The individual income tax, which House Speaker Philip Gunn, Gov. Tate Reeves and others want to eliminate in Mississippi, is the largest source of revenue in 33 states.
Mississippi is among 14 states where sales tax is the largest source of revenue, according to a recent report by the Pew Charitable Trust, which researches and offers assistance to governmental entities on various policy issues.
Recent reports by Pew reveal that most states, including Mississippi, are experiencing significant increases in revenue collections and those increases are fueled by strong collections of most general taxes, including the income tax and the sales tax.
“Tax revenue is one factor that helps explain recent widespread state budget surpluses,” according to a report from Pew.
Currently, according to data compiled by Pew, tax collections are robust both in states that rely primarily on the sales tax and those that are dependent on the income tax.
Mississippi is no exception. With one month of data still to collect before the fiscal year ends on June 30, tax collections in Mississippi are nearly $1.3 billion above the official estimate. The official estimate represents the amount of money legislative leaders projected would be available during the session to build a budget for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1. Money above the official estimate goes into reserve funds.
During the 2022 session, the Legislature appropriated $951.1 million in reserve funds. The bulk of that funding went for a litany of one-time projects – such as on government buildings repair, renovation and construction, and on tourism projects across the state.
Based on revenue collections through May, the Legislature also will have a substantial amount of reserve funds for the 2023 session.
In addition to being almost $1.3 billion above the official estimate, tax collections also are $615 million or 10.25% above the amount collected during the first 11 month of the previous fiscal year. Through 11 months of the fiscal year, the personal income tax collections are up $276.7 million or 13.8% while the general sales tax collections are up $291.4 million or 14.4%. Other elements of the sales tax, such as the tax levied on out of state purchases, also are up.
In the coming years, Mississippi will be even more reliant on the sales tax. During the 2022 session the Legislature reduced the state income tax – beginning in the 2023 calendar year – by eliminating the state’s 4% tax bracket on people’s first $5,000 of taxable income. The 5% tax on remaining income will drop to 4.7% for 2023, then 4.4% for 2025 and 4% starting in 2026. The changes will reduce state income tax revenue by $525 million when fully enacted in 2026.
Both Gunn and Reeves have expressed support for fully eliminating the income tax in the coming years.
“We have talked a lot about moving toward a full elimination of the income tax. I believe that is still the goal. We want to make sure we continue that fight,” Gunn said during the 2022 session earlier this year.
Such action would further position Mississippi among the minority of states more dependent on the sales tax for revenue than the income tax. The sales tax is viewed as a regressive tax that places a larger tax burden on low-income residents than does the income tax.
According to research by Pew, Mississippi currently garners 45.2% of its revenue from its general sales tax, which is 7% on most retail items. This would also include the excise tax levied on out-of-state purchases, primarily those made via the internet. The personal income tax accounts for 26.9% of the state’s revenue, according to Pew.
But that number will decline in the coming years as the income tax is reduced, with the hope by some, of eventually eliminating the tax.
In the days and weeks leading up to their arrests in early 2020, Nancy New and her son Zach New sought help from Mississippi’s highest officials to stop what they described as their persecution.
Private text messages obtained by Mississippi Today show the News reacting with a combination of hubris, a sense of betrayal and even confusion over their plight.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
The News had been in charge of spending tens of millions of federal welfare dollars in Mississippi, but the state didn’t hire their nonprofit to provide tangible resources to the poor. Instead, it was to run a private referral center, while the state would use the nonprofit as its piggy bank for projects it couldn’t find funding for elsewhere.
In many cases, these programs occurred out in the open. The welfare agency’s partnership with a Christian ministry run by WWE wrestlers was written into plans shared with the federal government. A $5 million lease agreement that paid for construction of a new volleyball stadium under the guise that people in poverty would attend courses at the facility was included in board meeting minutes and approved by the Institutes of Higher Learning and the attorney general’s office. And Nancy New’s financing of a private pharmaceutical firm was explained in text messages that retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre sent to the state’s highest official, then-Gov. Phil Bryant.
That could help explain why the News seemed surprised to find themselves the subject of a probe that officials eventually called the largest public embezzlement bust in state history. In Nancy New’s many roles, she was often carrying out the vision of Gov. Bryant and his wife, Deborah Bryant.
In her panic to shut down the investigation, Nancy New secured a meeting with then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, according to the text messages and a source with knowledge of the meeting. She seemed to hope that the federal prosecutor could provide her information about the probe.
“It has passed [sic] time to turn the other cheek,” Nancy New wrote to her two sons the evening of Jan. 25, 2020. “First, though, we have [to] make it through this and get this stopped, get cleared of their harassment, etc. then we will go after them all. It will obviously take a lot of money and time but we may need to go on and file once we find out what Mike Hurst says.”
These never-before-published text messages shed light on the incredulous attitudes of the defendants and their last attempts to save themselves before the scandal broke. After Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” series published in April, the News pleaded guilty to several counts including bribery, fraud, wire fraud and racketeering under a favorable plea deal that allows them to avoid any time in state prison as long as they cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
Still, the pleas were a massive fall for a family that had been so politically connected.
Nancy New was such a close friend to Deborah Bryant that on the same day she plotted with her sons to “go after” her detractors, she lent some of her clothes to the First Lady to try on. Nancy New arranged delivery of the items to the house of the governor’s daughter, Katie Bryant Snell, in text messages with her son Zach New days before their arrests. In explaining the messages, Bryant’s public relations consultant told Mississippi Today that Deborah Bryant had told Nancy New she was getting ready for a trip and had nothing to wear. Close enough to share clothes, it’s unclear what the Bryant family may have discussed with the News about the ongoing investigation. Zach New and Bryant’s son-in-law Stephen Snell were also included in a friendly group message where the men mostly discussed sports.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
At that time, the News were aware they were being investigated. They knew their nonprofit’s finances were in disarray. But they didn’t know they were about to be accused of embezzling more than $4 million in federal welfare dollars to use for their private school company and to make investments in Favre’s pharmaceutical venture called Prevacus.
Then-U.S. Attorney Hurst didn’t know it either, because even though the scandal involved federal funds and eventual charges of racketeering – which usually signals the kind of organized crime that the FBI investigates – the Office of the State Auditor made the initial arrests before involving the federal authorities. The auditor’s office carried out the preceding eight-month investigation on its own and turned to a local district attorney to indict.
The auditor who initially investigated the welfare case, Shad White, is a Bryant appointee and former campaign manager with higher political aspirations.
While the auditor was closing in on the News, Bryant was preparing to accept shares in Prevacus, according to text messages Mississippi Today first reported, the company to which Nancy New had illegally funneled welfare funds.
Hours after leaving office in mid-January 2020, Bryant promised to “get on it hard” in making connections for Prevacus. Within weeks, Bryant officially joined the consulting firm his daughter and former chief of staff Joey Songy recently formed.
Right up until the arrests, Bryant was consulting Prevacus and helping it secure an important investor who was one of the new firm’s clients.
The texts also show Favre had told Bryant that Prevacus was working with welfare officials and receiving funds from Mississippi. Bryant backed out of the deal after the New arrests.
Prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing, but three years after it began, they have yet to publicly scrutinize the former governor’s deal with Prevacus.
Though dozens of people received money they shouldn’t have, and dozens more played some role in funneling the money away from the poor, the auditor’s office and Hinds County District Attorney’s Office selected six people to charge criminally. Neither state nor federal authorities have arrested anyone else related to the scheme.
“Doug, Families First and we, are truly being railroaded,” Nancy New sent in a message in late January to Doug Davis, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s chief of staff.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
In 2016, Mississippi Department of Human Services selected Nancy New’s nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, and another nonprofit called Family Resource Center of North Mississippi to head up the rapid expansion of an anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi. With that came a cash flow of tens of millions of dollars in grant funds that they would use to carry out official state plans under then-welfare director John Davis, appointed by Phil Bryant.
This included funding religious initiatives and rallies featuring famous athletes who were earning millions of dollars from the welfare department. Despite being included in official state plans shared with the federal government, these programs are now considered central to the biggest welfare spending scandal in state history. The money came from a ‘90s-era federal welfare program with lax oversight and a reputation for being a slush fund. Soon, the spending spun out of control.
In mid-2019, John Davis’ deputy Jacob Black and other employees gathered information about how John Davis was paying retired WWE wrestler Brett DiBiase for work he didn’t conduct and possibly double dipping the welfare department for a program run by Teddy DiBiase Jr.
Black himself was instrumental in creating many of the questionable grants and the auditor recently served him a civil demand to repay the state $3 million. But Black was also the original source of the tip that Shad White has credited with toppling the scheme. Black took the tip to Bryant, who took the information to Shad White, according to MDHS officials, Bryant staffers and other sources.
Shad White has maintained that Bryant was the whistleblower of the scandal, crediting the former governor for toppling the scheme.
Within a few months, the auditor’s examination of John Davis’ welfare spending led them to the New nonprofit. The auditor raided Mississippi Community Education Center’s offices in October 2019 and the Mississippi Department of Human Services restricted funding to the nonprofit, jeopardizing vendors who were relying on their reimbursement.
“Our lives and office have been turned upside down for over 3 months now and we deserve answers,” Nancy New’s other son, Jess New, local attorney and director of the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board, said in a text.
While he was never included in criminal charges, Jess New had his hand in business operations at the nonprofit and other MDHS offshoots John Davis was attempting to create, according to a recently filed lawsuit. The civil lawsuit, filed by MDHS, seeks $2.6 million in damages from Jess New, which is included as part of the $19.4 million the suit is asking from his mother.
In early January 2020, the owner of Prevacus received a subpoena from the auditor’s office for documents related to the stock he offered the News in exchange for their grant funding, according to text messages and documents Mississippi Today obtained. On Jan. 15, 2020, Gov. Tate Reeves took office.
In the next few weeks, the News scrambled to get information about the investigation and why they weren’t receiving payment from MDHS. They thought Phil Bryant and his newly appointed welfare director, Christopher Freeze, made the call to freeze their nonprofit’s funding before he left office.
“PB and CF made the decision to freeze the money. Definitely looks like the organization and lord knows who else will be charged for something…..no idea what,” Jess New wrote on Jan. 25, 2020.
“Geez all the hard work just to be thrown under the bus,” Zach New responded.
Jess New told his brother that Christie Webb, the operator of the Family Resource Center, the other nonprofit that was spending welfare money wildly, had reached out to ask Congressman Trent Kelly to release their funding from MDHS.
Kelly’s representative Susan Parker told Mississippi Today in a statement that his office has “no knowledge of what happened between the Mississippi Department of Human Services and the Family Resource Center beyond published reports.”
“After discovering there was an ongoing investigation into the Family Resource center, our office refrained from getting involved in this issue,” she wrote.
The north Mississippi nonprofit has since lost its MDHS funding altogether.
The News had also reached out to Brad White, who was heading up Reeves’ transition as his chief of staff. Zach asked his brother, “BW against us?”
“No he’s just in the middle,” Jess New responded. “They know it’s a f’ed up situation and PB’s the issue.”
Brad White told Mississippi Today that, to the best of his recollection, two groups reached out to the Reeves transition team, including people on behalf of judges who were using some of the funds to help children in the court system. The two nonprofits who ran Families First, Nancy New and Webb’s nonprofits, had been at odds with each other in the last year. The two nonprofits were also responsible for the programmatic side of a judicial initiative called Family First, which aimed to revamp the state’s foster care system by providing more preventative services. The initiative, headed up by Deborah Bryant, crumbled during the investigation.
“I know enough about things from my time at theauditor’s office that you don’t get involved in anything remotely involved with an investigation,” Brad White said. “I think it was like, ‘I wish you the best, and there’s nothing I can do.’”
Brad White said both the New contingent and the judges wanted help in unfreezing their funds, but that he told them the transition team could not help with that and that the new administration would follow any recommendations or guidance from the state auditor’s office on the case.
The News were left speculating what exactly they were in trouble for, who was against them and why their funding was cut off.
“Because we’re being investigated is why. We need someone to investigate the investigators and this BS investigation,” Jess New texted his mother on Jan. 26, 2020. “It’s a witch hunt and blatant harassment.”
In the following days, Nancy New took her associate David Kelly, a consultant for Oxford-based low-income real estate developer Chartre Consulting, to meet with Hurst.
New’s organization had promised to provide classes and resource referrals to the residents of Chartre’s properties. The partnership allowed New’s nonprofit to increase the headcount of people served through Families First, but the program struggled to persuade residents to truly participate, Chartre Consulting owner Clarence Chapman told Mississippi Today. The services amounted to Families First hosting events where they gave away free hot dogs.
“It didn’t penetrate as much as we would have liked, but that’s just the nature of our residents and that income level. But they (Nancy New’s nonprofit) worked hard to get participation and I wish they’d still have this underway where it could benefit our residents,” Chapman said.
He sees the News as victims of Bryant and Davis’ vague plan to turn the state’s welfare system into a resource referral network instead of providing direct aid.
“It’s a shame the way the regulations are written to let the governor use the money like that and then poor Nancy, who was a very respectable person, has been abused by the system,” he continued. “She got way over her head and didn’t realize what she was dealing with and is the whipping child for a bunch of different reasons here and it’s destroyed her health and her finances. And it’s sad, because she’s a good person … She appears to be used as a conduit to spread money and do what others wanted done with it who had the authority to do that.”
Someone with knowledge of the meeting said that Hurst, two assistant U.S. attorneys and an FBI agent met with Nancy New and David Kelly, and New’s attorney attended by phone. David Kelly initially agreed to an interview with Mississippi Today and then stopped responding to calls and messages.
If Nancy New chose to meet with Hurst in an attempt to avoid prosecution, it didn’t work. Instead, it tipped off federal authorities to White’s investigation and caused them to reach out to the auditor for more information.
Then, Jess New got some new information.
“Don’t think PB suspended our funds….I’ll explain later,” he texted on Feb. 3, 2020, the day before a Hinds County grand jury handed down the indictments, referring to Phil Bryant. “Still may not hurt to reach out to him for any help.”
Jasmine Cleark-Gibson left teaching last month after seven and a half years in the classroom. It was time for a change. The lack of autonomy in her job made her feel like “she couldn’t fix things anymore,” and the myriad of responsibilities placed on her as an educator also left her with no bandwidth to care for her own children.
“I found myself with nothing left to give to the people who are supposed to matter the most to me,” Cleark-Gibson said. “I was looking for a work-life balance that all people are trying to grasp, but nobody is respecting teachers enough to give them.”
Mississippi has suffered from a critical teacher shortage for years, one that has only recently been measured. The Department of Education announced in December 2021 that there were over 3,000 certified teacher vacancies, a staggering figure considering that there are about 32,000 teachers across the state.
Despite these improvements, teachers in Mississippi are still leaving the classroom to teach in other states or take jobs in other fields. Data from the Mississippi Department of Education shows 5,800 teachers left their district at the end of the 2020-21 school year, or 17% of all teachers. These teachers may have moved between districts or left the profession entirely — this distinction is not captured in the MDE data.
Cleark-Gibson found her way to teaching through an alternate route program at Mississippi Valley State University, and taught English in the Leflore County School District, Midtown Public Charter School, and the Hinds County School District.
She said she loved helping students reach the “lightbulb moment” and building relationships with students, since “they don’t care about the content until they know you care about them.”
But the pressures that are put on teachers — like countless meetings that take time away from lesson planning and the responsibility to be in tune with each student’s social and emotional well-being — left Cleark-Gibson overwhelmed.
For Chevonne Dixon, a fifteen-year veteran of the Mississippi public education system, the time constraints were still a real concern, but the biggest factor was money. Dixon is a resident of DeSoto county but drives across the border to teach in Memphis, where she makes more and gets paid twice a month.
“During the pandemic, I started filling out applications and I saw that I could actually live off of what I would be making in Memphis … so it was an easy choice for me,” she said.
Dixon also highlighted the pressure that student loans put on teachers to seek higher-paying opportunities, something that Mississippi First K-12 Policy Director Toren Ballard has also been researching. Mississippi First published a report in January that found over half of Mississippi teachers were considering leaving the classroom within the next year.
They surveyed 6,500 Mississippi teachers, data Ballard has continued digging into and has noticed some stark disparities. Teachers with student debt are twice as likely to be SNAP recipients and over twice as likely to not have $400 in case of an emergency.
But that student debt also isn’t distributed evenly across the state. Ballard found that one in four teachers in F-rated districts owe over $100,000 in student debt, while only 4-5% of teachers in A and B-rated districts do. Poorly rated districts are also more likely to have teachers not return year-over-year, according to the data from MDE.
“Teaching in Mississippi, obviously everyone’s salaries are low, but it’s a very inequitable profession even given that,” Ballard said. “People are experiencing wildly different financial realities.”
The Mississippi First report found that over 90% of teachers thinking about leaving the classroom cited salaries as their reason, but respect from administrators came close behind. Amelia Watson, who taught for two and half years in the Petal and Pearl Public School Districts, said she was stretching herself thin to be the teacher she, and school leaders, wanted her to be.
“I was meeting the expectations of my administrators, but it was nearly impossible to do so during contract hours,” Watson said. “I wasn’t willing anymore to sacrifice my free time and my mental well-being, unpaid, for a job that doesn’t celebrate our achievements.”
Watson said her husband and co-workers noticed her mental health declining during her third year, which led to her resignation. She has considered going back, but has found a great deal of stability in the boundaries of her current job as a recruitment coordinator, and said she wasn’t sure teaching would ever be able to give that to her.
As for Dixon, the teacher in Memphis, she’s not planning to leave the profession any time soon. When asked if the most recent pay raise made Dixon reconsider taking a job out of state, she said no. She said that the salaries still aren’t where they should be, and that getting paid once a month necessitates being a strong budgeter — but if Mississippi were to fix those things, she would return.
“My (plan) was to teach and retire in Mississippi, but I can’t afford to,” she said.
Coral Gables, Hattiesburg, Omaha. The site seems to make no difference to the red-hot Ole Miss Rebels, who have now won seven NCAA Tournament games, mostly by lopsided scores. The Clevelands caught up with Mike Bianco, Tim Elko and Hunter Elliot to talk about the Rebels’ latest and most important conquest, the Monday night victory over Arkansas, which kept Ole Miss in the winners’ bracket and sent the Razorbacks to the losers’ bracket. Ole Miss is now three victories away from a national championship.
OMAHA – Today’s column, a synopsis: Another game, another Ole Miss victory, and another chapter in the Legend of Tim Elko.
Just when you think the Elko story can’t get any better and any more Bunyan-esque, something happens like happened in the second inning of Ole Miss’s 13-5 conquest of Arkansas in the College World Series Monday night.
Rick Cleveland
To set the stage: Ole Miss, playing perhaps its most important baseball game in school history, led 2-1 with two outs in the second. The unseasonably hot and relentless Nebraska wind was howling in from centerfield. With Justin Bench on second base, Elko came to bat. The count went to two balls, two strikes, and Arkansas pitcher Evan Taylor was just one strike away from getting out of the inning.
Arkansas catcher Michael Turner signaled for the slider, and held his mitt low and inside. Taylor delivered a slider that never slid – high and outside – several inches off the plate.
Most batters would have taken the pitch for ball three. Instead, Elko took a mighty swing, reaching all the way across the plate and almost into the opposite batter’s box. Against that wind, Elko somehow launched a towering home run that landed far beyond the Arkansas bullpen and high up into the left field stands, 416 feet away from home plate. For what it’s worth, we are told the ball left Elko’s bat at 109 mph. It traveled 416 feet in a hurry – the longest home run of this College World Series.
Tuesday morning, prior to an off-day practice session, Elko smiled when asked about the clout.
“I didn’t really realize how far outside it was until I saw it on the video last night,” Elko said. “At first, I think partly because of the location of the pitch, I didn’t realize I got it that good. But then I saw it flying and knew I got it good enough.”
And then some…
Said Mike Bianco, “I haven’t seen many balls hit that far in this stadium, especially with that wind. It wasn’t a line drive that got under the wind. It was high, into the teeth of it. It just shows how strong and powerful Tim is.”
Elko’s shot had freshman pitcher Hunter Elliott, chief beneficiary, gushing a day later.
“It was awesome, that’s man strength right there,” Elliott said. “Crazy strength, crazy talent, crazy everything. The dude is a freak with a bat in his hand.”
The freakish dude with Superman shoulders and Popeye forearms has now hit 23 home runs this season and 45 in his storied career. Elko says he finds himself almost needing to pinch himself these days to realize the last three weeks aren’t a dream.
“I don’t know if it’s even sunk in yet and maybe that’s good, because we remain relaxed just going out there and playing ball,” Elko said. “We’ve had some really good teams here at Ole Miss. We’ve had some hot streaks before, but this is some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen. This is about as good as it gets.”
It’s not just Elko, mind you, although he is the captain and the unquestioned team leader. During this postseason run, the Rebels have hit well up and down the lineup. Monday night, Garrett Wood, the eight-hole hitter, was on base four of five times, while nine-hole hitter Calvin Harris slammed two doubles and a home run, scored twice and knocked in four runs.
In NCAA competition, against top-shelf teams, Ole Miss is 7-0 and has outscored the opposition 64-18, which looks like a misprint but isn’t.
Elko takes none of it for granted.
“There’s no place better to end your college career than Omaha,” Elko said. “There would be no better way to end it than by winning the national championship.”
Bianco says that one of the “neatest” aspects of the Legend of Elko is that Elko didn’t have to come back for this season. He could have taken them money and gone pro. He had already come back from a torn ACL – actually played with the ACL still torn – to lift the 2021 Rebels to a regional championship and to within one game of the College World Series.
Said Bianco, “He came back for one reason, which was to play in the College World Series, and here he is doing this.”
What more could Elko possibly do?
Bianco smiled, looked down and shook his head. “I don’t know,” Bianco. “He can invite us to his statue ceremony, I guess.”
The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees has decided that Delta State University president William LaForge’s last day will be at the end of this month, marking a sudden end to a nine-year tenure that oversaw budget instability, some progressive initiatives at the university, and sharp declines in enrollment due to the pandemic.
Though the trustees made the decision at the board meeting last week, LaForge wrote in a lengthy campus-wide email that IHL did not tell him until “just prior” to sending out a press release Monday night.
“I am very disappointed in the decision, but I accept the outcome and am fully prepared to move on,” he wrote.
Through a university spokesperson, LaForge declined to talk with Mississippi Today, but he wrote in his email to the campus that the reason IHL gave for his departure was primarily financial.
“The very basic explanation I was provided was that the IHL Board thinks a leadership change is warranted because the comparative state of the university from the time when I began my service in 2013 until now is not favorable — especially with respect to enrollment metrics and financial sustainability,” LaForge wrote.
IHL did not provide its own reason for the move, and the trustees did not discuss the decision publicly at the board meeting last week. In IHL’s press release, Tom Duff, the board president, noted that “these are challenging times for higher education.”
The board also announced that it had named E.E. “Butch” Caston as an interim replacement. Caston has held multiple administrative positionsat Delta State University and Mississippi University for Women.
“I appreciate Dr. Caston’s willingness to take on the role of interim president and feel certain that he will be able to address many of the issues facing Delta State at this time, including declining enrollment, fiscal challenges, and infrastructure,” Duff said.
LaForge will be the first university president to depart after IHL made its presidential search process more confidential through a series of policy changes earlier this year. In April, the board voted to make it so search committee members are anonymous, even to each other, and to decrease the role that campus advisory groups play in selecting the president.
Faculty are concerned these changes will make university presidents less accountable to students, faculty and staff.
LaForge came to the university in 2013 with no experience in higher education. He had primarily worked in politicsas chief of staff for Sen. Thad Cochran and as a lobbyist, but he had also served as president Delta State’s alumni association.
“This is a career direction change for me,” LaForge said in 2013.“I have not been in higher education administration and I hope to be able to translate the skill sets I have.”
LaForge’s tenure has been marked by cyclical budget cuts.The first round came about a year after he took office. In fall 2014, the university announced about $1 million in cuts, eliminating a slew of academic programs and shuttering the campus newspaper. Twenty-four positions were terminated. Students and faculty held a mock funeral in protest, the Clarion Ledger reported.
The announcement came just a few months after the university announced a higher-than-anticipated fundraising haul.
Delta State has seen several progressive endeavors under LaForge. In 2014, the university won a national social justice award for its first “Winning the Race” conference which brought former Gov. William Winter and Rep. Bennie Thompson to campus. More recently, students and faculty held an on-campus screening of a documentary about the 1969 sit-in that led to police arresting dozens on Black students. More than 500 people attended.
Faculty led much of those initiatives, though, and the administration has been slow in other efforts. In late 2016,Delta State was the last public university in Mississippi to stop flying the state flag that contained the Confederate emblem.
“I wish to make it clear that this university is making an institutional decision on this issue because the state government has declined to change the flag,” LaForge said at the time. “This is a painful decision in many respects because this is a highly charged emotional issue for many people.”
More recently, many students, faculty and alumni have signed a petition calling on LaForge’s administration to rename the Walter Sillers Coliseum – the basketball arena named for the white supremacist founder of the Delta Council. The petition asked for the arena to be renamed in honor of Luisa “Lucy” Harris, the first Black woman on Delta State’s women’s basketball team who died earlier this year.
LaForge has not publicly commented on the petition. His wife, Nancy, spoke at Harris’ funeral, which was held in the Coliseum.
The university has struggled to weather the pandemic. Enrollment has dropped by 27% since fall 2019 – the largest drop of any school. In fall 2020, Delta State was the only university to raise tuition rates.
Earlier this year, LaForge’s administration was still concerned about the budget. Minutes from a February 2022 cabinet meeting show the executive committee “has been reviewing all potential budget savings and cuts; discussing ways to reimage (sic) core programs and growth areas; and, talking about ways to realign the budget to highlight the university’s priorities.”
At IHL’s meeting last week, the trustees were briefed on each university’s budget and finances. One of the budget documents that trustees reviewed showed that Delta State has just 40 days cash on hand, the lowest reserve in the system. Delta State is also the only university facing a negative return on total assets, which means it is losing money on investments.
In his campus-wide email, LaForge wrote that his family plans to return to northern Virginia. The appointment as university president was a homecoming for LaForge, who grew up in Cleveland, Miss., and attended Delta State as an undergrad. His father, a history professor at Delta State, is honored with a library on campus.
“I will be forever grateful to Delta State University for all it has given me in life,” LaForge wrote.
Mississippi Today presents a members-only exclusive event via Zoom on July 1 at 1 p.m. featuring Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey in conversation with Ben and Erin Napier of HGTV’s Home Town. Join them as they discuss balancing family and work, Erin’s new children’s book and more.
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Ben and Erin have found success in renovating and revitalizing homes in Laurel, Mississippi on Home Town. Ben is a woodworker, founder of Scotsman Co., and co-owner of Laurel Mercantile Co. Erin Napier is a designer who started her career in corporate graphic design before founding her own international stationery company, Lucky Luxe, and is a founding co-owner of Laurel Mercantile Co. Recently, Erin published a children’s book titled The Lantern House, illustrated by Laurel-based artist Adam Trest that reached the New York Times best-sellers list. Ben and Erin are based in Laurel with their two daughters. Learn more about the duo.
Mississippi is set to become the first state where prison officials can choose how a person sentenced to death is executed.
Starting July 1, the Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain and two deputy commissioners will decide the method of execution for incarcerated people: lethal injection, gas chamber, electrocution or firing squad.
“This statute throws it all into the hands of the Mississippi Department of Corrections without guidance and restrictions,” said Ngozi Ndulue, deputy director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Twenty-seven states have the death penalty. Ndulue said most use lethal injection as the primary execution method and some have backup execution methods if lethal injection isn’t available.
Cain has witnessed several executions as the former warden of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison and Mississippi’s most recent execution as the corrections commissioner.
“The courts are the ones who decide the penalties for crime, not MDOC,” he said in a Friday statement. “We just hold the keys. When the court orders me, I am required by Mississippi statute to carry out the sentence.”
The law does not specify how MDOC officials are supposed to decide what execution method to select.
Ndulue said this can lead to decisions being made in an “internal, non-transparent way.” There are considerations, including whether lethal injection drugs are available and there are protocols and training of how to use other forms of execution, she said.
Mississippi is also a state that has a lot of secrecy about its execution protocols and how it obtains lethal injection drugs, she said.
“This is something the public doesn’t have a lot of insight into,” Ndulue said. “What is actually going on?”
MDOC officials will have this new responsibility through House Bill 1479 proposed by Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth. He chairs the Judiciary B Committee and is vice chair of the Judiciary En Banc Committee.
Bain said the governor and attorney general’s offices asked for the legislation to be filed because the state was having difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs to carry out death sentences.
The previous version of the law, passed in 2017, said if lethal injection was not possible due to unavailable drugs or a legal challenge, an incarcerated person could be put to death by gas chamber. Electrocution was the next option if lethal gas was unavailable and the last alternate was execution by firing squad.
Lethal injection remains Mississippi’s preferred form of execution, according to legislation.
“We put language in the final draft saying it is our policy, as the Legislature, that lethal injection be chosen,” Bain said. “That gives (the commissioner) the idea that we want lethal injection and that should be the way to do it.”
Within seven days of receiving a warrant of execution from the Mississippi Supreme Court, the MDOC commissioner must inform the prisoner of the method in writing.
Ndulue said the law could lead to last minute legal action about executions. For Mississippi’s most recent execution, there was less than 30 days between the execution being issued and being carried out.
States have argued they need backup methods of execution because of challenges of obtaining lethal injection drugs, she said.
Ndulue said some drug manufacturers have objected to their drugs being used for executions. Some states have resorted to getting lethal injection drugs from overseas or going to compounding pharmacies to have the drugs made, she said.
Lethal injection has also been called into question through legal action.
An ongoing federal civil lawsuit filed in 2015 on behalf of three people serving on death row in Mississippi argues the state’s lethal injection protocol violates their right to due process and violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Mississippi and other states have used a mix of three drugs including an anesthetic during executions.
The lawsuit claims compounded or mixed drugs could be “counterfeit, expired, contaminated and/or sub-potent” and could result in prisoners being conscious throughout their execution and subjected to “a tortuous death by suffocation and cardiac arrest.”
The bill that goes into effect next month specifies the lethal injection drugs used in execution must be “a substance or substance in a lethal quantity” rather than one containing an anesthetic, paralytic agent and potassium chloride, as the 2017 version of the law laid out.
From the early 1800s to 1940, all Mississippi executions were by hanging, according to MDOC. Execution by electrocution took place from 1940 to 1952, followed by the use of a portable electric chair moved from county to county. Lethal gas executions took place between 1954 and 1984.
Mississippi carried out 35 gas chamber executions between 1955 and 1989, according to MDOC.
Between 2002 and 2022, 18 people were executed by lethal injection in the state, according to MDOC.
All executions are performed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, which is where death row is.
For women, executions happen in a facility designated by the MDOC commissioner, according to state law. The one woman serving on death row is at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.
Mississippi’s most recent execution was that of David Neal Cox on Nov. 17, 2021.
He was convicted on multiple charges, including the murder of his estranged wife, Kim Cox, and the sexual assault of his then-underage stepdaughter in front of his dying wife in 2010 in Union County.
OMAHA — Way back when, after the New York Yankees won several consecutive World Series, the cry around the Major Leagues was: “Break up the Yankees!”
If this remarkable Ole Miss domination of late continues, the cry in college baseball will soon be: “Break up the Rebels.”
This is getting absurd.
Rick Cleveland
Ole Miss pounded Southeastern Conference rival Arkansas 13-5 on a hot, windy Monday night to remain undefeated in the College World Series – and remain the only undefeated team in the NCAA Baseball Tournament.
But it’s not just the winning, it’s the dominance. Through seven NCAA games, the Rebels have now out-scored their opponents 64-18. Through two CWS games, the Rebels have outscored opposition 18-6. In their last five games the Rebs have scored 56 runs, while the opposition scored only 13. These aren’t mid-week opponents they are playing, these are some of the best college baseball teams in the country.
There’s hot and then there’s scalding. The Rebels are scalding hot.
They are also comfortably in the driver’s seat on one side of the world series bracket. Ole Miss will enjoy an off day Tuesday, while Arkansas and Auburn play one another at 6 p.m. to try to keep their championship hopes alive. The winner will then have to beat Ole Miss twice in order to advance to the best-of-three championship series.
Another way to put it: Ole Miss, the team that was once 7-14 in the SEC and seemingly headed nowhere, now sits three victories away from a national championship. The Rebels do not play again until Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Mike Bianco said all he really needed to say in the first three words of his post-game press conference: “We were terrific…”
The Rebels were – and have been for three straight weeks.
On the other side of the bracket, Oklahoma remains undefeated, while Notre Dame and Texas A&M will play Tuesday at 1 p.m. to see who gets to try and beat the Sooners twice.
Ole Miss’ Monday night heroes should be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to this postseason Rebel resurrection:
Tupelo freshman Hunter Elliott, 19, pitching with the poise of a man a decade older and more experienced, weathered some early fielding problems from his teammates and for the most part shut down the high-powered Razorbacks. Elliot gave the Rebels 6.1 innings, allowing just one earned run and leaving with a 10-3 lead.
Tim Elko, a still-playing Ole Miss legend, hammered the longest home run of this College World Series, a two-run, second inning blast into the wind measured at 416 feet. At this point, it is difficult to fathom why anyone throws Elko a pitch he can reach. Elko hit a slider that didn’t slide. He reached across the plate and yanked the ball deep into the left field stands.
Calvin Harris, batting ninth in the order, slammed two doubles and a two-run home run. The Rebels benefitted from four hits, five runs and four runs batted in from their 8- and 9-hole hitters. How good is that?
Sweet-swinging Kevin Graham provided two more timely hits and two more runs batted in – and reached base four times.
Garrett Wood, making only his fourth start of the season, continued his postseason excellence, playing error-less ball at third base, and reaching base three times.
Justin Bench did what lead-off hitters are supposed to do, hitting three singles and a double and scoring four times, while driving home two more. His third inning line drive might have killed Arkansas pitcher Cole Ramage if he hadn’t gotten his glove up just in time.
There were others, but you get the idea. When a team is as hot as these Rebels are and winning by these margins, everyone contributes.
How far can they go?
Look how far they have come.
Nothing seems impossible now.
“Getting hot is real,” said Bianco, who also said he has cut back on team meetings during this hot streak and an cut back on the length of the meetings the Rebels do have.
“When they’re playing like this the best thing you can do is to just let ’em go,” Bianco said. “Just get out of the way and let ’em play.”
Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender talk litany of issues with state Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, ranging from Gov. Tate Reeves’ partial vetoes to Medicaid expansion to the scandal at the Department of Human Services.
