Isabelle Taft is a reporter and member of the Community Health Team at Mississippi Today, Friday, Jan. 28, 2022.
ProPublica has selected Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today’s community health reporter, as a Local Reporting Network fellow for 2023. Taft will spend the next year in collaboration with the award-winning, nonprofit investigative newsroom on a special project.
She will begin her investigative project on Jan. 3.
While at Mississippi Today, Taft has covered abortion, maternal and infant health, mental health and the operations of the state Division of Medicaid. She previously reported on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at the Biloxi Sun Herald, where she won the 2020 Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism from the Mississippi Press Association.
Taft and Mississippi Today will join four other partner newsrooms and local journalists from New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi in the network next year.
“Isabelle is an incredibly talented, passionate and hard-working reporter who has worked in the state for several years,” said Community Health Editor Kate Royals. “We at Mississippi Today are thrilled to partner with ProPublica on Isabelle’s important and impactful project, and we are looking forward to a year of close collaboration with one of the best newsrooms in the nation.”
ProPublica launched the Local Reporting Network at the beginning of 2018 to boost investigative journalism in local newsrooms. It has since worked with nearly 60 news organizations. The network is part of ProPublica’s local initiative, which includes offices in the Midwest, South and Southwest, plus an investigative unit in partnership with The Texas Tribune.
BILOXI — Geneva Dummer’s vision is a decade in the making. The Gulf Coast entrepreneur realized what her business community needed before they did.
By 2016, Dummer was one of Mississippi’s earliest leaders in flexible workspaces, virtual offices and co-working when she opened The Meeting Space in Biloxi. Four years later, the pandemic upended work habits across the country, making work-from-home more acceptable and got even the most traditional corporate leaders seeing the benefits of less traditional office setups.
Dummer’s business helped fill in the blanks — and is growing fast with a second recently opened space in downtown Biloxi and a third soon to open in Gulfport.
“Mississippi has co-working spaces and the demand is there,” Drummer said, “we’re still behind, but growing.”
Mississippi’s flexible offices and co-working spaces — turnkey commercial offices and desks for independent remote workers, businesses and startups — are mainly clustered on the coast and near Jacksonwith a couple scattered in Oxford and Tupelo. They may not be as popular as they are in other states and bigger cities, but those creating the office spaces see an increasing demand.
“I think people are realizing work-from-home is great but work-from-home presents its own challenges and does not solve every problem,” said Adam Horlock, the center manager at Office Evolution in Flowood near Jackson. “Businesses are realizing: ‘We do not need a large lease or a large space somewhere, but we need something.’”
The nation’s number of remote workers tripled to nearly 18% between 2019 and 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s community survey. Meanwhile, 6.3% of Mississippians work from home, according to the same set of data. It may be lower than the national average, but it’s still about three times more than what it was in 2016.
Dummer and Horlock see remote workers who want an office to go to a couple times a week or few times a month and small businesses that need designated workspaces for employees without the headaches of renting a massive office space.
Startups and small companies, especially for the state’s fledgling medical cannabis business, have gone to the flexible office spaces. There’s marketing firms that have workers who spend most the week at home but need a conference room for scheduled meetings a few times a month. There’s the independent behavior therapist who meets with patients for sessions in a private one-desk office and an accountant that needs a rented desk to get some quiet while the kids are home from school.
“I knew I wanted office space,” said one of The Meeting Space’s members, Burl Barbour, from a private suite. “I knew I wouldn’t be disciplined enough if I stayed home.”
Barbour and his wife recently moved to Mississippi after years nearby in Mobile. Rather than leave his job working as a project manager for an Alabama-based commercial door company, he became a remote worker in Biloxi.
Before the move, he hadn’t heard of co-working spaces. Now, he’s a fan of his “own little world” at the shared office — just a 15-minute drive from his home.
Dummer said the expansion of co-working spaces as an integral part of growing Mississippi’s economy. Folks need spaces to network, a hub to innovate with one another, and access affordable services without multi-year lease commitments. She seeks out downtown real estate, taking advantage of a metro area’s walkability.
Dummer said most often she’ll get a remote worker for about three months — maybe they just moved to the area and are still setting up their at-home office. Some opt for the open co-working spaces, where folks mingle and work, while other, like Barbour’s company, pay up for private offices.
Nearby in Jackson County, economic development leaders have isolated attracting more remote workers to the Gulf Coast as a way to diversify the region’s economy and attract wealthier people to the state. They’re now planning ways to market the county as a destination for remote workers not tied to any one location but want to see their salary go farther.
“We have got five generations of people right now currently in our workforce,” said Mary Martha Henson, deputy director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation. “This remote working concept was already going on before COVID, but then in a COVID environment and a post-COVID environment, more people are in a situation where they can live where they want to and still be a productive employee.”
While the county advertises Mississippi’s affordability compared to other coastal cities that are well-established destination cities, they still need to have the features millennials seek out — things that allow them to live, work and play in the same area.
“Some of the younger generation really care about quality of life features,” Henson said. “If we want to remain competitive, we really have to think about these things.”
Among the hip coffee places, restaurants and local shops, co-working offices are keeping up with the tastes of the millennial and up-and-coming Gen Z workforces.
“We’re filling a need that traditional office spaces just can’t fill,” Horlock said. “We’re flexible, turnkey and the cost is low. We provide everything – even free Starbucks. Bring your laptop and you can usually set up that same day.”
Dummer’s two Biloxi locations are a short walk from one another on Water Street and Howard Avenue, where parts of the historic downtown are closed off to cars.
She’s seen other co-working spaces in the area fail — one tried making use of vacant spaces in a shopping mall. The location, she said, wasn’t ideal for a lot of young workers who want to feel connected to their communities and in hubs of activity.
She said for those seeking to start a coworking space of their own, the margins are hard to make work if the business operator doesn’t own their real estate outright.
Her new location in Gulfport is on the edge of downtown, but she was able to partner with Omni Technologies – an IT support company – that will be a member of the new space.
Nearby in Waveland, WorkWise’s primary business is providing administrative services and support to small businesses. But rather than let part of its office space sit vacant, the company offers private offices and coworking spaces similar to Drummer’s.
Dummer wants to see flexible offices and coworking spaces spread across the state. She has fielded calls from out-of-state companies seeking locations similar to hers for their remote employees in parts of the state where the options aren’t available — like Columbus and Natchez.
She has expansion on her mind, but one location at a time. After Gulfport is up and running, she may turn her attention to Hattiesburg.
The gap between pay for faculty and staff and the salaries of college presidents in Mississippi is widening, according to data analyzed by Mississippi Today.
While the average faculty and staff member at the state’s eight public universities have barely seen their pay, in nominal dollars, increase since the 2012-13 school year, the average salary for presidents has shot up by more than $150,000.
Several factors are driving this trend: In Mississippi, private university foundations supplement presidential pay, sometimes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, while faculty and staff salaries are generally more dependent on legislative appropriations. As the state funding for the Institutions of Higher Learning has not recovered from the Great Recession,pay forfaculty and staff has struggled to keep pace with inflation.
The respective presidents of University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University now make $850,000 a year, $400,000 of which comes from the schools’ private foundations. That’s about double the supplemental salary the presidents in 2008 received, according to records Mississippi Today obtained last year. According to that same data, USM’s Foundation paid its president $125,000 in 2008; it now pays recently appointed Joe Paul $200,000.
Foundation supplements used to comprise a significant chunk of presidential salaries at Mississippi's other public universities, too, but this year, IHL limited the additional amount that presidents at four out of the five schools can receive in foundation supplements to $5,000.
The Board of Trustees increased the state-funded salary for all five presidents in this group, who had previously been making varying amounts, to $300,000.
If the average faculty salary in Mississippi in 2012 – $58,896 – had increased with inflation, it would have been about $66,300 in 2020, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, about $475 more than the average faculty actually made, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
That shows the raises IHL has procured for faculty since 2012 — including this past year —don’t result in more money in pockets on average or even keep pace with buying power.
For staff, the average salary in Mississippi – $47,612 – is actually a little more than $1,000 over the inflation-adjusted salary for 2012 ($46,234.89).
This analysis does not take into account variations in occupation or seniority among staff or faculty tenure status, both of which can contribute to vast differences in salaries. At the University of Mississippi, the average tenured professor made far more than the average salary – about $115,000 during the 2020-21 school year, according to IPEDS. (The salary data from IPEDS includes the University of Mississippi Medical Center.)
Through a public records request last year, Mississippi Today obtained salary data for the presidents at all eight public universities going back to 2008. We've updated that data to include the raises that IHL granted this year in the searchable table below.
With extremely cold temperatures expected to hit this week, the City of Jackson is working with community organizations and the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department to provide shelter for those in need.
The city’s Office of Housing and Community Development is partnering with Stewpot Community Services, Central Mississippi Continuum of Care, the Sheriff’s Department, Shower Power and Mississippi Housing Partnership to provide emergency responses.
The National Weather Service is forecasting very cold weather Thursday night through Saturday night for the metro Jackson area with low temperature in the single digits and highs near or below freezing for much of the area Friday and Saturday. Strong and gusty winds will likely result in wind chill readings below zero, especially from late Thursday night through Friday.
The Shephard’s Gymnasium at 1355 Hattiesburg St. in Jackson will serve as a temporary shelter from 3 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday. The city says it will be open 24 hours a day and be properly staffed and monitored. Cots and blankets will be provided with at least two meals a day. Pets will not be admitted.
A limited number of hotel rooms also are available for families and elderly individuals in need of warm shelter during these days. For more information, contact Freddric Brandon, homeless coordinator for the city.
The following overnight shelters will also remain open for residents:
Billy Brumfield Emergency Shelter for Men, 1244 S. Gallatin St.
Matt’s House Emergency Shelter for Women & Women with Children, 355 Livingston St.
The Opportunity Center, 845 W. Amite St. (Open 24 hours Thursday to Tuesday)
Gateway Rescue Mission, 410 S. Gallatin St. (Open all day Friday and Saturday in addition to normal hours)
Salvation Army, 570 Beasley Rd.
Mississippi Housing Partnership, 1217 N. West St.
REACH Jackson
Anyone in need of warm shelter should call Stewpot at 601-353-2759 for assessment and referral, or email info@stewpot.org.
Those who would like to help their neighbors in need over the next few days, here is a list of needed items:
Blankets
Sleeping bags
Jackets/coats
Long Johns
Handwarmers
Socks
Gloves
Hats
Lip balm
T-shirts for layering
Volunteers also bring donations to the Stewpot office (open until Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.), the Stewpot Community Kitchen (open from noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1-2 p.m. on Sundays), or to another organization that serves people experiencing homelessness.
The Mississippi State Department of Health has joined an investigation into a multistate outbreak of a contagious virus linked to raw oysters from Texas.
So far, at least nine cases of norovirus have been reported in the state linked to raw oysters distributed to Mississippi restaurants. The Health Department says additional cases may be identified.
The department says restaurants and food retailers should not serve raw oysters from harvest area TX 1, Galveston Bay, Texas, harvested from Nov. 17 to Dec. 7, and consumers should not eat raw oysters from these areas. The oysters were distributed to restaurants and retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas in addition to Mississippi. Packaged oysters include harvest area information on the packaging.
Consumers who have purchased oysters from these areas are advised to throw them away.
Norovirus infection can cause inflammation of the stomach and intestines. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain. Consumers experiencing symptoms of norovirus illness should contact their healthcare provider, who should report their symptoms to their local Health Department.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus can spread quickly and a person who gets norovirus illness can shed billions of the virus’ particles that can’t be seen. It takes only a few norovirus particles to make others sick. An infected person is most contagious when exhibiting symptoms, especially vomiting, and during the first few days after recovering, according to the CDC.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to send taxpayers rebate checks up to $500, increase education spending and push year-’round schooling and pre-K, and find fixes for the state’s health care crisis “not just for next year, but for the next generation.”
Some of his policy priorities for the 2023 legislative session that starts Jan. 3 already put Hosemann and the Senate he oversees at odds with his fellow Republican leaders in the House. For starters, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other GOP leaders said recently they want to eliminate the state income tax, not give one-time rebate checks. House and Senate Republican majorities are also expected to spar over extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for working mothers, which Hosemann and Senate leaders continue to support after it failed in the House last session.
“We did the largest tax cut ever last year, close to $500 million in income taxes cut,” Hosemann said. “We have an excess of $270 million this year from our estimate of taxes we’ve collected. We propose to send it back.”
Hosemann said his proposal will be to refund taxpayers “dollar-for-dollar” what they paid in state income taxes for the past year “from the bottom up, until we run out of money.” He said initial estimates are that refund checks would be capped at about $500.
Republicans Gov. Tate Reeves and Gunn still want to phase out the personal income tax, as a follow-on to the massive income tax cuts passed last year, which are still being implemented. They say this will give the state an advantage with economic development.
Hosemann and Senate leaders say the national and state economies are in turbulent, inflationary times with recession possible, and that much of the state surplus is from unprecedented federal spending that isn’t likely to continue or recur. They warn that fully eliminating the income tax in such uncertain economic times is foolhardy, and that the state’s current windfall should be viewed as one-time money and given back to taxpayers as a one-time check.
Hosemann said he has been meeting with hospital and other health care officials across the state, including Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which he called the “canary in the mine” of the financial crisis facing the state’s hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Hosemann said he foresees the state providing some temporary financial aid and increased Medicaid reimbursement to struggling hospitals, but said he wants to find more permanent, structural fixes.
Hosemann said Mississippi’s health care infrastructure may have to change — particularly given population loss in the Delta and other areas. He said rural hospitals may have to shift to basic and emergency services, with more specialized care becoming centralized.
“I don’t want mommas having babies in the back of a car,” Hosemann said. “I think everyone should be within 30 minutes of care. But for that scheduled heart surgery, you may have to go to a larger hospital for it.”
Hosemann is one of few Republican leaders open to discussion of Medicaid expansion — pushed by many health care advocates and hospitals — but he said politically it’s not likely lawmakers will tackle that issue this year, and he said it’s not a cure-all.
“I don’t think that’s the answer,” Hosemann said. “Even if we had that expansion, (Greenwood Leflore) would not make it, it would still be short.”
Hosemann noted that the Senate has passed extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage for working mothers three times, with the House killing it. He said he expects the Senate to make the push to extend coverage from 60 days to a year again, as a way of helping the state address highest in the nation rates of infant and maternal mortality. He said a new study from Texas extending the coverage has shown numerous positive results.
In recent Senate hearings, numerous experts told lawmakers that Mississippi can spend about $7 million a year to keep mothers and newborns healthier, or continue to spend tens of millions more dealing with the fallout of having the worst infant and maternal mortality and morbidity in the country.
Hosemann said he has recently visited several school districts across the state, including in Corinth, Gulfport and Lamar County, that have started using a “modified calendar,” often referred to as year-around schooling. He said such schedules are already showing positive results here and nationwide, and he wants the state to provide incentives to districts that want to participate.
“We don’t need to just keep doing things the way they’ve always been done,” Hosemann said. He said the schedules of roughly nine weeks in school, two-to-three weeks off have been well received by parents and teachers. He said that for Lamar County, it cost about $200,000 to change the calendar and “that will be our measure to incentivize this with state grants for districts that want to do it.”
Hosemann said he wants to increase funding for pre-K public education. The Legislature has increased funding for early learning collaboratives to $16 million, funding about 30 programs across the state, plus another $20 million for other public pre-K programs, Hosemann said. But the state is still serving only about 6,000 of 20,000 eligible kids. Hosemann said he would like to increase that number to about 10,000 students in the coming year.
Recently House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, said he also would like to expand pre-K in the coming session. He noted that the state should not only provide more money for the programs, but provide schools with capital funding to build facilities for pre-K classes.
Hosemann also said he wants to increase funding in the coming year for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. MAEP is the state’s school funding formula passed into law by the Legislature 25 years ago, but almost never fully funded, usually falling short hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Hosemann said Wednesday he wants to increase funding for MAEP, but declined to give an amount. He said it would likely still fall short of full funding, but “will be enough to make you smile.”
But Gunn recently said he was not for putting more money into MAEP. In the past, Gunn has unsuccessfully pushed to scrap the formula, which he said is flawed and continually calls for more money for schools that lawmakers can come up with. He called it “unattainable,” and has instead pushed for money going outside the formula to school programs lawmakers support rather than a formula that allows schools and districts autonomy on spending.
Hosemann said the state Legislature and federal government have pumped historic amounts of money into infrastructure in the last couple of years, and he plans to continue. He said the state will likely use remaining federal pandemic stimulus money to provide more matching water and sewerage money to cities and counties as it did last year. He said he also wants to provide another $100 million for the state’s Emergency Road and Bridge Program as it did last year. The state had recently faced closure of hundreds of roads and bridges, particularly in rural areas, due to lack of maintenance, but Hosemann said the state is well along in addressing the problem.
Hosemann said the state this year let about $963 million worth of road work contracts, “double what they normally would.”
Mississippi has seen huge budget windfalls since the federal government began pumping pandemic stimulus and infrastructure spending into the states. Hosemann said the state will have paid off about $600 million in debt during this time, increased its “rainy day fund” savings to about $700 million, and he proposes no state borrowing for the coming year.
“That means you don’t have to go out into the market to borrow at 6%-7%,” Hosemann said. “… We started a few years ago cutting our budget and getting things in order. We’re running Mississippi like a business and now we have the cash to address the issues we need to address.”
A recent change to Mississippi’s power generation laws, set to take effect in January, will allow over half of the state’s public school districts to start saving money by generating their own solar energy.
The new rule, which the Public Service Commission agreed to with the state’s two investor-owned utilities in October, paves the way for school districts to earn credits for generating solar power without actually having to pay for the solar panels.
Starting in 2023, any of the 95 public school districts served by Entergy Mississippi or Mississippi Power can enter into what’s called a power purchase agreement, where a third-party contractor foots the bill to add solar panels to the school district’s property. Entergy or Mississippi Power would then buy the generated solar power and credit the district on its energy bill. For funding the new system, the contractor would be eligible for government tax credits.
While the rule change opens a door for widespread renewable energy use in Mississippi, a few of the state’s school districts are already generating solar power, with some seeing new wiggle room in their budgets.
“It’s been a very, very big win for the district,” said Mike Papas, director of Auxiliary Services at the Forrest County School District.
Solar panels on the roof of the performing arts center at North Forrest High School. Credit: Mike Papas / Forrest County School District
Last year, Forrest County School District finished installing 300 solar panels on the roof of its performing arts center, which it uses for events like school plays and faculty meetings. The building, Papas said, seats 900 people and needs constant air conditioning. But because the solar panels create $3,000 a month worth of electricity, he said, they cover more than half of the center’s electric bill.
“For us to be able to produce clean energy, then for us to take that money and put it back into the budget to do what’s needed for the students, we couldn’t lose,” Papas said. “And plus it was free.”
In 2014, the Sierra Club reached a settlement with Mississippi Power over the utility’s now-infamous failed clean coal project in Kemper County. The two sides agreed to direct $15 million towards solar projects for schools as well as energy efficiency upgrades for low-income homes.
“(The Kemper project) was pretty bad for a lot of folks, but something good came out of it,” said Rodger Wilder, president of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
So far, that money has paid for solar panels at a dozen school districts, including all the panels at Forrest County School District. Interested school districts in the Mississippi Power service area can still receive funding from the Coast foundation, which was put in charge of administering the $15 million. Districts receive grants of around $250,000 to pay for solar panels as well as to introduce renewable energy into their curriculum.
Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey said using money from the Kemper settlement to fund solar panel systems has helped demonstrate their effectiveness to people who might otherwise be skeptical.
“If anything, it certainly helped educate school administrators, school finance officers, facility managers and others on what these systems really do,” Bailey said. “I think (the Kemper settlement) served a great deal to help identify and refute any myths.”
Brooks McKay, director of operations at the Ocean Springs School District, said he and others were skeptical of how solar panels would be able to withstand hurricanes.
“There's a little bit of hesitation on the Coast to put something on the roof worth $250,000 that you don't know is gonna blow off or not,” he said.
But McKay said the panels have held up fine since the district put them on top of its central office building two years ago, and now the district is already looking to take advantage of the PSC’s rule change to add more solar panels in the near future.
Solar panels on the central office building of the Ocean Springs School District. Credit: Ocean Springs School District
“What we don’t spend on energy we can spend on (other things),” said McKay, who estimated that the district saves about $300 a month on its electric bill during the summer. “It could be teacher units, classroom supplies, buses is one area we really put some savings in.”
Other districts around the state could soon be lining up as well: During the PSC’s public comment period on updating the net metering rule, superintendents from the following districts wrote in support of expanding renewable energy opportunities to schools: Attala County, Enterprise, Greenville, Kemper County, Lauderdale County, Okolona, Union, Winona-Montgomery, Yazoo County and Newton County.
School districts in the Mississippi Power service area interested in grant opportunities to fund solar panel installations can reach out to GCCF. A list of districts in the Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi service areas is available here.
After going 1-17 in Conference USA last season, Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner overhauled his staff and his roster, and has the Golden Eagles off to an 11-1 start this season. Rick and Tyler catch up with coach Ladner, talk about his team and the pressure of coaching the program he grew up rooting for.
The state of Mississippi isn’t getting anything past Danielle Thomas.
Thomas is a bright, young single mother raising her six kids in south Jackson. Because she lives in poverty, Thomas is also an expert in the convoluted policies and bureaucratic red tape surrounding one of the biggest scandals in state history: the TANF program.
Despite recent attention on the graft and corruption within the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, Mississippi is still pumping less than 5% of the money directly to mothers like Thomas.
“I really think it’s still them stealing from people, to be honest,” Thomas, 34, said. “I really feel like they feel like a lot of us aren’t smart enough, or they feel like we probably don’t know the system in and out well enough.”
Thomas works part time as a home health aide earning $9.50 an hour, the same wage she started at 10 years ago. When she’s not on the job, she’s feeding and changing her 5-month-old, ferrying her other kids to and from school, cooking meals, fetching medication, tending to boo-boos, monitoring screen time, and trying to keep the shrieking to a tolerable decibel.
Danielle Thomas sits on the couch with her son Kannan, then 2, at their south Jackson home in 2021. Thomas, a 34-year-old mother of six, has faced countless barriers in Mississippi’s social safety net. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
On top of all that, Thomas basically moonlights as the unpaid lawyer, auditor and investigator on her own cases at the Mississippi Department of Human Services and other state service agencies. As most public assistance recipients know, it takes fierce self advocacy to ensure fair treatment within Mississippi’s social safety net.
Only about 1,600 very poor families in Mississippi are successfully jumping through the hoops required to receive the small TANF cash assistance payments each month.
Thomas knows a great deal more about how the TANF program works than the politicians who write the laws that govern the program.
But what happened to Thomas in recent weeks has stumped even the nation’s top policy experts.
In October, Thomas learned that she would be receiving a lump sum of more than $5,000 in back due child support from her ex-husband Larry Young, the father of her four youngest children. The state’s child support office, run by a private contractor, intercepted the money from Young’s child tax credit.
This tax offset process is part of the state’s child support enforcement program that Thomas is required to participate in to keep receiving public benefits. The rationale is, if the state is going to provide taxpayer support to single-parent families, then the noncustodial parents, usually fathers, should be forced to pay up as well.
This is where things get tricky: When the office collects support on behalf of a child receiving TANF, the state then seizes the funds to pay itself back for the welfare payments it issued. Most of that money goes straight back to the federal government.
Thomas said she sees the rationale in this, but at the same time, “I think that’s messed up a lot of co-parenting relationships … it doesn’t help how they think it helps. It kinda actually divides the family a little more.”
Thomas receives assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for all of her children – several hundred dollars a month that comes on a debit card Thomas can only use on qualified items at qualified stores.
But Thomas only receives TANF cash assistance, $118 a month, for each of the two eldest children, not Young’s kids.
This is because of a harsh and little-known rule in Mississippi that if a parent is already on welfare when she gets pregnant and gives birth, that new child is not eligible for TANF benefits. These are sometimes called “capped” children. Just 12 states still have this policy in place, according to a 2020 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report.
For Thomas, this makes the child support payments for the younger kids all the more crucial.
The $5,000 cash infusion from the tax credit was coming just in time for Christmas. Thomas also planned to use some of the money to replace the radiator fan and valve cover gasket on her 2012 Dodge Durango – long overdue repairs on her only mode of transportation to work and the kids’ schools. Right now, she gets under the hood and manually sets spark to the fan before driving anywhere.
Thomas and her kids survive on the combination of her work income, no more than $13,000 a year, about $900 in monthly Supplemental Security Income, or disability benefits, that Thomas gets for her severe depression and anxiety attacks, and the public assistance. Because Thomas receives disability, she doesn’t receive a TANF payment for herself.
The prospect of a financial cushion provided Thomas some hope, but it was short lived.
In late October, Thomas received the child support payment on her debit card. It was $100.
She called a representative at the child support office, who told her that, according to the computer screen she was looking at, the TANF program had seized the rest.
That’s not how that works, Thomas thought.
“TANF took $5,000 from my kids, but the kids that they took the money from, they don’t receive TANF. They have never received TANF,” Thomas said.
Without the incoming funds, Thomas told her ex she still needed him to help pay for clothes and shoes for the kids. At first, the dad was skeptical that the state had taken the money. The situation caused tension between the parents.
“It makes me feel bad,” Young said. “It’s sad how Mississippi does things, man. Mississippi don’t care about no one, but what they do? Help Brett Favre. Help Phil (Bryant). They don’t help the ones that actually need help.”
Mississippi, which offers some of the lowest wages, strictest public assistance requirements, fewest labor protections and most meager health care of any state is also the most poverty stricken.
But Mississippi politicians have long blamed “fatherlessness” and nonmarital pregnancy for the state’s high poverty rate, ignoring the research that reflects the inverse: that those family outcomes are most often a symptom of poverty – and the feeling that upward mobility is unachievable – rather than the cause of it.
Instead of focusing on evidence-based practices for interrupting systemic poverty, the state has spent hundreds of millions of welfare funds attempting to address fatherhood and teen pregnancy. Along the way, MDHS admits it has gathered no evidence of how these “family stabilization” programs reduced poverty.
Millions through these programs ended up going to the pet projects of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, other famous athletes and the cronies of state politicians.
Danielle Thomas and her son, 4-year-old Kannan Young, pose for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Escaping poverty was always going to be a challenge for Thomas, whose parents split before she could remember. Child Protection Services took Thomas from her mother, who is legally blind and ran an unstable household, when she was 6. She moved with her father to South Carolina until her mom regained custody, and, at 16, Thomas returned to Jackson. She bounced around high schools before dropping out, meeting her first child’s father and becoming a mother.
Thomas secured her GED and has started several higher education programs in the hopes of securing a better paying job, but it seemed like something always got in the way of her finishing. “I start strong, I start motivated, and then I might take a blow from different things and I kind of back out,” she said.
She has prioritized the paying gig that she has versus striving for another because, she said, “I know from experience that if I don’t work, we don’t eat.”
Several years ago, Thomas entered a work program offered through SNAP, the federal food assistance program administered by Mississippi Department of Human Services. It was a 24-week course, she recalled, to learn medical billing and coding – a job in which she could potentially earn $50,000. The program promised to provide her with a certificate at the end.
“During the seventh week, we went in and they told us it was no funds left to be able to continue the program,” Thomas said. “I really felt like it might have been something where they just found a way to reroute the money.”
Like that, the program was over.
During the pandemic, Thomas had to leave her home health job to take care of her kids, who were conducting virtual school at home. She applied for unemployment, which would have provided her an additional $600-a-week, more than she’d ever made and finally a chance to get ahead. But unemployment insurance only covers people who make over a certain amount, and because of her low earnings, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security denied Thomas the benefits.
It appeared a technicality: Thomas didn’t qualify under traditional unemployment insurance rules, but she should have qualified under the special pandemic unemployment program, the purpose of which was to extend benefits to people not typically covered, including part-time workers like herself.
Thomas did her research, appealed the decision, and secured a hearing with the labor office. She even got her employer to corroborate the information on her claim. But after representing herself in the proceeding, she was still denied because she had filed under the traditional unemployment insurance.
Through setback after setback, Thomas doesn’t blame the government for her current situation.
“I’m not a victim because I know the decisions and the choices I have made when it comes to these children and certain things, I’ll take the accountability for. But when it comes to my children … I’d shovel horse manure to make sure my kids eat every night. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure me and my children have a roof over our head and we have food on the table.”
Then there’s the added stress of raising her children in a neighborhood where gun violence is prevalent. “We’re in an area that’s really crime-ridden. It’s real, real crime-ridden and poverty-ridden,” Thomas said.
Danielle Thomas poses for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Not too long ago, Thomas’ 9-year-old son found a bag of marijuana on the ground on his way to school. A curious mind, he picked it up and carried it with him to class. When the administration discovered it, Thomas said they almost opened a DHS case, but because she’d been such an attentive parent – attending all parent-teacher conferences and volunteering to bring food for parties – a school administrator vouched for her.
“I’ve been raised in this type of environment … but I don’t wanna repeat cycles. I wanna break generational curses. I don’t want us to be here, but for some reason I feel like I’m stuck, because nothing will come in to allow me to get away from here,” Thomas said.
“Yes, I had all these kids. I made this bed. I have to lay in it,” she said. “But I also know I’m the type of person to where I’m not looking for the government to take care of me and my kids. I can do without, but they also gotta realize the trauma that they have forced upon some of us to where we can’t even live properly. Like, I don’t even like going outside of my home unless I have to.”
In August, State Auditor Shad White, who initially launched the ongoing TANF fraud investigation, released a report demonstrating the cost of “absent fathers” to Mississippi taxpayers. The report focused on how children who grow up in single-parent households are less likely to finish high school, more likely to go to prison and more likely to become teen mothers.
“I’m hoping folks will be informed as taxpayers, but will also realize collectively as a society we need to be sending the message that if you’re man enough to father a child, you ought to be man enough to step up and help raise that child,” White said when the report was released, WXXV reported.
Danielle Thomas and her then 2-year-old son Kannan, at their south Jackson home in September of 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
In Young’s case, Mississippi has done nothing to inspire his participation. The state took from him to indirectly support the kids of someone else, while his own kids got nothing.
National policy experts have long advocated against states confiscating the child support payments of poor children to pay back the TANF support they received. They say the practice, which barely makes a difference for states since the money is returned to the feds, keeps families in poverty and harms the relationship between children and their noncustodial parents.
“In this case, it’s even worse: the state is taking money paid by a father for children who the state didn’t even provide assistance to,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy director for policy for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). “While the state may have found a loophole that makes this legal, keeping these funds from Mrs. Thomas and her children is a violation of both decency and common sense.”
Little to no research on this scenario exists. Mississippi’s TANF policy manual doesn’t explicitly address it, according to the reviews of Mississippi Today and two national experts who reviewed the manual at Mississippi Today’s request for this story. It does not come up in exhaustive Q&As published by the federal agency that administers the programs, the Administration for Children & Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When asked about what happened, the federal office told Mississippi Today that the agency was following Mississippi state law.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services similarly confirmed in an email to Mississippi Today that this is the agency’s policy. It said it could not comment on Thomas’ case specifically.
“While they (capped children) are not considered in the calculation of benefits, these children are still part of the head of household’s TANF case,” the statement reads. “When there are multiple children in the TANF-recipient household with different non-custodial parents, and one of those non-custodial parents makes a child support payment, that payment is applied to the overall household’s TANF recovery balance.”
It’s a miniscule policy distinction but with substantial implications – as is true with much of the state’s social safety net. The Legislature could change it.
But this area of government is often too complicated, too niche to capture the attention of the public or even policy makers. It’s part of the reason so much corruption was able to occur within the program in recent years.
Without a closer analysis, it’s easy to miss the catch-22.
When it behooves the state to exclude the children, in the case of determining who gets monthly benefits, it excludes the children. But when it benefits the state to count the children, such as to seize their child support payments, it counts them.
MDHS said it did not have any data on how many mixed-family households this policy affects.
Thomas questions it plainly: “I don’t see how one parent can be responsible for what another parent owes.”
Danielle Thomas poses for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Since the $100 child support payment, Thomas has had countless calls with MDHS, the child support office, and advocates, many of whom told Thomas they’ve never encountered this scenario and that they believed it was a mistake.
When Thomas visited MDHS in person, a supervisor in the office said her TANF case carried an unreimbursed balance of about $17,000 – a mathematical mystery since she’s only received a total of $146-a-month for both children, recently raised to $236-a-month, on and off over the last several years. TANF has a lifetime limit of 60 months. At one point, an MDHS caseworker told Thomas she had been receiving TANF for two children since 2008, before her second child was even born.
“I’ve calculated and added some things up myself and I’m like, you know, ain’t no way,” Thomas said. “… It’s a lot of things I’m not understanding, but I’m really thinking like it is really just (determined by) who reviews your case and files at the time. Like, if you have someone who is reviewing your case who might let some stuff slip through the system.”
Shortly after she began pressing the agency, Thomas found a letter in her mail. It was from the child support office, notifying her that her entire MDHS public assistance case had been closed. This wasn’t true, but it added to her list of issues to resolve. She wondered if her speaking out had triggered this notice.
A tender moment between then 2-year-old Kannan Thomas and his mom Danielle Thomas at their south Jackson home in 2021. During the pandemic, Thomas, a single mother of six, has had to juggle a job and overseeing virtual learning for her children. One of the biggest barriers to upward mobility for Thomas is access to child care. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Several days later, Thomas received another letter. This one targeted her 5-month-old, who had barely begun receiving assistance, and ordered Thomas to add the baby to her child support case. The notice said she had 21 days to visit the office and hand over paperwork proving the child’s father or her entire family would be cut off from assistance altogether.
Following Mississippi’s ban on abortion, which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and others have advocated for more strictly enforcing child support. The policy is advertised as a protection for mothers.
But for Thomas, the state’s meddling has only hurt her.
“They usually don’t contact you this early,” Thomas said after receiving the last letter. “I really feel like once again, this has something to do with me going and talking to people about them.”
With about $12,000 in supposed unreimbursed TANF still hanging over her head, it’s questionable if she’ll ever see a dime of child support from any of the three fathers of her children.
By this point, Thomas was dejected.
“I don’t understand how this system works,” she said in a slow, flat voice. “I’m no longer trying to figure out how it works.”
In fact, Thomas understands better than anyone how the system works. It is working the way it was designed, by wearing down the people it purports to serve.
But then, after talking to a free legal aid office, Thomas learned she could request a formal hearing from the TANF office to challenge the paradoxical policy. It’s scheduled for later this month. She’s already downloaded and started reading the agency’s program manuals from its website.
“I’m actually not going to stop fighting,” Thomas said.
In one of her educational stints, Thomas was studying to become a paralegal. When she thinks about going back to school, that’s the career path she envisions.
If her TANF case is any indicator, she’s a natural.
A massive federal spending bill slated to be voted on this week includes $600 million for work on the beleaguered City of Jackson water system.
Congress is expected to vote this week on the $1.7 trillion spending bill that will avert a pending government shutdown and continue funding federal agencies through late 2023.
Little information was available Tuesday about the earmark for the City of Jackson. But tucked inside of the 4,155-page bill are appropriations of $150 million in one section and $450 million in another section in areas where “the president declared an emergency in August for fiscal year 2022.”
In August, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency as did Gov. Tate Reeves after customers in the Jackson Water System lost water pressure.
The loss of water pressure and perennial boil water notices were caused by long-term problems with the system. Those problems were exacerbated by flooding on the Ross Barnett Reservoir, which is the primary source of the city’s water.
The 180,000-customer system is plagued with numerous problems, including aging pipes that often freeze and burst during extreme cold snaps. In February 2021 during a prolonged cold period, most of Jackson lost water pressure for multiple weeks.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said earlier this week the extreme cold temperatures expected later this week could cause problems for the city’s water system, though, progress has been made in winterizing the O.B. Curtis Treatment Plant that treats most of the water delivered to the system’s customers.
The spending bill says the funds allocated for work on the water system would be administered by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this month, a federal judge approved an order for the U.S. Department of Justice to step in and oversee the troubled system. A third-party administrator has been appointed to oversee the system as part of the agreement.
Jordan Downs, chief of staff for 3rd District Rep. Michael Guest, who represent a portion of Jackson, confirmed that the money was placed in the spending bill at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of the 2nd District, who represents a large portion of Jackson, has been vocal in advocating for funds for the water system. He said $150 million of the total is for technical assistance and $450 million is for capital projects.
“I look forward to voting for the complete omnibus package,” said Thompson in a statement. “I am proud to support the $600 million that will be included … to help Jackson. Jackson also will be receiving additional funding from the omnibus bill.”
Sen. Roger Wicker said he intends to vote for the proposal. In addition to the funds for the city of Jackson, the Mississippi Republican said it provides money for many other infrastructure needs across the state.
“This legislation fully funds our National Defense Authorization Act while cutting the president’s proposed increase in domestic spending by 50%,” he said in a statement.” It represents the best possible opportunity to end this budget stalemate… and get our military men and women the resources they need to win.”
