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Deep South Today, the networked hub of nonprofit newsrooms serving the Southern region of the United States, today announced the appointment of Warwick Sabin as its inaugural president and CEO.  

Sabin is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Arkansas who was elected to three terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives and previously served as Publisher of the Oxford American, an award-winning national magazine that focuses on the American South. Earlier in his career, Sabin was the founding leader of the Innovation Hub in Little Rock, which later became part of Winrock International, which along with the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation is among the three institutions created to sustain the legacy of Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. More recently, he served for four years as the executive director of strategic engagement at the Aspen Institute. 

Sabin was selected after a seven-month national search that attracted more than 100 candidates.  

“For more than two decades, Warwick Sabin has worked at the intersection of journalism, government, and philanthropy,” said Andrew Lack, the executive chair of the Deep South Today Board of Directors and the former president and chairman of NBC News. “Warwick’s wide range of experience, thoughtful approach to the future of news, and deep commitment to the South made him our clear choice as Deep South Today’s inaugural president and CEO.” 

Sabin will take the helm of Deep South Today, a groundbreaking impact-driven news network, at a pivotal moment for the organization and at a crucial time for nonprofit news. In May, Mississippi Today won the Pulitzer Prize for its investigative series on Mississippi’s sprawling $77 million welfare scandal. The network recently expanded to New Orleans with the launch of the Verite newsroom, which covers inequities facing communities of color, and is seeking to broaden its reach into nearby states.  

“I am honored, grateful and energized to take on this role, in this region, at this time,” Sabin said. “Like the rest of the country, the Deep South is in need of high-quality, accountability journalism, and the teams at Mississippi Today and Verite are serving their communities by providing local news and honest information. I relish the opportunity to collaborate with our talented team to sustain and expand this work across the region.”  

As president and CEO, Sabin, at the direction of the Deep South Today board of directors, will oversee finance, communications, business development, platforms and technology, and human resources. He will be responsible for advancing the networked approach as a sustainable, high-functioning model.  

“I’m thrilled for what Warwick’s appointment means for our newsrooms and for journalism in this part of the country,” Donna K. Barksdale, former chair of Mississippi Today and current vice chair of Deep South Today. “We are poised to grow, and Warwick is just the right leader to guide our team into this exciting future.” 

Sewell Chan, the editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, has known Sabin for 25 years. The two first met when they studied at Oxford University as Marshall Scholars.  

“Warwick has tremendous integrity,” Chan said. “He believes in mission-driven work, and he has achieved operational success at the Oxford American, the Aspen Institute, and Interfaith America. He has the ability to work across generational, cultural, political and racial divides, and I believe he is uniquely positioned to lead Deep South Today during this high-stakes moment for journalism and for the country.” 

Sabin most recently served as chief strategy officer at Interfaith America, the nation’s premier interfaith organization.  

Sabin’s first day as president and CEO of Deep South Today will be Sept. 5.  

The post Warwick Sabin to join Deep South Today as inaugural president, CEO appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Aug. 2, 1924

Novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and social critic James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York. 

His work explored the themes of racial, sexual and class differences and discrimination in America. His 1963 book “The Fire Next Time” became a best-seller, confronting white Americans about the moral cost of racism. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain”, which examined the role of the Christian Church in the lives of Black Americans. 

Active in the civil rights movement, he became friends with Medgar Evers, whom he called “a great man … a beautiful man” whom he joined in investigating the murder of a Black man by a white storekeeper in rural Mississippi, visiting people in their homes at night “behind locked doors, lights down.” 

During that visit, Evers shared the story of a tree he passed every day as a boy, where a Black man had been lynched. That trip helped inspire Baldwin to write the play, “Blues for Mister Charlie”, which began with this preface: “What is ghastly and really almost hopeless in our racial situation now is that the crimes we have committed are so great and so unspeakable that the acceptance of this knowledge would lead, literally, to madness. The human being, then, in order to protect himself, closes his eyes, compulsively repeats his crimes, and enters a spiritual darkness which no one can describe.” 

He became friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, writing, “I watched two men coming from unimaginably different backgrounds, whose positions originally were poles apart, driven closer and closer together. By the time each died, their positions had become virtually the same position. It can be said, indeed, that Martin picked up Malcolm’s burden, articulated the vision which Malcolm had begun to see, and for which he paid with his life.” 

It was Malcolm X who said organizers wouldn’t let Baldwin speak at the 1963 March on Washington because “they know Baldwin is liable to say anything.” 

Although Baldwin admired Malcolm X, he said he never joined the Nation of Islam “because I did not believe that all white people were devils, and I did not want young black people to believe that. I was not a member of any Christian congregation, because I knew that they had not heard and did not live by the commandment ‘Love one another as I love you.’ And I was not a member of the NAACP, because in the north, where I grew up, the NAACP was fatally entangled with black class distinctions, or illusions of the same, which repelled a shoeshine boy like me.” 

In his last days, Baldwin began writing notes for a novel to chronicle the lives of Evers, King and Malcolm X: “I want these three lives to bang against and reveal each other, as in truth they did, and use their dreadful journey as a means of instructing people whom they loved so much, who betrayed them, and for whom they gave their lives.” 

He died before finishing the novel, but his words have been captured in the 2016 documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro”.

The post On this day in 1924 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Brandon Presley’s gubernatorial campaign raised more money last month than Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, but the incumbent governor still vastly outpaces the Democratic challenger with cash on hand. 

Campaign finance reports show Presley, the current Democratic utility regulator in north Mississippi, raised around $1.1 million last month, and he spent around $1.4 million during that same time period. The reports show he has $1.5 million in total cash on hand. 

The largest donation Presley received in July was from the Democratic Governors Association, which announced on Tuesday it was contributing $750,000 to his campaign. 

“Brandon Presley’s message of cleaning up corruption and cutting taxes for working families is resonating all across Mississippi — and that’s why our campaign is announcing record-breaking fundraising that will keep our foot on the gas as we prepare to send Tate Reeves to the unemployment line come November,” Presley campaign manager Ron Owens said in a statement. 

Reeves’ campaign reported raising around $309,000 last month while spending around $555,000 during that same period. His campaign reports having $7.4 million in cash on hand in his main campaign account. 

The governor’s campaign also reported roughly $1.9 million in his “legacy account,” or his campaign account with fewer spending restrictions, totaling around $9.3 million the governor can spend on the current race. 

The governor’s largest contributors last month were three $25,000 donations: one from the Mississippi Association of Builders and Contractors PAC, one from the Mississippi Manufacturers Association PAC and one from Southern Pipe and Supply owner Marty Davidson. 

“Mississippi is home to the best people in the country, and I’m honored by their support for my campaign,” Reeves said in a statement. “I’m excited to continue delivering results that matter to Mississippians, like improving education, growing our economy, lowering taxes, and developing a first-in-class workforce.” 

The post Brandon Presley raised more campaign cash last month, but Tate Reeves still has more to spend  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Instead of potentially closing, the Coahoma County Health Department is moving to a nicer, newer home.

The move to a building at the local hospital will preserve public health care in Clarksdale, the heart of the Mississippi Delta and a region with unique health needs. As health departments across the state struggle, the relocation is an example of what happens when local entities partner with the state to serve the community, said Jon Levingston, economic development director for Coahoma County.

The decades-old building was in need of multiple repairs, but it would be too expensive to renovate, and no other buildings in the area were suitable, according to a July 24 press release from Crossroads Economic Partnership, an organization tasked with increasing economic viability in Coahoma County.

“Simply by looking at it, one could tell it was an old building with multiple issues,” Levingston said. “The staff, I think, really wanted to be in a different facility where their patients felt more at ease.”

Coahoma County is not alone – some of the state’s county health departments are beyond repair. Former State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs in 2021 showed photos to lawmakers of county health departments with gaping holes in the walls, leaking ceilings, mold and dilapidated bathrooms, according to a New York Times article.  

The State Health Department was prepared to direct Coahoma County patients to nearby facilities. The closest health departments are miles away in Quitman, Tunica, Tallahatchie, Sunflower and Bolivar Counties. In an area where transportation can be a major challenge to health care access, keeping the health department in Clarksdale is a major win, Levingston said. 

In a statement emailed to Mississippi Today, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney denied that the health department was going to close, though it’s unclear how it would have remained open. Edney said the agency was exploring other options, including consolidating with another county health department or deploying a mobile unit to Coahoma County. Levingston said his understanding was that the facility would have closed without another building.

The new space became available after Delta Health System, which has undergone financial stress in recent years, bought out its lease of the Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in April, and the county resumed its operation. Delta Health had leased the facility since February 2021. 

Together, the hospital’s board of trustees and Coahoma County Board of Supervisors offered the space to the health department.

“… It was an easy and natural decision for our board to offer to assist the State Department of Health,” said Bowen Flowers, president of the hospital board of trustees, in the press release. “The county health department needed to upgrade their space. We have the space and wanted to make it available to them, which our board voted unanimously to do.”

After relocation and a ribbon cutting, the health department will be located in the hospital’s adjacent medical office building, along with other health care offices connected to the hospital. 

While it’s relocating, the health department, which is usually open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays, will only be open on Fridays during the entire month of August, according to the state health department’s website. Once it’s complete, the health department will resume normal hours, and there are no plans to extend its hours in the future, according to Mississippi State Health Department spokesperson Liz Sharlot. 

Edney has spoken extensively about increasing health care services in the Delta, where he was raised, as well as the need for partnerships between local and state partners to ensure the vitality of county health services especially. Edney called the collaboration in Coahoma a “model” to follow in other communities. 

“These are the types of partnerships that are necessary to sustain excellent healthcare for all our citizens, especially in the rural areas of our state such as the Mississippi Delta region,” he said in the press release. 

Public health services are becoming even more essential as Mississippi’s health care infrastructure continues to crumble. Almost half of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, according to one report.

Though budget cuts imposed on the State Health Department in recent years have trickled down to reduced hours and services at county health departments, they still offer essential services, such as STI testing, vaccinations, diabetes and hypertension care, pap smears and pregnancy testing. 

Edney has prioritized increasing staffing, hours and services at county health departments statewide despite not receiving the funding he requested from the state Legislature this year.

“I can’t allow this to continue,” Edney previously told Mississippi Today. “I can’t allow counties not to have access to public health.”

Currently, Mississippi has 86 health departments and 82 counties — several counties have more than one, while others have none.

Levingston recalled reactions from Coahoma County Health Department employees when he showed them the new facility.

“They were just looking around with stunned looks on their faces because it was so clean and so nice,” he said. “One lady looked at me with tears in her eyes and whispered, ‘Do you think this could really be ours?’

“‘Absolutely,’ I said.”

The post Clarksdale health department, once possibly poised to close, gets a new building appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Sewer appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Democratic Governors Association announced Tuesday the organization is donating $750,000 to Brandon Presley’s campaign for governor, giving the Democratic candidate a boost in operating expenses as the bitter governor’s race heats up. 

Meghan Meehan-Draper, the executive director of the DGA, said in a statement that the organization has a track record of unseating unpopular incumbent Republican governors in tough states like Kentucky, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. 

“As Brandon Presley continues to run a strong campaign and Mississippi families are bearing the burden of Tate Reeves’ costly grocery tax and car tag fees, corruption, and hospital closure crisis, we know there’s a real chance in Mississippi this year to once again defy the odds,” Meehan-Draper said. 

The DGA’s investment mirrors a similar donation it made in 2019 to Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood’s campaign for governor, though that appears to have occurred later in the year compared to the current election cycle. 

The organization donated $750,000 to Hood in September of that year and contributed $250,000 in October, according to the former attorney general’s campaign finance records. Reeves defeated Hood in the 2019 contest by 5%, making it the most competitive governor’s race since 2003.

“This race is competitive because Brandon Presley is gaining support from Republicans, Democrats, and independents who know he will cut taxes for Mississippi families, fight corruption, and end Tate Reeves’ hospital crisis once and for all and expand Medicaid,” Presley spokesperson Michael Beyer said in a statement. 

For Presley to become the first Democratic governor since Ronnie Musgrove’s 1999 election, the four-term utility regulator will have to convince donors to invest in his attempt to oust a Republican governor from office in the Deep South. 

But the Democratic candidate will likely face a brutal fundraising competition with Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ reelection campaign. 

The DGA’s conservative counterpart, the Republican Governor’s Association, through its Mississippi Strong political action committee, contributed $500,000 to Reeves’ campaign earlier this year. The RGA was also a major contributor to his 2019 bid for the Governor’s Mansion. 

Reeves is expected to capture the GOP nomination for governor in the Aug. 8 primary. The winner of the party primary will compete against Presley, the only Democratic candidate in the race, in the Nov. 7 general election. 

The post Democratic Governors Association announces $750,000 donation to Presley campaign  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A challenger for the Southern District Public Service Commission seat has filed ethics complaints against incumbent Dane Maxwell, claiming he violated campaign finance laws.

Maxwell says the complaints are “dirty campaigning” from a desperate candidate, and that his campaign has returned any improper donations and amended its reporting where necessary.

Republican candidate Wayne Carr claims Maxwell has accepted $18,000 in illegal contributions from PSC-regulated utilities or affiliates and failed to report thousands in campaign spending. He said Maxwell is beholden to large companies buying up small water systems in Mississippi, then asking the PSC to allow large rate increases.

“This is not right for the ratepayers,” Carr said. “This is not transparency.”

Maxwell said much of Carr’s claims are bogus – that three companies he claims fall under a prohibition on donations are not regulated utilities. Maxwell said his campaign unknowingly accepted other improper donations and is returning the money – including $4,000 of a $5,000 donation from a corporation. Mississippi campaign laws limit corporate donations to $1,000 a year. Maxwell said the company failed to note it was a corporation when it made the contribution.

READ MORE: Secretary of State candidates vow sweeping campaign finance reform, enforcement

Maxwell said he has a CPA firm that manages his campaign finances and, “I can’t even write a check out of that account.” He said that when Carr “started slinging mud” about his finances, he had the CPA firm go back through the reports, and consulted with the secretary of state’s office. He said his campaign is returning any improper donations and correcting its reporting.

Maxwell said stringent campaign finance laws for PSC commissioner candidates – emplaced by state lawmakers years ago after past scandal and corruption with the utility regulating authority – provide challenges.

“That’s why I hire a company to do it,” Maxwell said. “We have the strictest laws of any elected officials. We try to vet everything that comes in, but when people send this money to the CPA firm and they can’t determine if it’s associated or not – they generally just return it. Some of these people don’t understand the regulations. They send us money, and then we return it. Our laws are very strict.

“… This is a last-minute desperate attempt to get some attention to his campaign,” Maxwell said. “I’m a Christian conservative. I’m not going to get into negative campaigning and not going to do that to a fellow Republican. It’s disgraceful.”

Carr claims Maxwell failed for months to report thousands in spending for campaign ads on Coast Transit Authority buses. He said the buses have been rolling across the Coast with Maxwell ads on them since mid-May, but the spending did not show up in Maxwell’s June or July finance reports filed with the secretary of state. He noted that Maxwell posted about the bus ads in June social media posts.

Maxwell said the spending will be listed on his campaign finance report due Tuesday – the final report before the Aug. 8 Republican primary.

READ MORE: Chris McDaniel, Lynn Fitch show that Mississippi might as well not have campaign finance laws

“Sometimes when you pay for something you don’t get the invoice right away,” Maxwell said. “Everything will be in the filings.”

There have been other questions about PSC candidate campaign finances this election cycle. The Magnolia Tribune in June questioned a donation to PSC Commissioner Brandon Presley – now a gubernatorial candidate – from a regulated utility. Presley returned the $500 donation. The publication also questioned donations to Presley and Central District PSC Commissioner Brent Bailey from a law firm that represents the PSC, with its fees paid by Entergy, a regulated power company.

Both Bailey and Presley have denied the contributions fall under the PSC campaign finance prohibition.

Carr filed complaints with the state Ethics Commission. But the commission has recently said it lacks clear authority to investigate or enforce campaign finance laws.

Mississippi’s campaign finance laws and reporting requirements are weak, and violations are almost never investigated or prosecuted.

The post PSC candidate claims incumbent violated campaign finance laws appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Democratic candidate for governor Brandon Presley on Tuesday hammered Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in a new ad, attempting to tie him to Mississippi’s welfare scandal, marking Presley’s third television ad of the campaign cycle. 

“Under Tate Reeves, millions were steered from education and job programs to help his rich friends,” a narrator in the advertisement says. 

The ad goes on to profile several of the items that state investigators have said were incorrectly paid with federal welfare funds, such as a fitness program and a University of Southern Mississippi volleyball stadium.

“Tate Reeves has been caught red-handed in the largest public corruption scandal in state history — and he will be held accountable for the millions of taxpayer dollars lost, stolen, and wasted on his watch,” Ron Owens, Presley’s campaign manager, said in a statement about the ad.

Reeves has denounced the welfare misspending and has adamantly denied he had any involvement in which projects received funds, which occurred while he was the state’s lieutenant governor. 

The governor’s campaign in a news release called Presley’s ad “patently false” and said the allegations that Reeves played a role in the welfare scandal are  “nonsensical and opportunistic.”

“The facts are clear that the transgressions occurred before Tate Reeves was governor, and he has supported vigorous and effective prosecution against those involved,” the news release reads.

Given his low name ID in central and south Mississippi, television ads for Presley, who has served 15 years as north Mississippi’s utility regulator, will be one of the key tools he must implement in his bid to oust the Republican governor from office. 

This is the first campaign ad from Presley attacking the incumbent governor. The Democratic candidate previously aired ads highlighting his low-income roots and his advocacy for cutting car tag fees. 

Reeves has previously aired ads touting economic investment in the state and legislation he signed into law that bans transgender youth from participating in public school athletics.  

The post New Brandon Presley ad claims Tate Reeves  helped ‘rich friends’ in welfare scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

At the U.S. District Court in downtown Jackson Monday, Judge Henry Wingate approved putting even more of the city’s aging and broken infrastructure under the control of a third-party manager.

Ted Henifin, who is already overseeing the drinking water rehabilitation for Jackson, will now also take the reins of fixing the city’s wastewater system, which for years has plagued both residents and the local ecosystem with sewer overflows and under-treated discharges. In recent years, city officials estimated that the water and wastewater systems would each require about $1 billion to fix.

The parties in the city’s sewer case, which traces back to a 2013 consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, submitted a proposed agreement days ago. Mississippi Today reported details on the agreement last week. Wingate approved the agreement at Monday’s status conference, putting the sewer system in Henifin’s control for four years.

Before doing so, the judge asked Henifin if managing the sewer infrastructure would interfere with his work fixing the drinking water system, to which Henifin said no.

The biggest challenge, Henifin noted, will be procuring funds for the sewer system. As he took over the drinking water system, the federal government agreed to invest about $600 million into those fixes. For the sewer system, there’s roughly $140 million in available funds that was mentioned in the now-signed order. Officials Monday also mentioned roughly $600,000 that could be used to help Jackson homeowners make sewer repairs on their private property.

Henifin said a key step will be getting consistent revenue from water bills. He said the city’s current collection rate stands at just 56% as far as connections with accounts in the city’s billing system, adding that there are about 7,000 connections without accounts.

Henifin reiterated that his company, JXN Water, will soon shut off water to people who don’t pay their bills. He said that process will start with a 30-day notice for those “delinquent” on their bills, and then another seven-day notice before actually turning the water off. He added residents can negotiate a payment plan if they’re having trouble affording their bills.

The public has until Aug. 31 to submit comments on the sewer order, and Wingate, as WLBT reported, will consider changes to the order based on that input. Information on public meetings and how to submit comments can be found here.

The post Wingate signs off on Jackson sewer going to third-party control appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi received over $2.5 billion from the federal government in pandemic relief money in 2020 and 2021 to improve education and to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a little over a year left to use the money, schools have made progress but still have over a billion dollars left to spend. 

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund was created initially by the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in 2020 and then subsequently replenished in two other pieces of federal legislation, creating three separate pots of money for states and districts to spend. 

Each pot of money has its own spending deadline – Sept. 30 of 2022, 2023, and 2024 respectively. A built-in grace period gives schools a few extra months to disburse final payments, but the U.S. Department of Education also allowed states to request extensions. The Mississippi Department of Education confirmed it received an extension for ESSER I, the first pot of money, with a new deadline of March 30, 2024. Extensions on the second pot are also available, but a state education agency spokesperson said Mississippi has not applied yet.

School districts in Mississippi have spent nearly all of the funds from the first pot, but progress spending ESSER II and III varies significantly by district.

There are a wide variety of allowable expenses under the ESSER guidelines, but the U.S. Department of Education instructs school districts to prioritize efforts to “safely reopen schools for full-time instruction for all students, maintain safe in-person operations, advance educational equity, and build capacity.”

A Mississippi Today analysis of the spending plans in three school districts found that ESSER I funds went primarily to reopening schools — covering sanitation, masks and new technology. Districts focused on addressing learning loss and infrastructure investments when budgeting ESSER II and III. 

FutureEd, an education policy think tank at Georgetown University, found that the higher the poverty rate in a district, the more likely administrators were to allocate money to heating, venting and air conditioning (HVAC) updates and to purchase new instructional materials.

READ MORE: How three Mississippi school districts are spending $207 million in federal relief funds

The Mississippi Department of Education also keeps between 7 to 10% of each pot to invest in statewide initiatives and to cover administrative costs. 

Districts spent their money in nine major categories, which are described below. 

• Employee salaries: salaries for teachers, professional personnel, instructional aides, and substitute teachers; overtime pay, performance-based salary incentives, and COVID-19 incentive payments
• Employee benefits: health insurance, life insurance, retirement contributions, unemployment compensation
• Professional and technical services: educational consultants, counseling services, lawyers, architects, accountants, nurses, data processing services
• Property services: water and sewer, electricity, communication, custodial, lawn care, construction services, maintenance services
• Other purchased services: student transportation services, insurance (other than employee benefits), postal services, advertising
• Supplies: software, gasoline, transportation supplies, food, books, periodicals
• Property: land, buildings/building improvements, computer equipment, furniture, connectivity equipment, cars, buses 
• Other objects: dues and fees, interest, debt, payments to state agencies
• Other uses: summer food, indirect costs

View the charts below to learn more about district-level spending for each pot.

ESSER I

Created By: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act

Available through: March 30, 2024 (original deadline Sept. 30, 2022)

Total to Mississippi: $169,883,002  

Reserved for statewide programming: $11,182,183

ESSER II

Created By: Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act

Available through: Sept. 30, 2023 (possible extension pending)

Total to Mississippi: $724,532,847 

Reserved for statewide programming: $49,614,842

ESSER III

Created By: American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)

Available through: Sept. 30, 2024

Total to Mississippi: $1,628,366,137  

Reserved for statewide programming: $155,501,704

The post See how your school district is spending federal COVID funds appeared first on Mississippi Today.