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The judge most recently assigned to oversee the fraud and embezzlement case against former welfare agency director John Davis has recused himself.

Judge Jess Dickinson, the former commissioner for the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, took over Davis’ case in Hinds County, Mississippi Today first reported Tuesday, in the course of helping the circuit court reduce overcrowding on its docket exacerbated by the pandemic.

By Thursday, Dickinson had recused himself, citing the appearance of a conflict of interest due to the interaction between Dickinson’s former agency, which oversees the state’s foster care system, and the Mississippi Department of Human Services, which Davis ran from 2016 to 2019. Davis is accused of perpetuating a scheme that caused $70 million in public assistance dollars to be wrongfully diverted away from the needy. Criminal charges accuse him of paying his close associate, former WWE wrestler Brett DiBiase, for work he didn’t do and conspiring with an agency contractor to send DiBiase to rehab on the taxpayer’s dime. Davis has maintained his innocence while DiBiase pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.

“While I had little personal contact with the defendant, many members of my staff interacted on a daily basis with members of the MDHS staff, who processed a large part of MDCPS’s financial transactions, including payment to foster parents and congregate care facilities, as well as payroll to MDCPS’s approximately 1,300 employees,” Dickinson wrote.

Davis’ agency also came to the rescue in 2018 when CPS, which had been part of MDHS until the Legislature made it its own agency in 2016, faced financial trouble. CPS receives some funding from the welfare agency’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, the same fund Davis is accused of defrauding.

“Additionally, when I began my tenure as Commissioner of MDCPS and discovered the
agency was on track to experience a deficit of more then $50 million for the then-current fiscal year, MDHS provided a substantial portion of the funds necessary for MDCPS to meet its financial obligations and allow the agency to complete the fiscal year without a deficit,” Dickinson wrote.

“I believe the potential appearance of a conflict of interest in the mind of the public is too strong for me to preside over this case,” he added.

Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Wooten originally presided over the Davis case. She entered a gag order in the case, which she extended and strengthened in early January, causing public officials to become virtually silent about the case and welfare misspending altogether. On Tuesday, her administrative assistant declined to provide any more information about the case reassignment, saying any information would have to come from the attorneys in the case. They either did not return calls or declined to comment, citing the gag order. By mid-day Friday, there were no other filings in the Davis case suggesting who it may be assigned to next.

The post Judge, former CPS commissioner recuses himself from welfare embezzlement case appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Fondren Guitars hosted Local Live(s) + Mississippi Today for a live journalism, storytelling and music event Wednesday. Mississippi Today journalists and other community members came together to share real and powerful stories from their lives and careers.

Reporters pulled back the curtain on their experiences covering difficult narratives, and our community members captured the crowd with their talents and stories. Centered around the theme of Power: Stories of Strength, Imbalance and Untapped Potential, the unvarnished and true stories shared throughout the night reminded the audience how storytelling and journalism can empower those in hard situations and give a voice to those feeling helpless.

If you missed it — or want to take a look back — view photos by Mississippi Today photojournalist Eric J. Shelton, and read our recap by audience journalist Nigel Dent, who kept up with every minute of the event on the Mississippi Today Twitter account:

Find out more about upcoming Mississippi Today events.

More About Local Live(s):
This event is part of a national series Back Pocket is co-producing with local and state news organizations across the country. Other newsrooms that are a part of the Power series are: Miami Herald, Buckeye Flame, The Forward, and a collaborative event by KHOL Jackson Hole Community Radio, WyoFile, and Jackson Hole News and Guide. Local Live(s) is sponsored by the Meta Journalism Project and is funded in part by the Brown Institute of Media Innovation.

The post Recap: Local Live(s) + Mississippi Today, a live storytelling event appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi in the Know is a free series of breakfast conversations where members of the community can directly interact with the lawmakers who shape our state’s future and the journalists who provide coverage of it all.

Bring your appetite and questions as you join Mississippi Today in-person at Basil’s Downtown in Jackson or via livestream for the first event of the Mississippi in the Know series on February 17 at 7:30 am, featuring a conversation with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and moderated by Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau at 8:00 am.

Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey will also illustrate the event live.

IN CONVERSATION:

Mississippi in the Know: Legislative Breakfast is sponsored in part by:

The post Mississippi in the Know: Legislative Breakfast Series appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ivy Taylor was in Jackson on Tuesday, Feb. 1, three hours away from Rust College, the small historically Black college in Holly Springs where she is president. She woke up early to prepare for a meeting of the Mississippi Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She brushed her teeth and washed her face. Then she got the call. 

Hours earlier, her chief of staff explained, the campus safety officer on duty had received a bomb threat. There was a device on a campus that was going to go off at noon, the anonymous caller had said before making a derogatory remark about Black people. College security had already swept the campus. The next step, Taylor’s chief of staff said, was to notify students, faculty and staff that they needed to shelter-in-place. 

Taylor’s initial thought was, “Oh my god, I’m not there.” Then she wondered, “Do we have the local law enforcement able to detect whether it’s a real threat or not?” 

Taylor placed a call to the FBI field office in Jackson while her staff worked to find a nearby jurisdiction that had the technology to detect explosives. Soon, bomb-sniffing dogs were crawling under cars and through bushes on campus. 

Since January, more than two dozen HBCUs, including all but one in Mississippi, have received bomb threats, leading to cancelled classes and campus lockdowns. So far, all the threats have been unsubstantiated, and the FBI is investigating them as a racially motivated hate crime. Students and faculty at HBCUs have widely viewed the empty threats as an unsuccessful attempt to intimidate them. 

READ MORE: Mississippi HBCUs receive bomb threats on first day of Black History Month

At Rust College, the roughly 600 students were largely nonplussed by the threats, said Zachary Wilson, the SGA vice president. The students’ sense of safety, he said, was due to the university’s swift reaction to the threat, but also the steps it takes on a daily basis to make them feel like they belong. 

By late afternoon, students at Rust College were back out on campus, hanging out in the student center and joking around in the plaza. It felt like campus had snapped back to normal, Wilson said. 

“Their mission was to deter our mission for Black excellence and Black unity in the United States of America,” Wilson said. “We are undeterred, and they failed. They simply failed.” 

One reason why many students felt that way, Wilson said, was because they trusted the administration to support them. Many woke up to the alert that Taylor and her chief-of-staff had worked to send. From their dormitories, students could see the police cars at the school gates. 

Jamila Branch, a senior biology major, said she felt calm as she sheltered-in-place in her dorm. She said she feels like Rust College is a family to her, so when she saw the alert about the bomb threat, she wanted to help others on campus feel secure. That Tuesday morning, she immediately turned to her networks. She sent our texts to her group chats and to her fellow resident assistants in the girl’s dormitory. Branch said she made sure they knew they could come to her if they wanted to talk. 

No one took her up on the offer, Branch said, because many students were already talking in the hallway about the threat. Branch said they were mainly trying to understand what motivated the callers to place the threat. Mostly, she said, students spent the hours sheltering-in-place by catching up on their homework. 

“We’re a family so we leaned on each other,” Branch, a native of Osceola, Ark., said. 

Taylor, who became president in 2020, said she doesn’t know if Rust College has experienced a bomb threat like this in the past. But the college has come under a different type of attack, particularly during the civil rights movement, for its role in housing Freedom Riders. In the 1960s, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency tasked with upholding racism, targeted Rust College with a report that called it a “place for instructors, who are homosexuals and racial agitators.” 

That’s a history that Taylor strives to uphold as president, she said, by not giving the unfounded threats too much credence. 

“That’s what terrorism is about,” she said. “Manipulating your mind and your emotions so that you’re fearful of continuing on with your daily activities or the things you’re doing to advance a certain cause.” 

Rather, she’s focused on how to keep upholding Rust College’s mission. 

“That is still a threat to some people for Black people to be equipped and inspired for excellence, for Black people to be educated, for Black people to be leaders,” she said.

She wants her students to understand what she calls “the power of education.”

“I hope that is motivation for them to persist and graduate and go out there and make an impact and reach back and help others.”

The post ‘We are undeterred’: How Mississippi’s oldest HBCU responded to the bomb threats  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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

State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a candidate for Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District seat, used money from his state office campaign account to pay for congressional ads, which is prohibited by Federal Election Commission regulations.

When asked about the issue by Mississippi Today last week, Wiggins said he was unaware of it and would check. He later provided a written response saying, “We found on Dec. 3 that congressional ads for a few weeks were incorrectly charged to a credit card of the (state) Committee to Elect Brice Wiggins.”

“We corrected this Dec. 3, and the $1,170.07 cost is being reimbursed to the state campaign along with a $10 reimbursement for a Facebook post I made myself on Nov. 2,” Wiggins wrote. “An amendment to the FEC filing is being made.”

Wiggins also wrote: “My intent is to always be transparent.”

But while Wiggins’ annual state campaign finance report covering 2021 shows Facebook ad expenditures that would appear to be for his congressional campaign, the report does not show any reimbursement to the state campaign.

Wiggins announced his run for Congress on Oct. 25, and changed his Facebook page name from “Senator Brice Wiggins” to “Brice Wiggins for Congress.” This would also appear to be at odds with FEC regulations.

FEC regulations prohibit transfer of “assets,” from a state campaign to a federal one. FEC regulations state: “Transfers of funds or assets from a candidate’s campaign committee or account for a nonfederal election to his or her principal campaign committee or other authorized committee for a federal election are prohibited.” An FEC spokesman said the agency hasn’t issued an opinion addressing transfer of social media accounts, but has addressed donor and other lists generated by a state campaign. Generally, the federal campaign would have to pay “fair market value” to the state campaign for such lists as they are assets and “any transfer for less than fair market value would violate the rule.”

Wiggins’ state campaign finance report shows donations and fundraising expenditures dated after his congressional campaign announcement.

Wiggins wrote: “As to contributions made to the state Senate account after October 25th, they were made by the individuals and companies listed on the filings. As seen on previous years’ filings by the (state) Committee to Elect Brice Wiggins, donations and expenses occur throughout the year.”

Wiggins confirmed the name change for the Facebook page, but then declined to answer any further questions on campaign finance issues, saying, “You have our statement. That’s it.”

While violations of FEC regulations and laws can carry penalties and fines, the agency typically exercises little enforcement unless infractions are major and allows campaigns to correct the problems.

Campaign finances have already been a big issue in the 4th District race. Longtime incumbent Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of campaign fund misspending and other issues.

A congressional watchdog agency’s report, which prompted the House Ethics investigation, claims Palazzo misspent campaign and congressional funds, used his office to help his brother and used staff for personal errands and services.

Allegations have previously been reported that Palazzo used campaign funds to pay himself and his erstwhile wife nearly $200,000 through companies they own — including thousands to cover the mortgage, maintenance and upgrades to a riverfront home Palazzo owned and wanted to sell. A Mississippi Today report also questioned thousands in Palazzo campaign spending on swanky restaurants, sporting events, resort hotels, golfing and gifts.

READ MORE: Rep. Steven Palazzo ethics investigation: Is the congressman’s campaign account a slush fund?

The watchdog report said it found evidence Palazzo used his official office and resources to help his brother’s efforts to re-enlist in the Navy and questioned Palazzo’s campaign paying his brother nearly $24,000 over 10 months as a “political coordinator” and letting Kyle Palazzo use the campaign’s credit card for food, gas, hotel rooms and other goods and services.

When Wiggins announced his run for Congress, he took aim Palazzo over the campaign spending allegations.

“We should all be angry that our own member of Congress is under investigation for misappropriating funds as well as using his position to provide unethical and immoral favors to family and friends,” Wiggins said on his campaign website at the time.

The post Brice Wiggins improperly used state campaign funds for congressional race appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A friend recently told me his 13-year-old son is in a bit of a quandary. The kid is already 6 feet, 2 inches tall, athletic and smart. Coaches from every sport at his school are pulling at him: baseball, football, basketball and soccer. A couple want him to choose a sport and specialize, this before he needs to shave.

The kid just wants to play. Everything.

But when the seasons overlap, the seventh grader has to choose. It doesn’t have to be that way. 

For Exhibit A, I give you: Arch Manning, the No. 1 Class of 2023 football recruit in the nation. On a recent trip to New Orleans, I watched Arch and his No. 1 ranked Newman Greenies teammates play. Basketball.

Before we really get into this, I should answer the question I get asked several times a week. That is: Where will Arch Manning — son of Cooper, grandson of Archie and Olivia, nephew of Peyton and Eli — play college football? The answer is I don’t know. I don’t think he knows. I know Grandpa Archie, the one Arch calls “Red,” doesn’t know. If there’s any news in his recruitment, it is that he has trimmed Clemson from his list. The remaining four favorites are, in alphabetical order, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss and Texas.

We are currently in a “dead period” of college football recruiting, which meant that no football coaching celebrities were at Saturday night’s Newman game. Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian have all taken in Newman basketball games this season, often bringing several of their staffers with them. Other coaches have done the same.

They have been there to be seen by Arch Manning, the quarterback prodigy who has everything you look for in a quarterback: strong arm, accuracy, athleticism, size, toughness, and quick-trigger decision making. This one also has the pedigree.

What these football coaches see before them on the basketball court is a role player, a kid who prides himself on being a good teammate. They see a sturdy, wavy-haired, competitive young man who comes off the bench and helps Newman win games by grabbing loose balls and rebounds, setting picks, making crisp passes and by playing good defense. In basketball, he is not the star. He is nonetheless a winner.

“To me, Arch is a breath of fresh air,” says his basketball coach, Randy Livingston, a former two-time national player of the year at Newman. “He enjoys being a high school athlete. He’s competitive. He loves to compete. I have known the family well since I was 12, so the family knows me and trusts me with him.

“Arch knows our system backwards and forwards. He knows the offense, knows the defense, and he rarely makes a mistake. He’s great with our younger players. He’s a great kid. We are lucky and blessed to have him. He and Will Randle (Newman’s highly recruited tight end and one of Arch’s best friends) both come off the bench and bring a real toughness to our team.”

Both play more minutes than some of the starters. Both are usually in the game at crunch time — that is, on the rare occasion Newman (23-4) has a crunch time.

For Exhibit B in this case against specialization for young athletes, I give you the Manning family. Archie Manning was a four-sport letterman at Drew High School only because they didn’t offer five. Or six. He played football, baseball, basketball and ran track.

“Doing both track and baseball sometimes got tricky,” Archie Manning said. “One day, we had a track meet and baseball game going at adjacent fields. We came in to bat just as they were lining up for the 880-relay. They hollered at me to come run the relay — and I did, in my baseball uniform.”

Archie Manning was a high school football, basketball and baseball star — so talented as a baseball shortstop he was drafted four times by Major League teams, the first time by the Braves right out of high school. The point is, he played all the sports to the detriment of none. Nobody tried to stop him. One year, a couple days after the football season ended, he scored 40 points to help Drew win a basketball game.

“Maybe I’m old-fashioned,” Archie Manning said, “I think playing multiple sports makes you more well-rounded. There are certain things you do in one sport that might help you in the others.”

Says Livingston, the Newman coach: “The more well-rounded you are, the better. Look at Joe Burrow. He was a high school basketball star. Back then, lot of people thought that would be his sport. My favorite sport growing up was football. That’s what I was going to be. To this day, I regret I couldn’t play it more. You just shouldn’t box a kid in. Let them play. Let them develop. You never know what the future holds.”

Livingston was junior high and high school basketball teammates with both Cooper and Peyton Manning. They won state championships together. They also played probably a thousand games of pick-up basketball, often in the Mannings’ driveway.

“It was usually me and Archie against Peyton and Cooper,” Livingston said. “I’m telling you, Archie could still play.”

Says Cooper Manning who remembers fondly those games, “The losers had to take out the trash.”

Cooper and Ellen Manning have advocated playing multiple sports to all their three children, including daughter Mae, a high school volleyball star, now at the University of Virginia. 

“I wanted them outside, running around, being active, using all their muscles,” Cooper Manning said.

That includes Heid Manning, Arch’s younger brother, the center who snaps the ball to his brother on the Newman football team.

“Heid played a lot baseball when he was younger, but he came to me one year and told me he wanted to play lacrosse,” Cooper Manning said. “So now he’s on the Newman lacrosse team and loves it. They’re good, too.”

The post In age of sports specialization, the Mannings beg to differ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

House Clerk Andrew Ketchings said he acted on his own to remove the statue of racist former governor and U.S. senator Theodore Bilbo from public view in the Mississippi State Capitol.

Bilbo, known for his extreme racist rhetoric and views, had been memorialized with a statue in the Mississippi Capitol since the 1950s. Various Black legislators and others have for many years called for the removal of the Bilbo statue, saying it was inappropriate that such a vocal white supremacist was one of two governors to be memorialized with statues in the Capitol.

“Because of everything he stood for, I think this should have been done years ago,” Ketchings told Mississippi Today and the Associated Press on Wednesday. “It was way past time to do it.”

The Bilbo statue is now locked in a closet behind the elevator on the House side of the Capitol and wrapped in a fire retardant. Ketchings declined to open the room.

Mississippi Today reported last week that the statue of Bilbo was no longer in room 113 of the state Capitol, the largest House committee room, as it had been since the early 1980s. Last week, no one would publicly take responsibility for the move. Legislative leaders, including House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, said they did not even know the statue was missing.

“It was purely my decision, 100%,” said Ketchings, who added he did not inform any of the legislative leadership of his plan.

Ketchings said he has since told the House leadership he moved the statue. He said House leaders did not seem inclined to try to restore the statue to public view.

Instead, he hired a crew with state funds through the Department of Finance and Administration to move the bronze statue on a weekend in October. The cost, he said, was between $4,000 and $5,000.

READ MORE: Where’s Bilbo? Statue of racist former governor missing from Capitol

The bronze statue is allegedly life-sized, standing 5 feet 2 inches tall. Ketchings said it is not unusual in his position as House clerk to make decisions over maintenance issues in rooms of the Capitol controlled by the House.

In his capacity as House clerk in recent years, Ketchings has refurbished the chairs and replaced the carpet in room 113. One reason he did not move the statue earlier is that he could not find a suitable storage place. The statue would not fit through many of the doors in the building, Ketchings said.

Bilbo died of throat cancer in 1947 in the midst of efforts by his colleague to not seat him in the U.S. Senate after his most recent election victory. Soon after his death, a joint resolution adopted by the Mississippi Legislature in 1948 established a commission to memorialize Theodore Gilmore Bilbo who “worked unceasingly and often alone to preserve Southern customs and traditions and in so doing sought to preserve the true American way of life…and particularly his efforts to preserve this state and nation by his successful fight against the enactment of national legislation, which would have destroyed the United State of America, if the same had been enacted.”

READ MORE: The Bilbo statue was first moved by Gov. William Winter in the 1980s

The resolution calls for the statue to be placed “in a prominent place on the first floor of the new Capitol building.”

Ketchings said he does not know if the resolution is still binding, but opted to keep the statue on the first floor as the resolution mandated.

On the same day that the statue was moved, a bust of Thomas Bailey, who served as governor in the 1940s, was transported from room 113 back to the state Department of Archives and History, which owns the bust.

There are no other statues in the Capitol other than a bust of Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy in a second floor Senate committee room. Gandy served in various public offices in the state and is one of the few women in Mississippi elected to statewide office.

All the governors, including Bilbo, have portraits in the Capitol.

The clerk is elected by the House members to oversee the day-to-day operations of the chamber. Ketchings has been the House clerk since Gunn was elected speaker in 2012, becoming the first Republican presiding officer of the chamber since the 1800s. Ketchings previously served as a House member representing Adams County and also served in the Gov. Haley Barbour administration.

For years the statue was displayed prominently in the Capitol rotunda, but according to various accounts in the early 1980s during Capitol renovations then-Gov. William Winter had it moved to room 113.

At the time, room 113 was not used as much as it is today. Multiple House committees meet in the room. In addition, the Legislative Black Caucus and the Republican caucus also meet there.

Bilbo served two terms as governor. After that he was elected in the 1930s to the U.S. Senate where he fought against anti lynching laws and advocated for the deportation of Blacks to Africa.

During a filibuster to try to block Senate passage of an anti lynching bill, Bilbo said, ”If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.”

The post House clerk Andrew Ketchings takes credit for moving Bilbo statue out of public view appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi House members are developing a framework of how they want to spend $1.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds, but seem content on waiting until the end of the session to reveal specifics.

Senate leaders, on the other hand, have released their plans on how to spend the American Rescue Plan funds and have begun passing them.

The dueling strategies will almost certainly lead to end-of-session negotiations between a handful of leaders from both chambers, and it will likely be weeks before Mississippians learn how lawmakers will decide to spend the historic amount of federal funds.

The House is passing bills, but for the most part they are not placing the exact amount of funds in the bill. House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, said those exact amounts will be worked out in conference between House and Senate leaders at the end of the session.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed its largest ARPA bill — a measure to use $750 million of the money to create a state match for city, county and rural water association infrastructure projects. The state would match local governments’ spending of the ARPA funds they are receiving directly from the federal government. Federal law allows the ARPA funds to be used for local governments’ water and sewerage infrastructure.

Senate Bill 2822 would provide a dollar-for-dollar match to counties and large cities for qualified water, sewerage and stormwater projects. For smaller cities that are receiving less than $1 million in direct ARPA money, the state would match qualified projects $2 to $1. For rural water associations with 250 or more customers, the program would provide grants of up to $2.5 million for qualified projects.

READ MORE: Senate unveils plan for spending $1.8 billion in federal pandemic stimulus

Sen. John Polk, chair of the Senate subcommittee handling ARPA spending, said the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, with help from the Department of Health, would vet and approve applications for projects, based on a grading scale. Polk said this grade would include whether a system is under federal orders to improve or having problems such as high lead levels, and it would give greater weight to projects “ready to go within six months.”

Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, said the state fund should focus first on water and sewer systems in the worst shape, and in communities that can least afford upgrades. Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said those under federal orders to upgrade should get top priority.

Polk said the grading system — and $2-to-$1 match for smaller cities — would address those issues to some extent but, “We have to keep it fair for everyone. Every area has needs.”

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said, “I think this bill, along with the appropriations bill to follow, is the most important thing we will pass this session. We need to look at this as one-time money that we will probably never see again.”

Blount asked Polk whether the proposed ARPA spending would be enough to fix water and sewerage problems and needs in Mississippi.

“I do not,” Polk said. “I know, for instance, the rural water associations told us they would need about $700 million to cover all they need.” But, Polk said, “I’m not convinced that this is a state problem” and that local governments should do a better job of keeping up water and sewerage infrastructure.

READ MORE: Lawmakers wanted input on spending $1.8 billion in pandemic stimulus. They got $7 billion in requests.

The Senate passed on to the House several other ARPA spending bills on Tuesday, including a measure that would provide up to $10 million for infrastructure projects at private colleges, one that would provide death benefits for first responders who die from COVID-19. The chamber also passed Senate Bill 2721, an ARPA workforce bill that would provide training, loan repayment and enhanced pay for nurses and other health workers.

In the House, White said the focus of the spending of the federal funds should be on helping local governments with their water and sewer needs and helping health care entities that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There is a pandemic. We have the money because of the pandemic, so we ought to spend at least some it to help with the pandemic,” he said.

White said he does not know of an area where the one-time funds can have more of an impact than on local water and sewer needs. He said he envisions $400 million to $600 million being put in that area in the first year. White also said he does not necessarily believe all of the funds should be spent during the 2022 session.

Legislation that has passed the House:

• Would create a funds to help rural water associations with their infrastructure. It would require no matching funds.
• Would create a program to help municipalities and counties with their water and wastewater infrastructure, requiring a 20% match from the local governments.
• Would create a funds to deposit funds to aid the city of Jackson with its water and wastewater infrastructure. The city, to receive the funds, would have to commit to providing regular reports to the state on how the money was being spent.

The outdated Jackson water system is under scrutiny from federal officials who have expressed concern about the quality of the city’s water. Plus, the system routinely breaks down during extreme cold weather.

Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, said negotiations are ongoing on the amount of state support the city will receive. But he said communications between city officials and legislative leaders in determining the amount of help the city will get are currently positive.

“Absolutely, they are good,” he said.

The House has also passed legislation that would provide local law enforcement and firefighters (including volunteers) $1,000 in premium pay for their efforts during the pandemic. And hospitals could receive grants of up to $250,000 to help with treatment of coronavirus patients. Those funds could be used to help pay their health care staff.

Plus, a program would be established under legislation that has passed the House to develop a plan to expand nursing programs at community colleges. The Senate is proposing similar spending for nursing programs.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Tracking Mississippi’s historic influx of federal cash

The post House, Senate take different paths on spending historic federal funds appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Prime Shrimp, a New Orleans company, joins as the podcast’s sponsor on a busy week in Mississippi sports. The Cleveland boys discuss the upcoming Super Bowl, Joe Burrow’s Magnolia State roots, a new head coach for the New Orleans Saints, Arch Manning, a busy time in Mississippi high school sports. Oxford native Davis McCool joins to talk about Prime Shrimp (and Ole Miss baseball).

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: A new sponsor joins on Super Bowl week appeared first on Mississippi Today.