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Months after the Legislature passed a law directing millions to Mississippi’s struggling hospitals, not one has received that money, and far fewer than predicted will receive any money at all. 

That’s because lawmakers erred in writing the statute, according to State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney.

Legislators in February established the Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant Program, which was supposed to disseminate $103 million in grant money to hospitals via the state Health Department. Despite a record state budget surplus, it was millions less than the state hospital association had asked for, but hospital leaders agreed it would help keep them afloat. 

However, somewhere in the legislative process, the source of the funds was changed from the state’s general fund to federal COVID-19 relief dollars, which come with regulations. Because many of the state’s hospitals have already claimed some form of pandemic relief funds, those hospitals are ineligible for the money – an issue that lawmakers apparently did not consider. 

“Unfortunately, you picked the wrong pot of money,” Edney told legislators at a Joint Legislative Budget Committee meeting on Sept. 29. 

But lawmakers are placing the blame back on the Health Department, which was awarded $700,000 to disburse the money. 

“Effectively you’re cutting out two-thirds of the hospitals,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said. 

“I’m not cutting out any,” Edney refuted. “The program is cutting out two-thirds.”

A spokesperson for the Mississippi State Health Department confirmed to Mississippi Today that 75 hospitals, about two-thirds of the state’s hospitals, have applied for the money. 

Edney said at the meeting that only half of those facilities will receive anything. 

Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, asked for a list of hospitals eligible to receive the money. Edney said it was “at the office,” before clarifying a few minutes later that he’d asked agency auditors and accountants to make an official document explaining the program and its challenges and would soon provide that to lawmakers. 

When asked by Mississippi Today about the previously referenced “list,” Edney would not provide it and said it was still “fluid.”

“Let me be clear: Are you announcing to the public today that the hospitals, as it stands now, are not going to be awarded these funds we put in place?” Lamar asked. “Do the hospitals know this yet?”

Edney replied that he has been talking to hospital CEOs “one by one.”

Paul Black, the recently retired CEO of Winston Medical Center in Louisville, told Mississippi Today in May that he was disappointed in the failures of the grant program’s appropriations bill.

“Most everybody knows the challenge,” he said. 

The challenges of the program apparently came as news to the legislators, though.

Lamar, the chairman of the powerful House committee that deals with tax policy, and Hosemann, who announced a broad plan during this year’s session to help the state’s failing rural hospitals that included this grant program, appeared especially frustrated.  

“As recently as a month or two (after the session), I contacted your office and it was 85% (of hospitals) were gonna qualify,” Hosemann said. “So this has been some administrative change that we were not aware of either during the session or shortly thereafter.”

Lamar, too, questioned why these issues were coming up months after the program’s inception. The governor signed the bill in April. 

“There was no secret what we were working on,” he said. 

Edney maintained that the Health Department brought up concerns about the source of the money during the legislative process.

“Believe me, Mr. Chairman, I’m extremely frustrated with this,” Edney told Lamar. 

Edney gave the lawmakers a few options. 

They could wait to distribute funds after fixing the program when the 2024 Legislative session starts in January, or they could activate the program now and send out the money to the roughly 38 hospitals that qualify. Edney also claimed there was a way to get the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to all hospitals, but the current statute would have to be changed to do that. 

Hosemann previously told Mississippi Today that he would support legislation at the beginning of the next session to make up the difference between what hospitals were supposed to get and what they actually got from the program. 

Edney’s recommendation at the meeting was to dole out the money to the hospitals that are eligible because of the state’s dire health crisis. Those hospitals report losses upwards of half a billion dollars, he said. 

One report puts nearly half of the state’s rural hospitals at risk of closure. At least one hospital has already closed this year, and several have applied for a federal designation that would slash services in order for more money. He said many more hospitals are reducing the services they offer to cut costs.

But Edney was adamant that he could not make the final call.

“Y’all need to make that decision,” he said. “I need to be given direction.

“The heartburn for me is I know activating the program as it stands is not what y’all intended,” Edney told the committee, before Hosemann cut him off, asking for data from the agency to make an informed decision about what to do next. 

Edney still hasn’t been told what to do, he said in an interview with Mississippi Today on Tuesday.

“I know that (the Legislature’s) desire is to get funding to hospitals the quickest way that they can,” he said. “The options are before them and they’ll decide. They’re still evaluating information being given.”

The post Legislators passed a bill that promised millions to hospitals. Months later, apparently only a third qualify. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Incumbent Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson said he’s cut red tape for businesses, worked with lawmakers to make elections more secure and will push for major campaign finance reform if reelected.

Democratic challenger Ty Pinkins said Mississippi’s economy trails most of the rest of the country, and Watson had many years as a state senator before his four as secretary of state to champion campaign finance reform but didn’t.

The two candidates spoke and fielded questions at the Stennis Institute of Government’s Capitol Press Corps Luncheon on Monday. The forum was billed as “non-debate format,” and the candidates took the podium and spoke and answered questions in turns.

“I think Mississippi deserves a better choice on the ballot this November,” said Pinkins, a late entry into the race, replacing the former Democratic nominee who dropped out for health reasons. “… I’m running for secretary of state because I’ve been all over this state and people in Mississippi are ready for someone to lead. The problem is we have the wrong people in some of these offices … Mississippi is still near last economically because of the failed policies implemented by Republicans.”

Watson itemized numerous accomplishments in his first term, including registration of more than 250,000 new voters, working with lawmakers to prevent “ballot harvesting” and making voting machines more secure. He said his office has streamlined business services and cut red tape.

“Despite what you may hear from some of my (media) friends here today, it’s a great time to be a voter in Mississippi,” Watson said.

Both candidates vow to reform Mississippi’s weak, often unenforced campaign finance laws and reporting.

Watson said his office has a request for proposals out on a new computer system, and will work with the Legislature to create a publicly searchable campaign finance data system like most other states have. He has said he would push for his office to take over enforcement of campaign finance violations since no one else appears interested and said he has already been meeting with legislative leaders on other reforms.

Pinkins said he also would work to make campaign finance reports transparent and searchable.

“Our campaign finance reporting system is broken, and it didn’t just break last week, it’s been broken a long, long time,” Pinkins said. He said he also would push for online voter registration, no-excuse early voting and same-day voter registration on election day.

Both candidates are attorneys.

Watson, 45, from Pascagoula, served in the state Senate from 2008 to 2020. He ran his own law firm, focusing on business, construction and probate law.

Pinkins, 49, from Vicksburg, is a decorated U.S. Army veteran who served three combat tours, a former White House communications aide and former lawyer with the Mississippi Center for Justice.

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Mississippi is one of the most uninsured states in America, according to new data.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, released last month, shows that in 2022, Mississippi had one of the highest percentages of people without health insurance coverage in the country, along with Alaska, Wyoming, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia and Florida. 

States in the South had some of the highest uninsured rates, according to the survey.

The same survey showed that Mississippi has the fifth highest uninsurance rate among working age people from 19 to 64. Only Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Wyoming have worse uninsurance rates. 

Another Census survey, the Household Pulse survey, conducted from Aug. 23 to Sept. 4 shows Mississippi had the highest level of uninsurance among working age people during that time frame. Almost every one in five Mississippians ages 18-64, or 20.44%, likely didn’t have insurance, according to a Mississippi Today analysis of the data.

It also shows that during that period 16.9%, or about one in six Mississippians of all ages, were uninsured. That’s an increase from 14.7% in March, according to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, though a researcher from the center said the latter survey’s results should be carefully considered. 

The Household Pulse survey can be used to monitor trends and data, but Robert Hest, a senior research fellow at the center, said it shouldn’t be used to draw definitive conclusions because of its short data collection period and low response rate. 

The American Community Survey is more reliable, he said. 

“We would be very surprised to see that Mississippi has the nation’s highest rate of uninsurance,” he said. “Mississippi’s uninsured rate, though often among the highest, is typically lower than uninsured rates in other states such as Texas, Florida and Georgia.”

According to the American Community Survey, Mississippi’s total uninsured rate was 10.8% and its uninsured rate among people aged 19 to 64 was 16.4% in 2022. 

The new data comes as states across the country review the eligibility of Medicaid beneficiaries for the first time in three years. During the pandemic, state Medicaid divisions were prohibited from removing anyone from their rolls. Those regulations ended in May. 

So far, almost 70,000 people have been kicked off Medicaid in Mississippi — most of them because of paperwork issues, not eligibility. Many of the people who have been disenrolled are children. 

From March to September, Mississippi’s overall Medicaid coverage decreased from 19.8% to 16.7%, the survey also shows. 

State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said health insurance saved his life — and cost him his father’s. 

Edney’s father, who didn’t have health insurance, died at 56 of colon cancer, a preventable disease, he said. At 47, Edney underwent a screening that detected premalignant polyps – a discovery he credits to having insurance and access to preventative care. 

“I want all Mississippians to have the same access to life-saving screenings that I have, but too many are dying young as my father did,” he said. 

Mississippi’s high uninsured rate is costing hospitals, too. 

As the state’s health crisis continues, uncompensated care costs — the money hospitals lose caring for uninsured patients — are putting further burden on hospitals.

Uncompensated care costs for Mississippi hospitals have hovered around $600 million a year. According to one study, Medicaid expansion would cut Mississippi hospitals’ uncompensated care by an average of $251.6 million a year from 2020-2030.

One report puts almost half of the state’s hospitals at risk of closing. 

Gov. Tate Reeves recently announced a plan to help bring more money to hospitals, but reiterated his opposition to Medicaid expansion at the same press conference. 

His plan will likely keep some hospitals open for longer, but it won’t insure more Mississippians. That means uninsured people in Mississippi will generally have to continue to rely on the emergency room for their medical care — emergency rooms cannot turn away patients, though doctor’s offices and pharmacies can. 

“Investing in our hospitals is critically important, and we need solutions to help uninsured Mississippians have access to our hospitals, especially outpatient services, which are critically important for improving poor health outcomes,” Edney said. “Without appropriate access to preventive services, it will be difficult to improve our extremely poor health outcomes.”

Alex Rozier contributed to this report. 

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Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, who about10 months ago made Ted Henifin the new face of Jackson’s drinking water system, gave Henifin the keys to the city’s sewer system as well.

Wingate, as well as city and state officials, indicated his support in late July for Henifin and his company, JXN Water, to take over the sewer system. The federal government then held a month-long public input period, and received comments from 666 people. Of those comments, the Department of Justice said that 95% supported Henifin taking over the sewer system, 4% were critical and 1% listed as “other.”

After the parties in the case — which include Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency, the DOJ, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality — had a chance to review the comments, Wingate officially approved the order on Saturday.

Since 2013, the federal government has held the city’s sewer system under a consent decree over constant infrastructure failures. The consent decree requires Jackson to make certain improvements, yet the city has failed to do most of the required work since then because of a lack of funding, Jackson officials maintain. For years, Jackson has struggled to prevent untreated or partially treated sewage from entering the Pearl River, as well as overflows that form streams along city streets.

“There are about 215 overflows right now across the city, and they’re in neighborhoods where people live close by,” Henifin said in a press release. “It’s just a mess, and we’re going to get at it right away.”

The order is set to last four years, but could end sooner in the case of another consent decree, or if JXN Water completes its assigned list of projects before then. The stipulated order requires JXN Water to submit quarterly reports, and hold public meetings within 30 days of each report.

With the new responsibility, Henifin and JXN Water have a $1.126 million budget for the first year of work, which includes $750,000 for contracting and consultant services, $280,000 for staffing, and $96,000 for Henifin’s compensation.

The new order includes a list of 11 priority projects — listed in Appendix C — for JXN Water to address, which include rehabilitating the city’s wastewater treatment plants and sewer interceptors, as well as making repairs to 215 “emergency sewer” failures throughout the city.

Prior to coming to Jackson and before his work with the U.S. Water Alliance, Henifin led the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in Virginia, which handled wastewater for 1.7 million residents.

The public comments criticizing the new sewer order centered on issues that advocates have raised about Henifin’s work with the drinking water system — which he took over last November through a similar process — such as local contracting and financial transparency.

The sewer system order largely remained the same after review of those comments, but the parties agreed to address transparency concerns by requiring financial disclosure of all accounts that fund sewer projects in the quarterly reports.

In regard to contracting, Henifin said that he intends to seek out local and minority businesses to work on sewer projects. He added that he’ll continue work with the national engineering firm Veolia, which has three years left on its pre-existing contract to operate the city’s wastewater treatment plants.

In the past, city officials estimated that fixing Jackson’s sewer system would cost around $1 billion. Henifin has said he hopes that improvements to the city’s water bill collections will eventually help fund sewer improvements. The order also notes $125 million in available funding through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as $8 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars that will be partially matched by the state.

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Four of America’s 100 U.S. senators will hail from Mississippi after California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to replace longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died last week at age 90.

Butler, a 44-year-old native of Magnolia and alumna of Jackson State University, is the head of the group EMILY’s List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights. She will be the third Black woman to serve in the Senate and the first LGBTQ member of the Senate from California.

Butler, who is currently a Maryland resident but will soon switch her voter registration to California, landed the appointment from Newsom to fill the remainder of Feinstein’s term, which ends in 2024.

“I am honored to accept Gov. Newsom’s nomination to be a U.S. Senator for a state I have long called home,” Butler said in a statement Monday. “I am humbled by the Governor’s trust. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s leadership and legacy are immeasurable. I will do my best to honor her by devoting my time and energy to serving the people of California and the people of this great nation.”

Butler will join three other Mississippi natives in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi’s senior senator, is from Pontotoc and graduated from University of Mississippi. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mississippi’s junior senator, is from Brookhaven and graduated from University of Southern Mississippi. And Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee’s senior senator, is from Laurel and graduated from Mississippi State University.

The post Laphonza Butler, California’s newest senator, will join three other Mississippi natives in U.S. Senate appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with restauranteur Randy Yates. Yates founded and owns Ajax Diner on the Square in Oxford, Miss.

Opened in 1997, Ajax Diner fed Oxford as the city changed and grew. Yates talks about the highs and lows of the restaurant business, including the challenges faced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The post Mississippi Stories: Randy Yates appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Oct.1, 1851

Citizens of Syracuse, New York, broke into the city jail and freed William “Jerry” Henry, who had escaped slavery in the South and was now working as a barrel-maker. A monument now honors that rescue. 

Henry, who had been arrested, faced a hearing on whether he would be returned to Missouri and enslaved again. The Rev. Samuel J. May, a Unitarian minister and abolitionist, visited Henry in jail and told him to stay calm. 

“Would you be calm with these irons on you?” Henry asked. “What have I done to be treated so? Take off these handcuffs, and then if I do not fight my way through these fellows that have got me here, then you may make me a slave.” 

May whispered to Henry that they planned to rescue him. May, like others, had been moved by the sight of Henry “dragged through the streets, chained and held down in a cart by four or six others who were upon him; treated as if he were the worst of felons; and learnt that it was only because he had assumed to be what God made him to be, a man, and not a slave — when this came to be known throughout the streets, there was a mighty throbbing of the public heart; an all but unanimous uprising against the outrage. There was no concert of action except that to which a common humanity impelled the people. Indignation flashed from every eye. Abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Bill poured in burning words from every tongue. The very stones cried out.” 

Henry’s case also drew support from prominent abolitionists Gerrit Smith and Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen, A Methodist minister who had once fled slavery himself. 

At the ring of a church bell, thousands stormed the jail, where Henry was being held, and some began to pelt the jail windows with stones. After a marshal fired a shot, the crowd used a battering ram to break down the jail door and free Henry, whose wounds were treated and his shackles removed. 

Days later, men secretly transported him to an Underground Railroad stop in Mexico, New York, and from there across the border into Canada, where he lived for the next 41 years —free. Oct. 1 became a local holiday known as “Jerry Rescue Day,” the day when people stood up against slavery.

The post On this day in 1851 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

About a decade of “emergency-style budgeting” at Delta State University has all but maxed out its credit and created an $11 million hole that is poised to be an unavoidable existential threat. 

Fixing the budget won’t be easy, Daniel Ennis, the new president, warned the campus during a town hall on Thursday. It must happen within five years and will require across-the-board cuts, including to salaries and positions, in part because the regional college’s single-best source of revenue — enrollment — has cratered by 48% in the last 16 years.

“Delta State has to exist,” Ennis said. “It must — for the Delta, for the region and for the state.” 

The grim update comes a week after Ennis spoke to the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees during its annual retreat, which was held this year at the White House Hotel in Biloxi. Unlike most IHL board meetings, the retreats are not live-streamed. 

“If I’m giving this information to the IHL, I should give it to you and then give you the opportunity to ask questions,” Ennis told the campus. 

Though he presented roughly the same information at both events, Ennis expanded on the situation in Biloxi, telling trustees that he likely won’t be able to reduce the university’s budget from $51 million to $40 million without becoming the “most unpopular president in Delta State’s history.” 

“I don’t care as long as there is another president at Delta State,” he said. 

Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, was also forthright about the stakes: “There’s nothing, nothing, nothing more important than the financial health” of Delta State.

“You have my support,” Rankins added, “because … any friends you have, you’re going to lose them.” 

Delta State isn’t alone in some of the issues it faces — colleges across the country are struggling with declining enrollment and its resulting financial woes. 

Much of that is outside Delta State’s control. The downturn in undergraduate students correlates “almost perfectly” with population loss in the Mississippi Delta, Ennis said at the town hall. In 2006, when the university had 3,298 undergraduate students, about 70% were from the Mississippi Delta — a percentage that has dropped to just over half of the 1,708 undergraduate students this year. 

But, Ennis added, the university’s budget problems are largely self-inflicted. The budget is around $51 million when it should be more like $40 million. 

In his first four months in office, Ennis said he found inadequate spending controls and contracted but unbudgeted expenses, such as an employee on payroll who had been hired with pandemic relief funds that had run out. The university repeatedly overestimated its revenue from facilities, merchandise and other non-tuition sources. 

“The running of deficits year after year has eaten into our reserves,” he said. 

And there were a number of “unexpected” and costly legal and personnel issues, which Ennis said weren’t clear to him when he applied for the job. Among those issues was a lawsuit from a former Iranian art professor who alleged he was discriminated against by the Turkish department chair. In late July, the university decided to settle after a federal court decided the case could go to trial.   

“Every university and every large organization has legal and personnel issues,” Ennis said. “There was just, I thought, an unusual number for the size of the institution.” 

In his first month of the job, Ennis said he had to find $1 million so the university could meet its statutory obligation to balance the books. 

“I had one night of sleep and then the next day we’re in a new fiscal year with a new deficit already in place,” he said. “So, a challenge. Not what I expected, but that’s where we are.”

Though enrollment appears to be on the slight uptick — mainly due to an increase in graduate students — the university won’t clear its financial hurdles through better recruitment alone. 

Delta State’s location in Cleveland puts it in a kind of double-bind: It exists to serve the Delta, but there are increasingly less people in the Delta.  

“You should be really proud of the fact that you work at a place that cares about a disadvantaged group of people in a part of America that many folks write off or don’t even think about,” Ennis said. “The challenge is, if your investment is in recruiting students from the Delta, and the Delta writ-large is losing population at an alarming rate — for reasons that have nothing to do with Delta State and everything to do with social economic opportunity in other parts of the United States, then you can see we have declined.” 

There has to be more fundraising, Ennis said. Delta State should be receiving more federal funding. He also committed to doubling the university’s capital campaign to $100 million. Though unorthodox, Ennis said this is his only chance to increase the endowment. 

There will also be cuts that Ennis said will be decided through a budget committee composed of administrators, faculty and staff. 

But individual sacrifices will have to be made, Ennis said. He tried to encourage everyone to not turn against each other — or against him — when it comes time for budget cuts. 

“At a certain point there’s going to be less of everything,” he said. “Personnel, money, equipment and opportunities because we have to right-size the budget. And there’ll be all kinds of temptation to start thinking about my area, my budget, my place, my stakes.” 

When Ennis took questions, Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor, said he understood that “everything is on the table” but wanted to know specifically if Ennis will also consider cuts from the presidential and vice presidential level. Ennis said yes. 

Jamie Dahman, a professor who joined the music department in 2016, thanked Ennis for his seeming honesty and transparency. 

“That’s something that’s been missing from Delta State leadership since I’ve been here,” he said. 

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