Eight years ago this week, Mississippi State and Ole Miss had climbed to a tie for No. 3 in the Associated Press college football poll. Both had begun the season unranked.
It was wild.
Remember? Ole Miss had just knocked off Alabama. State had cold-cocked Texas A&M.
We hadn’t seen anything yet. It was about to go from wild to crazy.
Rick Cleveland
State proceeded to clock No. 2 Auburn 38-23 and move to No. 1. Ole Miss dispatched A&M 35-20 and remained at No. 3, just two votes behind No. 2 Florida State. Both the Bulldogs and Rebels were a perfect 6-0. Two measly votes kept State and Ole Miss from being 1-2 in the land.
This football-crazed state was nuts.
The college football nation was astonished. Indeed, even the talking heads at ESPN began to correctly distinguish between Ole Miss and Mississippi State, two teams they had often mixed up in the past.
Eight years later, we’re not to 2014 level — at least not yet — but college football in Mississippi has rarely been better than it is at this juncture.
Could this be 2014 all over again? Ole Miss, 5-0, has moved to No. 9 in the AP poll. State, 4-1, moved up to No. 23 after last Saturday’s 42-24 trouncing of the Texas Aggies. There’s more to celebrate in Mississippi. Jackson State, 4-0, has moved to No. 8 in the FCS rankings. The Tigers appear to be the head and shoulders above the rest of the SWAC. Southern Miss is a much more modest 2-2, but has now won four of its last six games over two seasons and finally has something to hang its hat on after a huge road victory over otherwise undefeated Tulane.
In Division II, surprising Delta State moved to 5-0 with a 70-31 run-away victory over 13th ranked Valdosta State last Saturday. Meanwhile, Mississippi College stunned No. 15 West Georgia 39-38.
So back to the question: Could 2022 be 2014 all over again?
State’s lone defeat, 31-16 at LSU, makes a repeat of 2014 with both the state’s SEC teams ranked in the top 3 highly unlikely. But Ole Miss clearly has a navigable road to move much higher in the polls.
If the games were played today, Lane Kiffin’s Rebels would be favored in each of their next four: at Vanderbilt, Auburn at home, at LSU and at Texas A&M. At this point, Kiffin probably would borrow from his former boss Nick Saban and tell his players not to read the rest of this rat poison. But here it is: Ole Miss could conceivably be 9-0 with Alabama coming to Oxford on Nov. 12.
Now that would reach 2014 levels of Mississippi football craziness. It could happen.
State’s immediate schedule is exceedingly more difficult. The Bulldogs first play Arkansas at home, then at once-beaten Kentucky, then No. 1 Alabama, then Auburn, and then No. 2 Georgia. Oh, the joys of competing in the SEC…
So much is still to be determined, but the stakes could be much higher than usual when State plays Ole Miss at Oxford on Thanksgiving night.
Back to 2014: You will remember that Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs, led by Dak Prescott, held their No. 1 ranking for five consecutive weeks until Alabama popped the Dogs’ bubble 25-20 at Tuscaloosa. State then crushed Vanderbilt before losing both the Egg Bowl and the Orange Bowl (to Georgia Tech) to finish at No. 11 in the AP poll.
Ole Miss? The Rebels did win the Golden Egg, but dropped all the way to No. 17 after being trounced by TCU 42-3 in the Peach Bowl.
Important to remember when comparing 2022 to what happened eight years ago: Starting strong is merely good; finishing strong is epic.
In 2014, the start was epic, the finish not so good.
That’s where 2022 could be far, far better. We’ll see. That’s enough rat poison for one day.
Mississippi’s long-running mental health lawsuit could trigger an upheaval in how legal protections for people with disabilities are enforced, potentially reducing pressure on state and local governments to guarantee disabled Americans equal access to services.
The Department of Justice sued Mississippi six years ago claiming it had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by institutionalizing people with mental illness instead of providing community-based services. A district judge sided with the federal government, approved a remedial order for the Department of Mental Health and appointed a special monitor to oversee the agency’s compliance. The state appealed that ruling last year, arguing that the mental health system had already made improvements and that the district court had wrongly imposed “perpetual federal oversight.”
But the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday is interested in a much more fundamental question: whether the Department of Justice could legally have sued Mississippi at all.
If the judges decide the answer is no, that would create a split with another federal appeals court. Then the question could wind up in front of a U.S. Supreme Court that is deeply skeptical of federal authority and willing to overturn long-standing precedents like Roe v. Wade.
For years, federal lawsuits like the one against Mississippi have been the major vehicle pushing state and local governments to offer equal access and services to people with disabilities, which is required under Title II of the ADA.
The panel’s decision to pose a question that neither Mississippi nor the Justice Department raised in their own briefs suggests the judges are interested in changing that.
“The disability community is extremely worried,” said Ira Burnim, legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
Burnim co-authored an amicus brief by several national organizations advocating for people with disabilities or mental illness. The brief, submitted before the panel raised the question of whether the Justice Department should have been able to sue at all, argued that Mississippi had violated Title II and that oversight was necessary to ensure the state expanded community-based mental health services.
“The Department of Justice’s ability to bring lawsuits is critical to the enforcement of Title II,” he continued.
Accessibility at public buildings like courthouses, accommodations for hearing-impaired people to participate in juries, and wheelchair lifts on public buses are all areas where the Justice Department could sue under Title II.
The law has also been applied more broadly. In the 1999 case Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court ruled that “undue institutionalization” violates Title II because depriving people of the chance to live in their community constitutes discrimination. The Justice Department has relied on that precedent to force states to provide community-based services for people with mental illness.
From 2009 to 2016, the department was involved in 50 such cases, including the Mississippi suit.
The judges assigned to hear the Mississippi case are Edith Jones, James Ho and Leslie Southwick, all Republican appointees to the most conservative appeals court in the country.
The language of Title II does not explicitly say the attorney general can sue state and local governments to enforce it, while other parts of the ADA do. But the Justice Department has initiated lawsuits to enforce Title II since it came into effect in 1992, and it has argued that Congress clearly intended the attorney general to have the authority to compel state and local governments to comply with nondiscrimination law if they won’t do so on a voluntary basis.
If the Fifth Circuit panel determines that the Justice Department could not have sued Mississippi, that ruling would conflict with a recent ruling by the Eleventh Circuit in a Florida lawsuit.
Like the Mississippi case, that federal lawsuit involved claimed Florida was unnecessarily institutionalizing mentally ill or disabled people.
The Eleventh Circuit rejected Florida’s argument that the Justice Department could not sue it directly. Florida then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that federal Title II lawsuits can affect “virtually all state and local activities and programs.”
“Through lawsuits brought against states under Title II, the United States has asserted sweeping authority to reshape all manner of state programs, shifting the balance of federal-state power,” the state’s petition said.
The Supreme Court recently declined to hear the Florida case. But if the Fifth Circuit reaches a different conclusion from the Eleventh Circuit, the highest court may step in.
“This is pure speculation, no one knows the reason for the Fifth Circuit action, but one possibility here is that if the Fifth Circuit were to find that DOJ lacked authority to bring lawsuits in federal court to enforce Title II, then there would be a circuit split and it would make it more likely that the Supreme Court would accept a case that raised that issue,” Burnim said.
In addition to the mental health lawsuit, the Department of Justice has pursued legal action against Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Jackson, and other cities and counties to enforce compliance with Title II. In most cases, that action resulted in a settlement agreement rather than a years-long lawsuit.
If the Justice Department were unable to sue states directly, individuals or organizations representing a group of such individuals could still sue. But these lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive, and the Justice Department has the staff, expertise and resources to see them through, said Clarence Sundram, an attorney and expert on institutions and community services for people with mental disabilities.
“Many times private individuals will complain to the DOJ to invoke its assistance in these kinds of cases for precisely these reasons,” said Sundram. “So to rule that DOJ doesn’t have the authority could remove one very significant avenue of enforcing these laws.”
Advocates for Mississippians with mental illness will be watching the case closely, too.
Joy Hogge, executive director of the nonprofit Families As Allies, which advocates for kids with behavioral health challenges, said she has seen “genuinely good things happening” in the state’s mental health system under the remedial order. But all of that has been directly linked to the lawsuit, she said. If the order were overturned – which the Fifth Circuit could do even if it doesn’t reject the Justice Department’s authority to sue states under Title II – she’s not sure progress will continue.
“I’m afraid that everything might just come to a screeching halt,” she said.
The Fifth Circuit website says the court aims to issue opinions within 60 days of oral arguments.
On Aug. 29, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Jackson’s water system was failing. The city water system has been plagued with problems for years, including tens of thousands of residents losing water between one and three weeks during a 2021 winter storm. In this episode of MT Speaks, environment reporter Alex Rozier answers six reader questions about the crisis.
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The PSC originally expanded incentives for net metering, or self-generating renewable power, with a new rule in July that required utility companies to increase reimbursement rates for low-income customers as well as offer rebates to help buy home solar systems. The new rule also established a Solar-for-Schools program with the goal of reducing expenses for school districts.
Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley said the PSC worked together with the regulated power companies on the new order, and doesn’t expect another appeal before the new net metering rule takes effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
Mississippi is behind most states in its adoption of net metering. Out of the 47 states with a net metering rule, Mississippi has the second lowest number of self-generating customers. Most states offer customers the full retail rate when reimbursing them for self-generated energy, and Mississippi is one of six states to not do so.
Net metering advocates argue that the policy helps push forward the transition to renewable energy, which in Mississippi has been relatively slow. They also point to economic benefits of attracting the growing solar industry into the state.
After Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi pushed back against July revisions to the PSC’s rule, the commission approved the following changes on Tuesday:
Narrowing the eligibility for households to receive an extra reimbursement from 250% of the federal poverty level to 225%.
Decreasing a $3,500 rebate for home installations to $3,000, available for low to moderate income households earning up to 225% of the federal poverty level.
Adding a $2,000 rebate for households to build a battery storage system, although customers can only use one of the two rebates
Bringing the participation cap back from 4% to 3% of a utility company’s maximum demand. Once the cap is met, the PSC can again make revisions to the rule.
Presley emphasized the benefits that the rule would have for the 85 of the state’s 142 school districts that are eligible to participate.
Each district, he said, could see savings between $40,000 to $125,000 based on the amount of public land the district owns, and could use that money to pay for teacher salaries and supplies.
Presley added that if the Solar-for-Schools program hits full capacity, it would add just $1.18 to customers’ electric bills on average.
“Anybody that wants to characterize this as some train-off-the-track Green New Deal, willy-nilly (rule), that is a factual lie,” Presley said.
On Monday, Gov. Tate Reeves took to social media to call out the PSC for expanding the self generation incentives.
“It’s a bad deal,” the governor said of the recent changes to the rule. “The PSC should slow down. If not, the legislature must reverse it.”
Asked about the governor’s criticism, Presley said that anyone opposed to the rule had 20 months since the PSC first took up the changes to make their opposition known. He added that the Public Utilities Staff, whose director is appointed by the governor, offered no objections in the public comment process.
“It’s not particularly helpful in crafting public policy for latecomers in the conversation to offer no solutions and just offer criticism,” Presley said. “Anyone who tries to paint this process as kneejerk or not methodical is not paying attention.”
The three PSC commissioners voted on the order Tuesday just as they had on the July order, with Presley and Central District Commissioner Brandon Bailey voting in favor, and Southern District Commissioner and Chairman Dane Maxwell voting against. Maxwell said that while he’s in favor of allowing customers to self-generate power, he’s against doing so at the expense of non-participating customers.
Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi have each echoed that point, arguing that self-generated power is uneconomical, and that expanding net metering forces the companies to pass on adoption costs to the rest of their ratepayers.
In other renewable news, the PSC announced last week the approval of a 200 megawatt solar plant in Clay County, which, once running, will have twice the capacity of the next-largest renewable facility in the state. The plant also will include 50 megawatts of battery storage.
The superintendent of the Cleveland School District has stepped down, according to a press release issued Friday by the district.
Superintendent Otha Belcher Credit: Cleveland School District
Superintendent Otha Belcher stepped down on Sept. 30 and “will assume another role within the District,” according to the statement.
“While the District appreciates Dr. Belcher’s service, all parties agree that a change in leadership will be the most effective method of continuing to move the district in a positive direction for the future.”
Belcher started in Cleveland in June 2019, leading the district for three years during the pandemic before stepping down on Friday. Prior to this position, he was an assistant superintendent in the Jackson Public School District and worked in the Vicksburg-Warren and Hinds County school districts.
“I don’t know of anyone that’s found it to be a negative,” said Jason Shaw, a local parent, in reference to Belcher’s reassignment “I think everyone agreed that it was time for him to go. Not that he was a bad person, I don’t know of anybody that said anything bad about him as an individual, he just wasn’t doing the job.”
Lisa Bramuchi, a former assistant superintendent of the district, has been named interim superintendent and Reggie Barnes, a former superintendent, has been brought on as a consultant to help with the superintendent search.
Shaw emphasized that new leadership will need strong communication to establish trust with the community, as well as focusing on making repairs and improvements to the school buildings.
Belcher could not be reached for comment, nor could board members Paulette Howze and Debbie Fioranelli.
Los bebés de Mississippi tienen más probabilidades de morir antes de su primer cumpleaños que los bebés de cualquier otro lugar del país, según datos publicados el jueves por los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades.
El estado tenía una promedio de mortalidad infantil de 8.12 por cada 1,000 nacidos vivos, muy por encima del promedio nacional de 5.42 en 2020, el año más reciente para datos nacionales disponibles. Luisiana, el segundo desde abajo, registró 7.59 muertes por cada 1,000 nacidos vivos.
Mississippi ha tenido la promedio de mortalidad infantil más alta del país durante años. En 2019, el estado encabezó la lista con una promedio de 8.71.
Los bebés Negros tienen el doble de probabilidades de morir que sus contrapartes blancas en Mississippi. En 2020, la promedio de mortalidad infantil entre los bebés blancos fue de 5.7, en comparación con 11.8 entre los bebés Negros, según datos del departamento de salud. En 2019, 322 bebés murieron antes de cumplir un año en el estado. Casi el 60%, o 185, eran Negros, aunque los bebés Negros representaron solo el 43% de los nacimientos.
A nivel nacional, la principal causa de mortalidad infantil son los defectos de nacimiento. Pero en Mississippi, las causas principales son el nacimiento prematuro y el embarazo o las complicaciones del parto, así como el síndrome de muerte súbita del lactante (SIDS, por sus siglas en inglés). Mississippi tiene la tasa más alta de nacimientos prematuros del país, lo que está relacionado con condiciones crónicas como tensión arterial alta y diabetes entre las madres.
La tasa de mortalidad infantil es uno de los muchos indicadores de salud en los que Mississippi "no solo ocupa una posición 50" pero "el 50 por milla", como lo expresó el Dr. Daniel Edney, oficial de salud estatal, durante la primera audiencia organizada por el Grupo de Estudio del Senado sobre la Mujer, Niños y Familias el martes.
El grupo, que fue creado por el vicegobernador Delbert Hosemann después de que la Corte Suprema revocara Roe v. Wade, escuchó a un orador tras otro indicar que el estado no está preparado para los embarazos de alto riesgo adicionales ahora que Mississippi ha prohibido los abortos.
El departamento de salud estima que el estado verá 5,000 nacimientos mas cada año.
La audiencia de la comisión del Senado, presidida por la senadora Nicole Boyd, republicana de Oxford, dejó que extender la cobertura de Medicaid de 60 días a 12 meses será una prioridad para el Senado en la próxima sesión. Pero la legislación probablemente enfrenta una batalla cuesta arriba en la Cámara, donde el presidente Philip Gunn, republicano por Clinton, eliminó la medida el año pasado, alegando que va a expandir Medicaid, aunque no haría que más personas fueran elegibles para el programa.
Y aunque los expertos dicen que extender la cobertura de Medicaid después del nacimiento ayudaría a reducir la mortalidad materna y también mejoraría la salud infantil, no ayudaría a garantizar que las mujeres estén saludables cuando queden embarazadas. La comisión del Senado escuchó datos que indican que una de cada seis mujeres en edad fértil no tiene seguro, lo que les dificulta obtener atención para controlar condiciones como la hipertensión que aumentan el riesgo de malos resultados en el parto.
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.
Editor’s note: This story was reported and published in a collaboration between Mississippi Today and the Sun Herald. Isabelle Taft reported for Mississippi Today and Gautama Mehta reported for the Sun Herald.
JACKSON COUNTY – Unlike other Mississippi hospitals, Singing River Health System is not facing an immediate financial crisis – and that’s exactly why its leaders say they need to find a buyer.
The roughly 700-bed system, based in Jackson County on the Coast, came through the COVID-19 pandemic in decent shape, with revenue up in 2021. But the long-term forces buffeting Singing River and small hospitals around the country mean the future is still dark.
Costs are rising, especially for nursing staff. The hospital system needs to make improvements to facilities and equipment after years of underspending. Singing River has almost no leverage to increase payments from the state’s dominant commercial insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi. And in part because Mississippi has refused to expand Medicaid, a significant number of the system’s patients have no insurance, meaning Singing River doesn’t get paid for their care.
Hospital leaders say they need a bigger chain to take over so they can benefit from economies of scale and greater negotiating power with suppliers and insurers. If they wait until a crisis point, they’ll have less leverage and possibly fewer interested buyers.
“We’re coming at it now at a place of strength,” CEO Tiffany Murdock told a community group in the town of Hurley in August. “And in five years, I can’t promise you the same thing.”
It’s the latest demonstration of a trend with potentially troubling consequences for patients: In the world of American hospitals, only the huge survive.
From 2005 to 2017, the share of hospitals around the country that are part of a larger system rose from 53% to 66%.
In Mississippi, a 2017 merger made Baptist Memorial Health Care the largest hospital system in the state. The University of Mississippi Medical Center has expanded its footprint to Grenada, Holmes County, and the Gulf Coast and is bidding to lease hospitals in the Mississippi Delta. Rush Health Systems, which owns seven hospitals in east Mississippi and west Alabama, this year merged with Ochsner, the Louisiana-based system Singing River leaders see as their likely buyer. In 2019, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady, also based in Louisiana, acquired St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson.
State and locally owned hospitals like Singing River are a fading model. The American Hospital Association reports that, of the country’s 6,100 hospitals, about 950 are owned by local governments, down from 1,130 in 2008.
The potential downside of spending years trying to fight massive economic forces – and ending up in a much weaker negotiating position with a potential buyer – is clear enough in Mississippi. Hospitals like Greenwood Leflore are struggling to stay afloat long enough to find a savior or be forced to close their doors.
A growing body of research shows hospital consolidation usually increases costs for consumersby reducing competition. And despite hospital leaders’ claims about the resource benefits of joining a larger chain, research also suggests it doesn’t improve outcomes for patients.
“We know that consolidation is going to increase prices and potentially decrease access to care,” said Christopher Whaley, a health economist at RAND Corporation. “But if the alternative is that the hospital or physician group goes out of business and exits the market entirely, then maybe that’s a tradeoff we have to make.”
Tiffany Murdock, CEO of Singing River Health System, speaks during a public hearing over the potential sale of Singing River Health System during a Jackson County Board of Supervisors meeting in Pascagoula on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022. Credit: Hannah Ruhoff / Biloxi Sun Herald
While small hospitals like Singing River look for buyers, bigger players like Ochsner – one of the biggest hospital systems in the Gulf South – have been looking for new acquisitions.
In 2020, Ochsner and Singing River announced a strategic partnership, and Singing River acquired Garden Park Medical Center in Harrison County, rebranding it as Singing River Gulfport. During Hurricane Ida, the partnership allowed Ochsner patients in hard-hit southeast Louisiana to move to the Gulfport hospital.
Corwin Harper, Ochsner CEO for Northshore and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, said expanding into Mississippi makes sense in part because so many Mississippians already use Louisiana health care facilities, and the states face similar issues with workforce recruitment.
“With Ochsner being the largest health system in Louisiana, it’s almost a natural migration for people to access the resources that Ochsner has,” he said.
Murdock, a registered nurse whose career in hospital administration has included stops in California and Oregon, was named the administrator of Singing River Gulfport. When former CEO Lee Bond stepped down earlier this year, Murdock was named interim CEO of the health system and then CEO. She is the first woman to hold the position.
In June, the hospital trustees voted to pursue a sale to a “like-minded hospital organization,” though Ochsner is generally the only name that comes up in Jackson County.
A report by the firm Raymond James found that while the hospital’s revenue had rebounded in 2021, rising expenses had cut margins. The hospital sees a high rate of uninsured patients, and federal payments to care for them are dropping. And as a small system, it has little opportunity to access loans or to increase cash flow by negotiating with insurers, since most of its patients are on Medicaid or Medicare and the commercial market is dominated by Blue Cross.
“It’s a nationwide issue,” Ryan Kelly, executive director of the Mississippi Rural Health Association, said of hospitals’ financial struggles. “But it is especially important here because we are a more poor state. Our hospitals are in the red, like on the verge of closure in a critical state, and it’s not because our hospitals are doing anything wrong or there’s anything wrong with Mississippi. It’s just because we’re a poor state and we have less money to go around.”
The pandemic also highlighted the benefits of scale.
“We were spending, you know, a nickel on a surgical mask five years ago when during the height of COVID, we’re spending $5 a mask and buying thousands of masks,” Murdock said at the community meeting in Hurley.
Ochsner, by contrast, built its own plant to make personal protective equipment in Lafayette.
But scale can come with a loss of local autonomy.
Ochsner also has a lease agreement with Hancock Medical Center on the Coast. In May, Ochsner closed the labor and delivery unit at the hospital, citing the low number of deliveries that made it hard to operate the unit safely. That left the county without a single labor and delivery unit and frustrated some Hancock County residents and leaders.
Over the summer, a Singing River retiree named Irby Tillman appeared poised to derail hospital executives’ plans.
Under Mississippi law, anyone can force a referendum on a public hospital sale by obtaining a petition with at least 1,500 signatures. Tillman, who worked as a carpenter at the hospital, was at one of the board of supervisors meetings where the sale was discussed. He heard an attorney say that the supervisors would make the decision – unless someone forced a referendum.
“I happened to be standing there and I said, ‘Well, I’ll take that challenge,’” he said. “I don’t think five men should have that big decision.”
But even if Tillman had never launched his petition drive, pursuing the sale would have required Singing River executives to embark on a kind of political campaign to persuade not only supervisors but also their constituents to support the sale.
The hospital is the second-largest employer in Jackson County with more than 3,500 employees. People all over the county remember births and deaths, emergencies and routine check-ups, first jobs and decades-long careers at Singing River.
Many of them also remember a profound betrayal: For years, the hospital secretly stopped paying into retirees’ pension fund before it collapsed in 2014. A settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit resulted in lower payments than retirees had been promised.
Murdock embarked on a county-wide speaking tour late this summer. She spoke at school district convocations and rotary club meetings, the chamber of commerce and churches, trying to convince people to support the sale.
Meanwhile, Tillman traveled the county, too. In late August, he and his cousin Paul Wise, also 73 and a Singing River retiree, spent several hours outside Ixtapa, a Mexican restaurant in Vancleave. They both grew up in Pascagoula, two of their grandmother’s 75 grandchildren. Wise was leaning toward supporting the sale, while Tillman was leaning against it.
Paul Wise and Irby Tillman, Singing River retirees, collect signatures in support of a referendum on selling the hospital outside a restaurant in Vancleave, Mississippi. Credit: Gautama Mehta / Biloxi Sun Herald
Tillman prided himself on never saying a word about how he thought anyone should vote, only emphasizing the importance of having a say in the process. The men carried a handmade poster that said “Let your voice be heard” and was decorated with small American flags. Everyone they talked to wanted to see a referendum.
All five supervisors and even Murdock signed the petition.
“If I didn’t sign, I didn’t want (that) to get in the way of the goal, which is to move this forward,” she said. “And so I didn’t want that to be the headline. I wanted the headline to be like, ‘This is the right thing to do, whether there’s a petition or not.’”
But she was wary of what a referendum could mean.
Mississippi Today could locate only one such referendum in state history. Oktibbeha County voters roundly rejected a proposal to sell OCH Regional Medical Center in 2017. If that happened in Jackson County, Singing River leaders said the county would have to raise taxes and still be unable to cover rising costs.
In the end, Tillman did not gather enough signatures to require a referendum. It rained heavily in the weeks before the deadline to turn in the petition, and Tillman relied on old fashioned methods to obtain signatures.
“Water and ink don’t go together too good,” he said.
And after months of discussion, showing up to board of supervisors meetings and public hearings, he was leaning toward supporting the sale anyway, he said.
Irby Tillman addresses Randy Bosarge during a Board of Supervisors meeting on the possible sale of the Singing River Health System in Pascagoula on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022. Tillman started a petition to bring the sale to a public vote. Credit: Hannah Ruhoff / Biloxi Sun Herald
The Jackson County Board of Supervisors doesn’t yet have a specific timeline for when the request for proposals will be finalized and buyers can begin submitting bids.
The potential buyer frequently mentioned by name in Jackson County is Ochsner. But other hospital chains could make a move, too.
The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System (FMOLHS), which operates St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson and hospitals in Louisiana, said in a statement that it is “aware” that an RFP has been issued.
“FMOLHS regularly evaluates opportunities to expand access to care by partnering with quality health systems to bring together outstanding clinicians, the most advanced technology and leading research to ensure that our patients receive the highest quality and safest care possible,” said Kevin Cook, chief operating officer.
The sale will leave Mississippi with one less locally owned hospital, and it may be an indication of the future facing every small hospital in the state.
Richard Roberson, general counsel and vice president of policy at the Mississippi Hospital Association, said Singing River’s situation highlights the structural forces working against Mississippi hospitals.
“I think that is what’s scary about it – you do see a hospital that is a strong hospital, a strong health system, and as good as they do things, they’re still struggling,” Roberson said.
HATTIESBURG – The auditorium grew quiet as members of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees waited for people in the audience to take the mic at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Tom Duff – a USM alumnus, one of the wealthiest Mississippians and this year’s president of the IHL board – broke the silence.
“This is kind of like church,” he quipped from the stage of the Joe Paul Theater.
Tom Duff, the president of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, leads a listening session for the presidential search at University of Southern Mississippi on Oct. 3, 2022. Credit: Sean Smith/SM2
The comment illustrated the fervent tenor of Wednesday’s two listening sessions, the first step in the process IHL will use to appoint a successor to Rodney Bennett, USM’s tenth president who stepped down earlier this year.
Out of about 400 attendees, nearly 55 students, faculty, staff and alumni addressed the trustees, using words like “advocate,” “passionate” and “grit” to describe the qualities they’d like to see in the next top administrator at USM.
As far as many speakers were concerned, IHL doesn’t need to go far to find its next president. Several told trustees they wanted Joe Paul, the interim president, to lead the university permanently. He was repeatedly likened to Aubrey Lucas, who many consider one of USM’s most beloved presidents.
“We need someone who has Southern Miss in their soul,” said Toby Barker, the mayor of Hattiesburg. “We’ve had that in the last three months with Dr. Paul. You only need to look at the positive effect that Dr. Paul has had since arriving on campus.”
Several speakers used metaphors to convey their aspirations for the university and its next president.
The president of the student government association told trustees she’d like a president who knows that “Southern Miss is a destination … not a layover.” Awell-known supporter of the baseball team remarked that USM has “a good story to tell, but what we need is a storyteller for our president.”
“I believe Southern Miss is at a crossroads,”said state Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg.
In his nine years as president, Bennett had a historic tenure at USM. The first Black president of the predominantly white university, he grew freshmen enrollment and improved retention among the 14,000 student population, helped attain top-tier research status, and twice raised wages for the lowest-paid workers on campus.
While no one blamed Bennett by name, nearly every speaker suggested that USM had not seen its best days under the former president – a perception not always born out by data.
Multiple speakers said they felt that enrollment had declined at the university since the start of the pandemic, but IHL’s numbers show the total student population has actually held steady from fall 2019 to fall 2021.
Nonetheless, some speakers told trustees they’d like the next president to prioritize recruitment, specifically at schools like Jackson Academy and in the Clinton and Madison districts.
USM could increase recruitment by improving support for sororities and fraternities, many speakers suggested. At USM, significantly less students – about an estimated 1,600 – are members of sororities and fraternities compared to Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi, where Greek-affiliated students number more than 5,000.
“The future president may not be Greek, and that’s totally understandable, but I would definitely encourage you all to seek the importance of our Greek community,” said Betsy Mercier, a recent graduate and the advisor for USM’s Delta Delta Delta chapter.
As the smallest of Mississippi’s three top-tier research universities,multiple speakers said they felt USM has long received the short end of the stick compared to its peers – University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University – in terms of funding and prestige.
“I knew that throughout my professional career, that I was – especially being in Mississippi, that because I did not have an Ole Miss birthright or a Mississippi State birthright, I was going to have to work longer and harder than everyone else,” Dave Estorge, a member of the alumni board, said. “I got a chip on my shoulder, always have.”
Billy Hewes, the mayor of Gulfport, told trustees he believes IHL has an “institutional bias” against USM. He said he thought the board had chances in the past to give USM a leader like Mark Keenum or Robert Khayat, but that trustees chose not to.
“Ten years ago we had that opportunity,” Hewes said. “You had some good candidates, including our interim president, who is showing an enthusiasm we haven’t seen in a decade. And so, it is incumbent on this board to find somebody who has those attributes, who can do for Southern Miss what we’ve seen done at other schools, and get us back to where we desire to be.”
Many students, faculty and staff emphasized the importance of increasing diversity at USM. About 61% of students at USM are white and 27% are Black – that has barely changed since 2013, Bennett’s first year in office.
Fred Varnado, the former director of continuing education, said he wanted the next president to “ensure there is diversity in the cabinet.”
Tegi Jenkins-Rimmer, an alumnus and the assistant director of programming, put it this way: “What matters to me in a president now is the same thing that mattered to me when I came to Southern Miss years ago – a president who cares about faculty, staff and students who look like me.”
“We need a president who is willing to give us a voice and a seat at the table,” she added.
Heidi Moore, a first-generation student pursuing a masters in higher education administration, said she wanted to speak to trustees from “a different perspective, a poor perspective.”
“There have been moments when Southern Miss has taught me I belong in one area and I don’t get to go anywhere else,” she said. “USM has also taught me liberation, critical thinking skills. I want someone who is so vulnerable, transparent, brave, courageous – someone who sees everyone.”
USM’s next president will need to boost morale among faculty and staff, several speakers said.
Maurine Pace, a staff member in the Office of Research Administration, said that nearly a dozen of her coworkers have left in recent years for remote, better-paying jobs with other university systems.
“The crisis is here today, it’s not two years down the road – it’s here,” a faculty member said.
Denis Wiesenburg, the president of the faculty senate, likened the relationship he’d like to see between faculty and the president to “a dance … with the administration being the prom committee.”
Other repeated themes in speakers’ comments included donor relations, fundraising and economic development. One teaching professor said she’d like a president who would champion a technological innovation comparable to the development of Gatorade at the University of Florida.
Mac Alford, a professor of biological sciences, said he had a different take on the importance of fundraising. The former faculty senate president said he wanted a president who would fight for more public funding, not for private dollars. To make his point to the trustees, he recalled a cabinet meeting when Bennett announced USM had been approved to increase tuition.
“I realize that’s important in terms of the budget, but we are a public institution,” he said. “If we have public goals in this state, we need people in Jackson, and we need you people at the Legislature, arguing … the importance of this institution as a public institution. Because if we’re going to get 10% of our money from the state of Mississippi, we don’t need you guys. We need our own board.”
According to IHL data, USM has increased annual tuition by more than $1,000 since fiscal year 2018, from $8,108 to $9,203 – nearly one-fifth the median household income in Mississippi. This trend is not unique to USM as each of the state’s eight public universities have had to raise tuition rates as legislative funding has not recovered since the Great Recession.
Chuck Scianna, a USM alumnus and founder of an oil drilling equipment company, addresses the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees on Oct. 3, 2022. Credit: Sean Smith/SM2
Chuck Scianna, a 1975 alumnus and founder of an oil drilling equipment company, said he viewed higher education as an “investment” and wanted a president with a similar corporate mindset.
“That’s the way I look at it – as a business, not an institution,” Scianna said. “You’re a board of shareholders. Even though we are a public institution, public funds don’t make up 100% of our budget – not here, not anywhere.”
Scianna joked that since Paul became interim president, “I can’t get his hand out of my back pocket.”
In remarks at both sessions, Duff, the IHL board member, said he wanted the community to know the board is committed to a “transparent” search process. He added the trustees will use the comments from the listening session to create a “draft profile” of the community’s ideal candidate – proof the trustees’ would take speakers seriously.
“Oftentimes, IHL is painted by the media and the people as perhaps not caring,” Duff said.
As he spoke, IHL sent out a press release announcing the names of 15 students, professors and alumni who will advise the trustees during the search, including Hewes, Scianna and the SGA president.
IHL has also hired Academic Search, a national firm that is familiar with USM, to assist with the process.
“The enthusiasm and level of desire is evidence to each of us,” Duff said. “This is a very solemn and, candidly, a sacred responsibility on our part.”
The trustees will hold another listening session Tuesday at USM’s branch campus in Long Beach. Members of the public are invited to submit comments for the next nine days at IHL’s website.
Correction 10/4/2022: This story has been updated to reflect that freshman enrollment and student retention, not the overall student population, increased during Bennett’s tenure.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday it plans to spend $221 million on a flood control project known as One Lake, which would widen the Pearl River along Jackson, as long it meets environmental and other criteria.
Attorney Keith Turner said the Rankin Hinds Flood & Drainage Control District — the project’s local sponsor — submitted a revised proposal in July to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, which will review the new document before sending it back out for a final public comment period.
Turner said the new version of the plan, which isn’t yet publicly available, is largely the same as the drafted proposal. He said the new document proposes a slightly smaller footprint in dredging the Pearl River, which in turn would mean less impacts on wetlands and cheaper construction costs.
In total, the project is estimated to cost $340 million, Turner said.
The $221 million, or 65% of the project’s costs, comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and is part of $800 million going to the Corps. Sen. Roger Wicker, who has backed the project for years, said that money also includes $700,000 to finalize a pending study on One Lake.
Turner said he has no timeline on when the Corps will finish reviewing the updated proposal, but said “beginning of 2023 is when we hope to see it out for public comment.”
Support for the long-discussed project gained traction in 2020, after a Pearl River flood damaged over 400 homes. The levee board, the project’s sponsor, said that One Lake would have prevented damage in 92 percent of the 222 homes that were impacted in Northeast Jackson, Downtown Jackson and Flowood.
But advocates and some officials downstream of Jackson question the downstream impacts that damming the river could have, and point to alternative flood control measures such as voluntary buyouts and raising levees.
