The House of Representatives, after lengthy debate and a partisan vote on Thursday, passed a bill that would ban gender affirming surgery and drugs for Mississippians 18 and under.
The 78-28 vote, mostly along party lines, came after numerous Democratic lawmakers asked why the bill was needed, and why the House wasn’t instead addressing a health care crisis with officials warning 38 hospitals are on the verge of closure.
House Bill 1125, the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures Act,” is similar to measures passed or debated in other states and was authored by Rep. Gene Newman, a Republican from Pearl.
It would prohibit Mississippi doctors from performing gender affirming surgery or prescribing drugs such as hormone replacement therapy to those under 18. It 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.
The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration.
Under questioning, Rep. Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth who made the floor pitch for the bill, said he knows of no cases of Mississippi youth undergoing gender affirming surgery, but said he has heard some are taking hormone treatments. Bain said the University of Mississippi Medical Center had 47 “visits” regarding gender affirming care between 2017 and 2022, but he is unsure if any of those patients were 18 and under.
“To me it’s about taking a wait-and-see approach to make sure that these kids are what they think they are,” Bain said. “… The child still has the right, the ability to live as any gender they want, then when they turn 18 they can make that decision.”
Other than Bain, Republican supporters of the bill were mostly quiet during the floor debate that lasted more than an hour.
Rep. Chris Bell, a Democrat from Jackson, asked Bain, “Wouldn’t we be better off dealing with bills to prevent hospitals closing across our state?” noting the measure was one of the first general bills to be taken up by the House this session.
Bain said such legislation dealing with hospitals would be forthcoming and he believes the Thursday bill “is a compelling public interest for us to be involved in with children.”
Rep. Omeria Scott, a Democrat from Laurel, offered an amendment to the bill to expand Mississippi Medicaid coverage. Her amendment was ruled improper and no vote was taken.
“Instead of dealing with 47 people out of 3 million, this will do something for 166,000 people who need health care,” Scott said of her amendment.
Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, questioned whether supporters of the bill were “taking away parents’ rights.”
“When these types of decisions are made, there’s usually a team, right, not just the child,” Summers said. “There’s a psychiatrist, a psychologist, physicians. Are we saying we want to take away parents’ rights and say we won’t allow them to make decisions for their children based on what medical professionals tell them?”
Bain said, “We take away parents’ rights all the time,” including with custody decisions and other matters to protect children’s well-being.
After the bill passed, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi issued a statement saying the backers of the bill are “forcing policy onto vulnerable young people.”
“Denying healthcare to transgender youth can be life-threatening,” the ACLU statement said. “Research shows transgender youth are twice as likely than their cisgender peers to experience depression, isolation, and attempt suicide. Additionally, transgender youth whose families support their gender identity have a decrease in suicidal thoughts and significant increases in self-esteem.”
More than three years after a historic downpour within the Mississippi River basin led to financial hardships for the Gulf Coast’s fisheries, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must seek consultation over the effects of opening the Bonnet Carré Spillway.
The spillway, which was built in the 1930s, is designed to redirect potential floodwaters from the Mississippi River away from New Orleans and into Lake Ponchartrain. But when the Corps opens the spillway, the river’s water eventually reaches the Mississippi Sound, and can impact the salinity in a way that kills off species such as oysters, shrimp and crabs.
After historic amounts of rainfall in 2018 and 2019, the Corps opened the spillway an unprecedented three times in two years. Mississippi Today published a series in 2020 on the impacts of the spillway openings, where Gulf Coast fishermen questioned the future of their careers after dealing with one disaster after another.
In his ruling on Wednesday, Judge Louis Guirola wrote that the Corps violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act by not seeking consultation from the National Marine Fisheries Service — a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA — when opening the spillway. The law requires federal agencies to seek consultation if they take an action that impacts essential fish habitat.
Guirola ordered the Corps to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the impact of the spillway openings by Sept. 30 of this year.
Guirola dismissed a related lawsuit, filed by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in September, 2021. In that case, later argued by Secretary of State Michael Watson, Mississippi officials argued that the Corps should complete an updated environmental impact study on the effects of the spillway openings, and also that the Corps should open the Morganza Spillway, which would instead send water into southern Louisiana.
The judge dismissed the case with prejudice over a lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.
Certified teacher vacancies in Mississippi have decreased since last year, with 2,593 reported for the 2022-23 school year according to the Mississippi Department of Education.
The state did not start tracking its critical teacher shortage until 2021, when the department found just over 3,000 public school teaching positions were either completely vacant or held by teachers who were not properly certified.
Courtney Van Cleve, MDE director of educator talent acquisition and effectiveness, said the survey data provided “one of the clearest pictures of Mississippi’s educator workforce that we have had to date.”
Elementary school teachers make up a third of all vacancies, at 32%, but high school teachers were close behind with 31%. In high school, the greatest vacancies are in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes.
“It’s encouraging that we have fewer vacancies, but we still have too many vacancies in districts throughout our state,” said Kelly Riley, director of Mississippi Professional Educators.
Riley specifically called the 335 special education teacher vacancies “alarming” because it is a subject area she said has been on the critical shortage list for too long, since at least the 2019-20 school year.
Administrator vacancies have also decreased from last year, but vacancies for support staff, such as custodians or administrative assistants, have not. Particularly, there have been increases in vacancies for teacher assistants and bus drivers.
Van Cleve said districts linked this increase to an uptick in responsibilities to address pandemic-related learning loss without an increase in wages.
“Things like one-on-one tutorials with a teacher assistant or extended day bus routes or Saturday bus routes are leaving them in a place feeling … fairly overwhelmed,” Van Cleve said.
Van Cleve said that while there are still vacancies to be addressed, the department has seen success by creating some flexibility in teacher licensure. This has allowed a greater number of teachers to enter the field with similar outcomes to other teachers.
Toren Ballard, K-12 policy director for Mississippi First, lauded the department for tracking this information but said he would have liked to see it presented at the district level.
“Overall it’s about 500 less vacancies than last year, which looks like a good statistic, but I think it doesn’t cover the whole story,” said Ballard.
In the 2021-22 school year, Mississippi had 32,199 teachers working in classrooms and the average salary was $47.902, according to MDE.
Even after the pay raise offered by the Legislature last year, Mississippi First found in a new report the number of teachers who left their district at the end of the 2021-22 school year still increased, with 23.7% of all teachers not returning. Teachers in poorly rated districts were also more likely to leave, with 32% of teachers in F-rated districts leaving at the end of last year compared to 16% in A-rated districts.
The report also found that half of Mississippi teachers cannot afford at least one of the following: adequate food, transportation, housing, or medical care. Financial insecurity, and student debt specifically, was most closely linked with a risk of leaving the classroom. Teachers who work in low-rated school districts and teachers of color both reported significantly higher student debt burdens.
To address these impacts, Mississippi First recommends an annual stipend for teaching in critical shortage areas and an expansion of eligibility for the existing Winter-Reed Teacher Loan Repayment Program. Currently, the program is only available to traditional route teachers in their first year of teaching and has a cap on the number of applicants that can be assisted each year, which does not allow the financial aid office to use the total appropriation for the program each year. The organization recommends expanding eligibility regardless of years of experience or path to the classroom, as well as removing the cap.
“Our work in improving the educator pipeline is not finished,” Ballard said. “Some of the disparities and financial issues that are underpinning the teacher shortage in Mississippi have been around for so long that it’s going to take more than one year of a pay raise to really start making some progress in addressing this issue.”
A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed 57% of voters would support “someone else” over current Gov. Tate Reeves in a November election, while just 33% would support Reeves.
Dak Prescott throws at the Manning Passing Academy in 2015. Eli Manning (far left) watches from behind. (Photo by Parker Waters, MPA.)
Question: What do all eight starting quarterbacks remaining in the NFL playoffs have in common, other than an intense spotlight shining on them this weekend?
Answer: While still in college, all eight worked as counselors in the Manning Passing Academy (MPA) in Thibodaux, La. Count ’em, eight: Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys; Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars; Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles; Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers; Daniel Jones, New York Giants; Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals; Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs; and Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills.
Several of those, including Dak Prescott, were Manning campers before they became counselors later on.
Rick Cleveland
“We’d love to take credit for all their success, but they were pretty good when we got them,” Archie Manning told Mississippi Today on Tuesday. Archie Manning and his sons Cooper, Peyton and Eli are all deeply involved in the camp, which is already sold out with a long waiting list for 2023.
Besides the eight quarterbacks, Kellen Moore, the coach who will call the Cowboys’ plays for Prescott, worked as an MPA counselor when he played at Boise State. Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor was an MPA counselor in 2006 when he played at Nebraska.
What’s more, three of the four quarterbacks whose teams lost in the playoffs last weekend were also MPA counselors. The only outlier? Tom Brady.
Deadpanned Cooper Manning, “Tom just wasn’t good enough.”
The 26-year-old MPA welcomes approximately 1,200 campers each summer for four days of intensive instruction. Over the years, thousands of those campers have been Mississippians.
“We like to keep the coach/camper ratio at 10 to 1,” Archie Manning said. “So our coaching staff consists roughly of about 80 high school and college coaches and then about 40 counselors who are college quarterbacks.”
Many of the college quarterbacks, including Prescott, attended MPA multiple years. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, a prime candidate for NFL MVP, was a three-year counselor, including two times when he was at Alabama and once when he was at Oklahoma.
Archie Manning speaks during the throwing competition at MPA Passing Academy. (Photo by Parker Waters, MPA.)
“The portal has really changed things,” Archie Manning said. “When I was sending out invitations for our return counselors, 11 of 21 had changed schools.”
Asked if any of the counselor-turned-playoffs quarterbacks have surprised him, Archie Manning didn’t have to think long to answer. “It would have to be Brock Purdy,” Manning said. “I mean, my gosh, from last pick in the draft to doing what he’s doing right now in San Francisco. I knew he was pretty good, but this is something like Ole Miss getting the last bid to the NCAA Tournament and then going on to win the national championship.”
That’s exactly what happened with Ole Miss baseball last year. And Purdy, a rookie out of Iowa State, has quarterbacked the San Francisco 49ers to six straight victories since becoming a starter, throwing 16 touchdowns, just four interceptions. Purdy was a third string rookie before injuries to the top two 49ers quarterbacks elevated him to a starting role.
So, how did an Iowa State quarterback end up at a football camp in Thibodaux, La.? “I was flipping channels one Saturday and started watching an Iowa State game,” Archie Manning answered. “I just loved the way Brock played and made a note to invite him to the camp.”
Purdy accepted, as nearly all do. It has become almost like a badge of honor for college quarterbacks to be invited to be an MPA counselor.
Archie Manning says he stays in touch with all “our guys,” primarily with text messaging. “I congratulate them when they do well, and probably send as many or more notes when they have a bad game,” he said. “That’s the thing with quarterbacks. You’re going to have bad games. That’s the nature of it. You’re going to throw interceptions, and not all them will be your fault. Look at Dak in the last game of the regular season. I was so proud of him the way he came back in the playoffs Monday night.”
Prescott, Manning said, is one of his favorite quarterbacks to come through MPA. “Love Dak,” he said. “Love the way he plays, love his toughness, love the way he handles himself. Love everything about him.”
That doesn’t mean Archie and son Eli weren’t above playing a joke on Dak during one summer camp. “Papa John’s made us these bright red T-shirts for our counselors one year,” Archie Manning said. “Eli and I took the one for Dak and added some stripes to it and made it look like an Ole Miss game jersey.”
Prescott wore it – after removing the stripes.
Trevor Lawrence made an impression at the 2019 Manning Passing Academy. (Photo by Parker Waters, MPA.)
Archie Manning recalls watching Trevor Lawrence in person for the first time at the MPA in 2019 when Lawrence was Clemson’s star quarterback. “What I remember is watching Trevor work out and throw and thinking, ‘This is what God drew up when he decided to make a perfect quarterback.’”
Trevor Lawrence, far left, with Archie, Eli and Peyton Manning in 2019. (Photo by Parker Waters, MPA.)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was invited to MPA in the summer of 2019 just before his breakout National Championship season at LSU. Archie Manning also invited Amory native Jimmy Burrow, a college coach and Joe’s dad, to the camp that year.
“Jimmy wrote me a note the next week and told me how much they enjoyed it,” Archie Manning said. “He told me Joe told him on the way home that he believed he was the best quarterback at camp and he probably was. Joe has never lacked for confidence.”
“What I remember most about Joe, besides how good he was, was how his hair and his sunglasses had to be perfect,” Cooper Manning said. “Joe was always stylin’. Still is.”
One of the annual highlights of the camp is a Friday night throwing competition among the counselors. In 2017, the competition was delayed by a heavy rainstorm.
Josh Allen loads up, as Cooper Manning watches from behind. (Photo by Parker Waters, MPA.)
“Usually, in Thibodaux, when it rains like that there’s lots of lightning and they have to come off the field,” Archie Manning said. “That day, Josh Allen (then of Wyoming, now the Buffalo Bills) comes up to me in the locker room and says, ‘Mr. Manning, it’s not lightning. Let’s go out there and do this.’ Josh is so competitive. He couldn’t wait.
“So we go out there and it’s wet as can be, and I’ll never forget it. It’s hard to throw a wet ball because it gets slick and heavy, but Josh threw that thing like it was perfectly dry. I turned to Peyton and said, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ Peyton couldn’t believe it either. Never seen anybody throw a wet football like that. I always said Matt Stafford had the strongest arm I had ever seen, but then I saw Josh Allen throw it. Unbelievable.”
Cooper Manning concurs. “It was raining like crazy. Everything was soaked and wet. And there’s Josh, slinging it 80 yards.”
Of course, throwing at targets in shorts and t-shirts is not a good predictor or how someone will throw the football when the blitz is coming and huge, angry people are coming at you intent on rearranging your body parts.
Patrick Mahomes would be Exhibit A.
“I remember when Mahomes came,” Archie Manning said. “In the competition he was like just another guy. There were several who could throw it as well or better. When Pat really impresses is when he’s throwing on the move, improvising, extending plays. Nobody does it better. He just makes plays.”
Nine-time Pro Bowler Russell Wilson is another who attended MPA both as a camper and then a counselor. Wilson didn’t make the playoffs this year with the Denver Broncos, but Archie Manning well remembers when Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks trounced the Broncos and Peyton Manning in the 2014 Super Bowl. In fact, Archie remembers watching a mid-Super Bowl week TV interview with Wilson. “Russell was wearing a Manning Passing Academy t-shirt there at the Super Bowl,” Archie said. “That blew me away.”
Said Cooper Manning, “It has gotten to be almost like a fraternity, the guys who have been through MPA and are now some of the biggest stars in the sport. We’re proud of it, and we don’t take it for granted.”
A majority of Mississippi voters would prefer a new governor in 2023, according to a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll.
The poll showed 57% of voters would support “someone else” over current Gov. Tate Reeves in a November election, while just 33% would support Reeves, who announced last week he will seek a second term as governor in the Nov. 2023 election.
Among Republican respondents, Reeves garnered 55% support in the scenario, while one-third of Republicans would prefer to elect someone else. More than two-thirds (67%) of independents, who in Mississippi often vote in Republican primaries, prefer someone else over just 24% who prefer Reeves.
Graphic: Bethany Atkinson
But the poll wasn’t all bad for Reeves. He currently leads narrowly against a known Democratic challenger in the general election and leads handily against a potential Republican primary challenger, according to the survey results.
Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.
Reeves leads Democrat Brandon Presley, the four-term public service commissioner who announced his campaign for governor last week, by a narrow 43%-39% margin, according to the poll. That margin is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.6%, meaning the race could either be virtually tied or Reeves could be up by 9 points. The statewide survey was conducted between Jan. 3-8, several days before Presley announced his candidacy.
Reeves carried strong support among Republicans in a head-to-head matchup with Presley, and Presley greatly outpaced Reeves among Democrats and narrowly among independents. One-third (33%) of independent respondents said they’d vote for Presley, 31% said they’d vote for Reeves and 27% said they didn’t know or had no opinion.
Graphic: Bethany Atkinson
Presley, who has never held statewide office, is not well known across the state, according to the poll. Just 21% of Mississippi voters said they had a favorable opinion of Presley, 15% said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, and a substantial 61% said they did not know enough to say. Presley enjoyed the highest name ID in the 1st Congressional District, where he lives and where he has served as public service commissioner the past 15 years. But even there, 41% of respondents don’t know enough to say whether they find him favorable or unfavorable.
Reeves’ name ID across the state is much stronger, with just 11% of poll respondents indicating they didn’t know enough about Reeves to say whether they found him favorable or unfavorable.
A 61% majority of voters also said they did not know enough to render an opinion about former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who has said he is contemplating challenging Reeves in the August Republican primary. Waller challenged Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary, forcing a runoff despite entering the election late and facing a substantial fundraising disadvantage. The new poll showed 19% of voters find Waller favorable, while 18% find him unfavorable.
Head-to-head in a potential Republican primary, Reeves defeats Waller 52% to 29% among poll respondents. But independents, who often vote in Republican primaries, favor Reeves over Waller by only a 38%-37% margin.
In Mississippi, party primary elections are open to all voters. Notably, 29% of Democrats who were surveyed said they planned to vote in the Republican primary later this year.
When asked to choose between Reeves and “someone else,” African Americans who responded support the unknown candidate by a 78% to 11% margin, while white Mississippians support Reeves by a 45% to 44% margin.
In terms of the race against Presley, white voters support Reeves 63% to 21%, while Black voters support Presley 69% to 8%.
The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 821 registered voters was conducted Jan. 8-12 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said measures he’s pushing in the Senate will help with Mississippi’s hospital crisis “not just next year, but for the next generation.”
The Senate plan would provide immediate help to hospitals with grants, remove legal barriers to consolidation of small hospitals and try to incentivize nurses and doctors to stay in Mississippi.
Hosemann said he is also working with Mississippi Medicaid and Gov. Tate Reeves to see if Medicaid can increase reimbursement to hospitals for some services. But Hosemann, one of few GOP leaders open to Medicaid expansion through the federal Affordable Care Act, said he doesn’t foresee full expansion as a starter this year.
Senate leaders have drafted four bills, with a cost of about $111 million as part of the plan Hosemann announced. Hosemann said he worked extensively with the Mississippi Hospital Association and other hospital and health care leaders to come up with this plan. It would:
Provide $80 million in grants, to help shore hospitals’ flagging revenue and increased costs, which threaten closure of 38 rural hospitals across the state. SB 2372 would distribute money to hospitals based on the number of licensed beds and type of care. Hosemann said it would also require hospitals to provide data that lawmakers could use to overhaul the state’s health delivery system. He said adjustments are needed to meet demographic and other changes.
Change “anti-trust” laws or other state legal barriers to “collaboration and consolidation” of hospitals. Hosemann said SB2323, which has a mirror bill in the House, would not change the state’s certificate of need laws that limit where certain hospital beds and specialties can go, but that “our CON laws are due for a review” and will likely also be examined this year. For the long run, Hosemann said the state’s health care infrastructure needs to be reorganized and modernized to make facilities more financially viable.
Provide $6 million for a nurse loan repayment program. Hosemann said SB 2373 is a do-over of a bill passed last year that did not work to address the states drastic shortage, estimated at about 3,000 nurses. He said changes the House made last year and other issues derailed the program, but those issues are being worked out. The plan, using federal pandemic relief money, would provide $6,000 a year, for up to three years, for nurses who agree to work at Mississippi hospitals.
Provide $20 million for a nursing/allied health community college grant program. SB2371 would use federal pandemic funds, initially, for grants to help community colleges’ nursing and health programs. Hosemann said many of the programs have long waiting lists and shortage of faculty, equipment and infrastructure needed to train nurses. Hosemann noted the COVID-19 pandemic showed the importance of nurses and “our community colleges are leading the way in providing nurses throughout the state.”
Provide $5 million to help with hospital residency and fellowship programs. Also in SB2371, this proposal, funded by federal pandemic money, would help create new programs, or add capacity to existing residency and fellowship programs in medical or surgical specialty areas at Mississippi hospitals. Hosemann said the federal government provides reimbursement for some residents or fellowships at hospitals, but the initial startup costs are prohibitive, and this new plan would help. He said that hospitals report that a majority of doctors stay in areas where they do their residencies.
Hosemann on Wednesday also reiterated his support for extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days to a year. The Senate passed such measures last year, but they were killed in the House.
“We won the pro-life case, and now we’re unwilling to take care of our moms?” Hosemann said. “I don’t understand how you can make that argument.”
A task force of public officials met behind closed doors last year to discuss revamping Mississippi’s college financial aid programs, and lawmakers next week will begin debating a bill written based on the group’s private discussions.
The 16-person task force, which met several times last year outside public view, was comprised of multiple public officials, including an associate commissioner from the Institutions of Higher Learning, the interim executive director of the Mississippi Community College Board, two community college presidents, and the chair of the little-known state board that oversees financial aid.
A bill has been filed in the Legislature based on the group’s proposal and a joint hearing has been scheduled for next week.
The president and CEO of Woodward Hines Education Foundation, the nonprofit that convened the task force, declined to discuss the details of the proposed overhaul until after the hearing, citing “the code of confidence we promised members.”
The group’s meetings, undisclosed until now, are notable because the closed-door deliberations inspired legislation that aims to spend taxpayer dollars. Yet no students who receive financial aid or will be affected by the proposed changes were invited to attend.
Mississippi Today has obtained records from the task force, including a letter McHale sent in May 2022 inviting members to join that details its goal: to “explore how Mississippi’s student financial aid investments can be best leveraged to meet the economic development needs of the State.”
Jennifer Rogers, director of the Office of Financial Aid. Credit: Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America
The task force met over the course of at least eight meetings moderated by HCM Strategies, a consulting firm brought in by Woodward Hines, which synthesized members’ discussions into a proposal. The task force approved the final proposal not by a vote, said Jennifer Rogers, a participant and director of the Office of Student Financial Aid, but “agreement by discussion.”
According to a PowerPoint created by HCM Strategies, the proposal would substantially change two state aid programs aimed at helping students from low- and middle-income families afford college, while leaving the state’s most racially inequitable aid program virtually untouched.
The Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students — called the HELP grant — would be reduced. The HELP grant currently pays up to four years of tuition at the state’s community colleges and public and private universities, no matter what institution a recipient attends.
The task force recommended lowering the HELP grant for freshmen and sophomores to the cost of tuition at the community colleges, even if a recipient decides to go to a four-year university. The last two years of the HELP grant would cover the cost of tuition at the universities.
HELP recipients, by and large, have preferred to use the generous financial aid award to attend four-year public and private universities rather than community colleges, according to OSFA’s annual reports.
The revised HELP grant would aim to push more recipients to attend community colleges, a change that Rogers said “the community colleges wanted to see.”
The task force also included the presidents of Itawamba Community College and Mississippi Delta Community College, the executive vice president at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, according to HCM’s PowerPoint.
The proposal made the most changes to the Mississippi Resident Tuition Assistance Grant, or MTAG, which provides up to $500 a year to freshmen and sophomores and $1,000 a year to juniors and seniors.
Those amounts would increase to $1,000 and $2,000, respectively, and eligibility would broaden to include Pell Grant recipients and part-time students. Students from families that make more than 200% of the median household income in Mississippi ($49,111 in 2021, according to the Census Bureau) would no longer be eligible. The requirement to get a minimum of 15 on the ACT would be removed.
The goal of these changes to MTAG is to “expand workforce preparation,” according to HCM’s PowerPoint. To that end, the grant would be renamed “MTAG Works.” Students would also get a $500 “bonus” if they pursue degrees in a “high value pathway” as defined by the state’s workforce development office.
A bill filed by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, the chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee, is virtually identical to draft legislation that Rogers wrote based on the proposal. In the bill, the “bonus” amounts were changed to be equal to a percent of the average tuition at public universities.
If Scoggin’s bill becomes law, the new programs would go into effect next year. Sen. Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth, who chairs the Senate Colleges and Universities Committee, told Mississippi Today she has filed identical legislation. She called for the joint legislative hearing next week.
There were no lawmakers on the task force but Potts Parks said she knew about the meetings. Each legislative session, Potts Parks said that IHL and the community colleges ask for changes to the state’s financial aid programs but up until now, every proposal has been too controversial to go forward.
“I’m very proud of that group of individuals that came together,” said Potts Parks. “I will tell you, I never dreamed that they would be able to come to an agreement.”
All told, the revamped programs would cost the state an additional $21 million on top of the existing programs, according to HCM Strategies’s PowerPoint, based on the estimated number of new recipients.
The proposal does not address several existing issues with the way Mississippi hands out public money for college. It does not fix the eligibility “cliff” that prevents low-income families making slightly more than $39,500 from receiving the HELP grant nor would it make the Mississippi Eminent Scholars Grant, the state’s primary merit-based grant, more racially equitable.
Though McHale said Woodward Hines’ staff were “the conveners” of the task force, he wouldn’t discuss the proposal prior to the hearings because “it wasn’t our plan.”
But Woodward Hines has pushed it along the legislative process, helping to set up meetings between lawmakers and task force members. A calendar invite obtained by Mississippi Today shows that Woodward Hines’ registered lobbyist, John Morgan Hughes, scheduled a meeting on Jan. 10 in Scoggin’s office for a “Post Secondary Bill Walk Through.”
Rogers, who presented draft legislation at that meeting, said Potts Parks, Scott Waller from the Mississippi Economic Council and Nick Hall from Speaker Philip Gunn’s office also attended, but their names aren’t listed on the calendar invite.
“They were a driving force behind it,” Potts Parks said of Woodward Hines. “I mean, they’ve been a driving force behind trying to improve education for quite some time.”
This is not the first time that attempts to revamp state financial aid in Mississippi have been less than transparent. The failed Mississippi One Grant — which Woodward Hines advocated against — was created by a committee of financial aid advisors that met outside public view.
McHale invited higher education and workforce officials from across the state to participate in Woodward Hines’s task force after the One Grant failed to gain any legislative support last year.
The task force met during the second half of last year and the discussion progressed from understanding state financial aid policy in Mississippi to “communication strategies” and “advocacy,” according to meeting minutes.
Members heard from experts in higher education and workforce policy, but Rogers said that student recipients of state financial aid did not attend. The only explicit mention in the meeting minutes of recipient input came during the second meeting when the task force watched a video of “student voices.”
At a Zoom meeting of the Post-Secondary Education Financial Assistance Board on Tuesday, the chair, Jim Turcotte, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the task force’s proposal. Turcotte was one of three financial aid board members who participated or were represented on the task force, but he said that he did not speak on their behalf.
“I didn’t say, ‘this is what we want’ or ‘this isn’t what we want,’ but I did react when asked and sometimes when not asked,” Turcotte said. “I shared my opinions and asked my questions.”
The joint legislative hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Jan. 24 at 9 a.m. at the Capitol in Room 204. Rogers said she plans to present the PowerPoint created by HCM.
Editor’s note: The Woodward Hines Education Foundation is a Mississippi Today donor.
A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed wide support for Mississippi expanding Medicaid to cover the working poor, including 70% support from Republican respondents.
The numbers appear to show a continued shift of voter sentiment in what has long been a partisan battle. Mississippi’s elected Republican governors and other leaders for the last decade have blocked Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act and the billions in federal dollars that would have come with it. This resistance continues even as struggling hospitals and more citizens in the poorest, unhealthiest state cry for help.
Several poll respondents agreed to talk with Mississippi Today about their support or opposition to expanding the federal-state health care program to cover people making up to 138% of the poverty level, or the working poor.
Republican voters who support Medicaid expansion
Katherine Bagwell, 79, West Point, small business owner
“Why not expand it, if they’re working and still not making it? Medical bills are ridiculous. It needs to be for working people, unless they are not working because they can’t. Right this minute, I know an 18-year-old who dropped out of school and is not looking for a job, living with his momma. For him, I don’t support anything but him getting off the couch … I consider myself a conservative Republican.
“And I would like to say these need to be American citizens. I’m not in favor of giving everything to illegals coming across … I have a daughter whose husband is having major problems. He’s trying to get on social security disability. She’s working, trying her best … He’s worked all his life, but a major accident at work started all this. She does not have insurance through work … I think it’s wonderful that there is Medicaid. My daughter’s children had Medicaid when they were younger, or I don’t know what they would have done. Right now I’m paying insurance for them, because she can’t afford it.”
Joy Cevera, 60, Oxford, disability-retired cook
“Yes, I support (Medicaid expansion). I used to be one of the working poor. I watched my son suffer because I couldn’t afford medical care for him. And if you’re working and you have to go through that, there’s a problem. He’s now 35, and I’m still watching him suffer because he’s one of the working poor. There’s got to be something done. If other states can do it, why can’t we? I know we are one of the saddest states, and I know it might mess up (the budget) within the state, but something’s got to be done.
“I pretty much support the Republicans. None of them make any sense, but they make the most sense to me.”
Brad Dickey, 58, Southaven, engineer
“My wife is a nurse … People need to have access to health care. I think we do have a responsibility as a society to help folks, and sometimes the folks you’re helping aren’t your favorite folks, but too bad. The right to live is a basic right and I think we have the responsibility to help people who are less fortunate than we are. They should expand it. We are an unhealthy state.
“Yes, I vote Republican probably 90% of the time. I don’t really fit what the party has become lately — I’d say I’m a Reagan Republican maybe leaning toward a Ford Republican. … I tell my friends who say they don’t want to give money to people who don’t work or can’t afford insurance, ‘Yes, but they have children.’ … They have got to have something, otherwise what they do is go to the emergency room. Going to the emergency room, where they are shorthanded, for a cold. It would be much more affordable care if done another way. It stresses the hospitals, and yes, we end up paying for it anyway … I think Tate Reeves honestly has done about the best job anybody could do through this period … I guess I disagree with my party on this.”
Robbie Raymond, 47, Florence, heavy equipment operator
“Yes. I support it, but in a very specific way. I do believe we need to do more to help the working poor, or the retired. I think that Medicare and Medicaid for our elderly and retired is a horribly broken system … But for the people who are able to work that don’t and think they need assistance, what they need is a job. That’s our big downfall in this whole country, that we don’t do enough to help the people that need help, and do too much for the people who don’t need it … I’ve been fortunate and always had a good job, made good money and had insurance. But there’s lots of people I know that struggle.
“I’m from Florence, and I personally know (Gov. Tate Reeves). I do disagree with Tate Reeves (on Medicaid expansion), but I still talk with him a couple of times a year, and I know that he also shares my viewpoint that we should do more to help our retired and our working poor.”
Cindy Handley, 63, Hattiesburg, teacher
“I think there are people that fall in the cracks and don’t get the support they need because they make $2 too much … The income limits are pretty low in Mississippi compared to other states, like Colorado. I say that because I have a friend on retirement disability who was able to get assistance in Colorado, but not able to in Mississippi … Yes, I do support (Gov. Tate Reeves). But this is just something I disagree with him on. I’m not really sure why he’s opposed. I’ve not heard him speak on it. I just think there are a lot of people in need.”
Republicans (and an independent) who oppose Medicaid expansion
Joseph Allen, 42, Brandon, small business owner
“I have an LLC. I work for myself. I pay for my own insurance myself, and it’s a lot of money. I think that people that pay into the system more should be held up more. To me it’s like a broken record in America. The more you put in, the more you’re penalized. The yarder you work, the more money they take.
“Not to go off on a diatribe, but when LBJ implemented the welfare system and entitlement, it was not a bad idea to start off with. But then you end up with incentives for people to be failures in life.”
Marcia Johnson, 69, Poplarville, owner of construction company
“Mostly, I oppose it because of all these young girls out here having all these kids, and I’m having to pay for it. Once is a mistake, but continuously and then Medicaid having to pay for it is not a mistake. Medicaid is supposed to just be for those that something happens to them and they haven’t got any income or insurance. But a lot of Medicaid goes on in the state of Mississippi that shouldn’t, with taxpayers paying for it. There are so many jobs out there. There’s help-wanted signs everywhere. No more expansion. Mississippi should not expand Medicaid any more. If I’ve worked all these years and haven’t been on Medicaid, I don’t believe others should be, either.”
Michelle Dukes, 52, Edwards, homemaker and caregiver, former mental health field worker
“I worked in the mental health field for 15 years, and I often saw people that needed (Medicaid) who couldn’t get it, and people who didn’t need it who got it. Yes. I oppose it, because I saw the abuse of it … The system needs to be fixed before they expand it. I know we need a safety net, but it just seems like it is not run properly.
“I would say I’m an independent. I guess I’m right of center, but I don’t like the Republicans and I don’t like the Democrats.”
