Podcast: Rebels, Bulldogs and Eagles, Oh My!
The Sanderson Farms Championship is in the books, the Braves are on the rise and the Saints are sinking, but the Magnolia State’s “Big Four” college football teams are all on the rise. The Cleveland boys touch on all of it, and discuss Deion Sanders’ future at Jackson State in a grab-bag conversation about Mississippi sports.
Stream all episodes here.
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Cities and counties apply for $435 million from state’s water and sewer ARPA fund
The city of Jackson requested the largest amount of money, $36 million, of any city or county from a designated water and sewer fund that came through the American Rescue Plan Act.
State lawmakers established the fund earlier this year to help pay for infrastructure needs by matching what money cities and counties received directly from ARPA.
In total, Mississippi’s cities and counties applied for $435 million from the Mississippi Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program, equaling nearly all of the $450 million the legislature put into the fund.
In their applications, cities and counties list out specific water and sewer projects and include funding amounts from their own direct ARPA appropriations. Then, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the program, can provide up to a 1-to-1 funding match, or 2-to-1 for places that received less than $1 million in direct funds.
Jackson applied for a $23 million match to help fix its drinking water system, which would give it $46 million in total. On the wastewater side, the city is requesting a $12 million match to give it $24 million total.
Hinds County did not submit an application, according to a list provided by MDEQ. The county agreed to use $17 million of its ARPA money for Jackson’s water system, WLBT reported last month.
Half of the funds sought in the applications, or $216 million, were for wastewater projects, $139 million were for drinking water projects, and $79 million for stormwater projects.
The city of Gulfport is seeking the most money for wastewater improvements, at $26 million. For stormwater projects, Rankin County applied for the largest amount at $21 million.
An MDEQ spokesperson said the agency anticipates that cities and counties will receive funds by the end of the year, and that there will also be a second round of applications for remaining money.
MDEQ provided a breakdown of how much entities are seeking for different projects. Use the tables below for a breakdown by spending area:
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Can Rebels, Bulldogs match 2014 success? Clearly, the goal is to finish better
Eight years ago this week, Mississippi State and Ole Miss had climbed to a tie for No. 3 in the Associated Press college football poll. Both had begun the season unranked.
It was wild.
Remember? Ole Miss had just knocked off Alabama. State had cold-cocked Texas A&M.
We hadn’t seen anything yet. It was about to go from wild to crazy.
State proceeded to clock No. 2 Auburn 38-23 and move to No. 1. Ole Miss dispatched A&M 35-20 and remained at No. 3, just two votes behind No. 2 Florida State. Both the Bulldogs and Rebels were a perfect 6-0. Two measly votes kept State and Ole Miss from being 1-2 in the land.
This football-crazed state was nuts.
The college football nation was astonished. Indeed, even the talking heads at ESPN began to correctly distinguish between Ole Miss and Mississippi State, two teams they had often mixed up in the past.
Eight years later, we’re not to 2014 level — at least not yet — but college football in Mississippi has rarely been better than it is at this juncture.
Could this be 2014 all over again? Ole Miss, 5-0, has moved to No. 9 in the AP poll. State, 4-1, moved up to No. 23 after last Saturday’s 42-24 trouncing of the Texas Aggies. There’s more to celebrate in Mississippi. Jackson State, 4-0, has moved to No. 8 in the FCS rankings. The Tigers appear to be the head and shoulders above the rest of the SWAC. Southern Miss is a much more modest 2-2, but has now won four of its last six games over two seasons and finally has something to hang its hat on after a huge road victory over otherwise undefeated Tulane.
In Division II, surprising Delta State moved to 5-0 with a 70-31 run-away victory over 13th ranked Valdosta State last Saturday. Meanwhile, Mississippi College stunned No. 15 West Georgia 39-38.
So back to the question: Could 2022 be 2014 all over again?
State’s lone defeat, 31-16 at LSU, makes a repeat of 2014 with both the state’s SEC teams ranked in the top 3 highly unlikely. But Ole Miss clearly has a navigable road to move much higher in the polls.
If the games were played today, Lane Kiffin’s Rebels would be favored in each of their next four: at Vanderbilt, Auburn at home, at LSU and at Texas A&M. At this point, Kiffin probably would borrow from his former boss Nick Saban and tell his players not to read the rest of this rat poison. But here it is: Ole Miss could conceivably be 9-0 with Alabama coming to Oxford on Nov. 12.
Now that would reach 2014 levels of Mississippi football craziness. It could happen.
State’s immediate schedule is exceedingly more difficult. The Bulldogs first play Arkansas at home, then at once-beaten Kentucky, then No. 1 Alabama, then Auburn, and then No. 2 Georgia. Oh, the joys of competing in the SEC…
So much is still to be determined, but the stakes could be much higher than usual when State plays Ole Miss at Oxford on Thanksgiving night.
Back to 2014: You will remember that Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs, led by Dak Prescott, held their No. 1 ranking for five consecutive weeks until Alabama popped the Dogs’ bubble 25-20 at Tuscaloosa. State then crushed Vanderbilt before losing both the Egg Bowl and the Orange Bowl (to Georgia Tech) to finish at No. 11 in the AP poll.
Ole Miss? The Rebels did win the Golden Egg, but dropped all the way to No. 17 after being trounced by TCU 42-3 in the Peach Bowl.
Important to remember when comparing 2022 to what happened eight years ago: Starting strong is merely good; finishing strong is epic.
In 2014, the start was epic, the finish not so good.
That’s where 2022 could be far, far better. We’ll see. That’s enough rat poison for one day.
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‘A screeching halt.’ Judges’ question in mental health lawsuit has implications beyond Mississippi
Mississippi’s long-running mental health lawsuit could trigger an upheaval in how legal protections for people with disabilities are enforced, potentially reducing pressure on state and local governments to guarantee disabled Americans equal access to services.
The Department of Justice sued Mississippi six years ago claiming it had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by institutionalizing people with mental illness instead of providing community-based services. A district judge sided with the federal government, approved a remedial order for the Department of Mental Health and appointed a special monitor to oversee the agency’s compliance. The state appealed that ruling last year, arguing that the mental health system had already made improvements and that the district court had wrongly imposed “perpetual federal oversight.”
But the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday is interested in a much more fundamental question: whether the Department of Justice could legally have sued Mississippi at all.
If the judges decide the answer is no, that would create a split with another federal appeals court. Then the question could wind up in front of a U.S. Supreme Court that is deeply skeptical of federal authority and willing to overturn long-standing precedents like Roe v. Wade.
For years, federal lawsuits like the one against Mississippi have been the major vehicle pushing state and local governments to offer equal access and services to people with disabilities, which is required under Title II of the ADA.
The panel’s decision to pose a question that neither Mississippi nor the Justice Department raised in their own briefs suggests the judges are interested in changing that.
“The disability community is extremely worried,” said Ira Burnim, legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
Burnim co-authored an amicus brief by several national organizations advocating for people with disabilities or mental illness. The brief, submitted before the panel raised the question of whether the Justice Department should have been able to sue at all, argued that Mississippi had violated Title II and that oversight was necessary to ensure the state expanded community-based mental health services.
“The Department of Justice’s ability to bring lawsuits is critical to the enforcement of Title II,” he continued.
Accessibility at public buildings like courthouses, accommodations for hearing-impaired people to participate in juries, and wheelchair lifts on public buses are all areas where the Justice Department could sue under Title II.
The law has also been applied more broadly. In the 1999 case Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court ruled that “undue institutionalization” violates Title II because depriving people of the chance to live in their community constitutes discrimination. The Justice Department has relied on that precedent to force states to provide community-based services for people with mental illness.
From 2009 to 2016, the department was involved in 50 such cases, including the Mississippi suit.
The judges assigned to hear the Mississippi case are Edith Jones, James Ho and Leslie Southwick, all Republican appointees to the most conservative appeals court in the country.
The language of Title II does not explicitly say the attorney general can sue state and local governments to enforce it, while other parts of the ADA do. But the Justice Department has initiated lawsuits to enforce Title II since it came into effect in 1992, and it has argued that Congress clearly intended the attorney general to have the authority to compel state and local governments to comply with nondiscrimination law if they won’t do so on a voluntary basis.
If the Fifth Circuit panel determines that the Justice Department could not have sued Mississippi, that ruling would conflict with a recent ruling by the Eleventh Circuit in a Florida lawsuit.
Like the Mississippi case, that federal lawsuit involved claimed Florida was unnecessarily institutionalizing mentally ill or disabled people.
The Eleventh Circuit rejected Florida’s argument that the Justice Department could not sue it directly. Florida then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that federal Title II lawsuits can affect “virtually all state and local activities and programs.”
“Through lawsuits brought against states under Title II, the United States has asserted sweeping authority to reshape all manner of state programs, shifting the balance of federal-state power,” the state’s petition said.
The Supreme Court recently declined to hear the Florida case. But if the Fifth Circuit reaches a different conclusion from the Eleventh Circuit, the highest court may step in.
“This is pure speculation, no one knows the reason for the Fifth Circuit action, but one possibility here is that if the Fifth Circuit were to find that DOJ lacked authority to bring lawsuits in federal court to enforce Title II, then there would be a circuit split and it would make it more likely that the Supreme Court would accept a case that raised that issue,” Burnim said.
In addition to the mental health lawsuit, the Department of Justice has pursued legal action against Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Jackson, and other cities and counties to enforce compliance with Title II. In most cases, that action resulted in a settlement agreement rather than a years-long lawsuit.
If the Justice Department were unable to sue states directly, individuals or organizations representing a group of such individuals could still sue. But these lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive, and the Justice Department has the staff, expertise and resources to see them through, said Clarence Sundram, an attorney and expert on institutions and community services for people with mental disabilities.
“Many times private individuals will complain to the DOJ to invoke its assistance in these kinds of cases for precisely these reasons,” said Sundram. “So to rule that DOJ doesn’t have the authority could remove one very significant avenue of enforcing these laws.”
Advocates for Mississippians with mental illness will be watching the case closely, too.
Joy Hogge, executive director of the nonprofit Families As Allies, which advocates for kids with behavioral health challenges, said she has seen “genuinely good things happening” in the state’s mental health system under the remedial order. But all of that has been directly linked to the lawsuit, she said. If the order were overturned – which the Fifth Circuit could do even if it doesn’t reject the Justice Department’s authority to sue states under Title II – she’s not sure progress will continue.
“I’m afraid that everything might just come to a screeching halt,” she said.
The Fifth Circuit website says the court aims to issue opinions within 60 days of oral arguments.
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MT Asks: Your questions about the Jackson water crisis answered
On Aug. 29, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Jackson’s water system was failing. The city water system has been plagued with problems for years, including tens of thousands of residents losing water between one and three weeks during a 2021 winter storm. In this episode of MT Speaks, environment reporter Alex Rozier answers six reader questions about the crisis.
We got you covered.
We’re keeping you informed with the latest on the Jackson water crisis. You can help sustain this news by donating any amount today to join the Mississippi Today member community.
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PSC approves compromise on net metering after utility pushback
The Public Service Commission approved a slightly less aggressive net metering rule on Tuesday, responding to resistance from Mississippi’s powerful utility companies in an attempt to avoid litigation.
The PSC originally expanded incentives for net metering, or self-generating renewable power, with a new rule in July that required utility companies to increase reimbursement rates for low-income customers as well as offer rebates to help buy home solar systems. The new rule also established a Solar-for-Schools program with the goal of reducing expenses for school districts.
Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley said the PSC worked together with the regulated power companies on the new order, and doesn’t expect another appeal before the new net metering rule takes effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
Mississippi is behind most states in its adoption of net metering. Out of the 47 states with a net metering rule, Mississippi has the second lowest number of self-generating customers. Most states offer customers the full retail rate when reimbursing them for self-generated energy, and Mississippi is one of six states to not do so.
Net metering advocates argue that the policy helps push forward the transition to renewable energy, which in Mississippi has been relatively slow. They also point to economic benefits of attracting the growing solar industry into the state.
After Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi pushed back against July revisions to the PSC’s rule, the commission approved the following changes on Tuesday:
- Narrowing the eligibility for households to receive an extra reimbursement from 250% of the federal poverty level to 225%.
- Decreasing a $3,500 rebate for home installations to $3,000, available for low to moderate income households earning up to 225% of the federal poverty level.
- Adding a $2,000 rebate for households to build a battery storage system, although customers can only use one of the two rebates
- Bringing the participation cap back from 4% to 3% of a utility company’s maximum demand. Once the cap is met, the PSC can again make revisions to the rule.
Presley emphasized the benefits that the rule would have for the 85 of the state’s 142 school districts that are eligible to participate.
Each district, he said, could see savings between $40,000 to $125,000 based on the amount of public land the district owns, and could use that money to pay for teacher salaries and supplies.
Presley added that if the Solar-for-Schools program hits full capacity, it would add just $1.18 to customers’ electric bills on average.
“Anybody that wants to characterize this as some train-off-the-track Green New Deal, willy-nilly (rule), that is a factual lie,” Presley said.
On Monday, Gov. Tate Reeves took to social media to call out the PSC for expanding the self generation incentives.
“It’s a bad deal,” the governor said of the recent changes to the rule. “The PSC should slow down. If not, the legislature must reverse it.”
Asked about the governor’s criticism, Presley said that anyone opposed to the rule had 20 months since the PSC first took up the changes to make their opposition known. He added that the Public Utilities Staff, whose director is appointed by the governor, offered no objections in the public comment process.
“It’s not particularly helpful in crafting public policy for latecomers in the conversation to offer no solutions and just offer criticism,” Presley said. “Anyone who tries to paint this process as kneejerk or not methodical is not paying attention.”
The three PSC commissioners voted on the order Tuesday just as they had on the July order, with Presley and Central District Commissioner Brandon Bailey voting in favor, and Southern District Commissioner and Chairman Dane Maxwell voting against. Maxwell said that while he’s in favor of allowing customers to self-generate power, he’s against doing so at the expense of non-participating customers.
Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi have each echoed that point, arguing that self-generated power is uneconomical, and that expanding net metering forces the companies to pass on adoption costs to the rest of their ratepayers.
In other renewable news, the PSC announced last week the approval of a 200 megawatt solar plant in Clay County, which, once running, will have twice the capacity of the next-largest renewable facility in the state. The plant also will include 50 megawatts of battery storage.
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Cleveland superintendent steps down, but remains in district
The superintendent of the Cleveland School District has stepped down, according to a press release issued Friday by the district.
Superintendent Otha Belcher stepped down on Sept. 30 and “will assume another role within the District,” according to the statement.
“While the District appreciates Dr. Belcher’s service, all parties agree that a change in leadership will be the most effective method of continuing to move the district in a positive direction for the future.”
Parents have been voicing their frustrations with the district for a while, questioning spending decisions and voicing frustration with infrastructure woes. Belcher told Mississippi Today in August he felt many of the complaints regarding his leadership were racially motivated.
Belcher started in Cleveland in June 2019, leading the district for three years during the pandemic before stepping down on Friday. Prior to this position, he was an assistant superintendent in the Jackson Public School District and worked in the Vicksburg-Warren and Hinds County school districts.
“I don’t know of anyone that’s found it to be a negative,” said Jason Shaw, a local parent, in reference to Belcher’s reassignment “I think everyone agreed that it was time for him to go. Not that he was a bad person, I don’t know of anybody that said anything bad about him as an individual, he just wasn’t doing the job.”
Lisa Bramuchi, a former assistant superintendent of the district, has been named interim superintendent and Reggie Barnes, a former superintendent, has been brought on as a consultant to help with the superintendent search.
Shaw emphasized that new leadership will need strong communication to establish trust with the community, as well as focusing on making repairs and improvements to the school buildings.
Belcher could not be reached for comment, nor could board members Paulette Howze and Debbie Fioranelli.
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Mississippi sigue siendo el estado más mortal para los bebés, según los CDC
Los bebés de Mississippi tienen más probabilidades de morir antes de su primer cumpleaños que los bebés de cualquier otro lugar del país, según datos publicados el jueves por los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades.
El estado tenía una promedio de mortalidad infantil de 8.12 por cada 1,000 nacidos vivos, muy por encima del promedio nacional de 5.42 en 2020, el año más reciente para datos nacionales disponibles. Luisiana, el segundo desde abajo, registró 7.59 muertes por cada 1,000 nacidos vivos.
Mississippi ha tenido la promedio de mortalidad infantil más alta del país durante años. En 2019, el estado encabezó la lista con una promedio de 8.71.
Los bebés Negros tienen el doble de probabilidades de morir que sus contrapartes blancas en Mississippi. En 2020, la promedio de mortalidad infantil entre los bebés blancos fue de 5.7, en comparación con 11.8 entre los bebés Negros, según datos del departamento de salud. En 2019, 322 bebés murieron antes de cumplir un año en el estado. Casi el 60%, o 185, eran Negros, aunque los bebés Negros representaron solo el 43% de los nacimientos.
A nivel nacional, la principal causa de mortalidad infantil son los defectos de nacimiento. Pero en Mississippi, las causas principales son el nacimiento prematuro y el embarazo o las complicaciones del parto, así como el síndrome de muerte súbita del lactante (SIDS, por sus siglas en inglés). Mississippi tiene la tasa más alta de nacimientos prematuros del país, lo que está relacionado con condiciones crónicas como tensión arterial alta y diabetes entre las madres.
La tasa de mortalidad infantil es uno de los muchos indicadores de salud en los que Mississippi "no solo ocupa una posición 50" pero "el 50 por milla", como lo expresó el Dr. Daniel Edney, oficial de salud estatal, durante la primera audiencia organizada por el Grupo de Estudio del Senado sobre la Mujer, Niños y Familias el martes.
El grupo, que fue creado por el vicegobernador Delbert Hosemann después de que la Corte Suprema revocara Roe v. Wade, escuchó a un orador tras otro indicar que el estado no está preparado para los embarazos de alto riesgo adicionales ahora que Mississippi ha prohibido los abortos.
El departamento de salud estima que el estado verá 5,000 nacimientos mas cada año.
La audiencia de la comisión del Senado, presidida por la senadora Nicole Boyd, republicana de Oxford, dejó que extender la cobertura de Medicaid de 60 días a 12 meses será una prioridad para el Senado en la próxima sesión. Pero la legislación probablemente enfrenta una batalla cuesta arriba en la Cámara, donde el presidente Philip Gunn, republicano por Clinton, eliminó la medida el año pasado, alegando que va a expandir Medicaid, aunque no haría que más personas fueran elegibles para el programa.
Y aunque los expertos dicen que extender la cobertura de Medicaid después del nacimiento ayudaría a reducir la mortalidad materna y también mejoraría la salud infantil, no ayudaría a garantizar que las mujeres estén saludables cuando queden embarazadas. La comisión del Senado escuchó datos que indican que una de cada seis mujeres en edad fértil no tiene seguro, lo que les dificulta obtener atención para controlar condiciones como la hipertensión que aumentan el riesgo de malos resultados en el parto.
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