Legislation to guarantee rape victims treatment at Mississippi hospitals faces an uncertain future hours before its deadline. Meanwhile, survivors continue to be turned away in Mississippi hospitals.
Just two weeks ago, a child who was allegedly raped was turned away from an emergency room in central Mississippi, according to his mother. The child’s mother gave Mississippi Today permission to quote her without using her name.
“They just said they don’t do it there,” she said. She then drove nearly an hour to a Jackson hospital where she was able to get a rape kit for her son.
Hospitals in Mississippi are not required to perform rape kits.
Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, is spearheading the effort to change that. McLean’s original bill died earlier in the session, but she revived the legislation in Senate Bill 2211, which faces several more legislative hurdles – including an 8 p.m. deadline Monday.
Meeting that deadline would mean three House conferees and three Senate conferees on the conference report would need to reach an agreement. Conferees have yet to come to an agreement as of the time the story published, due partly to a concern about the impact on hospitals.
“The needle we’re trying to thread is: everyone wants to do everything we can and need to for rape victims. I mean, who’s not for helping rape victims?” said Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, one of the conferees. “But, some of the language, at least at first blush, when the hospitals and their legal teams looked over them, basically said, ‘Wait a minute, y’all are trying to tell ER docs how to practice medicine inside the ER.’”
Several advocacy and law enforcement groups released a statement Sunday suggesting the Mississippi Hospital Association is “leading deceptive pushback” and attributed several claims to them that were “easily disproven.”
Mississippi Hospital Association CEO Richard Roberson refuted the press release, saying his organization has only ever expressed one concern and offered tweaks in language to make sure the bill conformed with federal law. He said MHA supports the legislation regardless of whether or not lawmakers heed his suggestions.
“We are disappointed that anyone would accuse the Mississippi Hospital Association of working against this bill,” Roberson said. “MHA has met with stakeholders and offered language to strengthen the bill so that it conforms to federal law. MHA has been and is supportive of the legislation. Any characterization that MHA has not been supportive is false. MHA will continue to support victims of sexual assault – hard stop – and we will follow the law as the Legislature deems it to be.”
Even if lawmakers file a conference report Monday night, the legislation will have a hard time passing the final hurdles of the session – due to political infighting. Since the two chambers haven’t reached an agreement for the annual budget, the session could end in a stalemate and force the governor to call a special session before July 1.
If the session ends without a budget, anything that hasn’t already been signed into law by the governor would need to be rushed through the legislative process, and it’s unlikely that lawmakers would have time to do that for all the conference reports not yet filed.
Mississippi Today is looking to speak with patients who receive or have received services at the Jackson Medical Mall. We’d like to speak with people who’d be willing to share their experiences for a story about the history of the medical mall and the relocation of UMMC services away from the mall, including cancer center, OB-GYN, and pain management services.
It remained unclear on Monday whether legislative leaders will engage in last-minute negotiations to revive around 100 budget bills that died over the weekend or adjourn this year’s session without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies.
If lawmakers leave the Capitol sometime this week without passing a state budget, dozens of state agencies, which provide critical public services, could be in limbo when the new state fiscal year starts July 1.
To restart negotiations, lawmakers would have to pass a parliamentary measure to revive the budget bills and extend the session, which requires a two-thirds majority of support from the House and Senate.
“That would be my urged course of action,” House Speaker Jason White said of a suspension measure. “But it takes two. I’ve been reminded this weekend that we have a Senate, and it’s a bicameral Legislature.”
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves could also force legislators into a special session to pass a budget. This would give the constitutionally weak governor more power than he normally has over legislation. During a special session, governors have the sole ability to set the legislative agenda, and lawmakers can’t take up or pass legislation outside that agenda.
The session crashed over the weekend when the House and Senate failed to come together to negotiate a budget. White and the House refused to meet with the Senate on a key deadline day because they did not want to hurriedly pass a budget.
Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders said they tried starting early last week to engage with House leaders on spending bills, but the House refused to engage with them.
Many senators feel burned by the House over the budget negotiations and how it handled the passage of legislation to eliminate the state income tax. This is why several senators from both political parties on Saturday said they would not vote to extend the session.
Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons said he did not support passing a resolution to extend the session and would encourage his caucus to vote against such a measure should it come before the Senate.
“We don’t want to create a situation where people can pick and choose when they want to work, and then we have to support extending the session or a suspension resolution when we believe it’s completely unnecessary and it’s uncalled for,” Simmons said.
Several Republican senators have pledged they won’t support a suspension resolution. If Republicans follow through on that promise, they’ll likely need Democratic support to clear the two-thirds requirement.
Speaker White said he would likely meet with Senate leaders on Monday afternoon or Tuesday to discuss how the two chambers should proceed.
Another sticking point appears to be using surplus cash in the budget for special projects.
White said Senate leaders told him they did not want to spend any capital expenditure money, or surplus money, for these projects. White called this move “short-sighted” and will anger mayors and supervisors around the state.
This money is used for several purposes, but the most fought over pot of this money goes toward local projects, called the “Christmas Tree” bill. This money, usually in the $200 million to $400 million range, gets divided all over the state for various projects such as renovations to volunteer fire departments, sports fields and parks and to repave rural county roads.
Mississippi Today reporter Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.
The 2025 regular session of the Mississippi Legislature appeared to come to a halt on Saturday, after the over 100 bills that make up the state’s $7 billion annual budget died in a standoff between the House and Senate — primarily over whether to work over the weekend.
To revive the budget bills and end this year’s legislative session roughly on time, the House and Senate would have to agree to a parliamentary extension of deadlines and the session, or Gov. Tate Reeves would have to force them into special session sometime before the new budget year starts July 1. Numerous senators, on both sides of the aisle, on Saturday vowed they wouldn’t vote for extending the session.
That would appear to leave one option, have Gov. Tate Reeves force lawmakers into special session sometime between now and the end of the state’s fiscal year June 30th.
Besides costing taxpayers easily $100,000 a day to pay, feed and house lawmakers, staff the Capitol and legislative services offices and other expenses, a special session also gives the constitutionally weak governor a little more control over legislation, in that he can control what items are on the agenda.
Although they’re all Republicans, House and Senate leaders — including Hosemann and Speaker Jason White — have politically clashed for the last two years and had trouble agreeing on major issues.
This latest standoff was whether to meet over what was scheduled to be “conference weekend,” the deadline to reach agreement on at least the broad strokes of the budget. For the last two years, House Speaker Jason White has said he wants to start negotiating on the budget earlier and not be crunching numbers and haggling late on the Saturday night deadline.
For years, rank-and-file lawmakers have complained that they often don’t have time to read the lengthy budget bills because of the rushed nature of Saturday night budget negotiations, which has also caused lawmakers and staff attorneys in previous years to make mistakes in legislation.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders on Saturday blasted House leaders for not working over the weekend, and many senators vowed not to agree to vote to suspend rules and extend the session, which would require a two-thirds majority vote of each chamber.
“In Mississippi over the last 24 hours some liberal activists (mostly the ones that masquerade as journalists) are making claims of errors, omissions, mistakes, and changes that need to be made to HB1 – the bill that eliminates the income tax!” — Gov. Tate Reeves, on social media, before Republican legislative leaders admitted publicly they passed a bill full of errors, omissions, mistakes and changes and said they might negotiate ways to fix it. The bill, largely because of the snafu, lacks safeguards both House and Senate leaders said were needed to protect the state economy, such as growth “triggers” for income tax phase out and an offsetting increase in sales taxes.
In Brief
Legislative special election runoffs set for April
Runoffs will be held April 22 for special state House elections in Districts 23 and 82 after voters narrowed the fields last week.
Perry Bailey and Colby Bollinger will face off in a runoff for the District 23 seat to represent parts of Calhoun, Lafayette, Pontotoc and Webster Counties, replacing Rep. Andy Stepp, who died late last year. Bailey formerly held the seat but lost reelection to Stepp in 2023.
For District 82, serving the Meridian area of Lauderdale County, Gregory Elliott will face Joseph Norwood in a runoff to replace Rep. Charles Young, who also died late last year. – Geoff Pender
Prenatal care for poor women is now law, again
A bill to help poor women access prenatal care became law Monday – without the governor’s signature.
Last year’s legislation never went into effect because of administrative hiccups. Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, re-worked the bill this year to match federal guidelines so the program can take effect.
Presumptive eligibility for pregnant women allows low-income women who become newly eligible for Medicaid once pregnant to receive immediate coverage as soon as they find out they’re pregnant – even if their Medicaid application is still pending. The program is especially effective in states that have not expanded Medicaid, like Mississippi.
The policy will go into effect immediately. However, not all providers will participate and those who wish to will need to apply for the program through the Mississippi Division of Medicaid.
Mississippi Today will continue to monitor providers participating in the program.
Expectant mothers will be eligible if they make below 194% of the federal poverty level. That’s about $29,000 annually for an individual, or $50,000 annually for a family of three.
Requests to Gov. Tate Reeves’ office for comment on why he chose not to sign the bill were not returned.
When the governor receives a bill, he has five days to either sign it into law, let it pass into law without signing it, or kill it. Letting a bill pass into law without signing it is a way for the governor to allow a policy that has overwhelming support from lawmakers to become law without endorsing it himself. – Sophia Paffenroth
Governor signs paid family leave into law
A bill to give six weeks of paid family leave to state employees became law Tuesday with the governor’s approval.
House Bill 1063 will apply to state employees who adopt or give birth to a child and are the primary caregiver for that child. It applies to employees working for state government agencies but does not include public school teachers.
Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, author of the bill, said he would consider expanding provisions in the future to possibly include public school teachers and/or secondary caregivers.
The legislation passed the House unanimously and the Senate overwhelmingly.
It will go into effect Jan. 1, 2026. – Sophia Paffenroth
Federal judges will hold legislative redistricting hearing
A federal three-judge panel will hold a hearing on April 8 to determine if the Mississippi Legislature’s proposal to redraw some of its legislative districts is sufficient to give Black voters a chance to elect candidates of their choice.
The court previously determined that lawmakers diluted Black voting strength when they originally redrew districts in 2022 to account for population shifts.
The Legislature created a new House map with a majority-Black district in the Chickasaw County area and a new Senate map with two new majority-Black districts, one in the DeSoto County area and one in the Hattiesburg area.
The plaintiffs in the litigation, the NAACP, object to parts of the newly proposed map, leaving the final decision to the federal court. – Taylor Vance
Senate leader says ‘Christmas tree’ bill in doubt
Senate leader says it’s unclear if lawmakers will pass a “Christmas Tree” bill
As the Legislature winds down its 2025 regular session, Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins said he’s unsure if lawmakers will agree on a “Christmas Tree” bill, the legislation that doles out millions of dollars around the state for local projects.
Harkins, a Republican from Flowood, told reporters last week that a compromise between the two chambers on a projects bill will depend on how the final budget looks and legislative leaderships’ spending priorities.
For rank-and-file lawmakers, delivering state money for local projects is a major priority because they will typically tout the projects to their constitutes as major accomplishments. The bill is typically one of the last items lawmakers vote on before the end the regular session. – Taylor Vance
By the Numbers
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The current state general fund budget for the coming fiscal year that starts July 1, after lawmakers failed to pass budget bills by a Saturday deadline because of in-fighting between the House and Senate Republican leadership.
Full Legislative Coverage
GOP tax battle gave Mississippi Democrats golden opportunity. Instead, they just went along for the ride
There’s about to be a lot less money for Mississippi government to spend. How and where it’s spent will be even more crucial, dire for poor, rural areas of the state. Mississippi Democrats (and some rural Republicans) missed a golden opportunity to demand changes to the political spoils system GOP leaders have used for doling out state money, which leaves many poor and-or rural areas out in the cold. Read the analysis.
Gov. Reeves signs typo tax overhaul bill into law to phase out income tax, trim grocery tax and raise gasoline tax
Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill to overhaul Mississippi’s tax system — one that many lawmakers inadvertently voted for because of typos — into law on Thursday. This sets Mississippi on a path to become the first state to eliminate an existing income tax, when the tax is phased out in about 14 years. Read the story.
Replacing blight with baseball: Jackson puts Legislature on notice of its multi-million dollar needs
But proportionate to its size, Jackson is frequently shortchanged by the end-of-session earmark legislation, a process driven by politics as opposed to studied need. In the past three sessions, Jackson, the state’s largest city with a population around 150,000, has received just $5.9 million for improvement projects. That’s in comparison to $38.6 million for the 28,000-resident Tate County, the home of House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, Mississippi Today reported in its 2024 investigation on earmarks. Read the story.
Policy analyst: Income tax elimination risks significant harm to Mississippi’s future
The state’s tax system is regressive, meaning that the state’s top income earners pay a smaller share of all state and local taxes than their share of all income. Meanwhile, the bottom 80% of the state’s income earners pay more. Read the story.
Bill changing certificate of need law heads to governor
A bill cleared the Legislature Wednesday that will make it easier for medical facilities to make capital improvements and require the state’s only academic medical center to seek state approval before opening educational facilities outside of Jackson. Read the story.
Speaker says House willing to renegotiate typo tax bill
House Speaker Jason White acknowledged for the first time on Monday that House leaders knowingly passed a typo-riddled plan to overhaul Mississippi’s tax system that Senate leaders have since admitted was a mistake. Read the story.
How did the Mississippi Typo Tax Swap Act of 2025 happen? Legislative recap
In one of the most bizarre episodes under the dome on High Street of modern times, the Mississippi Legislature inadvertently passed the first total state income tax elimination in American history due to some Senate typos. Then Senate leader Delbert Hosemann, who had opposed the measure for months and sent the flawed bill to the House by accident, tried to declare victory.Read the story.
Lawmakers struggle to agree on budget, or even when to work, as session draws to a close
Mississippi’s legislative leaders on Friday remained so far apart on crafting the state’s multi-billion dollar budget that at least some of the individual bills to fund state agencies will die on a legislative deadline. Read the story.
Governor vetoes bill hospital head said would help stabilize their budgets
Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill Thursday that would help stabilize hospitals, citing alleged contradictions and the loom of a deficit among his concerns. Read the story.
Shocker! All six lawmakers appointed to finalize the bill banning Mississippi DEI programs are white.
The leaders of the Mississippi Legislature — House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann — are not practicing diversity, equity and inclusion in legislative efforts to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Read the commentary.
Podcast: Tarrif trade war, rising costs, immigration: Mississippi Ag Commissioner Andy Gipson discusses challenges facing Mississippi farmers
Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson gives Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender and Michael Goldberg an update on the challenges facing Mississippi farmers, including the burgeoning trade war with countries that buy our chicken, soybeans, cotton and other products as well as rising costs and immigration/labor issues. Gipson, a man of many hats besides his trademark cowboy one, also discusses his recording an album! “I’ll sing at the drop of a hat, even if I drop it myself,” Gipson said. Listen to the podcast.
Filing taxes is an exercise almost all Americans go through in the first part of each year, but those tax filings can differ based on a number of factors, including our income levels, where we live and our employment status.
Some tax tips are universal to all filers, while other advice may be specific to those who operate small businesses or work for themselves. Self-employed filers have certain distinct tax considerations, and general advice may not always apply to those who work for themselves or employ others. Changes to the tax code, especially with a shift in presidential administrations, could also have an effect on tax obligations, and may have a different impact on self-employed filers.
If you’re a small business owner or otherwise self-employed, here are some things you should keep in mind to help you get through this tax season.
Gather your documents
Have a detailed log on hand of the money coming in and out of your business. Even if you have an electronic system in place, items like sales slips, bills, invoices, receipts and canceled checks are generally key supporting documents for calculating and validating your tax filings. Organize these records and keep them in a safe place. If your business employs others, keep track of your payroll records, including documents showing wages, benefits and withholding.
If you’re a business owner…tailor taxes to your business structure
Your tax filing obligations depend on the type of business you’re running. If you’re self- employed, you might be considered a sole proprietorship, meaning you own and operate your unincorporated business as an individual or married couple. Sole proprietors generally report business income and losses on their personal U.S. federal income tax return (using Schedule C), but you could have other taxes and filing requirements, such as those related to self-employment earnings.
Other business structures include Limited Liability Companies (LLC), Limited partnerships (LP), C Corporations and S Corporations. Get familiar with the specific tax requirements for your business structure.
Don’t forget state taxes
If you reside in a state that imposes income tax, calculate your state tax liability using the process applicable to that state. Tax rules may vary by state and some states have their own tax credits and deductions for businesses.
Meet your deadlines
The deadline for filing federal individual income tax returns in 2025 is Tuesday, April 15. If you need more time, you can generally file for an extension, pushing the deadline to Oct. 15. This extension applies only to the filing of the return – you still must pay any taxes owed by April 15. State income tax deadlines can vary – many are the same as the federal deadline but check with your state’s tax agency for your specific due date
Ask the experts
Speaking with a tax professional who can help you determine good strategies for your business can help you remain compliant and successful. Consult a tax professional before making decisions about how to structure and strategize for your business.
Keep up with tax changes
As we’ve entered a new presidential administration in 2025, any tax code changes enacted this year would likely go into effect next tax season at the earliest. Of note: Many of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in 2017, are currently set to expire at the end of 2025. That expiration or any potential new changes may impact your 2026 taxes when you file in 2027.
The bottom line
Staying on top of your taxes can be among the most time-consuming tasks for a business owner. Consider working with an accountant or tax professional who can guide you through the specific requirements for your business and help you respond to any changes in tax laws, rules or regulations.
Now might be the perfect time to grab those IRS forms, organize your invoices and receipts, and consult with an expert so you can tackle tax day like a pro.
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Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other Senate leaders on Saturday excoriated the Republican House leadership, after the House didn’t show up for what was supposed to be “conference weekend” to haggle out a $7 billion budget.
“There is no reasonable explanation for this,” Hosemann said. “… A special session will be very expensive. We just cut taxes, but now we’re going to go spend tens of thousands of dollars so (the House) can have the weekend off. I hope they enjoy their weekend off. If anyone sees any of their House members this weekend, they need to ask them, why didn’t you do your job? Where were you?
“It’s embarrassing,” Hosemann said. “We all took the same oath … We adopted the rules. We all agreed to be here … If we can’t set a budget, that means, for Child Protective Services, we have little girls tonight having to stay in hotel rooms. Teachers can’t sign their contracts for their jobs … Highway patrolmen are out there not knowing how much they’ll get paid … This is chaotic, and it’s senseless.”
The roughly 100 bills that make up the state’s annual budget died with Friday and Saturday night deadlines.
To revive the budget bills and end this year’s legislative session roughly on time, the House and Senate would have to agree to a parliamentary extension of deadlines and the session, or Gov. Tate Reeves would have to force them into special session sometime before the new budget year starts July 1. Numerous senators, on both sides of the aisle, on Saturday vowed they wouldn’t vote for extending the session.
“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Hosemann said. “You heard what the senators were saying.”
Besides costing taxpayers easily $100,000 a day to pay, feed and house lawmakers, staff the Capitol and legislative services offices and other expenses, a special session also gives the constitutionally weak governor a little more control over legislation, in that he can control what items are on the agenda.
Lawmakers had expected to end this year’s three-month session by the middle of next week, with setting a budget being one of the final chores.
Although they’re all Republicans, House and Senate leaders — including Hosemann and Speaker Jason White — have politically clashed for the last two years and had trouble agreeing on major issues. Recently, they passed a tax overhaul bill to the governor that would eliminate the state income tax, long a goal of White and House leaders.
But Senate leaders have cried foul over the manner in which it was passed into law. The House seized on typos in the Senate bill that made it more like the House position, and Gov. Reeves signed it into law.
With the tax battle going on for most of this session and causing ill will, the House and Senate have killed much of each other’s other major initiatives and bills.
The House on Friday had announced it was leaving for the weekend and would return Monday.
For the last two years, White has said he wants lawmakers to start negotiating on the budget earlier in the legislative session and try to avoid crunching numbers on the Saturday night deadline, referred to as “conference weekend,” which happens late in the session.
For years, rank-and-file lawmakers have complained that they often don’t have time to read the lengthy budget bills because of the rushed nature of Saturday night budget negotiations, which has also caused lawmakers and staff attorneys in previous years to make mistakes in legislation.
Last session, lawmakers ironed out most of the budget during conference weekend, but White said he told Hosemann that would not be the case this year.
“We’re just not going to be up here in the middle of the night doing a hurried budget,” White said. “We’re through doing that from here and all years forward.”
White told reporters that House leaders had signed off on their proposed budget bills and sent them to the Senate before a Friday night deadline. But Hosemann and other Senate leaders on Saturday said that never happened. They said not only did House leaders not send budget bills over, they ghosted Senate budget negotiators most of last week, preventing early agreements being reached. And, Senate leaders said, the House closed its daily journal and docket rooms early at least a couple of days, meaning the Senate couldn’t deliver and file bills.
Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, on Saturday said he suspects discord over the tax overhaul, and the Senate refusing to agree with the House on legalizing online gambling played into the current budget stalemate. But he said he gets along with his House counterparts and the problems are more at the leadership level.
“As much as I respect the speaker, I don’t understand this,” Wiggins said. “… Really, what this is doing is holding hostage agencies and the running of state government because of some issues they have … People send us here to get our business done in the 90 days we have. I just want to keep us from becoming like Washington, D.C., because D.C. is not exactly the bastion of efficiency.”
Such a standoff, and potential special session, has loomed over much of the 2025 session, when it appeared the House and Senate would remain at loggerheads over the tax overhaul, until the Senate accidentally agreed with the House with the typos in what it passed.
Mississippi University for Women’s administration went back to the drawing board last year after attempts to rebrand to a genderless name were met with resistance from alumni and inaction in the Legislature.
“Please note that we will always be The W,” the president, Nora Miller, wrote in a statement late last February. “It is our past, our present, and our future.”
But by mid-March 2024, MUW was uncertain it had a future at all.
In a surprising move, a senator from south Mississippi had proposed merging the state’s only liberal arts institution into Mississippi State University, a behemoth land grant in Starkville about 30 miles from MUW. The effort had replaced a bill to transfer the location of the Mississippi School for Math and Science, the state’s only residential school for gifted children, from MUW to MSU.
Amid this messy moment, MSU internally came up with its own name for MUW.
“In fact, the campus could be known as the W – representing Workforce,” the provost, David Shaw, wrote in a white paper named “Vision for Columbus” that he circulated to his administrative colleagues on March 11.
The “vision for Columbus” went further: In the white paper, Shaw conceived of turning MUW into a campus for nursing, speech pathology and culinary arts, plus other technical and workforce programs such as a college focused on professional and continuing studies. Freshman and sophomore courses would stay in Starkville, but some programs could be transferred to Columbus.
Two days later, the merger bill died in the Senate. Its author, Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, and other key lawmakers including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told Mississippi Today and The Commercial Dispatch that they never saw the white paper.
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I don’t remember anything like that because we talked about a lot of stuff last year regarding The W and MSMS,” DeBar said, referring to the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.
Rep. Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville who chairs the House Education Committee, was also surprised.
“That’s a new one to me,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Younger, a Republican who represents Lowndes County, said he doesn’t remember being presented with a new plan for the MUW campus.
“If it was, I didn’t read it because I was just fighting against it,” he said.
MSU has never made any publicovertures for taking MUW, and its strategic plan does not include acquiring another campus. Last year, President Mark Keenum publicly said his university did not propose or initiate the takeover bill.
“We appreciate the institutional confidence in MSU that this proposal implies, but I emphatically reiterate that MSU did not seek and has not requested this action from legislative leaders,” he said in a statement.
This session, the land grant university appears to have mainly focused on acquiring MSMS after the State Board of Education requested both it and MUW submit proposals to house the residential high school before later approving MSU’s plan. A bill to merge MUW and MSU has not been reintroduced this legislative session.
But questions about the white paper, which sketched out what MSU would need from the Legislature to acquire MUW, remain unanswered. An MSU spokesperson, Sid Salter, said the university had no comment, and Shaw did not return multiple calls and an email requesting comment.
Miller said she was not surprised to learn of the proposal. She said MUW already contributes to the state’s workforce, especially its nursing program, where more than 80% of graduates continue to work in the state.
But she added that the notion of turning the state’s only public liberal arts institution into a campus for workforce development disregards other facets of MUW’s identity, like its music program or the Welty Symposium.
“We are an important provider of workforce in the community and in the state,” Miller said. “While I’m ready to embrace that, I think it just changes the fabric of this institution, of its founding and of what people really associate with us.”
As a part of its plan for Columbus and MUW, Shaw wrote that MSU would “reimagine the campus to make it unique in Mississippi with a distinct identity,” drawing on work it has done to build up its Riley campus in Meridian.
After spending a year listening to local, regional and state leaders, MSU would also bring new programs to MUW’s campus and build on existing partnerships with industry and other institutions, like the Columbus Air Force Base.
“MSU would explore expanded partnership with East Mississippi Community College, effectively creating an 82 corridor, also meeting the needs of the industry at the GTR (Golden Triangle Regional) airport and industrial park,” Shaw wrote.
This was not proposed as an immediate cost-saving measure, however. In the white paper, Shaw noted that in order for it to take over MUW, MSU would need to retain the same level of state appropriations that MUW was already receiving — and receive new funding to transfer MSMS to Starkville.
MSU would also need approval to demolish or transfer ownership of “buildings in disrepair” and “consideration of financial exigency to allow elimination of unnecessary or duplicative positions on the campus of the W.”
Miller said the local community would be saddened to see some of MUW’s buildings go.
“It would break my heart to see some of these historic buildings demolished when I think of the lives that have gone through those buildings, that have lived there, that have meant so much,” she said.
But some in MSU’s administration saw this as an opportunity. Responding to Shaw, Salter wrote in an email on March 12 that “the disposition of buildings is where MSU can win back city and county support and grow community buy-in.”
Salter suggested talking with local leaders about the buildings, adding, “Who needs, wants what?”
Crucially, the white paper also noted that MSU would need funds for the transfer of MSMS to Starkville “to be co-located with the Starkville Oktibbeha School District high school to be constructed on the MSU campus.”
While The W’s enrollment dropped by 1.5% this year to 2,193 students, Miller said lawmakers will find her school excels in other data points.
“If they want to judge us by the affordability for our students, the amount of debt that we’re helping with, with the employability of our graduates, if they want to look at the number of degrees – if they look at all of those, we do very well,” Miller told The Dispatch in November. “If they’re just looking at headcount, yes, we’re smaller than we used to be. Most regional institutions across the country are smaller than they used to be.”
Though the merger bill did not return this session, the future of higher education remains on lawmakers’ minds. The chair of the Senate Colleges and Universities Committee, Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, used her chamber’s anti-DEI bill to reintroduce a taskforce, which failed to pass last year, to study efficiency in the state’s higher education.
Boyd has repeatedly stated the goal of her taskforce is not to close or merge universities, but she plans to hold committee hearings this fall to examine some of the issues she hoped the taskforce would probe.
Indeed, “efficiency” was important for MSU’s vision for Columbus. Salter wrote on March 12 that administrative functions like public relations, campus police, and dining contracts could be combined, depending on how robust the new “workforce” campus would be.
“Imperative to identify who among the current MUW personnel needs to survive the merger and be visible in the new regime,” he wrote.
Reporters for Mississippi Today worked in partnership with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.
The Mississippi State Auditor’s office on Friday said it had launched an investigation into allegations that Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey had staffed his mother’s commercial chicken farm with jail inmates who were in his custody.
The investigation follows an article published Thursday by Mississippi Today and The New York Times in which former inmates and a former deputy described working on the farm and using equipment and supplies bought with taxpayer money.
“We’re all aware of the reporting,” said Jacob Walters, communications director for State Auditor Shad White. “We read the article, and Auditor White has ordered an investigation to begin yesterday morning, when we became aware of the story.”
White’s office can investigate potential misuse of government resources and file lawsuits to recoup taxpayer money. It does not have the authority to file criminal charges, but Walters said the office had alerted federal prosecutors to the allegations.
Sheriff Bailey did not respond on Friday to requests for comment.
In a statement issued late Thursday to some local media outlets, officials at the sheriff’s department acknowledged that Sheriff Bailey had sent inmates from the Rankin County jail to work at his mother’s farm, but said the inmates were always paid.
The department did not share the statement with Mississippi Today or The Times. Several other news organizations published it, reporting that it had come from Jason Dare, the attorney for the sheriff’s department. The statement said that the article by The Times and Mississippi Today had “maliciously used unreliable sources and/or false allegations in an attempt to tarnish” Sheriff Bailey’s reputation.
Over six months, reporters from Mississippi Today interviewed more than 20 former inmates of the Rankin County jail and three former deputies. They also reviewed more than 1,000 pages of county records. The reporting showed that for years, inmates with special privileges, known as trusties, had been brought to the farm to perform a variety of jobs, including cleaning tons of chicken feces and used bedding from chicken houses.
Dare’s statement did not directly address many of the details described by former trusties and by Christian Dedmon, a former Rankin County deputy who is serving a federal prison sentence for his part in torturing two Black men in 2023.
For example, Dedmon said Sheriff Bailey and others had used a $97,000 skid steer, bought in 2019 with department funds, to mulch, till soil and spread gravel at the farm. The statement did not address whether that was true.
Instead, the statement noted that the sheriff “owns a skid steer that is all-but identical to and commonly confused for the one owned by Rankin County.” In interviews before the article’s publication, Dedmon said the sheriff had used the county’s skid steer on the farm for years before purchasing his own skid steer and attachments.
Dedmon also said that Sheriff Bailey had instructed him to take truckloads of gravel from a Rankin County government storage yard and deliver the gravel to Sheriff Bailey’s family farm to be spread on dirt roads. Dedmon and a former trusty said they would sneak into the yard at night, using magnets to cover the department seal on the vehicle they used.
Dare’s statement did not address those details. It said that Sheriff Bailey had covered roads on the farm with gravel and crushed concrete purchased or donated from local businesses.
“I’m sure he’s purchased gravel at some point in his life, but I also know we took a lot, too,” Dedmon wrote in an email to Mississippi Today on Friday.
Mississippi Today reported that the department had spent about $600 on a brooder house, chicken netting and heat lamps that are designed to keep chicks warm. Those purchases were for a chicken coop at the jail that is used by inmates to get fresh eggs, the statement said.
Dare did not respond to calls or emails from Mississippi Today reporters seeking clarification about the statement.
Over the past few months, the reporters repeatedly asked department officials about work done by trusties, and about department purchases related to chicken farming; Dare declined to explain the purchases and said that Rankin County government officials would not provide comment for the article.
In recent days, local news outlets have been inundated with hundreds of comments about Sheriff Bailey, though elected officials in Rankin County have largely avoided comment.
Some local residents remained supportive of the sheriff, despite a series of revelations over the past two years that have clouded his time in office. In 2024, five Rankin deputies, including Dedmon, were sentenced to decades in federal prison for their role in the torture of two Black men. An investigation by Mississippi Today and The Times revealed a decades long reign of terror by sheriff’s deputies who called themselves the Goon Squad.
Grant Callen, the founder and chief executive of Empower Mississippi, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group that works on criminal justice issues, said the allegations were “just the latest in a string of appalling and inexcusable behavior.”
“Individuals are innocent until proven guilty,” Callen said, “but leadership matters.”
Steph Quinn is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today.
This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures, a nonprofit research foundation that supports journalism.
Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill Thursday that would help stabilize hospitals, citing alleged contradictions and the loom of a deficit among his concerns.
“Depending on one’s perspective, there are either 25 million, 38.5 million, 40 million, or 50 million reasons to stand in the way of this bill becoming law,” Reeves said in his veto statement, ostensibly referencing the amount by which the Mississippi Division of Medicaid’s budget would increase.
The same day he vetoed the Medicaid bill, Reeves signed into law a tax bill containing typos that many lawmakers had inadvertently voted for.
Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, author of the Medicaid tech bill, chose not to override the veto Friday – meaning the bill is likely dead.
Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, listens as lawmakers discuss a bill concerning Medicaid expansion at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Blackwell declined to comment on the governor’s veto.
A main thrust of the bill would be to lock in place supplemental payment programs that have been a lifeline for hospitals – but which are unreliable as they vary from year to year, according to Richard Roberson, CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.
“The language that was vetoed on the (supplemental payment) program was intended to basically allow hospitals budget stability and predictability so that they would not be worried about constant changes and fluctuations in how they get paid by Medicaid,” Roberson explained.
Each year, supplemental payment programs bring in around $1.5 billion federal dollars to Mississippi hospitals.
Reeves said in his statement that locking the program in place is in contradiction with another of the bill’s mandates, which would change the program to allow out-of-state hospitals that border Mississippi to participate in the supplemental payment program.
“Complying with both requirements is a legal impossibility and places the Division, like Odysseus, between Scylla and Charybdis.”
But Roberson said the language of the bill would not prohibit the programs from growing – it would merely clarify what hospitals need to do to get paid.
Reeves also said the bill “seeks to expand Medicaid.” The bill brings forth code sections related to eligibility requirements, but it doesn’t call for expanding the Medicaid population by increasing the income threshold, which is what is typically referred to as “Medicaid expansion.”
Reeves’ veto letter mentioned other proposed changes in the bill were beneficial to the state, while still others were problematic. His office did not respond to Mississippi Today by the time of publication on which changes he saw as beneficial and which were problematic.
Another bill alive in the Legislature could be used as a vehicle to insert language from the tech bill. That bill, referred to as a “dummy bill” because it is currently void of details, has been referred to conference, where six lawmakers will hammer out the details.
House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, one of the conferees, said she is looking to the Senate for direction on future plans for the vetoed bill.
“As this is a Senate bill, they will have first action on the next steps,” McGee said. “We are staying in communication with Chairman Blackwell and Senate leadership as to what that might look like.”
