OurTupelo

Last week, NFL legend Brett Favre made headlines again when his attorney confirmed to NBC News that the FBI had questioned the former quarterback.

Favre was the inspiration behind $8 million worth of purchases in an ongoing welfare scandal that the FBI began investigating in 2020. But the athlete’s exchange with federal agents, which took place more than two years ago, was apparently so innocuous that Favre laughed about it later.

“Brett laughingly told me that FBI asked if he’d ever been to Tupelo,” said Favre’s attorney Bud Holmes.

A nonprofit funded by welfare grants had paid Favre’s company Favre Enterprises $1.1 million for a vague promotional gig. Favre has since returned the funds to the state. Ongoing civil charges against Favre allege that the athlete was paid under an agreement to deliver speeches he never gave, an agreement attorneys say Favre was unaware existed.

Now, Favre’s attorneys are questioning whether the athlete can be held liable for failing to attend events he knew nothing about – such as an assembly in Tupelo, the singular interest of the FBI, according to Holmes.

Mississippi Today spoke with Holmes, a Hattiesburg lawyer who has represented pro athletes in Mississippi for decades, on Sept. 2, the day after the NBC story.

Holmes said that the FBI briefly questioned Favre more than two years ago — before the breadth of Favre’s alleged involvement in the massive welfare scandal was publicly uncovered by Mississippi Today earlier this year — and that Favre hasn’t talked to agents since.

As far as Holmes is aware, the authorities asked Favre one question.

“The agents asked him, ‘Have you ever been to Tupelo,’” Holmes said. “And Brett says, ‘When I was nine years old with my daddy. Why? What’s that about?’ They says, ‘You’ve never been to Tupelo?’ Course come to find out later, they say he had a no-show. Hell, if he did no-show in Tupelo, it would have been headlines.”

The nonprofit at the center of the welfare scandal, Mississippi Community Education Center, hired Favre’s company Favre Enterprises in 2017 and 2018 purportedly to promote Families First for Mississippi, a program that was supposed to help needy families but instead facilitated the misspending of tens of millions of federal welfare funds.

National headlines have focused on how Favre allegedly received $1.1 million in exchange for delivering speeches at events he never attended – but Favre disputes that he ever agreed to attend any events.

“How in the world are you going to hold me liable for something where nobody told me to where to be,” Holmes said. “Favre had absolutely no knowledge of it … It was up to them to designate when and where.”

The contract that State Auditor Shad White has used to make this allegation has never been made public until now, and the appearance of the document raises questions about the veracity of the agreement.

The three-paragraph scope of services in the alleged contract describes the services Favre was apparently supposed to perform: Speak at three events, cut one radio spot, and deliver one keynote address. The auditor’s office discussed these items in its report released in 2020.

According to the agreement, one example of an event Favre may have been expected to attend was Gov. Phil Bryant’s “Healthy Teens” rallies – one of which took place in Tupelo in 2018.

“Governor Phil Bryant spearheaded an initiative called ‘Healthy Teens for A Better Mississippi’ and Families First is expanding that program through rallies, to motivate teenagers to set goals and make responsible choices in areas impacting their health and future,” reads an WCBI article about the Tupelo rally.

Favre did not attend.

Nancy New, the nonprofit founder who has since pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud, recently alleged that Bryant was the one who directed her to pay Favre.

Around the time of the payments to Favre Enterprises, Favre was also working with New and Bryant’s appointed welfare director John Davis to find a way to use welfare money to build a new volleyball stadium at his alma mater, University of Southern Mississippi. Officials had to carefully craft a lease agreement between the nonprofit and the university’s athletic foundation, since there is a federal prohibition on using welfare grants for brick and mortar. For the project to cohere to the welfare program, the lease agreement said Families First would use the facility for programming, though that never occurred.

“She has strong connections and gave me 5 million for Vball facility via grant money,” Favre once wrote to a business associate, referring to Nancy New.

Holmes said according to Favre, the athlete met with the FBI when agents from the auditor’s office were interviewing Favre and asked if the FBI could join.

Holmes said he wasn’t aware of the FBI asking his client any other questions – such as about Favre’s role in facilitating the transfer of $5 million to build the volleyball stadium or $2 million to a pharmaceutical startup, two scenarios uncovered in Mississippi Today’s investigative series “The Backchannel.”

“That’s the only contact that I know of that he had with the FBI,” Holmes continued. “And that’s been what, two or three years ago, back toward the beginning … I just assumed they were starting the preliminary investigation on the many, many things people pled guilty to. Brett’s name happened to be in there.”

Holmes reiterated that he has not seen any evidence that Favre did anything wrong regarding welfare funds. The attorney said Favre was paid for services he performed – namely a commercial spot he recorded for the welfare program.

A 2018 invoice New’s nonprofit received from SuperTalk radio shows Favre’s Families First commercial ran more than two dozen times during a three-month period.

Favre has publicly rejected White’s notion that he was paid for work he didn’t conduct.

“I would never accept money for no-show appearances, as the state of Mississippi auditor, Shad White, claims,” Favre wrote in a social media post in 2021. “… for Shad White to continue to push out this lie that the money was for no-show events is something I cannot stay silent about.”

In a press conference White held to refute Favre’s statement, the auditor mentioned the contract by name.

“I was not in the room, but once we got in the room, our agents slid the contract across the table that described the things that Mr. Favre was supposed to do in order to be paid $1.1 million worth of welfare money,” White said. “The contract is very simple. We asked him in this meeting did you give these speeches, and his answer was no.”

White’s argument rested on the fact that the contract he possessed was a legit agreement – a notion Favre’s attorneys are now questioning.

The first page of the contract, a PDF document produced as part of discovery in the civil case, is an email Nancy New purportedly sent to her son Zach New in December of 2017. The email contains more detail about the scope of services. It says the ad recordings or tapings will be arranged as close as possible to Hattiesburg, Favre’s hometown. It cites the Governor’s “Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi” rally as an example of a public appearance Favre will attend, but also specifies, “These are to be scheduled only upon available time of the client.”

The formatting of the email is irregular, one reason Favre’s attorneys are questioning its authenticity. The document does not say the email was delivered to Favre.

“When I saw it, I was like, ‘What is this?’” Bud’s daughter Mary Lee Holmes, the public prosecutor in Forrest County and an attorney on Favre’s defense team, told Mississippi Today. “This is just some informal email saying, ‘Hey you want to come be a spokesperson for Families First?”

In the email, the CEO of Favre Enterprises Bobby Culumber’s name is misspelled “Lculumber.” The document provided to attorneys is also titled “Farve Enterprises,” a misspelling of Favre’s name. 

“They’ve got Favre spelled wrong. I’m like, is this even a real thread? I want to see the metadata on this,” Mary Lee Holmes said.

The contract contains a signature from Culumber, though documents from the Secretary of State’s Office show that Culumber’s signature – he uses his full first name Robert – looks much different from the signature on the Favre contract.

However, Culumber verified the contract and his signature in an email to the auditor’s office, according to emails obtained by Mississippi Today. Culumber is also named as a defendant in the civil suit. He did not return calls to Mississippi Today Thursday.

The absence of a real written agreement could help Favre’s legal defense in the case of breach of contract charges – if there is no contract, there is no breach. But an admission to taking $1.1 million without a written agreement may not bode well for Favre either.

“If Favre’s attorneys are now suggesting he was paid over a million dollars of welfare money without a valid contract, the results are no different. Favre Enterprises should not have been paid and, therefore, must repay taxpayers $1.1 million—plus interest,” White said in a written statement to Mississippi Today. “I am astonished that Mr. Favre and his representatives continue to dig a deeper legal hole for themselves in the media.”

Mississippi Today asked Bud Holmes if Nancy New and Favre entered the advertising contract as a way to get money to the volleyball stadium, to which Holmes responded, “No, no, no, it’s nothing like that. If it is, I have not heard.”

READ MORE: ‘You stuck your neck out for me’: Brett Favre used fame and favors to pull welfare dollars

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After intervention from the Mississippi State Department of Health, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, three different federal agencies, and water plant operators from Georgia, Florida and Louisiana, water pressure leaving the city of Jackson’s O.B. Curtis treatment plant is finally stable.

After the city’s largest water treatment facility failed last week, leaving most of the capital city’s 150,000-plus residents with little or no water pressure, officials have made drastic progress. Since the weekend, the reported pressure at the city’s largest water treatment facility has been at or near ideal levels, hovering around the goal of 87 pounds per square inch (PSI) according to city updates.

But with or without pressure, Jacksonians have had to boil their water to drink or brush their teeth for the last 40 days, as advised by the Mississippi State Department of Health. MSDH can’t lift the advisory until city officials collect 120 samples free of E. coli and coliform bacteria in two consecutive days.

A combination of heavy rain, flooding and low pressure stopped Jackson from conducting those samples over the last couple weeks, and now the city will spend the few days flushing out the “bad” water before it can resume sampling, Gov. Tate Reeves explained Wednesday. Reeves said it is unlikely that will happen by Friday.

Water quality and turbidity

MSDH first issued the citywide boil notice on July 29 because of turbidity, or cloudiness in Jackson’s water. While turbidity itself is not unsafe, MSDH explained, it can interfere with the disinfection process, which is why the city has to collect samples showing the system is free of bacteria.

City officials attributed the turbidity to a lime slurry operators used to balance the pH in the water.

Prior to the pause in sampling, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba emphasized that only a couple of the 120 samples came back showing bacteria, although the city never said whether there was a trend in which sampling locations didn’t yield clean results. Lumumba in early August called the turbidity a “technical violation,” and said it didn’t pose a public health threat.

READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson: Treat Jackson fairly, but if it can’t run water system, let someone else

When asked about that characterization, Anneclaire De Roos, an associate professor at Drexel University who specializes in environmental and occupational health, said that turbidity guidelines are a “line that shouldn’t be crossed,” and that federal drinking water restrictions are “not as conservative as they could be.”

“Turbidity is an indicator of whether there might be increased amounts of pathogens,” De Roos said. “The more particles in the water, that has been correlated with higher levels of pathogens like bacteria, viruses.”

She explained that it’s more efficient for a water system to test for turbidity rather than do separate tests for each pathogen. De Roos called the turbidity measurement recorded in MSDH’s boil water notice — between 1 and 2.5 turbidity units, compared to the legal threshold of 0.3 — “certainly high.”

Last week, when the city was struggling to produce adequate water pressure, the Environmental Protection Agency allowed Jackson to release water with higher than the allowed amount of turbidity to ensure there was enough pressure in the system for sanitary uses.

Just weeks before the July advisory, MSDH issued a separate citywide boil advisory on June 30 because of turbidity, which lasted a little over a week.

City officials have spent the last three days doing “investigative” samples to determine when it can resume official sampling, but so far there is no timeline.

Jackson also announced that MSDH issued two new licenses for workers at the O.B. Curtis plant on Tuesday, doubling the capacity for Class A operators at the facility.

READ MORE: With long-term Jackson water fix in mind, leaders ask the mayor: Where’s your plan?

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An Oxford woman stole $2.9 million from a Mississippi State University sorority, according to court records from the Northern District of Mississippi.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District is sentencing Betty Jane Cadle, 75, for diverting money from the Delta Omega Chapter House Corporation for the Kappa Delta Sorority to her personal bank accounts and business between 2012 and September 2019. 

Though court records state she received the millions as a part of a “scheme,” she is only facing sentencing for one count of wire fraud. 

Cadle pleaded guilty in March for writing a $20,000 check from the sorority corporation’s bank account and depositing it into an account for her business in January 2018, according to court documents. 

Between 2018 and 2019 Cadle deposited another five checks totaling about $111,500 into her business, Oxford children’s clothing store Belles and Beaus, according to court documents. As part of her plea deal, the federal government agreed to dismiss those five counts of wire fraud, according to court documents. 

Court records did not say where the rest of the money allegedly taken from the sorority went. 

Sorority bylaws state any expenditures from the sorority corporation’s bank account require prior approval by the board consisting of a president, treasurer, secretary and a student representative, according to court documents. 

As treasurer, Cadle was responsible for managing sorority dues, purchasing items for the sorority house, paying utility bills, filing tax documents and general bookkeeping, according to court records. 

She could face a maximum of 20 years of incarceration, a $250,000 fine, three years supervised release and a $100 special assessment. The court may also order restitution, according to court records. 

Cadle’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 16, 11 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Oxford with  U.S. District Court Judge Glen Davidson. 

Cadle’s attorney was not able to be reached for comment when contacted by Mississippi Today. A spokesperson from the national organization of Kappa Delta was not immediately available for comment.

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The Queen has always seemed like a strong and calming force in the world. Losing her is particularly awful, even if she only plays a symbolic role. Her generation shouldered so much in their lifetimes. It’s like the grownups have left the room.

The post Marshall Ramsey: The Crown appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said Tuesday that the city has had “many, many plans” to fund repairs for its beleaguered drinking water system.

But as of this week, Lumumba had not shared a comprehensive, long-term vision for improving the city’s water infrastructure system with state and federal leaders — the only ones who can pay for the needed repairs and replacements necessary to ensure safe, reliable water for the future. 

Generations of Jackson elected officials neglected the capital city’s water system, culminating with its failure to produce running water last week. State and federal leaders, who for decades ignored city leaders’ dire warnings and funding requests, acted swiftly to restore water service to the city’s 150,000-plus residents.

With running water again flowing across the capital city, state leaders are now turning their focus to the critical negotiations about how — or even if — they can ensure Mississippi’s largest city won’t lose water again.

Jackson officials have been caught in a “fluid” planning cycle, city spokesman Justin Vicory explained. The city in recent years has planned spending based on what state and federal money is available. Meanwhile, state and federal officials say they need a plan from Jackson in order to free up funding. 

Lumumba has, as recently as last week, mentioned creating a committee to formalize a new, long-term strategy. While staying quiet on many specifics, he has said that part of the new plan will include looking to contract out operations and maintenance services to support water treatment. 

But without that plan in hand, state and federal officials are left with several unanswered fundamental questions as they begin to negotiate a long-term solution: Which repairs take top priority? Is a patchwork of repairs feasible, or is system replacement the only option? How much, even ballpark, might a long-term solution cost?

The mayor has repeatedly estimated that $1 billion would fix the city’s water system, although none of Jackson’s released spending plans tally up anywhere near that total.

During a meeting with the mayor and Mississippi’s congressional delegation at Jackson State University on Wednesday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan was asked about what constitutes a plan.

“When I think about a plan, I think about what’s required to unlock federal dollars,” Regan said. “If we want to have access to the state revolving loan fund resources, the (money from the State Revolving Loan Fund) that currently exists, being competitive for the bipartisan infrastructure dollars that will exist, we need to see a plan in place that demonstrates how those resources will be spent and what they will be spent on.”

Regan said that there’s currently $43 million in existing funds from the EPA’s State Revolving Loan Fund that Jackson has access to, and that Mississippi will receive over $26 million through the program later this year.

Both Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in recent days have called out city leadership for not producing a long-term water improvement plan. The city’s Democratic delegates at the state capitol, Senate leader Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, and House Speaker Philip Gunn have all also said they haven’t seen a plan.

“I have not seen a plan. I’ve heard from the mayor and others that they have a plan, that they’re working on it, but I have not physically seen a plan with my own eyes,” Thompson told Mississippi Today last week. “… It would be difficult to get the kind of resources needed to fix the Jackson water system without a verifiable plan.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve never received a real plan from the city of Jackson on how to improve their water system so that the state could continue funding it,” Reeves said on Monday.

READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson: Treat Jackson fairly, but if it can’t run water system, let someone else

The mayor disputed those assertions in a press conference on Tuesday. And in response to a Mississippi Today public records request, the mayor’s office sent several documents on Tuesday that lay out short- and medium-range water system funding ideas. The longest term spending published in this trove of newly released documents is from a 2020 report that laid out a water spending plan of five years.

Responding to Reeves specifically, Lumumba on Tuesday pointed to a letter he sent the governor on Mar. 3, 2021, asking for $47 million in repairs after last year’s winter storms knocked out water service to thousands of Jacksonians. Hosemann, Gunn, Thompson and Hinds County’s legislative delegation were all copied on the letter. State officials, Lumumba said, never replied to the letter.  

“I know a good part of the narrative has been a lack of a plan for the city,” Lumumba said. “You, the media, have asked questions about that, and we’ve shared that we’ve had many, many plans.”

Lumumba’s office, for the first time on Tuesday, shared several documents with Mississippi Today that itemize specific needs, including improvements at the city’s largest water treatment plant, replacements of water main lines, and pay raises for the city’s water operators.

But it remains unclear what Jackson’s current spending proposal is.

One of the documents the city shared with Mississippi Today on Tuesday was a 45-page commissioned report from three private engineering firms that lays out $80 million in proposed water spending over five years. The $80 million in projects consists mostly of distribution line and water main repairs, and also includes some elevated water tank improvements. 

A separate document the city released is a plan Lumumba said he presented to Hinds County’s legislative delegation last year, prioritizing spending of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act money. The slideshow lays out about $21 million in proposed repairs to the O.B. Curtis water plant, about $15 million in fixes for J.H Fewell water plant and about $34 million in distribution system repairs.

Another guiding document the mayor shared with Mississippi Today on Tuesday is a list of repairs outlined by the Environmental Protection Agency in an Administrative Order on Consent the agency entered into with Jackson in 2021. While the list includes deadlines for each repair, Lumumba said the EPA has been flexible in negotiating timelines. 

The mayor added Tuesday that the city expects to finish rolling out its new water meters – which have been at the root of Jackson’s inability to bill customers, leading to a $90 million settlement with Siemens – by March of next year.

About an hour after Mississippi Today filed a records request for the plans the mayor discussed Tuesday, the city provided several documents. 

Yet three weeks ago, when another reporter asked for the city’s plan, the mayor made no reference to those documents, instead saying, “We look forward to sharing our fully-outlined plan – one that is supported by the expert advice of the U.S. Water Alliance and the Kellogg Foundation.”

When the reporter, WJTV’s Richard Lake, asked the mayor’s office for a copy of any plan, Lake was told by a city employee, “You’ll need to file a records request.” 

Ten days later, the request came back in the city’s automated filing system as “no records exist.” When Lake asked for clarification from a city employee, the reporter was told, simply: “There is a plan that is under review.”

Meanwhile, many people outside Jackson City Hall — Democrats and Republicans, Black and white officials, state and federal officials, reporters and Jackson taxpayers — are increasingly asking why the city has not produced a plan, leading to questions of whether the city can run the water system by itself any longer.

“If (the city’s) plan demonstrates that they can operate a system and get the state health department’s approval as well as the enforcement order from EPA lifted, then we’re off to the races,” Thompson said. “But you can’t put the lives of your citizens at risk … we just, in good conscience, can’t do that. If that’s not available, you then look, perhaps, at an alternative management.

“… I understand that there are some other interests out here that want to help the city get the plan done,” Thompson continued. “As soon as it’s completed, I would encourage that plan to be distributed as widely as possible. That, too, instills confidence in the public that something is being done.”

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Bennie Thompson opens up about Jackson water crisis

Editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau contributed reporting for this story. 

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today is one of five Jackson-based newsrooms working together since 2021 as Mississippi Spotlight, a local news collaborative which is independently funded by Microsoft Corp. and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The collaborative’s current project — agreed upon by the cohort’s newsroom leaders, independent of guidance from the supporting grant makers — is the Jackson water crisis. As is our editorial policy since we launched in 2016, donors to Mississippi Today have no influence or control over editorial decisions.

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The wife of a man who sometimes experiences crises related to his bipolar disorder feels he has been “subjected to treatment that should not happen in a civilized society.” 

The unnamed woman, who moved to Mississippi with her husband, told the court-appointed special monitor of the state’s mental health services that her husband was held in jail without medication and continued to decline as he waited for a bed at a state hospital. Another time, he was taken to a crisis stabilization unit (CSU), which can provide intensive treatment and serve as an alternative to hospitalization and to waiting in jails.

But after the staff called police, he wound up back in jail. 

A year later, she took him to the CSU again, where a staff member said, “You can’t come in here because of how you behaved last time.” He was taken to jail again until his wife was able to get him a bed at a private hospital. He then had to wait for a state hospital bed to become available. 

Monitor Michael Hogan included her story in his second report to illustrate how Mississippians can be subjectively denied admission to their regional crisis stabilization units, increasing the odds that they spend time in jail while waiting for a bed at a state mental hospital, without ever being charged with a crime.

Throughout his report, Hogan emphasized the issue of sick people waiting in jail for treatment.

“On average during FY ’22, according to DMH, on any given day 25 individuals waited in a jail cell for a hospital bed, a clearly unacceptable pattern,” Hogan wrote. 

The monitor recommended the Department of Mental Health consider adopting “a structured, validated instrument” to help clinicians make placement decisions and bring uniformity to the admission process for CSUs.

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued the state over its mental health system. U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves sided with the federal government in 2019, finding that the state had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by essentially segregating people with mental illness in hospitals far from their homes and families. Last year, Reeves appointed Hogan, a former New York State Commissioner on Mental Health with 40 years of mental health experience, to create twice-yearly reports evaluating the state’s compliance with the settlement agreement. 

Hospital admissions have declined statewide since 2019. That could be a sign of progress: Reducing the number and length of hospital stays was a key requirement of the remedial order. 

But the monitor also noted that some people were not admitted due to staffing shortages at the state hospitals. Staffing shortages also limited capacity at the crisis stabilization units (CSUs).

“In the view of the Monitor, gross numbers of admissions do not reveal much about whether these admissions could have been avoided,” he wrote. “Indeed, where admissions to Hospitals or CSUs may have been appropriate but beds were not available, the failure to admit is a problem.”

Hogan determined the state was in “partial compliance” with that piece of the order.

In an email to Mississippi Today, Department of Mental Health communications director Adam Moore said staffing challenges had increased wait lists by decreasing bed availability at two of the four state hospitals, as well as CSUs.

“DMH agrees that someone having to wait in jail to receive acute psychiatric treatment at a state hospital bed or a CSU is undesirable,” he wrote. “We are implementing strategies to increase staffing to reopen the remaining 30 acute psychiatric beds at East Mississippi State Hospital and 20 beds at Mississippi State Hospital and are encouraging the CMHCs to do the same in regard to the CSUs.”

Hogan’s report described significant differences across the state’s 13 regions, each of which is served by a different community mental health center. For example, the number of involuntary commitments – when a person with mental illness is forced into treatment by a local chancery judge after someone attests the person could harm themselves or another person – ranges widely, with some counties committing around one per 300 residents and others only one per 1,500.

“Since levels of serious mental illness do not vary this widely between counties, this variance reflect (sic) historical and local variability in patterns of care,” Hogan wrote. 

Care coordination – identifying people with serious mental illness, offering appropriate treatment, and working to ensure they actually receive that treatment – also varies dramatically across regions. 

Hogan’s team asked community mental health staff what happened if someone missed an appointment. Responses ranged from “Three strikes, you’re out” to “We go look for them, and if they aren’t home, we keep looking.” 

Care coordination is a key part of the remedial order, and Hogan said that because of the variations across regions he could not determine whether the state was in compliance. He recommended the Department of Mental Health establish and enforce standards for care coordination. 

In part, the differences across the regions are rooted in the history of the state’s mental health system. Since the community mental health centers were created 40 years ago, they operated with little oversight from the Department of Mental Health, which focused on running the state hospitals. Some regions are very poor and rural, while Hinds County, Region 9, is entirely urban. 

“Differences in services organization and management also reflect the substantial autonomy in CMHC operations and may not in all cases reflect best practices in organizing care,” Hogan wrote. 

Hogan’s first report, issued in March, described Mississippians waiting days and even weeks in jail for a bed at a state hospital. He also found that some people admitted to state hospitals did not have a serious mental illness – meaning the hospital wasn’t the right place for them and they were occupying a bed that could have been used by someone else.  

In his second report, he surveyed North Mississippi State Hospital and community mental health centers in the northern part of the state and did not find patients admitted without a serious mental illness diagnosis.

If there were fewer denials at the crisis stabilization units, fewer Mississippians with mental illness would wait in jail to receive health care. 

Of 1,275 CSU denials in the first half of Fiscal Year 2022, Hogan reported, about 30% occurred because no bed was available, in many cases because of staffing shortages. A fifth occurred because the CSU determined the person was too violent; other denials were based on the person’s substance abuse or medical issue.

The Department of Mental Health has increased funding to the community mental health centers for security in an effort to reduce the number of denials. 

Hogan wrote that upcoming monitoring reports will focus on reviewing state data about utilization of key community services like mobile crisis teams. Previously, the state said it had funded those programs, but data to see how they work was not yet available. 

Moore said the Department’s latest data indicates intensive community services have helped reduce rates of readmission to state hospitals. Of 2,424 Mississippians who received the services in Fiscal Year 2022, only 149 were readmitted to a state hospital.

More than a decade after the Department of Justice first determined Mississippi was unnecessarily institutionalizing people with mental illness, the lawsuit still isn’t over. The state appealed Reeves’ ruling to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and oral arguments will take place on Oct. 5 in New Orleans. 

Read the monitoring report here:

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College football’s playoffs will expand to 12 teams. It could happen as soon as 2024 – and will happen no later than 2026.

If you follow college football at all, you probably already knew that. It was big news last week.

What you might not have known is that a former Northeast Mississippi Community College football center, Mark Keenum, led the way. Keenum – born in Starkville, raised in Corinth, and now his 13th year as president at Mississippi State – was integral in the process. His leadership was crucial. Indeed, many closely involved in the process say he made it happen.

Keenum serves as chairman of the 11-person College Football Playoff Board of Managers, the group of university CEOs who voted on the 12-team format. We are talking about presidents at colleges ranging geographically from Buffalo, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., and in size from Ohio State to Troy. As you might suspect, finding common ground was not always easy.

In fact, there were many times, even last Friday before the final vote, when there were holdouts, presidents who thought the board was moving too fast and needed more time to consideration such a radical expansion.

“My message was simply, ‘It’s time,’” Keenum said in a phone conversation Tuesday. “I said, ‘It’s time for us to send a message to all the fans of college football. They want this. The country wants this. College football players and coaches want this. Let’s move. Let’s get this done.’”

The vote, when finally taken last Friday, was unanimous. We will have a 12-team playoff, up from four.

Said Keenum, “This a historic and exciting day for college football – more teams, more participation and more excitement are good for our fans, alumni and student-athletes.”

He is exactly right. And it should have happened sooner.

SMU president Gerald Turner, former chancellor at Ole Miss, and Troy chancellor Jack Hawkins both say it might not have happened at all – and certainly not last week – had it not been for Keenum. Both serve on the CFP Board of Managers.

“Mark’s skillful leadership was the key ingredient,” Hawkins said. “He moved us through any number of obstacles. He had just the right touch. He has a collaborative approach. He’s very diplomatic, but very determined as well. In this case, he was motivated by the right factors.”

Turner, who was chancellor at Ole Miss from 1984 until 1995, called Keenum’s stewardship “masterful.”

“Mark deserves much of credit,” Turner said. “I would describe his leadership style as smooth and effective. Certainly, there were other presidents who spoke up and were also influential, but Mark, more than anyone, got it done.”

When told what others, including several national football writers, had said about his leadership, Keenum said, “I’ll just say we got it done, and it was unanimous and I am proud of that.”

Pressed on his role, Keenum offered this: “Sen. Trent Lott once wrote a book about his life in politics and called it ‘Herding Cats.’ That’s a pretty good description of this playoffs expansion process. There were a lot of moving parts, a lot of different issues. Sometimes it seemed like you’d get one kitten back in the basket and another would fall out. In the end, we got it done.”

A cynic might say, “Yeah, but what does it matter, really? You can have a four-team playoff, a 12-team playoff or a 64-team playoff and you’re still going to have Georgia and Alabama playing for the national championship.”

And that might be true this season. It was true last season. It will not be the case forever. After all, Nick Saban is 70.

Said Keenum, “I just think back to 2014, which is the first year of the four-team format. That’s when Dak Prescott was our quarterback at Mississippi State and we were No. 1 in the country for longer than any other team that season. Now, obviously, we didn’t make the four-team playoffs in the end. But we would have been very much a part of this 12-team format. In fact, we would have hosted a first-round game in Starkville. Can you imagine what that would have been like?”

What’s more, Ole Miss, too, would have been part of a 12-team tournament that same 2014 season. In fact, Ole Miss would have been part of a 12-team playoffs system as recently as last season.

“For the Mississippi schools, this is very attainable,” Keenum said. “And once you get in the tournament, anything can happen.”

Southern Miss? The 2011 Golden Eagles, 12-2 and champions of Conference USA, might well have qualified for a 12-team playoff tournament and certainly would have if not for a narrow, upset loss to UAB  that November. 

The point being, with a 12-team format, it could happen. It is entirely possible. More playoffs berths means more playoffs access. It just makes sense, and it will make millions and millions more dollars.

If you are a college football fan, you should thank Mark Keenum next time you see him.

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A Hinds County Circuit Court judge has denied State Auditor Shad White’s motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by University of Mississippi Professor James Thomas. 

In his January 2021 motion, White alleged he could not be sued for defamation for allegations he made that Thomas, by participating in a two-day event called a “Scholar Strike,” violated state law prohibiting public employees from striking. 

White argued that as a state executive officer, he is entitled to a legal doctrine known as “absolute immunity” – the complete protection from liability for actions committed in the course of his official duties – even though he acknowledged no Mississippi court has considered the issue. 

Judge E. Faye Peterson was not persuaded, writing that Mississippi law is clear state officers have “no absolute privilege for any and all comments,” only those made during legislative, judicial and military proceedings. 

“Hence, Shad White is not entitled to absolute immunity for any and all statements which he makes as a state governmental official,” Peterson wrote in a Sept. 2 order. “That blanket theory of immunity has not been recognized by our courts, nor does it comport with the laws of this state.” 

Peterson added that “to the continued detriment” of White’s defense, Mississippi courts have found that immunity does not extend “to fraud, malice, libel, slander, defamation or any criminal offense.” 

Peterson declined to issue a declaratory judgment just yet on whether or not Thomas’ participation in the Scholar Strike actually violated state law – a key argument in his case for defamation.

Fletcher Freeman, a spokesperson for the state auditor’s office, said White and his counsel from the Mississippi attorney general’s office will “continue defense against this case.” 

“Auditor White absolutely has a right to tell people when they misspend money, which is what Thomas’ lawsuit is about,” Freeman wrote in an email. 

The lawsuit filed in December 2020 centers on White’s claims that Thomas participated in an “illegal” work stoppage on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9, 2020, and thus violated state law. White sent Thomas a letter demanding he repay $1,912 – his salary and interest – for the two days and another letter asking the University of Mississippi chancellor to consider termination. 

READ MORE: Auditor Shad White says a professor broke state law. The professor is now suing White for defamation.

Thomas’ initial complaint alleged this was defamation in part because it was false of White to claim that the Scholar Strike was illegal.

According to state code, a strike is an action taken “for the purpose of inducing, influencing or coercing a change in the conditions, compensation, rights, privileges or obligations of public employment.” 

Thomas’ participation in the Scholar Strike was intended to highlight racism and injustice in the United States, not to change his working conditions, according to the initial complaint. 

“Shad White falsely claimed that Professor Thomas violated the law against public employee strikes when it was clear to anyone who could read that he didn’t,” said Rob McDuff, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice who is representing Thomas. 

White’s motion to dismiss argued that a declaratory judgment would be improper because “there are no ongoing legal relations between the parties to be clarified or settled.” Furthermore, it would “set a precedent inimical to the orderly and efficient disposition of Auditor demands.” 

“This will effectively create a need for expedited review (and potential defense) by the Attorney General of all Auditor demands referred for non-payment, regardless of whether the Attorney General may otherwise have ultimately elected not to pursue a given claim—an inefficient use of State resources,” the motion states. 

Thomas’ lawsuit does not ask for a set amount of monetary damages and says a jury should decide in the event White is found liable. 

“If the jury says he should pay one dollar, that is fine,” the complaint says. “If the jury orders payment of more money, that is fine too.” 

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