While 50,000 Mississippians face the prospect of going without affordable medical care thanks to a contract dispute between the state’s largest hospital and insurer over reimbursement rates, the salaries for executives at both entities are shielded from the public.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi sued the state over a decade ago to make sure its executives’ compensation could not be disclosed, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center — despite being under the purview of the Institutions of Higher Learning and receiving state and federal funding — cites a broad exemption in state law when withholding its top administrators’ salary information.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi is required to file information about its executives’ compensation as part of its annual report to the Mississippi Insurance Department. But in 2009, the insurer sued the department to stop it from releasing that information to the public.
Several current executives at the company — Carol Pigott, the CEO; Thomas Fenter, the chief medical officer; and Bryan Lagg, senior vice president of consumer marketing and sales — are listed as plaintiffs in court filings.
Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Patricia D. Wise sided with Blue Cross, ordering the department “to withhold from public disclosure all information concerning the compensation of BCBSM executives.” Wise determined that the Insurance Department didn’t use the information to carry out its duties, so it isn’t a public record, and that disclosing the salary information would violate “the privacy rights of the individual plaintiffs/executives.”
Top executives make seven figures, a longtime former employee of the insurance company told Mississippi Today.
The median household income in Mississippi is around $46,000.
“Salaries and employee compensation of all employees at BCBSMS is not pertinent to the contract dispute with UMMC, and simply distracts from what is really important — high-quality, cost-effective care for our Members,” Cayla Mangrum, manager of corporate communications for the company, said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
But Mississippians faced with exorbitant health care costs or the added burden — financial and otherwise — of driving elsewhere for care might see it differently.
Carmen Balber, executive director of the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, said that health insurance is essentially a public good, even when delivered through private companies.
“At the end of the day, we’re paying for those salaries,” she said, speaking about health insurance companies generally because she doesn’t have specific knowledge of BCBS Mississippi. “I’m certain that any consumer who’s had issues with their health insurance, paying for what they need, would be very interested to know that the CEO of the company was making $1 or $2 or $6 million a year.”
In many other states, that information is public record. In California, for example, an executive compensation report published annually on the company’s website shows their top executive made $6.4 million in 2020. In Michigan, the company’s CEO made $15.6 million in 2021. A spokesperson for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the umbrella group for 34 different BCBS companies, said they did not have information about the number of states in which BCBS executive compensation is withheld from the public.
A 2016 survey by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners of its members around the country found that insurance company compensation figures were kept confidential in at least 12 states, including Mississippi.
The company awards yearly bonuses to employees — as much as six figures for executives — around March each year, said the former BCBS employee, and the amounts of the bonuses also increased in recent years.
The company told Mississippi Today the bonuses are “an important part” of incentive-based compensation.
“Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi (BCBSMS) is proud of our employee incentive program because it rewards (and thanks) our employees for their individual performance and contribution to the achievement of the Company’s health and wellness goals for our Members,” Mangrum said.
Though the University of Mississippi Medical Center receives about 9% of its funding from the state, the hospital shields its executives’ compensation, too. When Mississippi Today requested hospital salary information last year, UMMC invoked the broad hospital exemption in the state’s public records law to withhold the information. When reporters asked the Institutes of Higher Learning for the salary information this week, a spokesperson cited the law and said UMMC employees’ salaries are exempt from disclosure.
The salary for Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor of health affairs and dean of the school of medicine, was $700,400 a year in 2016, according to a news article.
On March 31, Blue Cross and UMMC missed their deadline to sign a new contract, forcing tens of thousands of patients to pay higher costs for out-of-network care at the hospital, or go elsewhere. UMMC maintains it has been underpaid relative to other academic medical centers in the region and is asking for a 30% overall increase in reimbursement rates from Blue Cross in the first year of a new contract. Blue Cross argues that’s too much.
Contract disputes between the two have been tense in the past, but this is the first time UMMC has gone out of network with Blue Cross, hospital officials said.
In 2009, reporters from WLBT requested information on Blue Cross Blue Shield executive compensation from the Insurance Department, on behalf of several policyholders who wanted to know where their money was going.
Blue Cross then sued the Insurance Department, triggering the court order in their favor.
Last week, Mississippi Today filed a records request with the Mississippi Insurance Department for the executive compensation information Blue Cross Blue Shield is required to file with the state annually. The department responded that the 2009 court order prohibits it from fulfilling the request.
“In accordance with the Court’s directive, MID is prohibited from releasing the aforementioned information which is the subject of your request,” wrote deputy commissioner Mark Haire.
Historically, public hospital records were exempt from public disclosure. But after Singing River Health System in Pascagoula secretly stopped paying into its pension system from 2009 to 2014 as it faced a hidden financial crisis, legislators moved to require greater transparency. Public hospitals are now required to share board meeting minutes and financial records. But employee salaries and personnel records are still exempt.
In a statement to Mississippi Today, Blue Cross said they make money not from customer premiums but from “administrative efficiency and investments.” They also said they outperform federal requirements for the percentage of customer premiums they spend on claims, a figure called the medical loss ratio. For large employer groups, the requirement is 85%; Blue Cross says it hit 94%. For individuals, the requirement is 80%, and Blue Cross reached 99%.
“Our medical loss ratio performance clearly illustrates Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi’s ability to ensure the vast majority of the Member’s premium is for health care costs,” the statement said.
In other states, legislatures have passed laws preventing disclosure of insurers’ executive compensation. Alabama, for example, used to release the information publicly. In 2015, following lobbying from the insurance industry, the law changed to make salaries confidential.
Alabama health care attorney Jim McFerrin told AL.com that making salary information public gave customers more information about where their money was going and could allow them to take legal action in certain situations – like, for example if they believed a rate increase was unreasonable.
“A decrease in transparency means a decrease in accountability,” he told the news site.
Mississippi Today reporter Molly Minta contributed to this report.
Legislators approved $20 million in federal pandemic relief funds to private K-12 schools and private colleges for infrastructure improvements this week, despite concerns from some that public dollars should stay with public schools.
The money comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which gave the Mississippi Legislature $1.8 billion to spend on pandemic response, government services, and infrastructure improvements to water, sewer, and broadband.
After several rounds of deliberation, the Legislature approved grants of $10 million each to private K-12 schools and private colleges and universities.
Private schools must be members of the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools or accredited by another regional or national accrediting organization to be eligible for the grant. No school can receive more than $100,000 for infrastructure improvement projects related to water, sewer, broadband, or other allowable infrastructure projects under ARPA.
Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said she voted against the measure because she felt that the state shouldn’t be giving tax dollars to private schools.
“It’s a choice to go to a private school, and they have other methods of funding that our public schools don’t have,” she said.
Nancy Loome of The Parents’ Campaign shared that sentiment, calling the passage of the bill a “tremendous disappointment.”
“We believe that the public’s funds should be used for the public’s schools, not for the private schools that pick and choose which children they want to educate,” Loome said. “Right now, public schools are severely underfunded in Mississippi, and that harms all of us. Every public dollar that gets spent on a private school could be spent on a public school.”
For the private colleges and universities, funds will be allocated based on a school’s enrollment and schools can apply for grants to spend on water, sewer, broadband, or other allowable infrastructure projects under ARPA. The seven private colleges and universities named in the legislation are Belhaven University, Blue Mountain College, Millsaps College, Mississippi College, Rust College, Tougaloo College, and William Carey University.
Jason Dean, director of the Mississippi Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, was grateful to see the needs of these schools acknowledged, which he said serve 13,000 students across the state.
“There are private colleges that have served students in this state for decades, and some of their buildings are literally falling in,” he said. “While the money can’t go to build new buildings, it can go to water, sewer, and HVAC systems, which is a big one.”
Dean explained that by updating HVAC systems, costs can be defrayed on energy bills, giving colleges more money to allocate to other things.
The money for both grants must be allocated to schools by December 2024 and spent by December 2026.
Josh Bright (10) led Delta State to a 63-34 national championship victory in 2000. (Photo courtesy DSU Athletics)
Delta State, in many ways the most successful college athletics program in Mississippi, will celebrate much of that rich sports history Friday night at the Grammy Museum in Cleveland with its annual Hall of Fame celebration.
When I write “most successful in Mississippi,” I mean it. Delta State has won national championships in baseball, football and six — count ‘em, six — in women’s basketball. In all sports combined (including swimming), Delta State athletes have claimed 14 national titles, 37 regional championships and 68 conference crowns.
Rick Cleveland
Not bad for a rather remote school of about 3,500 that receives precious little publicity outside of Bolivar County. As traditional newspapers have reduced staffing and the size of sports sections, much of what Delta State has achieved has gone under-publicized, to say the least. Nevertheless, the Deltans keep winning.
It is an amazing story that dates back to when the legendary and gentlemanly Boo Ferriss returned home from the Boston Red Sox in 1960 to take over the Delta State baseball program, carve out a baseball field out of a bean field, and create a national powerhouse. And it dates back to when Delta State decided to revive women’s basketball in 1973 and handed the reins to a graceful lady named Margaret Wade.
And it includes the 2000 national football championship and one of the most perfect offensive performances in the history of the sport at any level. Today, we’ll concentrate of that achievement since Steve Campbell, the head coach of that team, and Mark Hudspeth, who was the offensive coordinator, are among Friday night’s Hall of Fame inductees.
And I know what many readers are thinking: those are mighty big words: “one of the most perfect offensive performances in the history of the sport.”
Yeah, well, listen to this: In its 63-34 national championship demolition of Bloomsburg (Pa.) State at Florence, Ala., Delta State rolled up 36 first downs and 524 yards rushing. You’ve heard of “three yards and a cloud of dust.” This was “10 yards and a grass stain.” With quarterback Josh Bright leading the way, the Statesmen averaged nearly a first down per play. Delta State scored on nine of its first 10 possessions and then ran out the clock on the 11th. Nobody’s perfect.
We’re talking precision here. Campbell and Hudspeth directed an option offense executed to near perfection. The Statesmen possessed remarkable speed at the skill positions behind an offensive line of stout, muscular linemen, most of whom had been judged as a couple inches too short to play Division I football.
That team, it should be noted, had been picked to finish sixth in the Gulf South Conference in a pre-season poll. It finished first in the nation.
Steve Campbell guided the 2000 Delta State Statesmen to a football national championship. (DSU Athletics)
Campbell, the head coach, had served as an offensive line coach at Delta State earlier in his career. Indeed, that was his first full-time job in 1990 when he was hired by Don Skelton. Thirty-two years later, Campbell remembers knowing, as a 24-year-old, that he had come to a special place to work.
“You knew there was greatness there,” Campbell said by phone Wednesday from his home in Mobile. “You knew where the bar was set. You could see the banners and the pennants and all the trophies. Coach Ferriss was still in the building every day and the way he went about his business permeated the place. It wasn’t just his success; it was the way he went about his business, the attention to detail and the way he treated people. Margaret Wade was retired but still around and you went into the gymnasium and you saw all those championship banners. It was — it is — a special place.”
I know that many who read this will say something like, “Yeah, but it’s Division II, small stuff.”
Yes, it is Division II but it’s not necessarily small stuff. The athletes may be an inch or two shorter or a few pounds lighter, but they can play. Look at the history.
Ferriss’ baseball teams competed with much success against Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Miss and Alabama. Between games of a doubleheader Delta State swept at Alabama one day, Bear Bryant dropped by the Delta State dugout. “Boo, we’re going to have to quit playing you if you keep beating us like this,” Bryant told Ferriss.
To which Ferriss replied, “Bear, if everybody felt that way, you wouldn’t be able to find anybody who would play you.”
Wade’s Lady Statesmen routinely defeated national powerhouses. LSU was the victim in her last championship victory. In 1990, Delta State played Southern Miss in football and had a chance to win in the fourth quarter before USM scored late to preserve a 12-0 victory. The next week, Southern Miss beat Alabama. The 2007 Jackson State football team that won the SWAC championship lost by two touchdowns to Delta State.
Gerald Glass helped Delta State to a men’s basketball victory over Mississippi State and to the Division II Final Four before transferring to Ole Miss and becoming one of the greatest players in Rebel basketball history.
It’s still true, in many respects, today.
In 2021, pitcher Hunter Riggins achieved a 9-4 record and 2.97 earned run average for Delta State. In 2022, as a graduate transfer at Southern Miss, Riggins has a 3-2 record and a 2.71 ERA. Yes, the level of play is a little bit higher at Division I, but the emphasis is on “a little bit.” The Gulf South Conference, in which Delta State competes, is the Southeastern Conference of Division II athletics.
Jeremy McClain, who directs Southern Miss athletics, once held the same job at Delta State. Before that, he was probably the best pitcher in Delta State history. He was asked recently about the historical excellence of Delta State athletics.
“Well, number one, look at the coaches that been through there,” McClain said. “Just unbelievable — from Coach Ferriss, Bill Marchant and Mike Kinnison in baseball, to Margaret Wade and Lloyd Clark in women’s basketball and Horace McCool, Red Parker, Steve Campbell and Ron Roberts in football. That’s pretty amazing right there. Plus, you’ve got great athletes in the Delta area. And Delta State has made great use of Mississippi’s junior college system in recruiting in all sports.
“It’s a special place, always has been.”
•••
The 2022 Delta State Athletics Hall of Fame Induction will be held Friday at 7 p.m. at the Grammy Museum. Sixteen new inductees will be honored, including, because of COVID delays, the classes of 2020 and 2022.
In the class of 2020: Jennifer Artichuk Beckert (swimming and diving), Michael Eubanks (football), Nicole Trotter Francis (women’s basketball), Lardester Hicks Green (football), Mark Hudspeth (football coach), Edwin Maysonet (baseball), Clyde Muse (men’s basketball) and Jeremy Richardson (men’s basketball).
The Class of 2022 includes Bobby Barrett (football), Steve Campbell (football coach), Micah Davis (football), Dusty Hughes (baseball), Josh Melton (baseball), Chico Potts (men’s basketball) and Tanya Redmond (women’s basketball).
Whether the governor wanted grant funds directed to his favored vendors, a partner to proselytize for his faith-based initiatives, or for someone to keep track of his wayward distant relative, Bryant’s welfare director John Davis was eager to deliver for his boss.
It often took no more than a brief text message — sent privately — to get things done.
“Yes sir,” Davis would respond.
“Your the best,” Bryant would say.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
The former Mississippi governor appointed Davis to oversee the state’s roughly $1 billion public safety net for the poor in 2016.
Text exchanges recently obtained by Mississippi Today expose the governor’s backchannel influence on that agency, which is in the middle of a massive scandal auditors say cost Mississippi taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
Officials are accusing Davis of turning the federal block grant program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, most commonly known for providing the meager monthly “welfare check” to very poor families, into a slush fund.
But the aversion to providing direct cash assistance to the needy – causing welfare rolls to drop 75% and opening the door for Davis to use the bulk of the money in nonsensical ways – was the governor’s.
Over time, the agency’s alternative goal of helping people “find self-sufficiency,” became distorted by bloated, misleading campaigns posing as workforce training, parenting and youth development programs for poor families.
The changes in policy, Bryant’s influence, Davis’ eagerness to please, a cult-like atmosphere and lax oversight from state and federal authorities all contributed to the welfare agency’s failures.
From January 2016 to June 2019, when Davis served as director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services and reported directly to Bryant, auditors say at least $77 million in that agency’s taxpayer funding was misspent, millions of which have yet to be found. The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the scandal.
The state could have used that money to provide a low-income family with a year’s worth of rent, electricity, child care, diapers, monthly transportation stipends, and nine meals a day – and have done the same for 2,600 more families. The number of people who could have benefitted from this is enough to fill every seat in the new volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi – which was purchased with welfare funds – eight times.
Davis, who has pleaded not guilty, is facing state embezzlement and fraud charges, a $96 million demand for repayment from the state auditor, a potential federal indictment, likely civil litigation, the risk of serious prison time and public scorn.
On the other hand, Bryant, who eventually forced Davis out of his job, has emerged unscathed.
Text messages, however, shed new light on Bryant’s involvement in the way Davis ran his department, spent welfare dollars and circumvented agency controls that should have prevented favoritism in grant awards.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is a federal block grant Congress authorized during the 1996 welfare overhaul. States have broad discretion to spend this annual pot, $86.5 million in Mississippi, on programs satisfying four purposes:
Provide direct assistance to needy families
Promote job preparation and work
Prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies
Encourage two-parent families
Investigators from the office of State Auditor Shad White, a Bryant appointee, obtained these texts more than two years ago through cellphone data dumps – but the story they tell had been concealed until now. Mississippi Today has reviewed hundreds of pages of written communication, which are reprinted here exactly as they appear without correction.
But the governor’s name does not appear in White’s 104-page report describing in meticulous detail the misdeeds of welfare officials and contractors, save for a line about him alerting the auditor to potential fraud. Instead, White credited Bryant as the whistleblower in the welfare scandal.
White, who has stopped publicly discussing the audit due to a gag order in the criminal case, told Mississippi Today last October that he believed it was the welfare director’s duty to reject any improper requests from the governor, not the governor’s responsibility to know agency spending regulations.
John Davis, 54, spent his whole career in the Mississippi Department of Human Services, starting as a low-level social worker at the county DHS office in Brookhaven, where he grew up. By 2005, he was promoted to the state office, where he served directly over the very program he’s now accused of defrauding.
In a typical year, MDHS manages around $1 billion in federal safety net funds, about $150 million of which it contracts to other organizations, including private nonprofits. Before Davis took over, the TANF program was catching flak not for making large purchases, but for severe underspending. When he became director, the agency had accumulated roughly $40 million in extra TANF dollars from past years, creating the opportunity for what happened next.
Much of the misspending identified by auditors in the welfare scandal occurred on the nonprofit level as Davis’ department enforced few controls. The alleged scam primarily involved TANF funds the state funneled through a program Bryant touted called Families First for Mississippi.
In this Sept. 7, 2016 file photo John Davis, then executive director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, answers lawmakers questions at a hearing at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
In audit reports, Davis is painted as a tyrant, as a leader who intimidated people with his unilateral control over funding and his ability to fire employees at will – a legislative change to the department that began his first year as director. But Davis wasn’t the only agency employee controlling MDHS’s finances and accounting, which was in disarray. For legal opinions and help issuing subgrants, he relied on savvy attorneys who could write grants to fit funding purposes and make expenditures without triggering a red flag in an audit.
His texts also indicate that the burden of holding the purse strings, and the barrage of requests and wheedling he received because of it, wore on Davis.
“I try to avoid him as much as possible cause he is always asking for money,” he once texted, referring to subgrantee and former football player Paul Lacoste, who ran a welfare-funded boot camp-style fitness class often attended by lawmakers and political staffers free of charge.
Davis didn’t have the luxury of ignoring the governor, so he leaned into his role as a good ole boy.
Gov. Bryant and his wife, Deborah Bryant, sometimes flattered Davis using language that seemed more familial than professional.
Just eight months into Davis’ term as director, Bryant’s wife assured him of the governor’s affection and support: “He LOVES you,” she wrote.
The lifelong government bureaucrat – a never-married, self-proclaimed “simple country boy” in his late 40s, doughy and balding – appeared to feed off the praise.
And Davis was not shy about showing his devotion to Bryant – a popular, charismatic politician who dressed in expensive suits and customized cowboy boots.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
Once in 2018, when the federal human services office rejected Mississippi’s proposal for a food stamps-funded workforce project that benefitted a prominent local trucking company, Davis sent an email to a national association requesting “URGENT ASSISTANCE” to save it. “My Governor, Phil Bryant has promoted this program,” he wrote.
He ended his message with, “My Governor is counting on me.”
Davis and Phil Bryant shared an evangelical energy, invoking God and Christianity in their public messaging or turning government-related speeches into what sounded like sermons.
The governor and the agency bureaucrat were the front-line defenders of a 2016 law to protect the “sincerely held” religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman; that people should not have sex outside such unions; and that a person’s gender is set at birth.
Bryant and Davis also enjoyed sharing the company of celebrities. The governor flaunted his proximity to country musicians, reality TV personalities or star athletes like Favre, a high-profile player in the welfare audit. He snapped selfies with actress Jennifer Garner, who represents an international humanitarian nonprofit that received millions in TANF funds from the welfare agency Bryant oversaw.
Met w/ Jennifer Garner today in D.C. to discuss early childhood education in Mississippi and her initiative “Early Steps to School Success.” pic.twitter.com/1SvjL7zgTP
Davis, meanwhile, had become close to the family of famous retired WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase Sr., known as the “Million Dollar Man” – who was eager to promote the agency’s self-help principles through evangelism.
It was the perks Davis provided to the wrestler’s son, Brett DiBiase – including a fraudulent $48,000 contract and allegedly sending him to rehab on the welfare program’s dime – that prompted the initial investigation, blowing the larger welfare scandal wide open. Brett DiBiase pleaded guilty to a felony within the welfare scheme in 2020.
The other son, Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr., is the subject of a sealed federal civil investigation related to his work with the department.
Bryant had some prior connection to the wrestlers, but inside a government office that blended workplace and family, Davis developed particularly close relationships with the sons.
Since 1987, Ted DiBiase Sr. has played a classic WWE villain known for using his wealth to manipulate his opponents. In scripted, performance wrestling, they call this person a “heel.” He started a Christian ministry, through which he gets paid to speak at churches, in 2001. While he retired from wrestling in the 1990s, he still plays the character in skits on the program today.
The WWE is characterized by its portrayal of staged events and over-the-top storylines as real. These actors stay in character out of the ring, sometimes even off camera in an attempt to blur the line between reality and fiction.
Davis and Teddy DiBiase swapped Christian devotionals, traveled out of state and exercised at the gym together. Davis frequently texted the older brother, “I love you.” The welfare director flew across the country to visit Brett DiBiase while he was in drug rehab, discussed his treatment options with a specialist and called him the “son I never had.” When not together, they shared long, late-night phone calls, phone records show.
The welfare department hired the DiBiases, and their ministry, called Heart of David, for various “soft services,” such as to create a phone app to reach troubled teens and send them Bible verses. The plan was to incentivize kids to use the app by promising personalized videos from Ted DiBiase Sr. or the governor, proposals show. The app never happened. Their programs, according to audits, generally delivered few results and they didn’t report any outcomes to the state, according to Mississippi Today’s records requests.
Former Gov. Phil Bryant and Ted DiBiase Jr. in 2015.
The DiBiases invited Bryant and his wife to the premier of a documentary that Teddy DiBiase made about his father. On the red carpet, the photo op backdrop contained both Heart of David and Families First for Mississippi’s logos. Teddy DiBiase also sat on the advisory council for an initiative Deborah Bryant chaired and gave motivational speeches at the governor’s Healthy Teens Rallies.
In 2015, then-Gov. Phil Bryant visited the Canton, Mississippi set of the film Teddy DiBiase Jr. was attempting to produce and find investors for, according to a lawsuit DiBiase filed against the film producers for breach of contract. DiBiase’s partner on the film, Nicholas Coughlin, also received welfare money that the state auditor demanded he return.
While Davis’ closeness with the younger DiBiases, 39 and 34, has drawn scrutiny from investigators, Ted DiBiase Sr. believed Bryant was the one who elevated the wrestlers inside the state’s welfare program.
In an interview at a 2018 comic convention in Michigan, DiBiase Sr., 68, said that his ministry was “selected by our governor to be the face of his faith-based initiative for the state of Mississippi.”
Bryant denied this assertion, saying that people and organizations surrounding his administration often exaggerated his involvement with them for clout.
A draft proposal attached to agency emails obtained by Mississippi Today describes a plan to incorporate elements of faith within Families First for Mississippi as Bryant’s vision.
“Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant has identified the need to build capacity locally of many faith groups in Mississippi and has developed a faith-based initiative with a leader chosen to work with local communities,” the document dated May 2018 reads. “(Families First for Mississippi) will align its efforts with the Governor’s plan and will work closely with the Governor’s faith based leadership team.”
While welfare money may be spent on programs run by faith-based institutions, the federal government prohibits the state from using the money for inherently religious exercises, like worship.
A review of videos and social media posts shows that one of the only visible programs the DiBiases conducted, a four-day sports summer camp called “Ignite Sports Camp,” had the explicit goal “to reach young men for Jesus Christ.” The camp existed for years before the DiBiase ministry put its name on it. Videos from past summers show participants in the camp singing worship music.
In its report, the State Auditor’s Office also said that an MDHS subgrantee running Families First violated federal regulations when it paid to stage concerts starring Christian rock musician Jason Crabb and bought 4,000 copies of Crabb’s children’s book about the Ten Commandments in 2018. Independent auditors confirmed the book purchase was indicative of abuse and waste.
Emails show Deborah Bryant requested a lunch meeting for the governor to meet with Crabb and welfare officials in February of 2019.
The next month, Gerald Crabb, Jason Crabb’s father and also a Christian musician and ministry founder, texted Davis to thank him for what he had done for him and his son.
The welfare director told Gerald Crabb of his plan to incorporate “inner city kids” into their project. “You should hear them sing,” Davis wrote.
Davis said he envisioned them putting on a concert series with the children as the “opening act” and said that the governor and his wife were supportive of the effort.
“We had lunch with the Governor and First Lady,” Davis texted Gerald Crabb in March of 2019. “They are on board.”
Ted DiBiase Jr. speaks at the Healthy Teens Rally hosted by Families First for Mississippi and Gov. Phil Bryant’s office in 2018.
TANF, a federal block grant, is notorious in public program and policy circles for lax guidelines that give states broad flexibility to spend the money however they wish. It has the reputation of being a legal slush fund, a program in which officials can defend seemingly ludicrous purchases as satisfying vague purposes in federal law and get away with it.
But, according to the state and independent auditors who examined Mississippi’s spending, that perception is not entirely true. The accountants determined that most of the misspending violated federal law either because the purchases did not serve the needy, an apparently overlooked requirement of TANF guidelines, or they did not comply with other federal grant regulations governing conflicts of interest and unfair grant-awarding practices.
Because of the way Congress wrote the law creating TANF, though, “there’s very, very little ability to regulate,” said Nisha Patel, former director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Family Assistance, which oversees the TANF program.
States must gather and report many details about the lives of poor cash recipients in the welfare program so that the federal government can measure their household resources and track how many of them are working. But when it comes to how states spend the rest of the money or which private organizations it chooses to award the funds, the federal agency barely gathers any information. States only have to report their expenses to the federal government in vague categories and are not required to provide any supporting documentation, like subgrants or invoices.
“The data is only as good as what the state’s report,” Patel said, and if states aren’t accurately recording their spending, “There’s no way to check that.”
There is one entity that’s supposed to hold the Mississippi welfare agency accountable.
Each year on behalf of the federal government, the Office of the State Auditor audits state agencies that receive federal funds. It’s the federal government’s primary way of holding states accountable for their spending. Bryant served as state auditor from 1996, the year Congress passed the overhaul of welfare and created the TANF program, until 2007.
In 2005, a new state law required Bryant to begin auditing the TANF program’s performance – the actual outcomes of the people who were supposed to benefit from it – and the expenditures of its subgrantees. But the new requirement was conditional on the agency having the specific funds to do so, and the Legislature allowed the law to expire shortly thereafter. The office never conducted the audit of TANF under Bryant or since.
“It was too easy to put the hand in the copper kettle,” said former chair of the health and human services committee Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, who authored the 2005 law.
Holland, a longtime champion of public programs for the poor and sick, had realized for years that the state was relying on “quote unquote political faith” that the welfare agency would spend these funds wisely. He even voted back in the ‘90s against moving the department under the governor’s office, which he said only decreased accountability and yielded too much power to one politician. His colleagues ignored his concerns.
Near the end of Bryant’s administration, Holland said he raised suspicions about MDHS spending and “even bombarded in on the director at one point after having been told probably 10 times I could not see him.”
“I told him, I said, ‘Director, this thing is fixing to be like walking from hell to Texas. It’s gonna bust wide open. There’s too much hanky panky going on with this money and too little accountability,’” Holland said. “And he just simply said, ‘I’ve got it under control, Mr. Chairman.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think you do but I damn sure hope you do.’”
The lawmaker added, “This was the most enormous top-down scandal I think I’ve experienced in my 36 years in government.”
Auditor White has laid most of the blame in the welfare scandal at the feet of Davis and his nonprofit subgrantees, even though Davis’ department follows plans approved by the governor. Some state agencies have boards overseeing their operations, but others, like MDHS, answer directly to the state’s top official.
In the case of the misspending by nonprofit founder Nancy New, a central figure in the scandal, White sent letters demanding repayment to all of her nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center’s board members – who could be held responsible in civil court. But in the case of the governor’s office, which oversees MDHS, no such demands were made.
The auditor explained to Mississippi Today in October that it is not the governor’s role to know how TANF funds may or may not be spent.
White posed a hypothetical: A governor meets with his human services director and asks for the department to use welfare funds to build, let’s say, a community garden – an unallowable purchase under TANF regulations.
White said it is the director’s responsibility to reject the request and explain that the money may not be used for that purpose.
On the flip side, White asked, “Is it the governor’s responsibility in that hypothetical that I just set up to know all the TANF regs? The answer is no.”
“If that is the governor’s responsibility,” he continued, “then it is impossible to be the governor of the state of Mississippi or any state, because you would have to be an expert in TANF regs, MEMA regs, DPS regs, and every federal grant that is drawn down by any of those entities. It would be impossible.”
Near the end of Davis’ administration in 2019 – around the same time he was asking New by text message to wire money to the Malibu, Calif., facility where Brett DiBiase was in rehab – there is an example of Davis telling the governor “no,” at least for a time.
Bryant was seeking funding for a children’s development clinic. Davis told the governor by email that his attorneys determined it would be against federal rules to put TANF or any other MDHS funds toward the program.
“Thanks John. Let me know if I can help find funding. We always want to follow the rules,” Bryant responded.
But even then, Davis eventually “found a way to fund” the organization anyway, he told the governor in a text a week later.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
“Perhaps he did,” Bryant said when Mississippi Today reminded him of this exchange. “And I hope it was proper and legal and ethical and moral.”
The director hadn’t even seen an application from the organization before making the decision, according to emails Mississippi Today obtained.
The conversation about whether a program fits the purposes of a particular pot of funding, and whose responsibility it is to know these rules, ignores another glaring problem with this scenario: A governor and agency director cannot simply decide up front, on their own, which organizations to give grant money, according to a lead auditor in White’s office.
“A director cannot unilaterally direct money to a subgrantee due to the required pre-award conditions and steps required in Uniform Grant Guidance,” director of the auditor’s finance and compliance division Stephanie Palmertree told Mississippi Today in an email. “Also, all federal monies are guided and audited on the concept of adequate internal control, which would require an application process at a minimum.”
White told Mississippi Today in October that he had not seen evidence of Bryant directing Davis to fund specific vendors.
And yet, the notion that Bryant could “find” ways for MDHS to fund specific organizations — and all he had to do was ask Davis to do so – is clear in their written communications possessed by the auditor’s office for more than two years.
Bryant deflected when asked about whether his requests put pressure on Davis to grant his wishes.
“I wouldn’t pick organizations and say ‘fund this one,’ ‘fund this one,’ ‘fund this one,’” Bryant said. “I think a question from me saying, ‘Can we fund these folks?’ is just that, a question.”
Policy advocates don’t see it that way.
“I’ve been saying all along that all of those TANF subgrants that are suspect – Nancy New, all of them – it was the governor who was the wizard behind the curtain,” said Carol Burnett, founder of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Institute. “That’s my opinion.”
Burnett’s opinion is an educated one; she was a division director in the Mississippi Department of Human Services in the early 2000s and has direct knowledge about how the agency operates.
“The thing about TANF and the governor in Mississippi is: it’s a huge pot of money and the governor has total control over it,” Burnett said. “The governor just had to have been involved in those decisions.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the federal funds to Mississippi, has denied several Mississippi Today requests for an interview, even to discuss general policies and controls within the program. It has said through written statements that the agency is waiting until its Office of the Inspector General has completed its investigation before it levies penalties against the state for the misspending. The agency did tell Mississippi Today in 2020 that Mississippi will have to pay back the misspent funds with its own state dollars, not future TANF funds.
Officials from the local FBI office declined to answer whether its investigation is ongoing.
On June 19, 2019, Davis informed Bryant he would be testifying in Washington about the state’s food assistance and public safety net programs. The welfare director told Bryant that members of the House Agriculture Committee “like what Mississippi is doing” and wanted to hear about “what we have done to be so successful.”
“Proud of the job you are doing,” Bryant responded by text.
The next day, Davis represented a starkly conservative voice on a panel before Congress, while Nancy New and Teddy DiBiase sat behind him on the first row. Mississippi had just eliminated a policy that expanded eligibility for food benefits, which had the effect of kicking people off the program.
To justify the policy change, Davis said the state was helping raise people out of poverty in other ways. He named one example: “Law of 16,” the self help courses Teddy DiBiase Jr. taught to employees at MDHS and other public agencies. The wrestler was paid millions in welfare funds to deliver these motivational lectures.
Nancy New and Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. listen as Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes testifies before Congress on June 20, 2019 about why eligibility for food assistance should remain expanded to serve more low-income people. Then-Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis was also testifying that day about why his state had eliminated that policy and how DiBiase’s self-help courses were meeting the needs of poor Mississippians. Credit: Courtesy of House Ag Democrats YouTube page
Using little more than buzzwords in his testimony, Davis inflated Mississippi’s “family-centered, multigenerational approach” of “helping the family holistically” and assisting individuals in “finding true self sufficiency.” Congress members praised his concept. Davis was positioning Mississippi’s safety net department as a national leader.
When he returned to Mississippi on June 21, he received a text from the governor. Bryant pressed Davis on whether he and agency employees had stayed at Trump Plaza during their trip and who paid for the rooms. Families First often used welfare funds to pay for these kinds of travel expenses, meaning they weren’t reflected in MDHS spending reports. Davis’ secretary actually held onto the New nonprofit’s credit card, texts show, so she could use it to book flights and hotel rooms.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
A text Davis received later from his colleague says MDHS paid for the rooms this time. Yet, Davis told Bryant he paid for the rooms out of his own pocket.
“Wow that’s an expensive place..” Bryant wrote.
“Yes sir. I’m single and no children. Was on my bucket list,” Davis said.
Bryant then told Davis to come to his office. The conversation happened on the same day Bryant reportedly relayed the initial tip of misspending to State Auditor White. A few days later, investigators from the auditor’s office gave Davis a polygraph test where they asked if he’d received any kickbacks from the DiBiases, according to an examination report. Within about two weeks, Davis announced under pressure his abrupt retirement from MDHS.
In August, after Davis left office and the auditor’s investigation was well underway, Davis sent the governor another text.
“I have been ask by the regional office in Atlanta to assist some states with modeling their programs after Mississippi,” Davis wrote.
The disgraced former bureaucrat wanted the governor’s blessing. “That’s sounds great,” Bryant responded.
This is Part 2 in Mississippi Today’s series “The Backchannel,” which examines former Gov. Phil Bryant’s role in the running of his welfare department during what officials have called the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history.
Mississippi legislators ended the 2022 session on a two-day spending spree where they spent funds at a pace never before seen in the state.
During a two-day period ending late Tuesday evening, legislators appropriated $7.32 billion on a state-support budget – 9.2% or $617 million more than was spent for the current year budget that ends on June 30.
In addition, the Legislature spent:
$1.51 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds on a litany of items ranging from helping to repair or improve local water and sewer systems to tourism enhancement to propping up state agencies facing lawsuits because of substandard conditions.
More than $900 million in surplus funds on hundreds of projects, including small projects such as courthouse repairs across the state, construction (on public buildings, including schools, state office buildings and community college and universities and more) and road and bridge repairs.
At the end of the 48-hour spending spree, House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, congratulated members, saying it was “a hard session, but one that has been very rewarding, one that has done amazing things for the people of the state and transformed our state.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, began talking about the need to make transformative change with the funds from the American Rescue Plan soon after the U.S. Congress passed it in 2021.
During the 2022 session, the Legislature appropriated all but about $300 million of the $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan funds it received. The Legislature can spend the remaining amount in the 2023 session.
“We are not likely to see this magnitude of additional federal dollars come to our state again in our lifetime,” Hosemann said. “This is why it was critical for the Legislature to create a plan which would result in the money going in the ground for generational change. So many of our communities across Mississippi have multi-million dollar water and sewer challenges which have health, safety, economic and other consequences.
“These funds will help these communities begin the process of addressing these concerns resulting in a better quality of life for our citizens,” Hosemann continued.
The Legislature enjoyed almost the perfect storm in terms of available money. Because of an estimated $35 billion in federal funds being funneled into Mississippi to deal with the pandemic, state revenue collections have soared to unprecedented heights, resulting in a surplus of about $1.1 billion in addition to the ARPA funds.
The Legislature spent about $900 million of those surplus funds on building projects and eschewed the traditional bond bill that is passed most sessions to incur long-term debt in addressing the state’s building needs. Legislators said they should be able to do the same next year as state revenue collections remain high. The end result should be a reduction in what the state spends on debt service. The debt service payment was $439 million for the current year.
One of the last of the scores of appropriations bills passed was to spend $222.3 million of the surplus funds on hundreds of projects in communities throughout the state. A summary of the projects was passed out to the members by the leadership, but not to members of the media.
After the summary in the House was passed out, the spending bill was passed in less than two minutes.
At times, the number of appropriations bills being taken up seemed overwhelming, Legislators got off to a late start on taking up the bills. Senate leaders say that occurred because House leadership refused to work on them until a $525 million tax cut was agreed to and passed on March 28.
“I am really concerned with the way the process is rushed,” said Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, adding she was concerned about the possibility of mistakes. “…You really don’t have time to debate or ask questions. The conference reports (final agreements) come so fast.”
Summers said she would like to have seen American Rescue Plan funds earmarked to the city of Jackson because of its unique position as the state’s largest city to deal with its antiquated and subpar water and sewer system. But instead, Jackson, like all the cities in the state, will have an opportunity to apply for grants to get help with the system.
She said she was afraid to vote against the bill offered by the leadership to provide grants.
“If you don’t vote for that, you don’t get to vote for anything,” she said.
House leadership said they understand Jackson plans to put up $25 million of the almost $50 million in ARPA funds it received to hopefully pull down $25 million in state ARPA funds for water and sewer infrastructure needs. The program approved by the Legislature requires a dollar-for-dollar match from bigger cities to access the state ARPA funds.
One area where there was debate during the final days was on providing about $20 million in federal ARPA funds to private schools — both private universities and kindergarten through 12th grade schools. Opponents said public funds should not be spent on private schools.
The private school bill was at first defeated in the Senate, but ultimately the Senate leadership garnered the votes to pass the bill.
Significant additional funds also were spent to enhance efforts to improve the state highway system, including spending $40 million from the surplus funds to match federal funds available through the watershed infrastructure bill approved last year by the U.S. Congress.
“Our cities, counties and constituents have asked us to dedicate our resources to better maintain and add to our infrastructure,” Hosemann said. “This package is a direct response to their request, with projects ranging from critical safety needs to routine maintenance to new infrastructure across our state.”
The Legislature also appropriated about $40 million to improve conditions at state parks. Hosemann said a study indicated it would take about $160 million to address all the needs in the state park system. He said he hopes additional funds are appropriated in the 2023 session for the effort.
This is it: The absolute best time of the sports year. The Final Four, The Masters, Major League Baseball season, college baseball conference races heating up. And spring is blooming everywhere in Mississippi. The Cleveland boys talk about it all and are joined by Prime Shrimp’s Davis McCool to talk about what is going on in New Orleans these days, which is a lot.
Jeremy Nichols, center, has his mouth examined by a University of Mississippi Medical Center doctor during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Dr. Eswarakumar Mundra, left, gives Shayla Allison paperwork after completing her free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Jeremy Nichols, center, has his mouth examined by a University of Mississippi Medical Center doctor during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Glendora Singleton, left, has her mouth examined during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Dr. Anne Kane, right, examines Rogelio Solis’ mouth during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Dr. Trace T. Palmer, left, and medical student Alex Hammett Rose, right, checks Betty Rowan’s mouth during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Literature about vaping and smoking and how it affects health is available during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Eric Durham gets his neck examined during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Dr. Anne Kane, right, examines Eric Durham’s mouth during a free oral, head and neck cancer screening at Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
More than 90 people attended a free oral, head and neck cancer screening hosted by the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center on Wednesday.
The free event was part of Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week.
About 65,000 new oral, head and neck cancer diagnoses will be made this year in the United States, with nearly 14,600 deaths, according to the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance. In Mississippi, 560 new cases of oral cavity and pharynx cancer have been estimated for this year, with 130 deaths. Tobacco and alcohol use are strong risk factors for these cancers.
Researchers have also correlated to rising incidence of head and neck cancer in young adults to the human papillomavirus (HPV), a potentially cancer-causing virus that can be transmitted through oral sex. Early detection of and diagnosis is vital for successful cancer treatment.
