OurTupelo

The state Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a program to give grants to Mississippi’s struggling hospitals, but the amount of money for the proposed grants is yet-to-be determined as the measure heads to the House.

“This is still a work in progress,” Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, told colleagues. “We are waiting on more information from the Hospital Association … We were initially looking at $80 million. Hospitals say they would like $230 million. We want to know what their situation was prior to COVID, what happened during it, and what their plans for the future are, so we don’t end up back in the same place. Before they come asking for a pot of gold from the Legislature, we want to know what they will do with it and what they will be doing for the future.”

Senate Bill 2372, the Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant Program, is headed to the House, but with many details yet to be worked out, including how much of the state’s remaining federal pandemic relief money would be used. House Speaker Philip Gunn has said he supports helping hospitals with American Rescue Plan Act money, of which the state has about $400 million remaining.

Data from January shows 28 rural hospitals, or about 38%, are at risk of closing, with 19 at risk of immediate closure, putting Mississippi fourth in the nation for percentage of rural hospitals at near-term risk of closure. The latest report is somewhat better than a previous one, that 38 rural state hospitals were at risk of closure. But health officials say the state — which has long struggled to provide health care for its people — still faces a crisis.

READ MORE: ‘Slightly more breathing room’: Fewer rural hospitals at risk of closure, but threat still looms

There was brief debate on the measure Thursday before the Senate passed it.

Sen. Rod Hickman, D-Macon, said he supports the help for hospitals, but questioned how it will be administered and what agency would oversee it. “I just want to be sure it’s administered properly,” he said.

The bill says the Health Department would administer it, but Blackwell said that is still a matter to be worked out.

Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, questioned why Mississippi hospitals need a state bailout.

“During COVID, we saw a lot of money infused into hospitals,” Hill said. “I just can’t see the math where they’re in worse shape now. All that money was poured in here during COVID and now they’re broke.”

The grant program the Senate approved Thursday is one of several bills Hosemann announced at the legislative session’s start last month to address the health care crisis.

Hospitals, doctors, and other health experts have long advocated for Mississippi to join 39 other states and accept federal money to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor. Hospitals struggle in part from eating costs of treating poor people with no health coverage, and expansion would provide Mississippi about $1 billion a year in federal funds.

Hosemann has said he’s open to discussing expansion, but Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves oppose it, and all bills proposing expansion are now dead this legislative session.

READ MORE: Every Medicaid expansion bill dies without debate or vote

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, spoke to expansion on the Senate floor before Thursday’s vote.

“You can put $100 million in this (hospital grant) account, and have $100 million,” Blount said. “Or you can put $100 million in this account and have $1 billion. That’s the choice you are making.”

Other measures pending for Hosemann’s hospital plan would:

• Change “anti-trust” laws and other state legal barriers to “collaboration and consolidation” of hospitals in Mississippi.
• Create a nurse student loan repayment program for those who agree to work in Mississippi hospitals, an effort to address a statewide nursing shortage estimated at 3,000 nurses. Lawmakers created a program last year, but glitches in the law prevented the program from going into effect.
• Provide $20 million in grants for community colleges, universities and other programs that train nurses and other health workers. Hosemann said many programs have long waiting lists and shortage of faculty and equipment. The proposed program, also using ARPA money, would provide 75% of the grants to community colleges, and the remainder to universities or other programs.
• Provide more money for hospital residency and fellowship programs with ARPA money. Hosemann said residency and fellowship programs in medical or surgical specialty areas have been shown to help retain doctors in areas where they do their residencies or fellowships.

The post Senate approves grants for struggling Mississippi hospitals appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson’s problems are both real and serious — the water crisis was easily one of the biggest failures of government I’ve seen in my career. Crime is frightening and affects everyone in Jackson. It’s sad seeing a wonderful city struggle under the weight of all its issues. But I also know that the people who are cheering HB 1020 and other state takeover efforts would be mad as an over-caffeinated hornet if the Federal Government came down and took over the Department of Human Services because of the TANF scandal (also a massive failure of government.)

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

The Mississippi Senate on Wednesday passed with no debate a measure that would create a program to allow armed, trained teachers in Mississippi schools.

The measure now heads to the House for consideration.

Senate Bill 2079, authored by Sen. Angela Burks Hill, R-Picayune, would create a firearms training and licensure program for teachers in public and private schools that choose to participate. Mississippi Homeland Security, under the Department of Public Safety, would establish the program, training and licensure. The bill also tasks the DPS commissioner with coming up with guidelines for dealing with school shooting situations, “so we don’t ever have a situation like they did in Uvalde (Texas).”

READ MORE: How is Mississippi responding to the threat of school shootings?

Teachers participating in the program would have to have a state enhanced gun carry permit in addition to the training and certificate from the new program. The measure provides civil and criminal protections to armed teachers in the program.

Hill said the program is modeled on those in other states, including Florida and Texas.

The bill passed the Seante with no debate, although 13 Democrats in the 52-member chamber voted against it. Sen. Angela Turner Ford, D-West Point, questioned whether there were funds available for the program. Hill responded that there would like be grants available through Homeland Security.

DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell has proposed schools pay trained armed teachers a stipend of $500 a month. Hill said the bill passed Wednesday would make that stipend optional for school districts.

A recent survey by Mississippi Professional Educators showed 64% of its members supported having properly trained educators or school staff respond to shootings. Gov. Tate Reeves also recommended such a program in his budget recommendation to the Legislature.

The Mississippi Association of Educators said its member teachers have voiced concerns about the training, guns ending up in the wrong hands, and adding more duties for teachers beyond educating.

DPS and state Department of Education officials have said having a trained school resource law enforcement officer on every campus would be the best option, but that funding or lack of local officers can hinder that.

The post Senate passes bill that would allow armed teachers in schools appeared first on Mississippi Today.

FEBRUARY 9, 1944

Alice Walker, novelist and poet, was the eighth child born to sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia.

During her youth, she was accidentally blinded in one eye, and her mother gave her a typewriter, which enabled her to write. She studied at Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College, receiving a scholarship to study in Paris. She turned it down to go instead in 1965 to Mississippi, where she joined the civil rights movement.

Part of her work involved taking depositions of sharecroppers, who like her parents had been thrown off the land. She and her husband, civil rights attorney Mel Leventhal, married in New York in March 1967, and when they returned to Mississippi four months later, they became the first legally married interracial couple in the state, where interracial marriage was still illegal.

They persevered through death threats, working together on the movement. Leventhal served as lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Walker taught history to Head Start students and became pregnant. Grief overcame her after Martin Luther King’s assassination, and she lost her unborn child. She continued to teach, showing students at Tougaloo College and Jackson State University how poetry could be used in activism.

After moving to New York, she finished her novel, Meridian, which describes the coming of age of civil rights workers during the movement. In 1983, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Color Purple, which has since been adapted in both a movie and a musical.

She has continued to champion racial and gender equality in her writing and her life.

“Activism,” she explained, “is the rent I pay for living on the planet.”

The post On this day in 1944 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Longtime state Rep. Tommy Reynolds, a Democrat from Water Valley, successfully amended Republican-backed legislation designed to purge voter rolls to restore suffrage to military veterans who had lost their right to vote because of felony convictions.

Reynolds has in previous years filed bills to restore the right to vote to veterans who had been convicted of felonies. Those bills were never considered in committee.

But before the full House on Wednesday, Reynolds was successful in amending a bill he and other House Democrats would normally oppose to restore voting rights to members of the military.

After Reynolds’ amendment, House Bill 1310 passed on an 86-31 vote. The bill needed a two-thirds (or at least 78 yeas) vote to pass under guidelines of the Mississippi Constitution. The constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate to restore voting rights to those convicted of felonies. The bill now goes to the Senate unless the House Republican leadership attempts to call the bill back up to try to remove the Reynolds amendment.

The Reynolds amendment split the minority Democratic caucus. House Democrats have been working for years to change the state constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds vote of both chambers to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies.

Some of the Democrats still voted against the bill because of the voter purge provision. But other Democrats, such as Reynolds, supported it because of the amendment restoring voting rights to veterans.

Rep. Brent Powell, R-Brandon, the original author of the bill, told House members he was “vehemently” opposed to the Reynolds amendment because it would make it a two-thirds vote to pass.

Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the minority leader, said to Powell, “This amendment restores suffrage to veterans, people … who risked their lives for their country, and you are asking us to vote against that?”

Powell said he would be willing to consider the issue in a separate bill, but did not want it in his legislation because it raised the threshold to pass it.

“Military veterans and their right to vote is less important than you being able to remove people from the voter rolls?” Johnson asked.

The amendment passed on a voice vote. There was a loud voice vote in support of the proposal, and it appeared there would be a loud vote in opposition. But the voices of those in opposition trailed off dramatically and the speaker ruled that the amendment had been passed.

Mississippi is one of less than 10 states that do not restore voting right to all people convicted of felonies at some point after they complete their sentence. A lawsuit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court alleges the Mississippi provision is unconstitutional.

Besides restoring the right to vote to military veterans convicted of felonies, the bill would make multiple other changes to state election law, including:

• Authorizing the Secretary of State to audit county election procedures.
• Placing on an inactive voter roll those who do not vote in two consecutive federal election or one state and one federal election if they also do not respond before the next election to a card confirming they are still at the same address.

Democrats have opposed such voter purge efforts, saying that people may not vote because of multiple reasons, including not liking any candidate on the ballot. In other states with similar voter purge provisions, Democrats maintain that thousands of registered voters have been removed mistakenly from the rolls.

Reynolds also was successful in amending the bill to stipulate that people who voted in any election, including municipal elections or who responded to a jury summons also would not be subject to being placed on an inactive list.

The post Democrat amends GOP voter purge bill to restore voting rights to military veterans appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.

If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.

The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.

Mississippi’s capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black.

After thorough and passionate dissent from Black members of the House, the bill passed 76-38 Tuesday primarily along party lines. Two Black member of the House — Rep. Cedric Burnett, a Democrat from Tunica, and Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted for the measure. All but one lawmaker representing the city of Jackson — Rep. Shanda Yates, a white independent — opposed the bill.

“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, said while pleading with his colleagues to oppose the measure.

READ MORE: Hinds County forces unite against bill to create unelected judicial district, expanded police force

For most of the debate, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba — who has been publicly chided by the white Republicans who lead the Legislature — looked down on the House chamber from the gallery. Lumumba accused the Legislature earlier this year of practicing “plantation politics” in terms of its treatment of Jackson, and of the bill that passed Tuesday, he said: “It reminds me of apartheid.”

Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten, who served in the House before being elected judge and would be one of the existing judges to lose jurisdiction under this House proposal, also watched the debate.

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, who oversees the Capitol Police, watched a portion of the debate from the House gallery, chuckling at times when Democrats made impassioned points about the bill. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the only statewide elected official who owns a house in Jackson, walked onto the House floor shortly before the final vote.

Rep. Blackmon, a civil rights leader who has a decades-long history of championing voting issues, equated the current legislation to the Jim Crow-era 1890 Constitution that was written to strip voting rights from Black Mississippians.

“This is just like the 1890 Constitution all over again,” Blackmon said from the floor. “We are doing exactly what they said they were doing back then: ‘Helping those people because they can’t govern themselves.’”

The bill was authored by Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican whose hometown of Senatobia is 172 miles north of Jackson. It was sent to Lamar’s committee by Speaker Philip Gunn instead of a House Judiciary Committee, where similar legislation normally would be heard.

“This bill is designed to make our capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, a safer place,” Lamar said, citing numerous news sources who have covered Jackson’s high crime rates. Dwelling on a long backlog of Hinds County court cases, Lamar said the bill was designed to “help not hinder the (Hinds County) court system.”

“My constituents want to feel safe when they come here,” Lamar said, adding the capital city belonged to all the citizens of the state. “Where I am coming from with this bill is to help the citizens of Jackson and Hinds County.”

Many House members who represent Jackson on Tuesday said they were never consulted by House leadership about the bill. Several times during the debate, they pointed out that Republican leaders have never proposed increasing the number of elected judges to address a backlog of cases or increasing state funding to assist an overloaded Jackson Police Department.

In earlier sessions, the Legislature created the Capitol Complex Improvement District, which covers much of the downtown, including the state government office complex and other areas of Jackson. The bill would extend the existing district south to Highway 80, north to County Line Road, west to State Street and east to the Pearl River. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people live within the area.

Opponents of the legislation, dozens of whom have protested at the Capitol several days this year, accused the authors of carving out mostly white, affluent areas of the city to be put in the new district.

The bill would double the funding for the district to $20 million in order to increase the size of the existing Capitol Police force, which has received broad criticism from Jacksonians for shooting several people in recent months with little accountability.

The new court system laid out in House Bill 1020 is estimated to cost $1.6 million annually.

Democratic members of the House said if they wanted to help with the crime problem, the Legislature could increase the number of elected judges in Hinds County. Blackmon said Hinds County was provided four judges in 1992 when a major redistricting occurred, and that number has not increased since then even as the caseload for the four judges has exploded.

In addition, Blackmon said the number of assistant prosecuting attorneys could be increased within Hinds County. In Lamar’s bill, the prosecuting of cases within the district would be conducted by attorneys in the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is white.

Blackmon said the bill was “about a land grab,” not about fighting crime. He said other municipalities in the state had higher crime rates than Jackson. Blackmon asked why the bill would give the appointed judges the authority to hear civil cases that had nothing to do with crime.

“When Jackson becomes the No. 1 place for murder, we have a problem,” Lamar responded, highlighting the city’s long backlog of court cases. Several Democrats, during the debate, pointed out that the state of Mississippi’s crime lab has a lengthy backlog, as well, adding to the difficult in closing cases in Hinds County.

Lamar said the Mississippi Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to create “inferior courts,” as the Capitol Complex system would be. The decisions of the appointed judges can be appealed to Hinds County Circuit Court.

Democrats offered seven amendments, including one to make the judges elected. All were defeated primarily along partisan and racial lines.

“We not incompetent,” said Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson. “Our judges are not incompetent.”

An amendment offered by Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, to require the Capitol Police to wear body cameras was approved. Lamar voiced support for the amendment.

Much of the debate centered around the issue of creating a court where the Black majority in Hinds County would not be allowed to vote on judges.

One amendment that was defeated would require the appointed judges to come from Hinds County. Lamar said by allowing the judges to come from areas other than Hinds County would ensure “the best and brightest” could serve. Black legislators said the comment implied that he judges and other court staff could not be found within the Black majority population of Hinds County.

When asked why he could not add more elected judges to Hinds County rather than appointing judges to the new district, Lamar said, “This is the bill that is before the body.”

The post ‘Only in Mississippi’: White representatives vote to create white-appointed court system for Blackest city in America appeared first on Mississippi Today.

For the fourth time in two years, the Republican-led Mississippi Senate voted to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to mothers from 60 days to one year.

Supporters, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, call the move a “pro-life” effort to deal with the state’s new abortion ban and long-running high rates of death for infants and mothers.

It heads now to the House, where Republican Speaker Philip Gunn killed the measures without a vote last year, and where a similar House bill this year died in committee without a vote. But a recent survey of lawmakers by Mississippi Today shows a majority of House members said they support extending the coverage, as 28 other states have done and eight others are considering.

READ MORE: Survey: Majority of lawmakers support postpartum Medicaid extension

There was no debate Tuesday on Senate Bill 2212, which the Senate passed 40 to 11.

“This is the same exact bill we passed last session 45-5,” said Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven.

Seven Republican senators who voted either “yea” or did not vote last year voted “no” on Tuesday: Sens. Michael McClendon of Hernando, Benjamin Suber of Bruce, Chris Caughman of Mendenhall, Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, Philip Moran of Kiln, and Mike Seymour of Vancleave.

The other “no” votes on Tuesday were also “no” votes last year: Sens. Jenifer Branning of Philadelphia, Kathy Chism of New Albany, Angela Burks Hills of Picuyune, Melanie Sojourner of Natchez and Chris McDaniel of Ellisville.

On the floor Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Blackmon, D-Canton, to amend the bill to include broader Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor per the federal Affordable Care Act. Mississippi is one of 11 GOP-led states to refuse to accept federal money to expand the state-federal health program. Although Hosemann and a growing number of Republican lawmakers say they are at least open to expansion, Gunn, Gov. Tate Reeves and many other Republicans remain opposed.

After Blackwell warned colleagues that if they voted for Blackmon’s expansion amendment, “you in essence have killed this (postpartum) bill,” the amendment died with a 15-36 vote.

In Mississippi, with high rates of poverty and uninsured people, about 65% of babies are born to mothers on Medicaid. Because of lag times in being approved for coverage and the current 60-day cutoff, mothers often do not receive the prenatal and postpartum care they need — care that could prevent many major problems, many doctors and experts have testified to lawmakers.

The cost of extending the postpartum coverage is estimated at $6 million to $7 million per year. Many medical officials and advocates have told lawmakers extending the coverage would likely produce a net savings for the state by preventing dire medical conditions later from lack of treatment.

Blackwell, at a recent hearing on the issue, said: “The relatively minimal amount to provide this care compared to the cost later — it’s a no-brainer in my mind.”

But opponents of extending postpartum coverage — most of whom lump it in with broader Medicaid expansion — often criticize it as socialized medicine or welfare.

In his Jan. 30 State of the State address, Gov. Reeves urged lawmakers: “Don’t simply cave under the pressure of Democrats and their allies in the media who are pushing for the expansion of Obamacare, welfare, and socialized medicine … You have my word that if you stand up to the left’s push for endless government-run healthcare, I will stand with you.”

The post Mississippi Senate votes again to extend postpartum care. House vote remains uncertain appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The state Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would place the long-term control of Jackson’s water, wastewater and storm water systems under a nonprofit-led regional authority.

Under Senate Bill 2889, the majority of the board leading the nonprofit would be appointed by state leaders: three members from the governor, two from the lieutenant governor, and four from Jackson’s mayor. The board would then appoint a president of the authority, who would take charge of daily tasks and hiring personnel.

The new structure would take effect once the city’s federally appointed water manager, Ted Henifin, is no longer in his role. The federal judge who appointed Henifin left the timeline for that transition open-ended, only requiring Henifin to remain in Jackson until the city can maintain the water system on its own. Henifin suggested recently he would need at least five years to complete his duties.

The bill’s author, Sen. David Parker, a Republican who lives about 200 miles north of Jackson in Olive Branch, said that while the city’s water troubles have been a “black eye for Jackson, it’s also been a problem for the state as a whole.”

Despite the proposed structure in the bill, Parker refused to characterize the bill as taking control of the water system away from Jackson.

Citing the bill, Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, read, “‘The utility authority shall assume ownership, management, and control’ … so this is a taking, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I don’t consider it a taking,” Parker responded.

“Then what would you call it?” Horhn asked.

“I would say it’s a change of the structure to allow governance to move in a more people-friendly direction for generations to come,” Sen. Parker said.

“Who owns the asset right now?” Horhn asked.

“The city of Jackson owns (it),” Parker responded.

“And who will own the asset if this bill becomes law?” Horhn asked.

“The regional utility authority shall own the assets,” Parker said.

“It’s a taking,” Horhn responded, “It’s the same principal that we debated seven or eight years ago with the Jackson airport.”

As part of the changes he recently made to the bill, Parker said he combined his initial idea of a regional authority with the idea of a corporate nonprofit, which Henifin had raised in his recently submitted financial plan for the water system. The senator admitted, though, that he hasn’t yet discussed the bill with Henifin.

Henifin’s responsibility includes recommending a future governance structure for the water system. In his financial plan, Henifin didn’t propose any single option, but listed a nonprofit as the only option without any potential downsides. A key difference between his idea and SB 2889, though, is that Jackson wouldn’t lose ownership of the assets included in the drinking water system in Henifin’s proposal.

He wrote that keeping the system in the city’s control would mean limitations with procuring contracts, as well as a potential shift in priorities after each election.

The new version of SB 2889 also removed the requirement that the Jackson mayor would have to consult with the mayors of neighboring cities, Byram and Ridgeland, for two of his appointments, and shifted that requirement to the governor and lieutenant governor’s appointments. Jackson sends drinking water to Byram, and also handles some of Ridgeland’s wastewater.

The Senate approved the bill, 34-15, and the legislation now moves to the House. Senators also amended the bill with a reverse repealer, meaning that is has to come back through their chamber before going to the governor’s desk for final approval.

Horhn warned that lawmakers should consider what it would mean to take on the legal liability for the city’s water and wastewater systems, both of which are under federal consent orders. The city is also facing multiple civil lawsuits over drinking water issues. He said that lawmakers considered placing Jackson’s water under a regional authority last year, but backed away for that very reason.

“I wonder if we would even be here right now if the federal government didn’t give us $800 million,” Horhn said, referencing a recent historic investment of federal funds into Jackson’s water system.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba last week criticized SB 2889 and other pending bills that would interfere with the city’s water and judicial systems.

Reporter Geoff Pender contributed to this story.

The post Senate passes bill putting Jackson water under state control, House to vote next appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees voted to require an additional $345 million annually from state and local governmental entities to fund the pension plan for their current and former employees, lawmakers are considering changes to the system’s authority.

The PERS board voted in December to increase the employer contribution rate, which is paid by state governmental agencies, school districts, county and city governmental entities. The current government contribution is 17.4% of the employees’ paycheck. The board voted to increase the rate to 22.4%.

Ron Higgins, PERS executive director, said the increase is needed to ensure the system is properly funded long-term.

The increase means state agencies will have to provide an additional $265 million toward their employees’ retirement, and local governmental entities will have to provide the rest. If more money is not appropriated by the Legislature to pay for the increase, the state agencies, university and community colleges and local school districts will have to make cuts in other areas so they can meet the mandate of the PERS Board. Local governmental entities also are required to provide the funds for the increase. Under current law, the Legislature cannot prevent the employer increase from going into effect.

A bill is pending in the Legislature, though — House Bill 605 — that could be used to give the Legislature final authority over whether to enact such an increase. Legislators have expressed frustration this year with the PERS board’s decision to increase the employer contribution rate.

When asked if he planned to bring the bill up for consideration before the full chamber, House Appropriations Chair John Read, R-Gautier, said, “All I can say is the bill is on the calendar. It is out there. It might need some more research.”

During a recent meeting, Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, said he understands the need to ensure the pension plan is properly funded, but also expressed concern that the actions of the PERS Board have “a direct impact on the state agencies and programs and opportunities for other people to have jobs and salaries and not get laid off and have cuts in a number of areas.”

Higgins, the executive director of PERS, said, “We just have to make sure it is fiduciary (and) that the system is funded property.” Higgins said the board postponed recommendations of its financial experts to increase the rates in earlier years because of the impact it would have on state and local budgets.

But he said under state law, the only option the board has to correct any funding deficiencies is to increase the employer contribution rate. It would take the Legislature changing the law to allow the board to increase the employee contribution rate or to change the level of benefits. The Legislature has the authority to take such action.

Higgins said more than 300,000 people are members of the system, meaning they are current retirees receiving benefits or are eligible to receive benefits in future years because of their public service. He said the average retiree receives an annual benefit of $26,000.

The planned increase in the employer benefit, which is not slated to go into effect until October, comes on the heels of a year when the system lost more than 8% on its investments. The board postponed recommended increases in the employer contribution rate the past two years in part because of investment earnings of 32.71% in 2020.

But Higgins said the rate increase is not because of investment earnings for any one year. He said it is being enacted because of the long-term prognosis for the system.

The system’s current full-funding ratio is about 61%, meaning it has the assets to pay the benefits of 61% of all the people in the system, ranging from the newest hires to those already retired. It is recommended that a state retirement system has a funding ratio of about 80%.

Hopson pointed out that the Mississippi Public Employee Retirement System employer contribution rate and the rate paid by employees (9% of their paycheck) is among the highest in the country. Higgins agreed, saying the national rate for employees in similar plans is about 6% of their paychecks, and for employers about 15%. The employer rate in Mississippi is currently 17.4%.

Lawmakers questioned whether the board is hiring competent experts to oversee the system and to make investments.

Higgins responded the system’s investment earnings are comparable to those in other states.

But he said the system is stressed by the fact that additional benefits were added for employers in the late 1990s and early 2000s without a method to pay for those benefits.

In addition, the current governmental workforce is shrinking while the number of retirees in the system is growing. Higgins said during the past 10 years, the governmental workforce is down by about 10%, while the number of retirees has increased by more than 25%.

“Every time we take a public service at the state or local level that was performed by a PERS contributing employee and privatize and give it to a someone who is not contributing, that ratio gets more out of whack,” said Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson.

Higgins said the board could provide recommendations on how to reduce the cost to the system. In the past some legislators have talked about temporarily suspending or altering the annual automatic 3% cost of living increase. But outcry from retirees who represent about 10% of the state’s population has stymied those efforts.

Higgins said another option would be to change the benefits for new hires. While that would help long term, Higgins said it would not be an immediate fix.

Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Brookhaven, asked if the board had made any recommendations for the 2023 Legislature to consider. Higgins said it has not, but added it is his understanding that there is not an appetite to address the issue during an election year. But he said the board could provide recommendation.

The post Lawmakers ponder stripping state retirement system authority after board votes to raise rates appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Pot of Gold appeared first on Mississippi Today.