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The decision to use $1.3 million in Mississippi’s federal welfare dollars to fund a boot camp-style fitness program in 2018 didn’t occur entirely off the books or in secret. 

It was allegedly part of a state-sanctioned initiative that exploited the social safety net — a national trend that federal officials are trying to reverse through several policy changes it recently proposed.

Auditors later deemed expenditures on the exercise program unlawful, lumping it within a sprawling welfare fraud scheme to which seven people have pleaded guilty, and the state has demanded the money returned. But at the time, Mississippi and federal officials were all on board, according to the fitness instructor Paul Lacoste.

In fact, Lacoste recalls that before he received his contract for welfare funds, the state agency director John Davis, his boss then-Gov. Phil Bryant, and federal officials were at the table and supported the idea. Davis has pleaded guilty to several felonies and potentially faces years in prison, Lacoste has not been charged criminally but he is facing civil litigation, and Bryant is not facing criminal or civil charges.

The federal grant that supplied the funds, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF, is a work and family stabilization program, not a health-related program.

Leaders may have theoretically justified the purchase by arguing that helping low-income people get fit would help them enter or maintain their employment. In other words, a healthy population equals a strong workforce. It may be a stretch, but it’s arguably the kind of mental leap states have made since welfare reform in the 1990’s in order to spend federal welfare funds on virtually anything but cash assistance to needy families.

But it’s unclear if that’s how leaders justified the fitness classes or if that explanation would even fly. Mississippi didn’t necessarily have to explain their logic because the federal government didn’t require it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the program, exercises no authority to scrutinize state spending or determine whether the uses actually align with the program’s intended purposes.

Enter the Mississippi welfare scandal, where state officials used politically-connected nonprofits and dubious legal loopholes to funnel welfare money to the construction of a volleyball stadium, a pharmaceutical startup company, a wrestling ministry, and countless other questionable programs.

Under U.S. President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is attempting to clarify what kinds of programs states can support with TANF funds. The rules say that states may no longer be able to use the grant to support afterschool programs, college scholarships for recent high school graduates from middle-class families, or child welfare investigations — all things Mississippi currently does within its TANF program.

“It would be premature for DHS to comment on a proposed rule,” a spokesperson for Mississippi Department of Human Services said in an emailed statement to Mississippi Today. “ACF (the Office of Family Assistance at the U.S. Department of Human Services) has only issued a notice of a proposed rule. There could be changes before a final rule is adopted.”

HHS similarly said it “cannot speculate on the application of a rule that is a proposed rule and has not yet been finalized” as it reviews more than 7,000 public comments on the proposal.

If it takes effect as proposed in coming months, the federal government will also finally have the leeway to determine, after the state makes an expenditure, if purchases were “reasonably calculated,” meaning a “reasonable person” would find that it accomplished one of the goals of the TANF program.

If state and federal officials disagree, the state must provide evidence or academic research to justify their spending — something the federal government has never before required.

The notice of proposed rule changes, released in October, acknowledges that states have been spending federal public assistance funds “on a wide range of benefits and services, including some with tenuous connections to a TANF purpose.”

The notice comes on the heels of Mississippi’s scandal, including Mississippi Today’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the subject, which helped place a national spotlight on the failings of the program.

“I think this is HHS right now realizing, because of Mississippi, ‘We don’t have clarity on our enforcement authority as an agency to determine when costs are unallowable,’” said Matt Williams, director of research for the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. “They’re trying to introduce reason. They’re acknowledging that states can justify so much that has no connection to getting resources in the hands of families below poverty. … Because of that flexibility in those four purposes, they need some kind of mechanism to say back to the states, ‘Hey, this is wrong. This does not pass muster.’”

When Congress replaced the nation’s former welfare entitlement program Aid to Families with Dependent Children in 1996 with TANF, a block grant, it gave states broad flexibility to spend the funds on four vague purposes. Those are: 

• Provide assistance to needy families so children can be cared for in their home;
• Reduce the dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage;
• Prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies;
• Encourage two-parent families.

“Among the purposes, you do not see the purpose being to reduce poverty, which has been a shocking omission,” said Heather Hahn, a national TANF expert with the Urban Institute. “But it was a highly political change, and earlier versions had not passed and this one did.”

The ability of states to create their own welfare programs is central to the law; removing that flexibility would require an act of Congress.

Hahn told Mississippi Today she thinks HHS is “still really walking a fine line between flexibility and accountability.”

Authors of “The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America,” released in August, explain that the federal government did more than just authorize states to spend the money however they wanted. By placing tough restrictions on administering the monthly welfare check to poor families, and virtually no limitations around the spending on ancillary programs, it actually incentivized states to direct the funding elsewhere. The federal government allotted states the same amount of money no matter how many needy families they served.

“To spend the funds to help needy families, the states must navigate myriad rules and reporting requirements. But to use the money for other purposes, they need only justify that the expense is relevant to one of the core purposes of the program,” write the authors and national poverty researchers Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin and Timothy Nelson. “These criteria leave a lot of wiggle room, to say the least. Mississippi, a state that ranks among the most corrupt by any measure, took that wiggle room to the extreme.”

Much of the scrutiny around Mississippi’s spending relates to a state rule that allows non-cash TANF programs to serve families who earn up to 350% of the federal poverty line — about $87,000 for a family of three — meaning the funds benefitted many middle-class families.

The new federal rules would require states to define “needy” as families earning under 200% of the federal poverty line. But this new requirement would only apply to cash assistance — which Mississippi already caps far below the poverty line — and workforce training and support programs. 

According to the four TANF purposes, the federal government does not require that programs related to pregnancy and parenthood be reserved for the needy.

States have been using the TANF program to support college scholarships for adults without children, many from middle class families, under the argument that they reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The federal agency specified that this would not likely meet the “reasonable person standard.” 

In its most recent reports, Mississippi counts more than $15 million in state spending on college scholarships as part of its required state match to draw down federal TANF funds. The state labels this expenditure under the goal of ending the dependency of needy parents on government benefits — though the recipients are most often neither parents nor needy. Mississippi Today’s ongoing investigation into the welfare program found in 2019 that 40% of those scholarships went to middle-class families, and the vast majority were traditional students between the ages of 17 and 24.

The rules also say that states will likely no longer be able to use TANF to fund after school programs, which received a total of $925 million nationally in 2021. Most recently, Mississippi was spending about $13 million in TANF funds on these services annually. 

For years, Mississippi has used TANF funds to plug budget holes at the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, the agency that investigates child abuse and neglect and conducts family separations — the antithesis of the TANF program. The payments were interagency transfers, hidden from public view. But recently, MDHS entered a TANF subgrant agreement with MDCPS, which spelled out for the first time what the funds were actually meant to support.

Under that agreement, MDHS supplies MDCPS nearly $30 million, primarily to pay for social workers who investigate child abuse and neglect reports, as well as in-home family preservation services and the child abuse hotline. HHS said states will likely no longer be allowed to use TANF funds for child welfare investigations.

As written, the rule also aims to prevent states from using TANF funds to support crisis pregnancy centers – a policy that Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, have decried. Mississippi does not, however, currently use TANF dollars for these programs.

Through these new rules, the federal welfare agency appears to encourage — but not require — states to revert back to providing poor families with monthly payments.

“More than 27 years after the establishment of TANF, state programs have shifted away from a focus on direct cash and employment assistance,” reads the federal notice. “Although states are permitted under the statute to determine how much funding to expend on cash assistance, we remind states that there is a large body of research that shows that cash assistance is a critically important tool for reducing family and child poverty.”

Currently, states spend 23% of TANF funds nationally on direct cash assistance. They spend the rest on things like child care and head start (23%), workforce training (8%), child welfare (6%), Earned Income Tax Credits (6%), out-of-wedlock pregnancy prevention (1%) and fatherhood and two-parent family formation and maintenance programs (0.4%). (Compared to less than half a percent nationally, Mississippi spends 25% of its welfare funds on fatherhood programs).

But there’s no federal data of individual expenditures under those spending categories. The federal government doesn’t require state welfare agencies to provide actual documentation detailing this spending.

The only tool HHS has to hold states accountable for these purchases is an annual audit, which states must have conducted each year. In Mississippi, the entity that performs that audit is the State Auditor, an elected politician.

Mississippi’s auditor found repeated deficiencies in MDHS spending controls that went unaddressed for years. The reports may only test a fraction of purchases each year, and they occur retroactively, meaning by the time HHS learns about potential misspending, the money is already gone.

Even under the new requirements for a TANF program to be “reasonably calculated,” the federal government wouldn’t have prior approval. The analysis and enforcement would still happen retroactively, experts said.

“I think HHS is trying to be as strong as they can within their statutory authority to hold states’ feet to the fire and require actual evidence,” Williams said.

But what Williams said might actually happen in practice is that states like Mississippi will be in a constant back-and-forth bureaucratic corrective action plan with the federal government. A state that made unallowable purchases could face a future reduction of their federal TANF grant, which it would be required to make up with state funds, but Williams questions how the federal government would enforce that.

Williams said there are more impactful policy changes that may require action by Congress, such as requiring states to spend a certain percentage of their TANF grant on assistance — not just cash, but other direct supports like child care — or ease eligibility requirements so that more families would qualify for assistance.

Currently, a family of three in Mississippi must earn under 25% of the federal poverty line, about $457 a month, to be eligible for cash assistance. In 2022, the state only spent about 5% of its annual grant on these monthly payments to poor families — about $4.3 million out of $86.5 million. However, this is up from $3.5 million, or about 4%, in 2021.

Just 211 adults in Mississippi receive the aid. 

The state’s largest current TANF subgrant, a $5 million subgrant with Canopy Children’s Solutions, is for a program under the state’s “Parenthood Initiative” called LINK, which is supposed to help families “navigate the difficulties of locating and accessing basic needs, educating families on how to access these resources on their own, educating and promoting healthy family values and building resilience and self-sufficiency to ensure long term permanency.”

States are allowed to transfer up to 30% of their TANF grant to the low-income child care voucher program. While Mississippi had chosen not to do this for the past several years, MDHS Director Bob Anderson recently told state lawmakers the agency had decided to begin making this transfer.

Williams is hopeful the new regulations signal a step toward “acknowledging that states have too much flexibility, and that that flexibility has eviscerated the social safety net as we know it.”

But many questions remain in Mississippi. For example, auditors and lawyers have come to different conclusions about what, exactly, was wrong about Lacoste’s welfare-funded boot camp program.

While Lacoste represented to the public that his fitness classes were part of a partnership with MDHS and Families First for Mississippi — the initiative to which the state outsourced its TANF program — he did not set any requirements for participants to be low-income, according to audits.

Lawyers hired by the state to file civil charges argue that Lacoste and his organization Victory Sports Foundation must return the funds because his program did not achieve a lawful TANF purpose.

But neither of the audits on which the lawsuit was based appeared to actually analyze whether fitness and nutrition services would fit within the TANF purposes.

The audit report by the State Auditor’s Office, conducted on behalf of the federal government, said the payments to Victory Sports violated federal law, not because fitness classes are inherently unaligned with a TANF goal, but primarily because the program was not reserved for the needy.

Forensic auditors hired by the state said the payments were improper for neither of those reasons, but because they were made under undue influence by then MDHS director Davis.

Officials from the U.S. Department of Human Services have not made any public statements to clear this up, providing a canned response to Mississippi Today for this story.

So would an exercise program meet the new “reasonable person” standard?

“No,” Williams said, before pausing and then clarifying, “Whose definition of ‘reasonable’?”

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LORMAN — Alcorn State University’s next president must advocate for economic development in rural southwest Mississippi, boost enrollment, raise funds, inspire students to achieve their hopes and dreams, be familiar with the school’s rich history and, above all, stay. 

Preferably for at least five years. 

That was the message students, faculty, staff and alumni delivered to the Institutions of Higher Learning commissioner and five members of the Board of Trustees during listening sessions Monday on Alcorn State’s campus, the first step in the governing board’s search process for a new president at the oldest public historical Black land-grant institution in the U.S.

In the last 10 years, the historic university has seen seven acting and permanent presidents come and go, experiencing, as the school’s director of religious life put it, a “visionary whiplash” that is beginning to erode core qualities of the campus culture, like its homey, familial vibe. 

“When I first got here 10 years ago, Alcorn was like a family, like a big porch,” said C.J. Rhodes. “In the last few years, that cultural-aspect piece has sort of been jeopardized in some way, so we need a person who can come in and ensure that that part is there.” 

IHL fired the university’s former president, Felecia Nave, last year without providing a reason. She had faced criticism for widespread issues like declining enrollment, dozens of employee resignations and “deplorable” conditions in athletic facilities.

The search for Nave’s replacement comes after IHL finished searches for new presidents at Delta State and Jackson State universities. Those previous searches were led by trustees who graduated from those universities. No IHL board trustee is an Alcorn graduate.

But IHL does have Al Rankins, the commissioner of higher education, who is an alumnus and the university’s 19th president. During the listening sessions, he invited several people by name to address the trustees, even shouting out his English professor. 

Several people cited Rankins’ leadership as a model for whoever becomes the university’s next president.  

“Not to toot Dr. Rankins’ horn,” said Andre Young, a 1976 graduate. “When he was here, he took the Alcorn show on the road. As a result we didn’t have an empty dorm bed here.” 

Though Rankins said the listening sessions were intended to help trustees create a candidate profile — and not to identify specific applicants — multiple students said they wanted to see Tracy Cook, the interim president, remain on permanently, garnering chuckles from the audience.

“The student body was given a questionnaire, and it was highly expressed that we would like Dr. Cook as our next president,” said Jordan Buck, the student government association president. 

Amid increased competition for college students in Mississippi, expected to get even tougher once the “enrollment cliff” of a decline in high school graduates hits, a good leader at Alcorn State is more important than ever, speakers shared. The next president will need to recruit nationally for students and boost the university’s positive qualities, several speakers shared. 

But that’s not all. The next president will also need to address the issues facing the aging campus that could dissuade students from attending, such as the deteriorating buildings and dormitories and the impoverished surrounding area. 

The university’s enrollment has fallen from more than 3,200 full-time equivalent students in 2010 to roughly 2,470 in 2022, according to federal data.

“Even if they’re legacy, they aren’t going to put up with mold,” Rhodes said. “They’ll just go down the street to another university in the IHL system.” 

One student who spoke mentioned her dorm’s water is shut off at least once a week. A faculty member in the English department said his students are constantly talking about the conditions in their dorms, which may not be apparent from a tour of the campus. 

“I hope that you can find a president who can walk among us holy folk, who goes from day to day without dryers or without working washing machines or with rooms full of mold,” said Nigel Caesar, a sophomore business major. “I wish for a president who knows about those things, who knows how to talk to the people who can get those things fixed, who won’t forget that those problems exist. And there’s many more. But please, find a president who can help with that.” 

Located in Lorman, an unincorporated community in Jefferson County with just 2,000 residents, Alcorn State is mainly surrounded by forest and farmland. The two closest cities — Natchez and Vicksburg — are each roughly 50 minutes away. 

There are no department stores, and the nearest airport is two hours away, said Wiley Jones, a notable alumni who was the first graduate of the Alcorn School of Business. 

“An unhappy wife is gonna make for an unhappy president,” Jones said. 

Densel Fleming, the alumni association president, said the lack of economic development in the communities surrounding Alcorn State puts the university leadership at a competitive disadvantage. 

Fleming noted that more alumni wanted to speak at the listening sessions but weren’t able to take time off work on an 11-day notice. He had flown in from Charlotte, North Carolina. 

“My question is to you, and it’s rhetorical, is if you as a board of trustees were able to place the most qualified, well-trained, administratively skilled professional for the next president of Alcorn State University, how successful would you expect them to be without your advocacy — direct advocacy — for economic development to the state of Mississippi?” Fleming asked. 

Recurring among speakers was the feeling that Alcorn State had strayed from its heyday. 

Norris Edney II told trustees about how he grew up on Alcorn State’s campus, which had some of the most beautiful cows. He didn’t realize cows elsewhere didn’t grow as big. 

But the university’s dairy is now shuttered, Edney said. It hurts to see.  

One reason for that, Edney suggested, was inequitable funding from the state of Mississippi. As an 1890 land-grant institution, Alcorn State is supposed to receive equitable funds to the state’s other agriculture college, Mississippi State University. 

But it hasn’t. Last year, the Biden administration calculated the state of Mississippi owes Alcorn State more than $250 million in the last 30 years alone. 

“Everything that is in Starkville should be here in Lorman on the same scale,” Edney said. “That is not just my opinion. That is federal law. This community hasn’t been treated fairly. We’re not trying to get reparations. We’re just trying to be treated fairly.” 

Donna Hayden, a community member, got a high-five after she spoke.

“This is God’s country,” she said, “but God’s country needs some updating. God’s country needs someone who can take the 2,000-plus acres and create an oasis.” 

Student engagement at Alcorn State, which counts slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers among its alumni, is low, said Jhada Wade, a student. She said she thought Cook, who speakers said shares his personal phone with students and makes a point to eat in the cafeteria, will be able to do that. 

Earlier that day, Wade said her professor asked her class if they were going to the listening session. 

“And my classmates responded, ‘what is that?’” she said. 

The post ‘God’s country needs some updating:’ Alcorn State seeks a long-term leader and advocate, speakers tell IHL delegation appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Some familiar and storied Mississippi athletic bloodlines were on well-played display at sparkling Duease Hall/Gymnasium on the campus of Madison Ridgeland Academy Thursday night.

The MRA girls team defeated Jackson Academy 46-39 and the Jackson boys returned the favor in the nightcap, dominating the fourth quarter in a 59-45 victory much closer than the final score would indicate.

At one point in the girls game, MRA sophomore point guard Presley Hughes dribbled through the JA defense, drew a double team, and neatly dished a perfect bounce pass to 6-foot, 5-inch sophomore Alyssa Dampier for an easy layup. Dampier, the long-limbed daughter of 16-year NBA veteran Erick Dampier, didn’t have to reach far to lay it in. Hughes is the daughter of Whit Hughes, Erick Dampier’s teammate and sixth man on the fabulous 1996 Mississippi State SEC Champion and Final Four team.

There’s lots more: In the boys game, Mike and Mason Williams, sons of the great NBA star Mo Williams, combined for 40 points, 25 rebounds and seven assists to lead the JA boys to their 28th victory against one defeat this season. Like father, like sons. Mo, now Jackson State’s head coach, averaged 13 points and five assists over a 15-year NBA career. Mike, a junior, scored 29 points, many on assists from Mason, a sophomore, who scored 11. Both are highly skilled, tremendously athletic youngsters who look and play a whole lot like their daddy. That’s a good thing, especially for second-year JA head coach Jesse Taylor.

And that’s not all. The most amazing part of the evening was watching 13-year-old eighth grader Erick Dampier Jr. who scored 18 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked three shots in a losing cause for MRA, where his famous father serves as an assistant coach. Yes, Erick Jr. is 13 years young. Yes, he’s in the eighth grade (straight A student), playing on the varsity team against guys anywhere from three to five years older. Did I mention he is 6 feet, 9 inches tall and growing like a springtime Mississippi weed?

Says MRA boys coach Richard Duease, the second winningest high school hoops coach in America and namesake of the gymnasium: “Erick was the top-ranked seventh grader in the entire country last year. He’ll be the top-ranked eighth grader this year. You ought to see him when he plays against kids his age. It’s not fair.”

You can look for much more in the coming days and weeks and years on young Dampier, but there was something else on clear display at MRA on the first day of February 2024, and that’s just how much better private school (MAIS) basketball has become in recent years. That’s largely because MAIS basketball has become exceedingly more racially integrated.

You can make a good case that two of the best three high school basketball teams in Mississippi are private school teams. JA appears the best. MRA isn’t far behind. Pascagoula, which handed JA its only loss this season, is top-ranked by most polls.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that MAIS basketball is the best it’s ever been,” said Duease, who will enter the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame this summer. Duease would surely qualify as an expert, his teams having won 33 state championships in his 49-year career in the private schools league. “Obviously, JA is really good, and we’re good, but this league is tough everywhere you go. Prep’s good, Hartfield is really good. St. Joe is good. There are good teams outside the metro area, as well. There are no easy outs. The entire landscape of high school basketball in Mississippi has changed.”

No question, in games matching public and private schools this season, the latter have won by far more games. That’s new. In the recent Rumble in the South at Mississippi College, Jackson Academy blew out Class 7A public school powerhouse Madison Central 80-48, MRA knocked off perennial Class 4A power Raymond 50-48, and Presbyterian Christian of Hattiesburg defeated Provine 60-55.

It’s not just in boys basketball either. The MRA girls have defeated Gulfport twice, Hattiesburg and Raymond and own three victories over Memphis city schools.

In the academy league, nearly everywhere you look, Black players are making a huge difference for winning teams. Back when Whit Hughes starred at Jackson Prep in the 1990s, the only time he played against African Americans was in the summer leagues.

MRA got its first Black player in 1995. Duease received a call from Chareck “CC” Cable, who played at Clinton High School but wasn’t getting the playing time he desired. He told Duease he’d like to transfer to MRA. Duease talked to both Cable and his mother, explaining that he would need to take an entrance exam and what the costs would be should he make the needed score. Cable, who is now the assistant principal at Clinton Junior High, easily passed the exam, entered MRA and became one of the Patriots’ best players.

Nearly three decades later, Cable is back in Clinton as an administrator and remembers that time between his junior and senior years of high school. “I just wanted to play basketball, and if I transferred to another public school I had to sit out a year, which I didn’t have,” he says. “It turned out well for me. I was accepted and treated well.”

Duease remembers Cable’s first game as an MRA Patriot at East Holmes Academy, which had actually threatened a couple years before to cancel a football game because a rival had welcomed a Black player.

“We were playing at East Holmes and I told our players on our first possession I wanted to set up a for a backside screen for C.C., and I wanted him to tear that rim down,” Duease said, chuckling at the memory. “Well, he darn near did tear it down. Got everybody’s attention. I think he dunked it five times in that one game.”

The integration of athletics in the private schools league, spotty at first, has become exceedingly more common in recent years. The result is a much higher level of play, from mostly below the rim to now often high above it.

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Democratic representatives will file a bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to working-class Mississippians — after years of failed attempts and as rural hospitals reach their breaking point.

Though Democrats have fought for years to expand Medicaid, they hope their more pragmatic proposal this session and the new House speaker’s pledge to seek a bipartisan solution on health coverage will finally yield a realistic plan to expand coverage.

“I think a majority of people in Mississippi would like to see … coverage for working Mississippians who don’t have coverage and providing the uncompensated care funding that hospitals need to stay open,” House Democratic Leader Robert Johnson III said. 

The bill, the first major Medicaid expansion proposal this year, would expand traditional Medicaid coverage eligibility and includes a private insurance option for Mississippians who make up to twice as much as the federal poverty level.

There’s also a component that would help subsidize premiums for people who are on or are offered insurance through their jobs. 

It’s a plan that, Democrats say, favors women and small businesses. It would cover more people than traditional expansion because it’ll be easier to qualify for coverage, but more people would be partially paying premiums in a tiered system, dependent on income.

The Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, increased health insurance coverage for millions of low-income people across the country by expanding eligibility to qualify for Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides health coverage to millions of people.

Since 2014, states have had the option to expand Medicaid eligibility even further to the working poor. In states that have not done so, it’s challenging to qualify for Medicaid coverage solely based on income. In Mississippi, non-disabled adults without children are not eligible for Medicaid coverage, regardless of their income. Parents in Mississippi are eligible only if their incomes don’t exceed 24% of the federal poverty level — for context, that’s at most $587 monthly for a family of four, according to the Mississippi Division of Medicaid website. 

Mississippi is one of 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid coverage to the working poor. Meanwhile, the state’s hospitals are foundering. 

One report puts nearly half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals at risk of closure, largely due to uncompensated care costs, or money spent treating patients who are uninsured. Because emergency rooms cannot legally turn down patients, regardless of their insurance status, it’s often the only resort for health care for uninsured people. 

That means without health insurance, preventative care is generally out of reach. 

Research shows expansion would insure the approximately 250,000 people who fall into the state’s coverage gap, meaning they make too much to qualify for Medicaid now but too little to afford private insurance. The policy’s adoption would also generate billions of dollars for Mississippi, directing much-needed money to the state’s struggling hospitals, and allow for more timely health care, likely improving health outcomes in one of the country’s sickest states. 

Despite most Mississippians’ support of Medicaid expansion, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and former Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn staunchly opposed the policy over the last four years. Even as medical experts sounded the alarm over the financial future of hospitals, Reeves has ignored the policy’s benefits, reducing expansion to “welfare.”

Democratic Rep. Zakiya Summers of Jackson said that Mississippi’s abysmal health outcomes are well documented, and the state cannot afford to “kick the can down the road” any further on expanding coverage to more people. 

“I think we’ve heard a lot of talk about wanting to do something around Medicaid expansion, but we haven’t actually seen pen being put to paper,” Summers said. “What we have developed is a really good opportunity to say, ‘Here is something that we can take a look at and have conversations about.’”

But the Democrats’ latest plan is not a typical Medicaid expansion bill. 

The measure both expands eligibility for traditional Medicaid coverage and includes a private insurance option for people who fall into a certain federal poverty level threshold. If passed, the hybrid policy would cover more Mississippians than a traditional Medicaid expansion bill, which usually covers people up to 138% of the federal poverty level. 

“Our program is going to incorporate people up to 200% of the federal poverty level,” Johnson said. 

Rationalizing the private option, he said, “Asking the government to pay all of the funds to make sure we cover people up to 200% of the poverty level is I don’t think reasonable and I don’t think it’s acceptable or winnable.” 

The bill would:

• Expand Medicaid coverage eligibility for all adults who are at or below 95% of the federal poverty level. In 2024, that is $14,307 gross annual income for a childless individual. 
• Allow adults with no children who make more than that, up to 200% of the federal poverty level or $30,120 gross annual income, to qualify for private health plans through the federal marketplace or offered by the state. 
• If they’re employed and make between 96% and 200% of the federal poverty level, their premiums would be covered at varying degrees by the division. 

Democratic leaders are hopeful the plan — which includes incentives to join the workforce — will gain traction in the Capitol, but they know the Republicans who hold a supermajority in both chambers won’t outright adopt their bill in the coming weeks.

Instead, Johnson hopes that Republicans will at least realize the minority party’s proposal is sensible and include portions of it in a final version and pass it. 

“If it ever gets passed in its final form, it’ll probably have my name nowhere near it,” Johnson said. “But if it means that we get a plan that really provides coverage to people in the state of Mississippi, I don’t care what they call it or whose name is on it.”

The person who wields the most immediate power over the Legislature’s solution to giving health insurance to more Mississippians is House Speaker Jason White, a Republican whose rural district is majority-white and financially disadvantaged.

The speaker has been candid about the need for Mississippi, one of the poorest and sickest states in the country, to consider expanding Medicaid and has said state Republicans deserve criticism for refusing to debate the merits of the program. 

Johnson told Mississippi Today that he and the speaker have maintained an open dialogue this session about Medicaid policy, and he believes White truly wants to shepherd meaningful legislation through the House. 

White told Mississippi Today last week that he and other House leaders are forming a Medicaid plan of their own, but he intends to examine Johnson’s plan to see where the two parties can agree.

“I think we’ll find bipartisanship,” White said. “I’m going to be disappointed if we don’t.”

Arkansas in 2013 voted to adopt a version of Medicaid expansion that includes a private insurance option. As other Southern states consider expansion, the Arkansas model is often referenced.

Though echoes of Arkansas’ version of Medicaid expansion are obvious in the Democrats’ proposal, Johnson said their bill caters to Mississippi’s specific health care and population factors.

Adam Searing, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families whose work focuses on Medicaid, said the Democrats’ bill is a “perfectly reasonable starting place.”

“Expanding Medicaid is a political debate,” he said. “In states that haven’t already done it, there are going to be some compromises.”

Searing said that while Georgia’s initial attempt at expansion only covered part of the population in their coverage gap — subsequently making them ineligible for full federal financial rewards — Mississippi’s bill takes everyone into account.

The federal government will pay 90% of the cost to expand Medicaid to people who are at or below 138% of the federal poverty level, and for people up to 200%, they will pay the federal medical assistance percentage match of the expansion costs. Mississippi has the highest FMAP in the country at 76.9% because of the state’s high poverty rate. 

Additionally, the federal government would pay Mississippi more than $600 million over two years as an incentive for expanding Medicaid. 

There’s no estimate yet for how much the Democrats’ plan would cost the state because the bill hasn’t made it to the Legislative Budget Office, but researchers estimate that Medicaid expansion would generally bring in $1 billion a year in federal money to Mississippi. 

“What I look for in these plans, what makes this one nice, is that the goal is to cover everyone in the coverage gap,” Searing said. “This is where you want to start. I think it’s exciting that someone is putting in a plan, and it’s realistic.”

A significant part of this coverage gap is small business owners who sometimes cannot afford to provide health insurance to their employees. 

Democratic Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, believes if the proposal were to become law, it would save business owners in his district, most of which is in the impoverished Delta, from paying hundreds of dollars each month in an employer-sponsored health plan.  

“That might not mean much to Amazon or Nissan, but for a mom-and-pop business, that can make a difference in whether you’re in the black or in the red,” Clark said. “If you raise the limit up to 200% in my district, that will probably cover the vast majority of people that are employed in District 47.” 

Democrats said their proposal gives special consideration to women’s health.

Mississippi is one of the most dangerous states in the country to give birth, both for mothers and their babies. A lack of timely preventative and prenatal care is a driving cause of these abysmal outcomes. 

Democrats say upwards of 20,000 more women would be eligible for Medicaid under their plan compared to traditional Medicaid expansion.

“Instead of only addressing women’s health when it comes to taking away their choice, or saying the issues they face aren’t real, let’s come together on a bipartisan level and say we’re going to prioritize women this time … and make sure they have their needs met in this state,” Summers said. “We want to make sure women don’t just survive in Mississippi, but they thrive in Mississippi.”

As evidenced by the Medicaid expansion bill, maternal, infant and reproductive health remain a top issue for lawmakers. But the head of Medicaid, an agency under Reeves’ purview, and other political allies have tried to thwart those efforts.

An additional bill the Democrats are filing could shift that power — the legislation seeks to establish a commission that would manage the agency, allowing it to be run in a way that’s “apolitical,” Johnson said. 

The proposal is currently being vetted by attorneys in the Legislature. Once the bill is introduced, the speaker will refer it to a legislative committee for consideration. 

It’s unlikely legislative leaders will embrace the Democrats’ plan, and White has suggested  Republicans will introduce a Medicaid plan of their own. The process for the House and Senate to agree on a final Medicaid expansion bill will likely take months if they agree at all.

Mississippians’ health and financially bleeding hospitals can’t wait much longer, Johnson said. 

“It’s a broken record, but we have the worst health outcomes in the country … we ought to be flooded with doctors because there’s such a need,” he said. “We’re losing population and losing opportunity.”

The post House Democrats unveil Mississippi’s first major Medicaid expansion plan appeared first on Mississippi Today.

I do not know about you but starting a new year, setting new goals, and staying focused can be stressful. If you are like me, the holidays packed my schedule and left me feeling exhausted. Then, suddenly, I was hit with a New Year and a strong desire to do things better.

Unfortunately, I am not alone when I share that I rarely finish the resolutions that I start – if I even try to make any. As the year and daily duties increase, I find myself on the same old path of a wild – dare I say, out of control – ride in life!

During the first sermon of the year, my pastor suggested choosing a single word to stick to. That seems simple and achievable, right?

What if all of us reading this article chose the word kindness? What difference might we make for our fellow mankind!

A co-worker, Choir Director Amy Twilley, was telling me about an experience with the people of Crystal Springs United Methodist Church and Baddour residents who participate in The Miracles, an audition choir.

Before the choir’s performance, the congregation collected bios and a Christmas wish list for each choir member, and they prayed and shopped for them. Even resident choir members were surprised. One told Amy she was amazed that strangers were so loving and kind and generous to them.

What a wonderful thought: to choose to be kind to people we do not know and may never see again. That warms my heart. Doesn’t it feel good when someone is kind to us?

Many of the men and women with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism who live at The Baddour Center have experienced difficulties throughout their lives, such as bullying or the inability to have meaningful employment. They know the opposite feeling of kindness.

I often say that the population we serve at Baddour are “my people” because they love big and make me feel like a rockstar whenever I arrive at work, a wonderful reprieve from the cruelty of the world.

For 2024, let’s not overcomplicate our New Year’s resolutions; let’s continue laughter and the generous spirit of the holidays that makes the season so bright and joyful.

Let’s learn from strangers and actively be kind to the people around us – whether we know them or not. Who will you show kindness to today?

From all of us at The Baddour Center, Happy New Year, and thank you to those of you who have been kind to residents of The Baddour Center throughout our 45-year history!

The post What if all of us reading this article chose the word kindness? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Shower Power in Jackson, Mississippi was founded when Teresa Renkenberger struck up a conversation with Bennie, a homeless man standing by Lakeland Drive. From that conversation, she came up with the idea of creating a mobile shower built into a box truck. Joined by her longtime friend Mary Ann Kirby, Shower Power grew into a weekly Friday event that provides those in the Jackson-Metro area without a home a shower, a meal, clothes, and community.

Shower Power is proof that everyday people can find exceptional solutions for community challenges. Renkenberger and Kirby join Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey to tell their story. 

The post Mississippi Stories: Shower Power with Teresa Renkenberger and Mary Ann Kirby appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The state House on Thursday approved legislation to legalize mobile sports betting, putting Mississippi on track to join a growing number of states to legalize a form of remote gaming.  

The measure passed the GOP-controlled House by 97-14, and it now heads to a Senate committee for consideration before becoming law. 

House Gaming Committee Chairman Casey Eure, R-Saucier, said Mississippi could significantly reduce the number of illegal bets cast in the state if the Legislature enacts a legal remote betting program. 

“It’s estimated that $64 billion was wagered on illegal sports bets across the United States last calendar year,” Eure said. “Mississippi makes up 5% of that market, which is $3 billion.” 

Under the proposal, bettors would not have to physically visit a casino to register for sports betting. The entire registration process could happen remotely, as long as it was done in Mississippi. 

In-person sports wagering and mobile fantasy sports have been legal in the state since 2018, but online betting has remained outlawed over worries the practice could erode casinos’ profits.

The House proposal would require online sportsbooks like DraftKings or FanDuel, called a “skin” or “platform,” to partner with a physical casino in Mississippi before allowing customers to participate in mobile betting. Betters, no matter where in the state they’re located, could choose which casino to use to place a bet. 

The bill limits casinos to only partnering with one sportsbook platform, but platforms can partner with multiple Mississippi casinos simultaneously. Mississippi currently has 26 casinos, and Eure estimated that around 30 sportsbook companies exist.

Rep. Robert Johnson III, a Democrat from Natchez, raised concerns that smaller casinos such as Magnolia Bluffs in his district would face difficulties seeking a lucrative deal from platforms because larger casinos, such as the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino on the Coast, would have more leverage to negotiate a beneficial business deal. 

Johnson, the House minority leader, aimed to protect the smaller casino markets by offering an amendment requiring casinos to receive profits from mobile wagers made within 40 miles of the casino, but Republicans defeated his efforts. 

“I have a responsibility to make sure that I protect the jobs and the opportunities that are available in my community,” Johnson said. 

The measure enacts a 12% tax on sports wagers. The proceeds from the tax will go toward repairing roads and bridges owned by counties and municipalities throughout the state. 

A previous version of the proposal enacted a 12% tax on bets, but 4% of the proceeds went toward the county of the casino and 8% went to the state. But Eure, the bill’s author changed the tax structure to assuage concerns from lawmakers representing areas without casinos. 

Eure, the bill’s author, estimated that Mississippi would generate between $25 million to $35 million in revenue during the first year if the state enacted a mobile sports betting program.

The House measure will now likely head to the Senate Gaming Committee for consideration. Eure said he is actively communicating with Senate leaders about the legislation, who have until April 2 to pass the measure out of a committee.

The post Mississippi House approves mobile sports betting  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

COLUMBUS — Nora Miller, the president of Mississippi University for Women, opened a letter from her deans in 2022 that warned the country’s first state-supported women’s college had reached a critical crossroads. 

Without bold change, the deans wrote, the pool of prospective students was “likely to grow dangerously thin,” affecting tuition. Their recommendation: Change the name to one that includes all students, not just women. After all, the university had been co-ed since 1982. 

One consulting firm, three listening sessions, 4,300 survey responses, one failed proposal, and one apology later, MUW will ask lawmakers to approve a new name next month. But as the institution seeks to reposition itself to meet an uncertain moment for higher education in Mississippi, it has faced criticism from some alumni, passionate about the past, who have questioned if a new name is needed at all. 

Lost in the hullabaloo is the fact MUW faces much bigger issues than its name, according to more than a dozen interviews Mississippi Today conducted with students, faculty, administrators and alumni.

Enrollment has continued to fall since the dean’s letter. All told, the campus has shrunk to just 2,227 students from its peak of more than 3,100 in the late 1990s. The tuition-dependent university has been operating at a deficit, losing $18 million in fiscal year 2022, not counting appropriations. And it likely can’t turn to the state for help: Mississippi’s state funding for higher education has barely recovered from the Great Recession of 2008. The liberal arts education that MUW offers is increasingly pooh-poohed by lawmakers and other state officials who view workforce development as “the message of the day.” 

To be sure, all of Mississippi’s regional colleges are struggling, so MUW’s plight isn’t totally unique. But within thirty miles of its doorstep, MUW is facing a hydra — a behemoth SEC school, a booming industrial park and a flourishing community college — all while dealing with a name that excludes roughly half of the students it wants to admit. 

“It’s kind of like false advertising, isn’t it?” said Dee Anne Larson, a marketing professor on the university’s naming committee. 

The university has acknowledged it needs to do a better job of selling what it offers: Comparatively affordable tuition, small class sizes and a familial campus. It has revamped its recruitment strategies, brought back athletics and pumped money into professional programs like culinary arts, speech language pathology and nursing. 

“While we would prefer not running at a deficit,” Miller said, “sometimes you have to invest in things.” 

Signs of that investment, though, are hard to spot. North on Highway 25, a brick sign for Starkville brags of being the “home of Mississippi State University.” Over the Lowndes County line, at the Golden Triangle Global Industrial Aerospace Park, is East Mississippi Community College’s glassy “communiversity” and its LED marquee. 

The sign for Columbus, called the “friendly city,” makes no mention of MUW. The university employs hundreds of people in the region, a fact belied by its quiet presence. 

Miller acknowledged workforce development programs entice high school graduates. But, she said, when younger workers from Steel Dynamics get tired, they’ll start looking for a pathway to office jobs. 

“And I think some of those steelworkers aren’t gonna take advantage of that” at MUW, Miller said, “because ‘Mississippi University for Women’ will be on their degree.” 

Cutting ties with the long blue line? 

When MUW sent Miller an offer letter in 1979, she thought it was for a “finishing school” and threw it in the trash. Her mom convinced Miller, a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, to take a second look. 

Three years later, when the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees ordered MUW to admit men following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the university’s admissions policy, Miller’s first thought was “at least we get to keep the name.” 

Then state-supported women’s colleges across the country started taking “women” out of their names. MUW didn’t in large part because the university’s leadership failed to get alumni on board. Even though the university has changed its name four times throughout its history — it was originally the Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls — the alumni just couldn’t let go of “The W.” 

Many still can’t. 

Earlier this month, the university’s first proposal, Mississippi Brightwell University, flopped. The feedback was resoundingly negative. 

That’s when an unofficial group of alumni started discussing an alternate proposal: “The W: A Mississippi University.” It seemed to capture the campus’s Ivy League aspirations, said Laura Tubb Prestwich, who graduated in 2008, works in brand-name strategy and was part of the unofficial group. 

There’s an emotional stake in changing the name for “W girls” like Prestwick, whose grandmother also attended. Prestwich grew up going to modeling, photography and musical theater camps at MUW, and reading old copies of the “Meh Lady” yearbooks. 

“When Tropicana changed their packaging, they saw a 20% drop in sales,” Prestwich said. “That’s an emotional tie to orange juice. Can you fathom it being somewhere you took out student loans for?” 

Facing the demographic cliff

But MUW can’t sustain itself solely off the pockets of legacy students like Prestwick. 

In Mississippi, as in nearly every state in the country, the number of high school graduates is poised to decline, an ominous trend deemed the “enrollment cliff.” This will force increased competition among Mississippi’s eight public universities, all of which are already more dependent on tuition than state funding, and 15 community colleges. 

The future winners of that fight are laying the groundwork today. And MUW is already on the backfoot. 

More than 200 freshmen used to enroll in MUW each year, according to the university. But since 2009, when EMCC’s Golden Triangle campus started a tuition-guarantee program, MUW is lucky if the freshman class broaches 200 at all. In the last decade, MUW has lost 600 undergrads — while down the road, Mississippi State University has seen undergraduate enrollment nearly triple that same amount. Meanwhile, last fall EMCC saw its largest enrollment increase in more than a decade.

The bleeding shows no signs of stopping. But MUW has been retooling its approach. In fall 2022, Miller promoted the longtime head of student success, David Brooking, to executive director of enrollment management. 

One of the first things Brooking noticed was that MUW needed to do more outreach. The university was buying mailing lists to send letters like the kind Miller got in high school, but not nearly enough names — just 10,000 students when it needed more like 50,000. Brooking fixed that and has expanded MUW’s digital advertising, which he says is the way to reach the introverted, studious high schoolers who’d thrive at MUW. 

Showing up at college fairs in parts of Mississippi with a growing population has been a challenge. The recruiting position assigned to the Coast, nearly five hours from Columbus, had been open since September, but only one person applied. Brooking plans to repost it as a remote job. 

Even when MUW is present, the name impedes the elevator pitch.

“You only get two or three minutes to talk to a student at a college fair, if they’re even showing interest,” Brooking said. “We have to tell them what we’re not before we can tell them what we are.” 

Brooking’s new approach isn’t expected to bear fruit until this fall, Miller said. In the meantime, students can tell the campus is emptier. Laila Wrenn, a member of the student government and a resident assistant, has noticed there are fewer freshmen in the dorms. 

A junior on the pre-med track, Wrenn came to MUW for its close-knit campus, but she gets why others don’t. 

“It’s just not fitting what they wanted college to be, kind of how they portray college on TV,” she said. “When you’re at the W, it doesn’t fit that picture. It’s not a party school. People commute here. It’s really quiet and it’s down to earth, and I feel like a lot of people aren’t attracted to that.”

MUW does have one powerful tool on its side — cost. At $7,766, it has the second lowest tuition for a public university in Mississippi. (In contrast, a year of tuition at Mississippi State runs $9,400.) 

“If you’re gonna quote me on anything about that college,” said Ryan Ahrens, who graduated from MUW in 2021 with a business degree, “it is for sure and without a doubt the bargain of the century.” 

Competing for men — literally 

Ahrens, a Lowndes County native and transfer from East Mississippi Community College, was the exact kind of student MUW has been desperate to attract. And yet, he ended up there by accident. 

“I missed the admissions window for State, and then I said at least the W is still open,” he said. 

The university’s name is one reason it has struggled more than other former women-only colleges to attract men, according to a 2009 study commissioned when a past president, Claudia Limbert, sought to change the name. Since 1990, MUW has barely moved the needle on the number of men it admits, from 442 to 532 in 2020. 

For his part, Ahrens thought the two-year renaming process moved too quickly. But alumni don’t control the school, he said. 

“It’s not our job to have a hand in the pot, it’s our job to make the pot full,” he said. “In order for you to be proud of the university that you graduated from, it still has to be there decades after you leave it.” 

But the name is far from the only area of improvement Ahrens sees. He listed several things that, as a conservative, white member of a fraternity, he saw could be improved: The dorms, the outreach and a vibe he described as “a stern ‘what are you doing here’ kind of look.” 

“If you’re a man going through the W, you gotta go in with a strong mind and a thick skin cause people are gonna talk crap, like ‘you’re just another W girl,’’ Ahrens said. “Like no man, I’m a man.” 

And then there are sports. Changing the name, Ahrens said, is the hardest thing an MUW president has attempted to do since getting into the NCAA last year. Bringing back sports, which the university disbanded in 2003, is part of an effort to attract more students. 

It’s unclear if it’s working yet. Josh Dukes, a sophomore shooting guard from Booneville whose high school basketball team won the state championship, was enticed by the opportunity to help build MUW’s program from the ground up. 

But his family of five brothers (and one sister) jokes that Dukes is playing “women’s basketball.” The team has a losing record. The university’s name makes it easier for other players, Dukes said, to “get inside your head.” 

Losing its home turf

There is an elephant-sized bulldog in the room. 

When Miller attended MUW in the 1980s, it had a complementary relationship to Mississippi State. Male students would come to Columbus to drink and eat out, because Lowndes County was wet and Oktibbeha County was dry. Female students would go to Starkville for the games. 

It’s more competitive now. 

Today, MSU is roaring, enjoying record enrollments, major success in fundraising and a slew of new construction projects. It is also raking in an increasing share of the number of college students who hail from Lowndes County, making MUW the only regional college in Mississippi at risk of losing its home turf. 

In 2022, 450 students went to MUW compared to 432 to MSU, according to IHL data.

MUW is like a tiny planet that may be fated to fall into MSU’s orbit. 

“They’ve got more gravitational pull than we do being so close to them,” Brooking said. 

IHL classifies MUW as a “regional college,” yet MUW’s leaders know that in many ways, they are outmatched by MSU and EMCC. MUW must own its backyard, Miller said, but it also needs a name that can attract students from across the state and the South, one that gets at the one thing the small campus has: A private-college feel on a state-dollar dime that is accessible to all. 

“At Mississippi State or Ole Miss, you might be intimidated … by the people with connections,” Miller said. “Others might say, ‘I couldn’t compete against that.’ But here, we nurture people taking on responsibility and getting to be a leader.” 

But is that message connecting with Mississippians? 

In downtown Columbus, where the number of local businesses rival Oxford’s Square, Naiya Bell, a 21-year-old community college student who was looking for jobs with her friends, said she had considered MUW’s nursing program. 

But Brenda Heard, a landlord dropping off dry-cleaning who lives in Alabama, leases to MUW students but didn’t know if the university admitted men. Roderick Dillard, a firefighter, said his daughters went to MSU for the experience. 

“Kids like to get out,” Dillard said. 

Naomi Simpson and Angel Viveros students from the academically rigorous Mississippi School for Math and Science, were walking into a local bookstore as they recalled their high school’s recent college fair, which was held in MUW’s gym. Simpson listed off the tables she recalled Mississippi State having: Agriculture, the honors college, education and more. 

Then Simpson paused. For a moment, neither student could remember if MUW was there, too. It was, Viveros remembered.

Simpson shrugged. “Maybe I just didn’t go up to them.” 

The post Mississippi University for Women is betting its future on a new name. Will it work?  appeared first on Mississippi Today.