Rankin County deputies accused of beating and torturing two men earlier this year have been fired, Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced Tuesday.
“We understand that the alleged actions of these deputies has eroded the public’s trust in our department,” Bailey said in a prepared statement shared during a news conference.
“Rest assured that we will work diligently to restore that trust.”
The night of Jan. 24, six deputies conducting a drug investigation raided a Braxton home where Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker were living. In a $400 million lawsuit against the county and sheriff’s department, the men said they were unlawfully imprisoned and tortured for 90 minutes, culminating in a deputy placing his service weapon in Jenkins’ mouth and pulling the trigger.
Bailey said the deputies were initially placed on administrative leave pending findings from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Recent developments and findings from an internal investigation led to the deputies’ termination Friday, he said.
The sheriff did not name the deputies, but the lawsuit identifies three of them as Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin and Christian Dedmon.
The county, sheriff and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit have not yet responded to the lawsuit complaint.
On Tuesday, Bailey said actions have been taken to ensure the sheriff’s office serves and protects the public and ensure that all citizens’ rights are protected.
Those actions include a detailed analysis of policy, procedure and training of staff. The department has also hired a full-time compliance officer to monitor daily operations and ensure compliance with state and federal law, he said.
“It is my privilege to serve the citizens of Rankin County as Sheriff and it has been my daily goal to run one of the best departments in the State of Mississippi,” Bailey said in the statement.
“I believe in my heart that this department remains one of the best departments in our state and I am committed to doing everything in my power to keep this department on a correct path moving forward.”
Hospital CEOs are leaving at increasingly higher rates in Mississippi since the pandemic.
The state’s hospital CEO turnover rate was 17% in 2021, according to the most recently available data from the American College of Healthcare Executives.
The percentage has been creeping upward since 2019. It went from 10%, considered a “low” turnover rate by the ACHE, to 13% in 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and shot up 4 more percentage points the next year.
Now, Mississippi’s turnover rate is “high,” according to the organization.
The percentage of hospital CEO turnover has fluctuated over the past decade — Mississippi’s highest turnover rate was 27% in 2014. But Tim Moore, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association, said recent numbers are concerning.
“Mostly, I think it’s a testament to how difficult the job is now,” he said.
Just this month, the CEOs of Singing River Health System on the Gulf Coast and St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson, two of the biggest hospital systems in Mississippi, resigned from their positions to lead hospitals elsewhere.
Moore, who was a hospital executive himself for more than two decades, said the job is nonstop and has only gotten more demanding since the pandemic.
“There’s no question it had a huge impact, and a lot of that goes back to the financial perspective,” he said. “You can't get to the position where your revenues exceed expenses. There's no business that can survive that. So that's the situation they’re in currently and trying to figure out.”
Hospitals are struggling in Mississippi and across the country, decimated by the pandemic. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform puts a third of the state’s rural hospitals at risk of closure within a few years.
And as the state of health care gets increasingly precarious, one study found that CEO exits nationwide hit a four-year-high in January of this year.
Data from the ACHE show that nationally, hospital CEO turnover rates have generally remained steady from 2012 to 2021, aside from 2013 when the percentage shot up to 20%. In 2021, the most recently available year, the rate was 16%.
Doctors and nurses have gotten more expensive, Moore said, and harder to come by. Data from Moore’s organization show that Mississippi’s nurse vacancy and turnover rates have skyrocketed in the past decade.
“You're just … you're up against another wall,” he said.
Mississippi, our home state that showcases plenty to be proud of and celebrate, also faces some pretty dire and complex problems.
Federal and state prosecutors are still investigating the state’s welfare scandal, what some have labeled the largest embezzlement scheme in state history in which tens of millions of dollars intended for our poorest residents were misspent or squandered by powerful, wealthy and politically connected people.
Our state’s already weak hospital system is continuing to show signs of impending failure, with many rural hospitals on the brink of closure and even large metropolitan hospitals forced to cut critical health care services and lay off employees to make ends meet.
Residents of Jackson, our state’s capital and largest city, lost running water for days last fall and may never be able to trust the safety and reliability of the water system again. The state as a whole has the highest homicide rate in the nation, our state’s young people are moving away at a troubling pace, and our economy is struggling to keep up with our immediate neighbors.
Voters this year have a chance to address all of these problems and more at the polls in August and November. Candidates for the state’s most powerful elected positions are already sharing their ideas for how to create a better future for all Mississippians.
Mississippi is one of just three states with gubernatorial elections this year, meaning we’ll get lots of national attention in the campaign for governor. But we also have seven other crucial statewide offices up for grabs, two key regional commission elections, as well as 174 legislative races and district attorney races. All of these people will be elected by Mississippians later this year to positions where they absolutely could improve problems and lives across the state.
We’re already becoming overloaded with rhetoric from both sides of the political aisle, making it difficult to understand which ideas from candidates are real or feasible. We have critical questions for those seeking office, but it’s often impossible to sift through talking points to understand which of those ideas could be most effective for us.
That’s why we wanted to create this voter guide, where you can find most everything you need to know about our 2023 statewide elections. We’ll keep asking every major candidate for office this year key questions about how they would use their positions of power for good, and we’ll present their answers in an easy-to-digest way.
Here, you will also find basic information about how to vote, as well as critical voting deadlines. We believe that civic engagement is the most effective way we can help move Mississippi forward. We hope this will be a helpful resource as you navigate these next few weeks before Election Day, but we want to know how it could be improved.
If you don’t see something you’d like to know, view our full coverage. There, you’ll find the most robust, comprehensive coverage of Mississippi politics. If you still have questions or suggestions for us, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
And don’t forget to vote on Aug. 8, and then again on Nov. 7!
The Mississippi Department of Education says its hands are tied when it comes to the $100 million in additional funding allocated to school districts this year because of disagreements in the Legislature about how to distribute it.
“We have not been given a clear direction on how it is that we are to calculate how we divide up the $100 million,” Interim state Superintendent Mike Kent told Mississippi Today.
The Mississippi Department of Education defines enrollment as the “number of students belonging to a school unit at any given time.” The definition goes on to explain that enrollment is an “ever-changing” number, meaning that calculations of enrollment are tied to a specific time period.
The text of the law says the money is to be distributed based on “average daily enrollment or the total number of students enrolled for each day in each public school district or charter school divided by the total number of school days.”
Kent said he originally thought the extra $100 million was to be distributed based on enrollment in months 2-3 of a school year, similar to how students are counted for the public school funding formula. However, when he followed up with the Legislative Budget Office after the session ended, the office said it needed to check and would get back to him. Two proposals emerged, one from the Senate to count enrollment using months 1-8 of the school year, and a plan from the House to count it based on months 2-3.
“Our intention with the $100 million language in the appropriations bill was to disburse this money to school districts on the average daily enrollment,” said Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leaksville. “I think the language as we crafted it was clear, and our intention on the Senate side is to follow the language in the law. I don’t believe we should be deviating from what the language in the statute says.”
During the session, House leaders refused to add additional money to the school funding formula after the Senate brought forward a proposal to rework it. Though on Tuesday, a source close to House leadership told Mississippi Today it was always the intent of the House to distribute this separate money using the same method as the school funding formula, which uses months 2-3. The source said there is a standard that has always been followed and the Legislature needs to continue to follow that precedent.
Kent said MDE ran calculations multiple times to show legislators how the different proposals would play out. He said the difference between the options was “negligible.”
Despite this, Kent said the department cannot proceed without official guidance from the Legislative Budget Office.
“We are, to a great extent, a flow-through agency … and there are always strict guidelines about how that money flows,” he said.
He added that, while the difference between the options is small, it’s enough that if the department “arbitrarily” made a decision, “there would be people that would have a problem with it.”
Budget bills take effect July 1, giving the Legislature just a few days to resolve the matter before the education department is supposed to start distributing the money.
“The language in the statute in the appropriations was clear that the money should be disbursed based upon the number of students throughout the school year,” said DeBar, the senate education chair. “I expect that the Department of Education will follow the law and disburse that money as of July 1.”
Kent said this delay was a point of stress for district superintendents because it limits their ability to budget for the upcoming school year and get new projects approved by their school boards. To address this, Kent wrote an email earlier this month to superintendents explaining the dueling proposals and gave them an estimate of $236 per student.
“The districts were so eager to know the number because there are programs and projects and personnel that every district wanted to do, but they needed to know, am I talking about hiring two additional teachers or three? Can I build six classrooms or twelve classrooms?” he said.
After Mississippi Today published an emailed tirade by state Democratic Party Chairman Tyree Irving that some fear could jeopardize $250,000 in funding for the state party, one of the top Democratic statewide candidates is calling for Irving’s removal as party boss.
Shuwaski Young, the lone Democrat running for secretary of state this year, said the state Democratic Party’s executive committee should promptly remove Irving from his post.
“It is my hope — and I hate it has to come to this — that Tyree Irving will be removed as chair of the Mississippi Democratic Party for the sake of Mississippi and the collective futures of our residents,” Young told Mississippi Today in an interview late Monday. “I don’t see any other path forward.”
Emails published Monday showed that Irving sharply criticized Andre Wagner, the state party’s executive director and No. 2 leader of the party, in a note that was sent to three Democratic National Committee staffers. Shortly before Irving sent the email, the DNC officials had committed to sending the state party $250,000 to boost political programs and support candidates “up and down the ballot.”
Wagner had sought in an email to clarify Irving’s previous comments about how the state party should spend that $250,000 from the national party. Then Irving, a 77-year-old former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge who has been party chairman since 2020, insisted that he alone ran the state party and that Wagner was “out of order.”
“Mr. Wagner, you do not speak for the chair, and you are out of order,” Irving wrote. “I am an accomplished jurist. I know and understand things that you cannot know or understand because: you do not have the education level, you do not possess the personal or vicarious experience that I have, and you know nothing about the historical political landscape of Mississippi. You are not in a position to speak for the Mississippi Democratic Party or say how the Mississippi Democratic Party will spend any funds without being granted that authority to speak, and it has not been granted to you. You are a salaried employee and nothing else. You need to find your place and stay in it.”
Wagner, in response, forwarded the exchange to other state party leaders and predicted that the national party would pull its commitment to send the money to the state party. Several other Democratic Party officials told Mississippi Today they shared Wagner’s concern.
Young, who faces incumbent Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson in November, said on Monday that Irving’s comments were “shocking and unacceptable,” and that several high-ranking state Democratic officials felt the same way.
“The chairman’s main job is to fundraise and to support candidates up and down the ticket,” Young said. “When you have a chairman acting in this outrageous way, it makes people not want to invest into the party. It makes people not want to donate to candidates. And politically, it makes it harder for Democrats to win. When we can’t operate in a coordinated fashion because our leader can’t respect other people, it hurts every Democrat in the state. We have to be able to have our house in order, and that’s clearly not the case.”
The process of removing Irving from the chairmanship would not be easy. The party chair is the only individual who can schedule meetings of the 80-person Democratic executive committee. Currently, there is no scheduled executive committee meeting on the books. However, 25% of the committee (21 members) may call a meeting with or without the chair’s approval.
The Mississippi Democratic Party constitution does not specify the process for removing a party chair mid-term, but changes to leadership or the party’s constitution itself can be made with a two-thirds vote of all present members. If all 80 members showed up to any special meeting, 54 votes could remove the chairman.
Young, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022, said Irving “is not doing the job Mississippi needs from him.”
“As far as I can tell, Tyree Irving is a man who has never said one single positive word about any candidate on the ticket, myself included,” Young said. “He does not reflect all Democrats in Mississippi. He sure doesn’t reflect me and who I am. It’s important to have someone in that position who respects people. But the party itself is not being led with the party’s own principles, when it comes to respecting all people and being able to properly conduct business without fear of being sabotaged. How can we win like that?”
Portrait of Thurgood Marshall Credit: Artist Betsy Graves Reyneau, which hangs in the National Gallery Portrait
Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, announced his retirement from the high court. President George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to take Marshall’s place.
Two years later, Marshall died and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of previous justices.
“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust,” he said in an interview before his death. “We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”
Mississippi will receive $1.2 billion in federal money to expand high-speed internet, President Joe Biden announced Monday.
The state’s share of the money — part of $42 billion in spending to expand access nationwide — is part of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act, passed by Congress in 2021.
The announcement of funding through the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funding came in a press conference at the White House on Monday. Biden likened the efforts to expand broadband access nationwide by 2030 to work to provide electricity to rural America in the 1930s.
Sally Doty, director of the Mississippi office of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi, was at the White House on Monday for the announcement.
“The amount is in the range I expected,” Doty said. “It was driven by the large number of high cost (of providing access) areas in the state. The BEAM office is working through all the numerous requirements to get the money out as fast as we can … We know this funding will be transformational for so many Mississippians and their communities.”
The award was based on the number of homes and businesses lacking high-speed internet and estimated costs of expanding it. Mississippi has an estimated 300,000 unserved and 200,000 underserved homes and businesses. BEAM was created to administer Mississippi’s broadband expansion through a competitive grant program. It will now submit a five-year action plan for the federal funding in late summer.
“Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are working with Gov. (Tate) Reeves to close the digital divide so that everyone in Mississippi will be able to participate in the digital economy and realize the benefits of broadband access,” said national Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
Reeves in a statement on Monday said: “People want to live in areas where they can access broadband and that are connected. That’s why we’ll continue to aggressively build out broadband infrastructure to every region of our state, so all Mississippians can harness the opportunities technology provides them.”
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson were the only members of Mississippi’s congressional delegation to vote for the Infrastructure Act.
Thompson, in a statement, said: “I was the only congressman from Mississippi in the House of Representatives to cast a ballot in favor of the infrastructure spending package. I am proud to have taken a stand for the people of my state and to have been an advocate for responsible investment in our nation’s future. Broadband access is essential for our country’s progress, and this spending package is going to get us off the bottom and bring us forward into an era of greater technological advancement.”
Wicker said he was a key negotiator of the Infrastructure Act and “also worked for years as the lead Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to ensure Mississippi’s lack of broadband coverage was accurately reflected in national coverage maps.” He said early versions of federal map incorrectly inflated Mississippi’s coverage.
“I am thrilled at this announcement and, and I will continue working with our leadership to ensure that every dollar is put to work connecting all corners of the state,” Wicker said.
Doty continues to urge Mississippians to contribute to the state broadband map at broadbandms.com, where people can take a speed test that will log lagging service into the map.
The Mississippi Center for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, recently filed comments with the federal government over concerns that disadvantaged areas of the state — such as the Delta — might be overlooked as the state expands broadband service. MCJ requested better guidance to the state from the feds and better notification to unserved areas to ensure this doesn’t happen.
“BEAM has struggled to reach communities in the Mississippi Delta, a predominantly rural and Black region,” MCJ wroted. “The Delta’s barriers have resulted in low engagement with the mapping tool (which has) caused Delta communities’ broadband needs to be underrepresented in (maps).” The group called on federal leaders “to be cognizant of news deserts in rural and small communities when forming guidance of community-based notification.”
MCJ also noted that previous state grant programs expanding access were mostly concentrated in north Mississippi that, while rural, does not suffer the levels of poverty of the Delta.
The Mississippi Association of Educators endorsed Democrat Brandon Presley for governor on Monday over incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.
The election between Reeves and Presley, the northern district public service commissioner, is drawing national attention, and the candidates are beginning to roll out their policy ideas to voters.
An April Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed Reeves with an 11-point lead over Presley: 49% of respondents said they would vote for Reeves compared to Presley’s 38%.
“As a proud product of public schools and the son of a preschool teacher, it’s an honor to earn the support of thousands of educators across this state,” Presley said. He continued, “Mississippi educators know that as governor, I will stand with them to fully fund public education so we can position our state towards the economy of the future.”
MAE President Erica Jones said the decision to endorse Presley was made after reviewing Reeves’ actions during his first term, leading the association to say the first-term governor is “absent as a leader and advocate for public schools.”
Jones elaborated that while Reeves signing the state’s largest teacher pay raise was “an important start,” her organization feels that Presley is the candidate who can step into the leadership role it feels Reeves has not embraced.
“Governor Tate Reeves promised and then secured the largest pay raise for teachers in Mississippi history,” said Elliott Husbands, Reeves’s campaign manager. “If being a Democrat is more important to MAE than historically raising teacher pay, that’s a decision they are free to make.”
This year’s endorsement from the state’s teacher union, one of the largest education associations in Mississippi, came alongside 49 others for state legislators. Pam Johnson, the association’s communications director, said the endorsements were based on candidates’ voting records on issues like the teacher pay raise, an extra $100 million for public schools allocated this session, community schools and advancing mental health resources.
MAE contacted legislators based on their voting records for possible endorsement. The organization said they sent questionnaires to all the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, which Presley responded to and Reeves did not.
When asked if any candidates had approached the association to discuss policy ideas or goals, Jones said several did throughout the legislative session and since it ended. George Stewart, the president of the local Jackson Association of Educators, also said he was contacted by the Presley campaign to discuss its education platform.
“As an organization committed to improving education across Mississippi, we believe these candidates have the vision, leadership, and commitment necessary to create a better future for all of our students, educators and communities,” said Jones in a press release. “We urge voters to support them, and to become engaged in the upcoming election — our children and our future depend on it.”
