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Nonprofit founder Nancy New and former welfare director John Davis, defendants in the state’s civil litigation over the misspending of millions of federal grant funds, have asked the court to stay the case until the criminal investigation concludes.

Mississippi Department of Human Services, the agency that administers welfare programs and is bringing the suit, is objecting against the stay, arguing that defendants are attempting to “avoid, or at least delay, liability for their actions.”

Now, the attorney representing New and her son Zach New is questioning the motives of the state agency, which was responsible for managing the funds in question, especially since it omitted at least one key recipient of improper welfare payments from the defendant list.

“Of course, MDHS would love nothing more than to rush this case through discovery with the cloud of criminal prosecution looming large, thereby muzzling witnesses who would reveal the depth of its wrongdoing,” wrote the News’ attorney Gerry Bufkin.

Both New and Davis have pleaded guilty to charges related to the welfare scheme and have agreed to aid officials in prosecuting other individuals “up the ladder,” Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens said after Davis’ plea hearing in September. They have not been sentenced.

Under the leadership of Davis and the politician who appointed him, former Gov. Phil Bryant, officials stole or wasted at least $77 million in federal grant funds, many of which flowed through Nancy New’s nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center to the pet projects of celebrities and politically connected figures. Some of the purchases were criminal while others simply violated federal spending regulations. Communication obtained by Mississippi Today reveals Bryant’s involvement in many conversations about the projects.

In its Oct. 11 response to the News’ motion to stay, MDHS shot back a fiery response to the defendants’ claims that the welfare agency is also responsible for the misspending.

“The New Defendants nevertheless seek to have the Court and the public absolve them of liability by pointing the finger back at MDHS, despite the fact that the New Defendants admit that they bribed MDHS’s Executive Director,” the filing reads. “But no public official or employee can approve fraudulent payments or waive statutory requirements. This strategy may generate media attention, but it is no legal defense to civil liability.”

Bufkin has argued his clients have already taken responsibility for their actions. But in response to the state Tuesday, he said the threat of an ongoing criminal investigation hinders the News from providing testimony in the civil case.

“The civil suit is the best opportunity the New Defendants have had in years to tell their story. The evidence will show that politicians, MDHS bureaucrats, and well-connected powerbrokers funneled tens of millions in welfare funds to pet projects in a series of sad and disturbing examples of TANF-flexibility gone wild,” Bufkin wrote. “The New Defendants look forward to telling their story, but unfortunately the opportunity is premature.”

Gov. Tate Reeves, who is overseeing the state’s civil lawsuit, said in July that civil cases should come after parallel criminal cases.

In the civil case — filed more than two years after the state auditor’s initial findings — the state is attempting to recoup roughly $24 million from 38 individuals or companies that misspent or received improper welfare payments. 

“The aim of MDHS’s civil suit is the same as any civil tort case: to recover damages, whether through settlement or through obtaining and executing on a judgment. It is in the public’s best interest that MDHS do so without unnecessary delays,” MDHS argued in its response.

Bufkin argued delaying the civil litigation until the criminal cases have concluded is necessary “to ensure the thorough, complete and efficient discovery of one of the most sprawling and complex cases in Mississippi history.”

The single largest purchase within the misspending scandal is the $5 million in welfare money that Mississippi Community Education Center paid the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation to build a volleyball stadium at the university on behalf of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. MCEC also paid Favre’s company an additional $1.1 million, which texts indicate was also intended for the volleyball project, bringing the possible total to $6.1 million. Reeves’ office and the welfare agency chose not to include the athletic foundation as a defendant when it filed the complaint in May.

MDHS then terminated the private attorney it had contracted, former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, who spent a year crafting the case, after Pigott filed a subpoena on the athletic foundation in July. Pigott was attempting to examine the events surrounding the volleyball stadium project, including Bryant’s involvement.

“Not only has MDHS refused to pursue recovery of this $6.1 million in welfare funds, but it has actively thwarted its former counsel’s efforts to uncover facts related to the expenditure of these funds,” Bufkin wrote.

If the purpose of the state’s civil suit is to recover as much welfare money as possible, Bufkin questions why it would not pursue the single largest purchase, which has already resulted in a criminal conviction. Zach New pleaded guilty in April to defrauding the government by paying for the volleyball stadium construction under a sham lease agreement.

“MDHS argues it ‘aims’ to recover money damages, and, therefore, Defendants should not be concerned with allegations of criminality in the Complaint. Whatever motives lurk beneath the civil suit, in the post-termination of former counsel Brad Pigott era, the efficient recovery of welfare money is not one of them,” Bufkin wrote.

Current MDHS Director Bob Anderson answered questions about Pigott’s firing Tuesday during the Mississippi Legislative Democratic Caucus hearing on the scandal. He told lawmakers that the agency terminated Pigott because the attorney subpoenaed the athletic foundation without discussing the filing with him first and while he was out of town. Pigott did email a copy of the subpoena to a MDHS attorney before filing it, but Anderson said that was not sufficient notice as he was not copied on the email. Anderson also said that the agency felt that Pigott did not have the capacity to handle the breadth of the case, which includes hundreds of thousands of pages of discovery documents.

Bufkin also represents the nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, that Nancy New founded and ran alongside Zach New.

Bufkin stated in his Tuesday response that even though MDHS filed the complaint in May, it did not request discovery from the nonprofit until October. He also said MDHS has not produced documents that MCEC requested through discovery in August. The court will address several motions and filings in the case, including multiple subpoenas on Bryant, at a hearing in early 2023.

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A Pearl man pleaded guilty this week for his role in allowing a Brandon company to illegally dump its waste into Jackson’s worn-down sewer system.

The U.S. Department of Justice is alleging that leadership of the company, Gold Coast Commodities (GCC), intentionally deceived local and state officials about how it was disposing of its waste.

As part of its deception, the DOJ’s indictments against GCC allege, the company used businesses in Jackson to dispose of its wastewater there after officials in Brandon, where GCC is located, told the company it was illegally discharging into Brandon’s sewer system.

William Roberts, 44, an employee at one of the Jackson businesses, Partridge-Sibley Industrial Services Inc.. on Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges that he “negligently introduced and caused” GCC’s waste to be discharged into Jackson’s sewer system.

But Roberts is just one in a group of alleged bad actors the DOJ has investigated.

Last month, the DOJ indicted GCC president Thomas Douglas Jr. and plant manager John Welch Sr. with felony charges of illegal disposal. A week prior, the company’s co-owner and vice president, Robert Davis Douglas, pleaded guilty to similar charges. The indictments also charge Thomas Douglas and Welch with conspiracy to defraud the government and giving false statements.

GCC, which converts animal fats and greases into biofuel, has violated clean water statutes several times spanning nearly two decades. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality first cited GCC with a violation in 2002 for allowing waste to reach state waters.

In 1995, MDEQ gave GCC a permit to dispose in public sewer systems as long as the company pretreated its waste to limit certain pollutants, according to the federal indictments. That permit expired in 2000.

In 2016, Brandon city officials told GCC that pollutants were found at the company’s outfall leading into Brandon’s sewer system, which led into Jackson’s sewer system. Even if GCC had a proper permit to use the cities’ sewer systems, the pollutants found — suspended solids, bio-oxygen demand, and oil and grease — were still at levels hundreds of times higher than the legal threshold, the DOJ’s indictment shows.

After MDEQ issued the company a violation for the discharges, Douglas, GCC’s president, falsely told Brandon and state officials that the company never discharged into the city’s sewer system, the indictment says.

About a month later, Douglas reached out to Andrew Walker, owner of Rebel High Velocity Sewer Services in Jackson, asking him to dispose of GCC’s waste into Jackson’s sewer system because of GCC’s recent run-in with state regulators, the DOJ alleges.

Walker complied and helped GCC dispose of about 3 million gallons of untreated industrial waste into Jackson’s sewer system. Rebel High took on GCC’s waste disposal for about 10 months, according to the indictment, until MDEQ discovered the ploy in October 2017 and ordered GCC to cease and desist.

Walker pleaded guilty in January 2021 to federal pollution charges for his role in the matter.

In 2018, GCC requested permission from MDEQ to build a lagoon to use as a wastewater disposal site. MDEQ granted GCC the permitting in 2019.

But MDEQ soon found infractions at the new facility. The agency detected odors from the disposal lagoon that constitute a “public nuisance,” and found that GCC hadn’t installed aerators for the facility. MDEQ issued the company a violation in 2019, and another one in 2020, for failures at the site.

In April 2021, the state issued a $505,000 fine against GCC over its wastewater handling.

Meanwhile, Jackson is working with the Environmental Protection Agency to bring the sewer system into federal compliance with the Clean Water Act. The city’s broken infrastructure results in untreated sewage regularly flowing into the Pearl River, and officials last year estimated it’ll take nearly a billion dollars to bring Jackson into compliance.

Jackson is suing GCC for damaging their infrastructure, estimating $15 million in damages. Brandon also filed a lawsuit against the company, although its case was dismissed earlier this year.

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The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame will induct a diverse class in 2023, including the first marksman in the hall of fame’s history, Olympic skeet shooter Tony Rosetti.

The class, to be enshrined in ceremonies next July, also includes women’s basketball player and coach Carol Ross, Major League Baseball standout Paul Maholm, Millsaps baseball player and coach Jim Page, and former college and professional football standouts Jeff Herrod, John Mangum, Patrick Surtain and Lewis Tillman.

In alphabetical order:

Jeff Herrod: A Birmingham native, Herrod was headed to the U.S. Marines before a late football scholarship offer from Ole Miss where he played for Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Billy Brewer. When he finished at Ole Miss, Herrod was the second all-time leading tackler in Southeastern Conference history. He then played for the Indianapolis Colts where he led the team in tackles for seven of his 11 seasons and is the franchise’s all-time leading tackler.

Paul Maholm: Born in Holly Springs, Maholm chose a baseball scholarship at Mississippi State instead of bonus money from the Minnesota Twins. It was a wise decision. As a left-handed pitcher for Pat McMahon and Ron Polk, he excelled at State, where he is the fifth winningest pitcher in school history.  Maholm was the eighth pick of the 2003 Major League draft. He spent 10 years in the Major Leagues with the Pirates, Cubs, Braves and Dodgers. Maholm is a member of the Ron Polk Ring of Honor at State.

John Mangum: He will be the first of the remarkable Mangum family of Magee to be inducted into the MSHOF. Mangum’s father, John Mangum, was a football star at Southern Miss and in the old American Football League. Younger brother Kris played at Ole Miss and in the NFL. Son Jake Mangum is one of Mississippi State’s all time baseball greats and is at the AAA level in the New York Mets organization. The younger John Mangum chose Alabama over Southern Miss after being the Mississippi high school player of the year and made the Alabama Team of the Decade for the 1980s before a nine-year career with the Chicago Bears. He still holds the career record for passes broken up at Alabama with 47.

Jim Page: Holds the Millsaps school record for hitting with a batting average of .487 and has coached Millsaps baseball teams to 815 victories, eight NCAA Regional appearances and one College World Series appearance. Page is a renowned hitting instructor who has coached literally thousands of Jackson-area players in summer baseball camps.

Tony Rosetti: A Biloxi native and West Point resident, Rosetti began rifle shooting as a young teen and was named to the 1970 Sports Afield All American team. He won the 1971 U.S. skeet shooting championship and was on the U.S. gold medal winning team in the 1971 Pan American Games. In 1972, he was part of the U.S. Olympic shooting team in the Munich Olympics and is in the National Skeet Shooting Association Hall of Fame. He retired from competitive skeet shooting in 1992 and now is an accomplished golfer at Old Waverly.

Carol Ross: Born in the Yalobusha County town of Oakland, Ross was an outstanding basketball player for MSHOF coach Van Chancellor at Ole Miss where she made the first SEC Women’s Tournament all-tourney team in 1980. She still holds the Ole Miss steals record with 333 and is only one of two players in school history to top 1,000 points, 500 assists and 250 steals. She later was the head coach at both Florida, where she was SEC Coach of the Year two times, and at Ole Miss. She was the head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks where she was the WNBA Coach of the Year in 2012.

Patrick Surtain: A four-sport high school star in New Orleans, Surtain played for Hall of Famer Jeff Bower at Southern Miss where he was the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year in 1997. He was a second round choice of the Miami Dolphins in 1998 and was a three-time Pro Bowl selection in his 11-year NFL career. He was voted the NFL Defensive Back of the Year in 2002. Surtain, a member of the Southern Miss Team of the Century, now coaches for the Dolphins.

Lewis Tillman: From Hazlehurst, Tillman chose to play college ball for MSHOF member W.C. Gorden at Jackson State, where he rushed for 3,989 yards, broke several of Walter Payton’s records and was the SWAC Player of the Year in 1987 when he gained 1,474 yards. That season, in a 17-7 loss to Southern Miss, Tillman out-gained the entire Southern Miss team. He earned a Super Bowl ring with the 1991 New York Giants. He played five seasons for the Giants and then two with the Chicago Bears where he was teammates with John Mangum.

The post Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame announces Class of 2023 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Republican Party, touting its unifying conservative values, kicked off a minority outreach initiative Wednesday outside of party headquarters in downtown Jackson.

The state party also announced an initiative, led in part by Attorney General Lynn Fitch, to try to increase the number of women elected officials in the state.

At the event, attended by about 20 African Americans, party officials said Republicans and Mississippians of all races hold the same conservative values.

“There is more that connects us than divides us,” said Rodney Hall of Southaven, the chair of the GOP outreach committee.

Fitch, whose office defended the Mississippi law that led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that repealed a national right to an abortion, said: “We are very conservative about life. We are conservative about family … Now more than ever, Republican values are needed.”

In Mississippi, perhaps more so than in any state in the country, the vast majority of white residents vote Republican while most Black residents support the Democratic Party. African Americans comprise about 38% of the total state population — the highest percentage of any state in America.

There are few elected Black Republicans in the state and none in the Legislature.

At the event, state Republican Party leaders did not address some of the issues that African American elected officials often stress, such as the need to expand Medicaid to provide health care coverage for about 250,000 primarily working Mississippians. Republican leaders have blocked those efforts, leaving Mississippi as one of only 12 states in the nation not ensuring health care coverage for poor workers.

Another issue where there have been policy differences is on the elimination of the tax on groceries, the highest of its kind in the nation. Efforts to eliminate the tax have been blocked in past years by Republican leaders, though it results in poor people, many of them people of color, paying a larger percentage of their income in taxes. Plus, many have cited efforts of Republicans to ban the teaching of critical race theory as an effort to prevent the teaching of the impact of racism on the history of the state and nation.

Fitch did endorse providing Medicaid coverage for mothers for one year after giving birth. Currently, the state Medicaid program only provides 60 days of postpartum coverage, though the Biden administration mandated a year of coverage as part of the federal COVID-19 emergency order.

Many Mississippi Republicans have opposed expanding health care for poor mothers.

“We as Mississippi Republicans are eager to grow our party,” party Chair Frank Bordeaux said in a news release. “We know our plans and policies to reduce inflation, lower taxes, cut wasteful spending, secure our borders, invest in national defense, and restore American energy are appealing to all Americans. We’re going to take that message to communities where Republicans have not traditionally been as successful in order to recruit, train, and elect a more diverse group of candidates and bring thousands more freedom-loving Mississippians into our party.”

Fitch said there have been only four women elected to statewide “constitutional” office in Mississippi, and just 15% of the majority Republican Legislature is comprised of women.

There have, however, been six women elected statewide: Nellah Bailey as tax collector, Julia Henrich Kendrick as Supreme Court clerk, Evelyn Gandy as lieutenant governor and treasurer, Amy Tuck as lieutenant governor, Cindy Hyde-Smith as commissioner of agriculture and commerce, and Fitch as attorney general and treasurer.

Hyde-Smith is currently serving in the U.S. Senate as the first woman from Mississippi elected to federal office.

The posts of tax collector and Supreme Court clerk have been eliminated as elected offices.

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The Biden administration’s application for student loan forgiveness is officially open. The deadline to apply is Dec. 31, 2022. 

Eligible borrowers, among them hundreds of thousands of Mississippians, could see their balances erased within four to six weeks if they apply today, according to the U.S. Department of Education, the federal agency overseeing the plan. 

Borrowers who want to see their balances reduced before payments resume in January should fill out the form by Nov. 15. Loan repayment has been on pause due to the pandemic since March 2020.

Though the plan is facing a raft of legal challenges, President Joe Biden has said he believes it will prevail in court. The lawsuits have already resulted in the U. S. Department of Education making a number of tweaks to the program, including removing about 800,000 borrowers from eligibility whose loans are backed by the federal government but held by commercial banks. 

In late September, the Department of Education also announced that borrowers can opt-out of  loan forgiveness following a lawsuit that claimed the plan would unfairly harm borrowers who live in the six states, including Mississippi, that will tax student debt relief as income. 

That lawsuit was dismissed, though it’s unclear how Mississippi will carry out its plan to tax student debt relief as income because the federal government has directed servicers to not provide 1099-Cs – the tax form needed for filing debt cancellation.

READ MORE: Mississippi plans to tax student debt relief. But Paycheck Protection Program loans are tax exempt.

The Department of Education has said it will notify about 8 million borrowers who automatically qualify for relief. Borrowers in this group who’d like to opt out should contact their servicer by Nov. 14, according to the Washington Post. 

The form, available in Spanish or English, takes less than one minute to complete – it asks for name, date of birth, phone number, email address, and Social Security Number. The form will ask borrowers to attest that they meet the income limits, up to $125,000 a year.

Some borrowers may need to verify their income after submitting the application, but the Department of Education has said it will let them know. The Washington Post reported that borrowers “who present a higher likelihood of exceeding the income limit threshold” will likely be asked to submit documentation. 

Relief is capped at $10,000 for many borrowers and at $20,000 for borrowers who received Pell Grants in college. The form notes that income is calculated “based on your adjusted gross income (AGI), which tends to be lower than your total income.” 

To qualify, borrowers must have taken out student loans before July 2022. Current college students are eligible for relief if their parents make less than $125,000. Borrowers with private loans are not eligible. 

As many as 40 million Americans qualify for student debt relief, including 439,000 people in Mississippi. For nearly half of those Mississippians, the plan will wipe away student debt, according to an analysis by the Education Data Initiative. The average Mississippi borrower with federal student loans owes about $37,000, one of the highest average debts in the country. 

The Biden administration has cast the plan as a way to ameliorate the country’s racial wealth gap. In Mississippi, Black borrowers take on higher amounts of undergraduate student debt than those of other races, according to data from a recent National Postsecondary Aid study. 

Black students in Mississippi borrowed an average of $10,800 in undergraduate student debt during the 2017-18 school year, while borrowers of other races took out an average of $7,400. Black borrowers in Mississippi also took out more loans during the school year than the average Black borrower across the country, while borrowers of other races took on less debt than average. 

One legal challenge that claimed the Biden Administration violated the Equal Protection Clause because it “intentionally crafted the program to benefit borrowers of color” was dismissed two days after it was filed, USA Today reported. 

The post Biden’s student loan forgiveness application officially opened on Monday. Here’s how to apply appeared first on Mississippi Today.

El refuerzo bivalente de COVID-19, que brinda protección tanto contra la cepa original del virus como contra la variante Omicron, ahora representa la mayoría de las dosis de vacuna administradas en todo el estado. Pero solo alrededor de 45,000 habitantes de Mississippi lo han obtenido desde que estuvo disponible en septiembre.

Las personas mayores de 12 años son elegibles para la nueva vacuna de refuerzo, siempre que hayan pasado al menos dos meses desde la última dosis. Todas las vacunas contra el COVID-19 son gratuitas.

La baja aceptación de refuerzo bivalente de Mississippi está en línea con la tendencia nacional: solo alrededor del 4% de las personas elegibles en los EE. UU. han recibido los nuevos refuerzos.

Actualmente, el estado está viendo un bajo número de casos y admisiones en hospitales y UCI, dijo el miércoles el epidemiólogo estatal, el Dr. Paul Byers, en una reunión de la junta estatal de salud. Pero es probable que el invierno traiga un aumento en los casos a medida que las personas pasan más tiempo en el interior, y los expertos en salud pública temen que miles de personas mueran innecesariamente.

Un análisis por Commonwealth Fund encontró que si las tasas de vacunación se mantienen estables durante el otoño y el invierno, podrían morir 75,000 personas que podrían haber estado protegidas por un refuerzo.

Los residentes de Mississippi pueden hacer una cita para el refuerzo bivalente en el sitio web del departamento de salud. Las citas para vacunas también están disponibles en el sitio web federal vaccines.gov.

Las personas pueden recibir el refuerzo actualizado incluso si no han recibido una vacuna de refuerzo anterior. Eso significa que si recibió dos dosis de Pfizer, Moderna o Noravax, o una dosis de Johnson & Johnson, califica para el nuevo refuerzo siempre que hayan pasado dos meses desde su última dosis. También es elegible si recibió una dosis de refuerzo hace más de dos meses.

La vacuna de refuerzo actualizada fue aprobada por la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos y los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades hace unas seis semanas. El departamento de salud del estado anunció que las citas de refuerzo bivalente estaban disponibles en los departamentos de salud del condado a partir del 13 de septiembre.

Byers explicó que a medida que el COVID-19 circula y evoluciona, surgen nuevas variantes que pueden evadir la inmunidad conferida por una vacuna o una infección previa. El nuevo refuerzo proporciona una protección más amplia que la vacuna original.

El futuro de las vacunas COVID-19 puede parecerse mucho a la vacuna contra la gripe, con nuevas versiones disponibles regularmente para proteger contra el virus evolucionado.

“Ese es el tipo de cosas que vemos con la vacuna contra la gripe todos los años”, dijo Byers. “Uno porque su inmunidad puede disminuir, pero también porque le brinda protección contra los virus actuales que circulan y causan enfermedades”.

Hasta ahora, la gran mayoría de los refuerzos bivalentes en Mississippi se han dirigido a personas mayores de 50 años, según los datos que Byers presentó en la reunión.

La tasa de consumo de refuerzo ha aumentado semana tras semana desde principios de septiembre, pero parece estar disminuyendo a mediados de octubre.

Solo el 52 % de los habitantes de Mississippi están completamente vacunados, en comparación con el 67 % de los estadounidenses, según el informe estatal de vacunación publicado el 1 de octubre.

Pero cuando se trata de la dosis de refuerzo, el país en su conjunto se parece a Mississippi: tanto en los EE. UU. como en Mississippi, solo el 48 % de las personas han recibido al menos una vacuna de refuerzo. Estados Unidos va a la zaga de países como el Reino Unido, donde más del 70 % de los adultos han recibido un refuerzo.

Una encuesta realizada por KFF, una organización sin fines de lucro dedicada a la política de atención de la salud, encontró que solo la mitad de los adultos estadounidenses dijeron haber oído hablar de las vacunas actualizadas.

Casi 1 millón de habitantes de Mississippi han sido infectados con COVID-19. El virus ha matado al menos a 13,000 personas en el estado.

Andrés Fuentes

Andrés Fuentes es periodista de FOX8-TV en Nueva Orleans y traductor de Mississippi Today. Antes de que el nativo de Nueva Orleans regresara, era periodista para WLOX-TV en Biloxi, Mississippi.

The post A medida que se acerca el invierno, pocos en Mississippi reciben vacunas de refuerzo COVID-19 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ole Miss is 7-0 going into its annual game with LSU for the first time in, well, a long, long time. Ole Miss-LSU is important any year but there’s much more than usual at stake for the Rebels this time. Ole Miss has gone from favorite to underdog since oddsmakers posted the opening line. The Clevelands discuss this year’s game as well as the storied history of the rivalry known as the Magnolia Bowl.

Stream all episodes here.

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Nearly three years after arrests in the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history, exposing systemic corruption and negligence within Mississippi’s federal safety net grants, advocates and clients say the state’s welfare program still contains widespread flaws.

On Tuesday morning, the Mississippi Legislative Democratic Caucus held the first of several planned hearings to address how the state administers its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

“My hope is that the tragedy of the scandal behind this program leads to changes to how much money families receive to help with everyday expenses, who is eligible for the program, and how families are prepared for their exit from the program,” Brandy Nichols, a working mother of four and TANF client, said during her testimony.

The hearing, held by the minority party and not an official legislative committee, was the first legislative hearing about the corruption or the TANF program specifically since the scandal broke three years ago. No legislative leader has called a similar hearing.

First, some statistics on Mississippi’s TANF program currently:

• Mississippi Department of Human Services is still approving less than 10% of poor families who apply for cash welfare assistance.
• Of the $86.5 million in federal funds allocated each year, it spends roughly $4 million on direct payments to poor families and leaves roughly $20 million unused.
• Of roughly 190,000 children living in poverty in the state, just 2,600 receive the monthly aid.
• The state is using around $30 million of the grant to plug budget holes at the child protection agency.
• The state isn’t using any of the money to increase the availability of the child care voucher, which is regarded as one of the most meaningful work supports and is reaching a fraction of the families that qualify for the assistance.
• The state is still spending around $35 million in TANF funds per year on subgrants to private organizations to provide services like workforce training, after school programs and mentorship. But MDHS Director Bob Anderson confirmed Tuesday that the agency isn’t tracking outcomes of the programs — though it hopes to start doing so soon.
• MDHS has successfully lobbied for legislation to increase the monthly TANF cash assistance amount from $170 to $260 for a family of three.
• MDHS has lobbied unsuccessfully for legislation to roll back some provisions of the 2017 HOPE Act (Act to Restore Hope, Opportunity and Prosperity for Everyone). The act imposed some of the strictest eligibility restrictions in the nation, primarily for clients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, creating maze of bureaucratic red tape that burdens the department and arbitrarily kicks people off the programs. Anderson said the state should repeal the HOPE Act.
• Mississippi could be on the hook to pay back $75 million to $95 million, depending on how much spending the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deems impermissible, plus additional penalties if the federal government finds the misspending was intentional. The money would have to come from state coffers, HHS told Mississippi Today in 2020.

The known TANF corruption scandal — in which forensic auditors say state and nonprofit officials misspent $77 million — occurred from 2016 to 2020, but the state’s decision not to use much of the money on evidenced-based methods to reduce or prevent poverty began long before, and it has continued since.

“That we have had nearly $100 million per year for 26 years in welfare funds and that we still have the highest poverty rate of any state is, in my opinion, downright sinful,” Carol Burnett, founder of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, said at the hearing.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services has increased internal controls to address fraud with the TANF program. Currently, Mississippi does not appear to be spending TANF money on things like volleyball stadiums or contracts with former NFL quarterback Brett Favre — two 2017 TANF purchases that have made national headlines.

But that doesn’t mean the state is using the money in the wisest ways to meet the needs of poor families.

“There’s two parts to this, one is the part that’s in the headlines, which needs to be in the headlines, and that is the scandal and the illegal activity. The harder work for us is going to be to fix the program going forward. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s smart,” Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said.

During her testimony, Nichols, who has held jobs as a waitress, a receptionist, a housekeeper, and a cashier, explained the barriers she faced in receiving government assistance.

“What may seem like an easy handout program is not. It’s work. And sometimes work that takes away from my ability to find a true stable job,” Nichols said. “TANF is supposed to help us find jobs, but if you don’t find a job within a week of being in the program, you’re stuck spending hours at DHS offices to fulfill volunteer hours. You’re basically exchanging your body to sit or file papers at the office for less than minimum wage. That’s not career development. That’s called being stuck in limbo.”

“When you apply for TANF, it takes nearly a month for your application to be processed. But when you need money in hand immediately, waiting a month for help only digs you further into the ground,” she continued. “Communication with the office is poor. You can’t directly contact your caseworker. And your caseworker is often changed without you knowing. It hurts to know that this program was taken advantage of by people who already make more money than I could ever imagine. A former quarterback received in a lump sum, over 300 times what I have ever received from TANF.”

Reginald Buckley, senior pastor of Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Jackson, provided more anecdotal evidence of the impact the scandal had on needy families in Mississippi. Buckley’s church noticed in 2019 that the number of people seeking their help for things like food, rent, and electricity was increasing, week by week. The congregation supplies a benevolent fund to pay these costs, and while members were continuing to give, it wasn’t enough anymore to cover the need.

“We speculated that the sharp increase for assistance was due to just the economy, inflation, stagnation – the standard culprits,” Buckley told lawmakers. “But later that year, when State Auditor Shad White announced the largest fraud case in state history due to the improper use of TANF funds, things became much clearer. It was not just hard times. It was not just fewer jobs. The sharp increase of need was largely a result of support for the needy being siphoned from the less fortunate and poured into the coffers of the connected and put into the financing of pet projects. We have all seen and read the reports that implicate some of the state’s highest public officials and their connection to what has happened here. And if it is true, the stench of hypocrisy is pungent and repugnant.”

While federal criminal investigations and a state civil case are ongoing to address the illegal spending, Anderson acknowledged that, at a less than 10% TANF approval rate, the funds still aren’t being pushed out to families that need the aid. Many people who apply for TANF abandon their application before the process is complete, contributing to the low approval rate.

“I told my staff when I arrived that I thought we were doing a woefully inadequate job at providing basic assistance to families. And that is something I have a plan for,” Anderson said at the hearing. “I want to get to the individual answers about why families either don’t feel comfortable coming to us to apply or what figures into their decision to abandon their application. Are they fearful of sanctions? I don’t know. Are the eligibility guidelines too harsh? Could be. We’re looking at all of those things.”

Mississippi currently imposes a drug screening requirement on welfare applicants, a significant barrier to eligibility, even for people who don’t abuse substances, because applicants must find transportation to the testing clinic. Yet, during the scandal, TANF funds were used to pay for drug treatment at a luxury rehab facility for former professional wrestler Brett DiBiase. Former Gov. Phil Bryant even enlisted the help of his welfare director to try to get his nephew into treatment, according to text messages Mississippi Today obtained.

“So in effect, if you’re poor and in many cases a person of color – the use of drugs could disqualify you from receiving assistance. But if you’re rich and in many cases not of color – then the funds that were not intended for you that were restricted to others based on drug usage, can be yours. Mississippi, you have to make this right,” Buckley said in the hearing.

The most recent federal TANF financial report from 2020 shows that Mississippi had piled up an unused balance of TANF funds totaling nearly $50 million. That number has likely grown significantly, as the state is currently leaving $20 million on the table annually.

In explaining why the state has such a large unobligated TANF balance, Anderson explained that the state may be required to return those funds — but federal law requires Mississippi to use state funds to pay back the misspent money, so federal penalties should not impact the state’s existing TANF fund.

Anderson also told lawmakers that MDHS could not provide outcome data for programmatic grants issued under TANF — something Mississippi Today has been requesting since 2018 — because the agency is still not tracking the efficacy of the programs at lifting families out of poverty. “You’re asking me for information that doesn’t exist,” he said.

In limited output reports Mississippi Today has retrieved in the past, the documents contained nonsensical figures, such as the number of clients served year-to-date declining in certain months. In 2019, Mississippi Today reported that MDHS was not even maintaining a list of organization to which it was awarding grants.

“There’s not really a culture of keeping documentation at DHS,” Stephanie Palmertree, financial and compliance audit director for the state auditor’s office, said at the time.

MDHS began maintaining a list of subgrantees, which it has provided to Mississippi Today multiple times, most recently in September.

Anderson said the agency is working on a strategic plan that will dictate how the TANF program is administered going forward. One concept the agency is mulling is hiring navigators who can help MDHS clients apply for and maintain assistance.

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy director for policy for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and national TANF expert, noted a navigator program would be MDHS creating extra programming to “navigate the obstacles you created.”

“Remove the barrier,” she suggested.

Asked whether Mississippi should repeal the 2017 HOPE Act, Anderson said yes.

The hearing, which took place in the Senate committee room, was not live-streamed as some lawmakers expected. The Senate denied the caucus’ request for to use the Senate infrastructure for live-streaming since it was party-affiliated and not an official committee hearing, lawmakers told Mississippi Today. The Democratic Caucus is expected to schedule more hearings to discuss TANF in coming months.

The post ‘Downright sinful’: As Mississippi is mired in welfare scandal, advocates say the state still isn’t aiding the poor appeared first on Mississippi Today.