What to do when you’re a 4-year-old and your artistic muse is whispering in your ear, stirring your heart with a passion you never knew existed?
For Rah Lowry, he listened.
The Brooklyn, N.Y., transplant, now living in Columbus, not only followed his passion, but was also encouraged to do so by his grandmother.
“Think about how wonderful. Me with a fist full of crayons. I’m 4 years old, and my grandma allowed me to draw on the walls,” said Lowry, smiling at the memory. “That’s a special kind of freedom to learn, explore, experiment and dream.
“She still has the first thing I drew back then. For the longest time, it occupied a place of honor, magnetized to the fridge. It gave her such genuine pleasure. I remember how that made me feel. I knew I was on to something. Growing up in New York, I was exposed to, well, everything. It being a mecca for everything, everyone and art of all kind everywhere. For me, it wasn’t sensory overload. I was like a sponge, still am.
“By the time I was 16, I was creating tattoos and graffiti art. Can you imagine? I certainly did. I even attended the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, but with only siz months left before I graduated, the classes closed. Life is like that with the unexpected. I got into graphic art and animation while there. But I want it known — I’m a self-taught artist.”
Lowry met his wife, Brie, in Atlanta. They have two children: Rah, 2, and Xen, 8 months. The couple moved to Columbus in 2021.
“When I was around 21, I got into perfecting my coloring. I’ve always wanted to take a color and blend it into something else, play around and see what I got,” said Lowry as he intensely studied the sculpture he’d been working on.
He pauses, staring out a window at his backyard and sighs. The family’s enormous, gentle giant of a dog Oz saunters over and inspects Lowry’s animation work on a laptop, while leaning his entire 120 pounds against him. It draws Lowry back from wherever his memories had taken him.
“And that’s why I didn’t want to paint,” said Lowry, picking up a Copic Marker and blending a particular green on a screen bearing one of his colorful illustrations. “Say you make paint and you mess it up, you’re left at zero. If I blend a marker, I can just keep going. It makes life a little easier.”
Lowry’s artistic groove reflects his journey from that young boy to the father of two he is today. He is a sculptor, an animator and graphic artist who also has the ability to create his artistic visions on a computer.
“My family and my art give me peace. It’s a sense of soul and a sense of atmosphere that I thrive in, and that radiates to those who experience my work. I need to feel that coming back to me everyday because that gets me going in the morning.”
John Lewis, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the Rev. Andrew Young marched in the funeral of Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose shooting death inspired the first of the Selma marches in Alabama in 1965. Credit: Associated Press
A nighttime protest in Marion, Alabama, led to law enforcement officers attacking the 500 or so protesters who were marching from Zion United Methodist Church to the Perry County jail, where a civil rights activist was being held. Police also beat two photographers and NBC News correspondent Richard Valeriani, who had to be hospitalized.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, his mother Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather Cager Lee, ran into Mack’s Café behind the church. After police clubbed Lee to the floor, Jackson attempted to intervene. She, too, was beaten. When Jackson tried to protect his mother, one trooper threw him against a cigarette machine. A second trooper, James Bonard Fowler, shot Jackson, who was beaten again by police after staggering from the café.
Jackson’s death eight days later inspired civil rights activists to march from Selma to Montgomery. In 2007, his killer, Fowler, was indicted for murder, eventually pleading guilty to manslaughter, but he served only five months in jail.
Jackson’s death was portrayed in the 2014 movie Selma, and he is memorialized on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery.
Now that Mississippi’s welfare department isn’t hemorrhaging federal grant funds as a result of widespread mismanagement and political corruption, it has over $100 million to spare.
But the agency, Mississippi Department of Human Services, won’t say what it’s going to do with the money, whether it’s going to try to reach more needy families or how it’s going to finally start tracking outcomes of the program.
In the three years following arrests in the largest public fraud scandal in state history, the agency led by Gov. Tate Reeves has never released a full accounting of its current welfare expenditures. There isn’t even a list of organizations receiving the funding on the agency’s website, nor are its subgrant agreements available online.
And lawmakers, in their seventh week of the Legislative session, haven’t taken one action to address the logjam. Instead, they’ve killed at least 11 bills aimed at improving the administration of the agency and its funds, as well as at least five amendments offered to do the same on the floors of both chambers.
All the bills filed to address these problems were killed by Republican committee chairs without debate, and all the amendments were introduced by Democrats and voted down by Republicans, primarily along party lines.
“(Mississippi Department of Human Services) has certainly not held up to its mission or its responsibility to those who need it the most,” said Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Jones, who offered an amendment to the MDHS appropriations bill on Wednesday to make increases to the agency’s budget, which Republicans reduced. “I do hate that through the general bills process that there was no legislation for a board, or no legislation for any of these audits that are in this appropriations bill, that we got any reports or any demands or anything like that. That has not been before us, and I imagine won’t be before us, but let me say to you that there are areas over there in Human Services that need some escalation.”
While Republican leadership says it has cleaned up fraud within the agency, that doesn’t mean the welfare program, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is reaching the needy or helping people enter the workforce. In fact, during the height of the scandal, the state was using more of its TANF funds to help more poor Mississippians than it is today.
In 2022, a monthly average of 246 adults and 2,265 children benefited from the welfare check — no more than $260 for a family of three (a rate that was raised in 2021 for the first time since 1999). Mississippi is consistently among the most impoverished states in the nation with 1-in-5 of its residents living below the poverty line. The assistance is reaching about 4% of the more than half-a-million Mississippians living in poverty.
Meanwhile, the state continues to rack up tens of millions in welfare funds. By October of 2021, more than a year ago, Mississippi’s TANF program had amassed $97.9 million in unobligated funds. While the agency hasn’t released data showing how they spent the money within the last year, all indications are that the number of unspent TANF funds has only grown, especially since the state didn’t issue a single new TANF subgrant in 2022.
In October, MDHS Director Bob Anderson hesitated to say how his agency might spend the money, or whether it would use the funds to, for example, increase the number of child care vouchers it is able to provide to low-income families.
“Understand, people have a lot of other plans for that money as well,” Anderson said.
MDHS has refused to answer Mississippi Today’s questions about which people and what plans.
The sections of the TANF program that have received most public attention are:
Cash assistance — the money that goes out directly to families who qualify for the welfare check
Subgrants — the money that goes to organizations to provide TANF-related services, such as after school programs, parenting classes and workforce training
But these currently account for less than half of the state’s annual federal TANF grant.
And according to the state’s checkbook, the state spends millions of TANF funds each year on items outside of cash assistance or TANF subgrants — such as IT contracts, a contract with the company who conducts drug testing of welfare applicants, interagency transfers to the state auditor’s office or payments to the attorneys crafting the civil case against NFL legend Brett Favre and others. There has not been a public accounting of these purchases, nor have they been discussed in audits, legislative hearings or among lawmakers publicly.
Each year, the state also transfers a large chunk of TANF funds, the amount unknown to the public, to Mississippi Child Protection Services, the embattled state agency responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect and overseeing foster care across the state. The financial maneuver is preventing the state from taking advantage of unprecedented federal matching funds offered under the 2018 Family First Prevention Services Act to help families stay intact.
Aside from the scandalous stories about politicians and famous athletes funneling TANF money to their pet projects during former Gov. Phil Bryant’s administration, the welfare program itself is as forgotten and ignored as it was before the arrests.
Lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 to place law enforcement officers within MDHS’s Fraud Investigation Unit and a bill in 2022 to require that employees of the unit report civil or criminal violations to the state auditor’s office.
Neither of these changed how the agency runs its TANF grant or introduced any accountability for the agency to spend the money effectively.
In 2021, the first full year after the scandal was revealed, Mississippi spent just $35.6 million of the $86.5 million it receives in federal funds each year, according to federal reports released in December. The reports are typically outdated by about a year.
To put that into perspective: In 2018, Mississippi spent about $113 million in federal TANF funds (including some unspent funds from years before). If $50 million of that went to fraudulent or unallowed purchases, that leaves $63 million that Mississippi spent legally that year, including to organizations similar to those providing services today.
In 2018, at the height of the fraud scandal, the state pumped $7.3 million directly to families, whereas it only gave $3.5 million in cash assistance in 2021. Either way you slice it, Mississippi’s welfare department was using more TANF money to help more poor Mississippians during the years of Bryant’s appointed former MDHS Director John Davis, who is likely going to prison, than the agency is today under Reeves and Anderson.
Mississippi Department of Human Services previously told the public that it is allocating about $69 million of its TANF funds each year — $4.1 million on cash assistance, $34.5 million on subgrants to organizations and $30 million to plug budget holes at the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services.
But it has not made documentation of these expenditures available to the public. Also, these figures are not clearly reflected in federal reports. In 2021, for example, the state only reported spending $15 million in TANF funds on “child welfare” – the only spending category that would appear to correspond with the CPS transfers.
The agency would not explain the reason for the discrepancies in the federal reporting, other than to say that it’s possible not all of the money that the state obligated was actually used. The department has also repeatedly failed to explain which purchases fall under which categories in the federal reports.
The state is allowed to use grant funds from one year to another for a period of three years. So funds being spent today could technically be coming from the state’s 2021 TANF grant. That, and the fact that some subgrants span more than one year, during which the subgrantee can draw the funds at their leisure, have perpetually created a foggy picture of the program.
The only documentation of TANF expenditures that MDHS appears to have made public, at the request of Mississippi Today, is a list of subgrantees to whom the state awards a fraction of the funds. This information does not appear on the agency’s website, nor in its annual report.
In mid-2020, the department provided to Mississippi Today a spreadsheet of TANF purchases that included, in addition to payments to subgrantees, expenditures for things like tech support or hotels for employee training. In October, Mississippi Today extracted and analyzed all purchases labeled under the TANF program from the state’s accounting database from 2015 to 2022, all of which Mississippi Today made publicly available, but the expenditures didn’t add up to nearly the amount the state reported spending to the federal government. Transfers from MDHS to CPS also do not appear on the state’s accounting database.
The department began the most recent Request for Proposals — a competitive bid process — for TANF subgrants in June of 2022. But due to staff changes within MDHS’s Division of Workforce Development and Partnership Management, a spokesperson said, the agency has not made an award.
“Once we have a finalized plan we will make a public announcement,” MDHS Chief Communication Officer Mark Jones offered in response to questions about the agency’s plan for the TANF program moving forward.
Even with the grants most recently awarded in 2021, it’s unclear what all of the organizations are accomplishing or how the programs align with a vision to reduce poverty. The current grants cover parenting initiatives ($8.1 million), after school programs ($13.7 million), and workforce development ($14.9 million). The subgrant agreements aren’t even available on Mississippi’s transparency website.
The largest award was a $6.9 million parenting initiative grant to Mississippi Children’s Home Society, or Canopy Solutions, a children’s behavioral health services provider, including a residential psychiatric facility. Canopy has been a TANF subgrantee for years and works within the foster care system to prevent family separations. Canopy also recently launched a specialized nonprofit school for students with learning differences in Ridgeland, essentially replacing the recently shuttered New Summit School by hiring its employees and recruiting its students.
New Summit closed after its founder Nancy New was charged within the welfare scandal. New was funneling TANF money to New Summit, a for-profit school, and also running a separate scam to defraud the Mississippi Department of Education, she admitted in her 2022 guilty pleas.
Other current TANF subgrantees include the Mississippi Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs ($5.3 million), Save the Children Federation ($2.4 million), YMCA Metro Jackson ($1 million), and Juanita Sims Doty Foundation ($1 million) for afterschool programs; and Institutions of Higher Learning ($2.4 million), Mississippi Department of Employment Security ($1.5 million), South Delta Planning and Development District ($2.1 million), Southern MS Planning and Development District Gulfport ($3.6 million), Three Rivers Planning & Development District ($4.7 million) for workforce training.
Since welfare reform in the late 1990s, state leaders, workforce specialists, industry experts and advocates have met, studied, and discussed ad nauseam the barriers they’ve identified for families escaping poverty – chief among them child care, transportation and workforce training that aligns with market needs. The concept of TANF when Congress created it was to move people into the workforce, hopefully ending the reliance on government assistance.
Mississippi could be transferring up to 30% of its TANF funding to supplement the Child Care Development Block Grant, which provides child care vouchers to low-income working parents. The program has always served just a small fraction of low-income children needing child care across the state.
While legislation is not required for MDHS to make this transfer – since it has done so in the past, according to federal reports – the current Legislature has killed bills and amendments to compel MDHS to use TANF funds this way. And the agency refuses to answer questions about whether it will or, if not, why it won’t. The agency has, however, complained that without a budget supplement, 12,000 kids may be kicked off the voucher.
“From the beginning of the (TANF) program, there have been thoughts like, ‘We need to figure out a way to provide daycare. We need to figure out a way to provide transportation and that will help get a large number of people back into the workforce,’ which is said to be the aim of all these reforms,” Senate Public Health Committee Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said during a floor debate on several TANF-related amendments last week. “And it is extremely frustrating that we have money that could be used for additional vouchers for childcare, so that there would be someone to care for children when their parent is at work and we’re not taking advantage of that. And yet we complain about people not working.”
Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley woke up Friday morning as the Democratic nominee for governor in this November’s general election.
The executive committee of the Mississippi Democratic Party on Thursday night ruled that both of Presley’s opponents in the August party primary — Gregory Wash and Bob Hickingbottom — had not met the eligibility requirements to run for governor.
Neither, the party found, had followed state law. Under state law, the candidates are required to file statements of economic interest with the Mississippi Ethics Commission. Neither Wash nor Hickingbottom had.
Presley will likely face incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in the general election. Reeves will face two little-known candidates in the party primary: John Witcher and David Grady Hardigree.
Independent Gwendolyn Gray also is slated to be on the November ballot.
Mandy Gunasekara of Oxford, who is vying to replace Presley as Northern District Public Service Commissioner, was qualified Thursday by the Mississippi Republican Party. Gunasekara was challenged on the grounds she did not meet eligibility requirements because she previously lived in Washington, D.C., where she worked in the administration of former President Donald Trump.
The rulings of the Republican and Democratic executive committees can be appealed in the state judiciary.
On social media, Gunasekara thanked the Republican Party Executive Committee for its action.
“I have been a citizen of Mississippi my entire life,” she said. “I appreciate their willingness to look at the facts and come to a fair decision. When briefing President Trump in the Oval Office, I always carried my Mississippi-grown principles and values into the room.”
Ole Miss players hold up the national championship trophy after a win over Oklahoma in Game 2 of the NCAA College World Series baseball finals, Sunday, June 26, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/John Peterson)
In 2021, Mississippi State baseball won its own regional, then its own super regional and then its first-ever national championship, painting Omaha maroon and white in the process.
In 2022, Ole Miss sneaked into the NCAA Tournament as the last at-large team chosen, won the Coral Gables regional, white-washed Southern Miss in the Hattiesburg Super regional, before a full-scale Rebel invasion of Omaha. Mike Bianco’s Rebels won the national championship, sweeping Oklahoma in the championship series.
Rick Cleveland
And so, you ask, what can Mississippi’s Boys of Spring do for a 2023 encore? Let’s put it this way: Expectations are sky-high.
Can Ole Miss, despite losing the legend named Tim Elko, repeat? Can Mississippi State bounce back from last year’s aberrational 26-30 finish, which included an unsightly 9-21 record in the Southeastern Conference? Can Southern Miss, which won 47 games and its own regional last year, take its turn in college baseball’s Omaha spotlight?
As we saw last season when Ole Miss vaulted from a 22-17 record (7-14 in the SEC) on May 1 to the national championship on June 26, just about anything is possible in college baseball. The team that lost to Southeast Missouri 13-3 on April 19 for its seventh defeat in nine games somehow won a national championship.
That’s why hope really does spring eternal in college baseball — especially in Mississippi. All three of Mississippi’s Division I baseball powers open at home this weekend. Ole Miss takes on Delaware for a three-game set that will feature three days of celebrating last year’s championship. Southern Miss plays host to a strong Liberty team, which has advanced to the NCAA Tournament three consecutive years. And Mississippi State hosts VMI (16-40 a year ago) from the Southern Conference.
Let’s take a brief look at all three.
Ole Miss
If you are looking for reasons why Ole Miss won’t repeat, look no further than these: Elko, Kevin Graham and Justin Bench. All three were uber-productive last season. All three were leaders. All three are gone. Elko led the national champs in home runs (24), runs batted in (75 in 65 games) and slugging (.642). Graham hit .335 with 11 home runs and 51 RBI. Bench was Mr. Dependable, hitting .312 with 17 doubles and 42 RBI, while playing excellent defense wherever Mike Bianco needed him. That’s an awful lot to replace. The Rebels also lost their No. 1 starter Dylan DeLucia and closer Brandon Johnson.
Mike Bianco
But if you are looking for reason not to write these Rebels off, there are plenty, starting with All-American shortstop Jacob Gonzalez and left-handed ace pitcher Hunter Elliot, who will lead what could be a deeper pitching staff than the one that won the national title.
Replacing Elko’s power largely will fall on Kemp Alderman’s broad shoulders. He hit 11 dingers last year and just might double that this year. Gonzalez also will look to increase his total of 18 homers a year ago.
Newcomers to watch: Tulane transfer outfielder Ethan Groff, who hit .404 last season, can steal a base and will likely hit at the top of the Rebel lineup; Northwestern first baseman Anthony Calarco (.325, 13 HRs 54 RBI); and Delgado Community College outfielder Ethan Lege (.399, 36 RBI). Pitching-wise, look out for freshman Grayson Saunier, who could well be this year’s Rebel version of Hunter Elliot.
Southern Miss
Enthusiasm for Southern Miss baseball is at an all-time high. The home season is sold out before the season even begins. Southern Miss starts the season ranked in all the college baseball polls, unusual for program that normally has to play its way into the Top 20. That’s what happens when you win 47 games, your own regional over LSU, and return nearly all of your everyday lineup. No telling where the Golden Eagles would be ranked if likely MLB first round pick Hurston Waldrep hadn’t transferred to Florida.
Pitching depth is a huge concern since the Eagles also lost senior starter Hunter Riggins, plus a school record five pitchers in the MLB draft, including much of a dependable bullpen. Pitching coach Christian Ostrander is often referred to as the Wizard of Oz and he will need to live up to that nickname with so much mound production gone from a year ago.
USM Head Baseball Coach Scott Berry Credit: USM Athletics Dept.
But head coach Scott Berry has plenty back, including All American right-handed starter Tanner Hall and the everyday players who hit 65 of the team’s 82 home runs a year ago. Hitting-wise, this will be a veteran team that already has experienced much success at the college level.
Pitching-wise, some young arms, including freshmen, must come through, including Mississippi’s Gatorade Player of the Year Nick Monistere of Northwest Rankin and Benton Academy’s JB Middleton, both hard throwers.
Newcomers to watch: Centerfielder Matthew Etzel, a highly touted transfer from Panola, a speedster who tore up the MLB Draft League last summer; left fielder/DH Tate Parker, who led Pearl River to the national junior college championship last spring; and second baseman Gabe Lacy, who hit .329 with 12 home runs and 63 RBI for Tennessee Tech last season.
Mississippi State
As if last year’s losing record wasn’t bad enough, Chris Lemonis’ Bulldogs are picked to finish last in the SEC West in the preseason SEC coaches poll. Color this observer shocked if they do. There’s just too much talent and too much tradition in Starkville for that to happen. But here’s the thing about the SEC West: Every team in the division feels that way.
Chris Lemonis
First things first: State does have some key players still around from the 2021 National Champions. Catcher Luke Hancock, outfielder Kellum Clark and shortstop Lane Forsythe have been there. That’s a start. They know what it takes. The rest of the everyday lineup looks good as well, especially with first baseman Hunter Hines and his 16 home runs in the middle of the batting order.
Pitching is the big question mark. Some guys who didn’t get it done last season will have to improve drastically. Last season, the Bulldogs finished last in the SEC with an earned run average of 6.07, a full two runs per game higher than the national championship season. Moving out of the SEC West cellar begins with improving that stat. Memphis transfer Landon Gartman, 7-1 and All American Athletic Conference last season, surely will help in that regard.
Newcomers to watch: Gartman, Texas, transfer pitcher Aaron Nixon; incoming freshman centerfielder Dakota Jordan; New Orleans transfer second baseman Amani Larry; and Samford transfer left fielder Colton Ledbetter.
The Mississippi Division of Medicaid is the first state agency to take a public position on gender affirming care to transgender children, stating there is not enough medical literature to support that it is a “safe and effective treatment for gender dysphoria.”
Drew Snyder, Mississippi Division of Medicaid executive director, gives a presentation during a Senate Medicaid hearing at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, November 9, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
In a letter to managed care companies that contract with Medicaid, Executive Director Drew Snyder wrote that the agency concurs with its counterpart in Florida that there is not enough evidence that “sex reassignment through medical intervention” is safe. Florida’s report was released in June of last year.
Snyder did not respond to a call and text to his personal cell phone Thursday afternoon. His letter was addressed to executives of Molina Healthcare of Mississippi, UnitedHealthCare Community & State MS and Magnolia Health Plan. Communications officials with the three companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“As the care coordination organizations for the majority of children and adolescents enrolled in Mississippi Medicaid, your input is welcome on approaches to effectively address any health needs without posing risky side effects or irreversible changes,” he wrote.
It’s unclear if Snyder’s letter has any effect on what services are currently covered, or why he reached out to the managed care companies instead of providers of gender-affirming care. If the agency does opt to exclude this treatment, it would join a handful of states already doing so. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas all have Medicaid policies that specifically exclude transgender health coverage, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
The Feb. 15 letter first reported by the Magnolia Tribune comes as a bill is working its way through the Legislature that would ban this kind of treatment for trans minors in Mississippi. House Bill 1125 would prevent the state’s roughly 2,400 trans kids and their families from getting hormone therapy or puberty blockers in the state.
Snyder’s letter contradicts the advice and position of major medical associations in the U.S. on gender-affirming care. It is evidence-based, and not considered “experimental” by the majority of the medical community.
Also known as the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures” (REAP) Act, the bill bans Mississippi doctors from performing gender-confirmation surgery or prescribing drugs such as puberty blockers or hormones to those under 18.
The bill would allow for the doctors’ licenses to be revoked and create a “civil claim of action” for them to be sued with a 30-year statute of limitations. It would prohibit insurers or Medicaid from reimbursing families for such procedures and would strip doctors who provide them of the state’s generous tort claims protections.
Gender-affirming care, or “sex reassignment” as Mississippi officials have called it, refers to a broad range of interventions, from medical treatment to psychological and social support, that aims to affirm an individual’s gender identity, especially when it is different from the one they were assigned at birth, according to the World Health Organization.
Decades of research support gender-affirming care as the proper treatment for gender dysphoria, the distress trans people can experience when their physical features do not match their gender identity.
Research has repeatedly shown that gender-affirming care significantly boosts the chances that trans kids will live to see adulthood. A study published last year in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association found that over the course of a year, gender-affirming care was associated with 60% reduced odds of moderate to severe depression and 73% less odds of suicidal thoughts.
Stacie Pace, the co-owner of Spectrum: The Other Clinic, said that the two main international medical organizations that write guidelinesfor gender-affirming care — the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society — cite hundreds of references and are easy to find on the internet.
“All it takes is just a quick Google, and all this research is right there in front of you,” she said.
There are three main forms of gender-affirming medical treatment: Puberty blockers, which are only for kids, hormone therapy and gender-confirmation surgery. In Mississippi, there is no clinic that performs any kind of gender-confirmation surgery on minors, according to in-state providers of gender-affirming care.
Puberty blockers are medications that pause puberty in kids. Research has shown the effects are reversible. While hormone therapy can cause some permanent effects, such as a deeper voice, it typically takes at least a year for this to occur, Pace said.
But Pace added that many other side effects of hormone therapy, like increased muscle mass or the development of breast tissue, will disappear over time if a patient ceases treatment.
“It will take about as long as it took for it to occur, but it will go away,” she said.
Alex Mills, a pharmacist who has worked with trans people, said he was confused by the letter. While a minority of his patients are on Medicaid, he hasn’t heard of Medicaid covering prescriptions for hormone therapy for trans adults since he started working in Jackson three years ago. If Medicaid covered prescriptions for his outspoken patients, Mills said they would tell him.
“I feel like they’re just kind of jumping on the bandwagon,” he said. “It’s an irrelevant comment, because they (Medicaid) haven’t been covering (hormone therapy), so I’m just confused why they’re even saying this. Just to say it?”
Mills said Medicaid has covered medical visits, but that he doesn’t know if it has covered puberty blockers, which can be pricey – up to $1,500 for a single shot that lasts a month. Hormone therapy is cheaper, so Mills recommends patients use GoodRx coupons to make their prescriptions more affordable.
At Spectrum, Pace said just one youth patient is currently on Medicaid. But of the clinic’s roughly 1,000 adult patients, about half are Medicaid beneficiaries.
The Division of Medicaid has not taken a stance on other issues being considered by the Legislature. One of those is extending postpartum care from 60 days to one year for new mothers, which Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said he has asked the agency to do.
When a committee tasked with advising Medicaid about health and medical care services voted unanimously in October to recommend that the Legislature extend postpartum coverage, the Division of Medicaid still did not take a stance.
The State Board of Medical Licensure, which would enforce the bill’s provision revoking providers’ licenses, has not responded to questions from Mississippi Today. The University of Mississippi Medical Center, which has provided gender-affirming care to trans kids at its LGBTQ-focused TEAM Clinic, said earlier this month that “we have no comment for now.”
Gov. Tate Reeves announced Thursday he has a plan for infrastructure improvements to drive economic development, and he’s asking lawmakers for $1.3 billion this session so he can kick off road projects statewide.
Reeves said the “vast majority” of the projects are already in the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s three-year plan for road work, but he’s picked ones that are shovel ready and that will help traffic capacity and give “Mississippi the competitive advantage it needs to land more economic development projects and deliver more high-quality, high-paying jobs for Mississippians.”
Reeves wants lawmakers to use a historically large budget surplus to fund his road plan, during an election year.
Reeves announced his “plan to drive further economic development and growth in Mississippi” at a press conference on Thursday. He had a large state map showing numerous proposed projects dotted statewide, many of them long in the works by MDOT or requested by local leaders.
It is unclear why Reeves would go around MDOT and normal channels and ask lawmakers to put $1.3 billion in a special account for his plan, or why it wasn’t part of his budget recommendation to lawmakers in the fall. He said time is of the essence, particularly with high inflation rates driving up cost of road construction, although he acknowledged all the projects couldn’t be completed during one fiscal year.
Reeves’ proposal includes a request for $100 million for the state Emergency Road and Bridge Repair program, which provides money for local governments. Lawmakers allocated $100 million for the program last year, with the Senate pushing unsuccessfully for $300 million. Reeves also is asking for more money for grants to develop project-ready industrial parks statewide.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on Thursday issued a statement about the governor’s proposal.
“The Senate has prioritized infrastructure funding, with billions allocated for road, bridge, water, and sewer projects over the past several years,” Hosemann said. “We look forward to reviewing the Governor’s recommendations and continuing our emphasis on critical infrastructure.”
MDOT Director Brad White, Reeves’ former chief of staff, and Tom King, chair of the three-member elected Transportation Commission that oversees MDOT, both supported Reeves’ request in statements on Thursday.
“There is no better use for the one-time money our state currently has than investing in a core function of government — our state’s public infrastructure,” White said. “I applaud Gov. Tate Reeves and the Legislature for their vigorous support and focus on Mississippi’s transportation system.”
King said: “Our top priorities at MDOT are safety, efficiency and economic development. This initiative hits all three. Increasing capacity and safety with projects that are nearest shovel-ready is efficient use of one-time funds. This investment will in-turn help encourage economic development and expansion across the state. I look forward to continuing this conversation with our state leaders in the days and weeks to come.”
Reeves said, “We have had conversations with individual members (of the Legislature) and the leadership” about his road plan.
Asked how he views the chances of lawmakers earmarking $1.3 billion for his road plan, he said: “I am forever an optimist when it comes to working with the Legislature.”
House leaders introduced and passed legislation Thursday to provide $80 million in state funds for financially challenged hospitals instead of expanding Medicaid to provide more than a $1 billion per year in federal funds for Mississippi’s litany of health care needs.
The bill passed the House overwhelmingly, though some members made it clear that the $80 million is nothing more than a “Band-Aid” and that much more needs to be done to address the hospital crisis.
During floor debate, Rep. Earl Banks, D-Jackson, asked House Public Health Chair Sam Mims, R-McComb, how many years would state funds be used to provide grants to hospitals. Mims said he did not know.
“If Medicaid would be expanded, which I understand would bring about $1 billion, then it probably would not be necessary to give them $80 million and we could use those funds for other things,” said Rep. Earl Banks, D-Jackson.
Mims replied, “This piece of legislation has nothing to do with expanding Medicaid.”
Mims and other Republican leaders, such as Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves, have opposed expanding Medicaid to provide health care coverage for primarily the working poor. They say they oppose expanding government programs and also contend the state cannot afford the cost of expanding Medicaid.
The federal government pays 90% of the health case costs of those covered through Medicaid expansion. Various studies say that the 10% cost to the state for expanding Medicaid is minimal or would even result in net positive revenue for the state because of the cost savings associated with the expansion, such as reducing the amount of uncompensated costs hospitals incur.
Mississippi is one of just 11 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid.
The Mississippi Senate passed similar legislation earlier this year providing $80 million grants to the hospitals. At some point the two chambers will have to agree on a single piece of legislation before hospitals can receive the funds.
Both legislative Republicans and Democrats have said $80 million in grants over a year’s time is not enough to deal with the financial issues facing most of the state’s about 110 hospitals. The Mississippi Hospital Association has endorsed expanding Medicaid, saying it would not solve all their problems but would provide much needed relief.
The $80 million passed by the House would be disbursed based on the number of beds each hospital has. It equates to an average of about $6,436 per bed.
Mims told House members he hopes that later in the legislative process, the amount of funds earmarked for hospitals can be increased before final passage.
Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, offered an amendment to increase the amount of the grants to $275 million.
“We can’t sit back and be a like an ostrich with our heads stuck in the sand and our butts pointed up at the sky,” Clark said. “Everybody in here knows we are right here in the midst of a health care crisis. Hospitals are closing.”
Both Clark’s amendment and one offered by Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, were defeated along party line votes. Hines’ amendment would have created a study committee to look at the best options to ensure the financial viability of the state’s hospitals.
Reports indicate that at least 28 hospitals are on the brink of closure and many more are facing financial difficulties resulting in staff shortage and the closure of programs.
Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said legislative efforts at state control of Jackson’s troubled water system are “either a little bit too late or either a little bit premature.”
Reeves also appeared to question whether a controversial bill to create a new, separate court system for part of Jackson that would strip Jacksonians’ right to elect their own judges is fully baked or “meets constitutional muster.”
Reeves was asked about the bills — which have drawn national headlines and brought bitter debate on racial lines — at the end of an unrelated press conference on Thursday. The two measures are among a bevy of bills that white, Republican lawmakers this session are pushing over protests from Jackson’s legislative delegation and leaders of the Blackest large city in the country.
Reeves himself has clashed with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba over state emergency actions to restore water and have state police start patrolling parts of the city he called “the murder capital of the world.” But on Thursday Reeves took a toned-down approach while speaking about the fight between lawmakers and the city.
Reeves said he expects the federal conservatorship now in control of Jackson’s water system will remain so for years to come, making state legislative efforts to take it over moot, at least for now.
Senate Bill 2889, passed by the Senate and pending in the House, would create a non-profit “regional” authority to run Jackson’s water system. A majority of the board overseeing the authority would be appointed by state leaders.
But the federally appointed water system manager tasked with fixing the ailing system has said he expects to be in place at least five years. Reeves on Thursday said that federal control could last longer, up to 10 years.
Reeves was also asked about House Bill 1020, which would create a separate court system and expand state police force patrolling in Jackson.
Opponents of the bill, including Jackson and Hinds County elected leaders, say the bill is racist, implying Black leadership is incapable of governance, and unconstitutional, taking away voting rights. The measure would make part of Jackson the only area in the state where voters don’t elect their district judges. Instead they would be appointed by the state Supreme Court Chief Justice and prosecutors would be appointed by the attorney general.
Reeves said he believes the legislation aimed at Jackson is “well intentioned,” but stressed it is an early draft and said his office is working with legislative leaders in part to make sure such measures “meet constitutional muster.”
The bill would also expand the current boundaries of the Capitol Complex Improvement District well north of downtown. Reeves in 2021 was a proponent of the successful push to have Capitol Police, once tasked only with patrolling state owned buildings and grounds, patrol the CCID.
Reeves, who oversees Capitol Police via his appointed director of the Department of Public Safety, reiterated his support for Capitol Police patrolling.
“Jackson is the murder capital of the world, and the thought of doing nothing is not an option,” Reeves said.
