comment regarding a desire to hear from people who weren’t selling solar panels, Stamps said that he’s allowed Bailey — his opponent in two previous PSC elections — and others from the industry to speak about solar on other occasions.

Solar faces political winds 

Roughly 20 solar companies are based in Mississippi. The bulk of the solar installations there are in large — or so-called utility-scale — projects. Electric utilities prefer these projects for two reasons: they operate similar to existing power plants, and they can own them, which beefs up their bottom line.

On the flip side, these utilities are resistant — or even take steps to block — customers using rooftop solar because it is disruptive to the industry’s business model. The companies typically use an argument known as “cost shifting,” saying that rooftop solar customers depend less on the power grid, thus driving up the costs that others have to pay for that infrastructure. 

Indeed, solar on homes and businesses in Mississippi barely shows up on a SEIA graphic of annual solar installations.

In 2015, the Mississippi PSC adopted a rooftop solar policy to make it more affordable for residents and small businesses. The rule was a top priority of then-veteran regulator Brandon Presley, a widely popular Democrat who ran unsuccessfully to unseat Republican Gov. Tate Reeves last year.

Presley, who also authored the PSC’s policy to boost energy efficiency, was behind a revamped rule in 2022 that offered rebates for home solar systems for low-income households as well as increased the amount they would receive for selling excess electricity back to the grid.

The new rule also created incentives for schools to install rooftop solar to decrease their annual energy expenses.

But the commission gutted that policy earlier this year, arguing that incentives through the IRA’s Solar for All program, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would make it easier for low-income residents to put solar on their roofs. The 2-1 vote happened without public notice or an opportunity to comment on the issue beforehand.

The Sierra Club, whose lobbyists are active in fighting anti-renewable energy policies at the PSC and at the Mississippi statehouse, sued the PSC in May, arguing the action should be rescinded because of the lack of notice.

During the summit, Gerhart was among the attendees who pointed out that regulators did not use the full hour-long time block allotted for discussion. The summit was running ahead of schedule, a rarity in any state utility regulatory meeting, so there could have been even more time to hear from members of the audience.

“So most of the industry folks who actually have valuable and factual information to share have sat here all day waiting for this public comment,” she told Floodlight. “They said that they didn’t want to hear from the industry, and then they shut it down.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

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Since his withdrawal from the presidential race and endorsement of former President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pushed to have his name removed from the ballot in swing states — even suing North Carolina to try to force removal.

But his team in Mississippi is still working to get him on the ballot here.

On Friday, ahead of a Sept. 6 deadline, Kennedy’s campaign filed paperwork, including 1,000 registered voter signatures, to put Kennedy on the Nov. 5 ballot as an independent candidate in the Magnolia State. The ballot is still pending approval of candidates and their paperwork by the Mississippi State Board of Election Commissioners — comprised of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

The deadline for the secretary of state to publish a sample ballot for Mississippi is Sept. 11.

The Kennedy campaign contact did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Kennedy earlier this year was fighting legal hurdles that would have prevented him from being on the ballot in several states. Since his withdrawal from the race, he said he would push to have his name removed from the ballot in swing states, fearing he would be a “spoiler” that could hurt Trump and saying, “I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues.”

Kennedy’s team has said it’s not concerned about him staying on the ballot in predominantly blue states, where he’s unlikely to hurt Trump’s performance. It’s unclear what the strategy would be for him being on the ballot in reliably red Mississippi.

Kennedy sued North Carolina’s election board on Friday, after it denied his request to remove his name. He’s also pushing to be removed from the ballot in the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

In June, Kennedy’s campaign issued a press release saying it had completed paperwork and other requirements to get on the ballot in Mississippi. But the secretary of state’s office at the time responded that his paperwork had not been completed at that time.

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