In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey brings back Canopy CEO, John Damon to discuss the current mental health challenges facing our nation, avenues to get help for both adults and children, and ways to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.
Damon’s clinical and executive leadership experience spans more than 25 years. Joining Canopy in 1993, he has been the Chief Executive Office since 2013. Damon is a Fellow of the fifth class of the Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is a board member of the Mississippi Business Group on Health. He was selected as a Top CEO by the Mississippi Business Journal. John currently serves on the Mississippi Children’s Justice Commission. John has also served on other committees including the Governor’s Healthcare Task Force, the Mental Health Task Force (chair), Mississippi’s Children’s Mental Health Task Force, and the Mississippi Autism Advisory Committee.
John holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Mississippi College, a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Reformed Theological Seminary, and earned his doctorate in Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from Jackson State University. He completed his residency in Child Psychology at University of Mississippi Medical Center. John and his wife are proud parents of five children.
When Mississippi politicians brag of their good stewardship of state funds leading to an unprecedented revenue surplus, they sound kind of like the turtle sitting on top of the fencepost bragging about how good a climber he is.
“Mississippi continues to be in the best fiscal shape and the best financial shape in its history,” Gov. Tate Reeves said in his January State of the State speech. “Mississippi ended the year a billion dollars over revenue estimates. This was not an accident. We kept our businesses open.”
The turtle talked as if he got on top of the fencepost all by himself. The politicians talk as if they created the revenue surplus by themselves. Just as the turtle had help, so did Mississippi politicians.
But still in his budget proposal, Reeves bragged, “Despite a global pandemic and recession, Mississippi’s economy is booming. While Democrat-led states shutdown and locked down, Mississippi opened up.”
Others have made similar comments.
The truth is that many Republican-led and Democratic led states have huge budget surpluses, thanks to a confluence of COVID-19 pandemic-related circumstances, such as a massive influx of federal funds, rising wages, rising prices and an overall red-hot economy. The budget surplus was so strong in deep blue California, for instance, that politicians gave people a stimulus check ranging from $600 to $1,100 and are talking about providing another one. They have enough of a surplus to do it. Other states — red, blue and purple ones — are doing the same.
Here in Mississippi, the Legislature could provide all people currently earning a paycheck a one-time rebate of $1,000 and not impact the ability moving forward to continue services at current levels.
As the state’s Republican leaders debate the size and scope of tax cuts they want to provide, an alternative proposal might be to give all working people a one-time rebate instead of a recurring tax cut that could negatively impact the economy for everyone down the road.
Because of an unprecedented surplus in state funds that most likely will be more than $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, it would not be a heavy lift for legislators to provide the rebate.
The issue with the tax cut proposals being debated in the Legislature is not that the state cannot afford them at the current time; it’s the uncertainty about the impact of the tax cuts 10 or 15 years from now.
At some point, Mississippi lawmakers learned a new gimmick when taking up tax cut proposals — the phase-in. For instance, the tax cut passed in 2016 (the largest in state history) will not be fully phased in until fiscal year 2028. Reeves, who was lieutenant governor in 2016 when the tax cut was passed, will be finishing his second term as governor, assuming he is reelected, when the tax cut is fully enacted.
Even as that tax cut is far from being fully enacted, Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and others are talking about tax cuts centered around eliminating the income tax, which accounts for about one-third of the state general fund revenue. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate allies are proposing a more modest tax cut.
All of the tax cut proposals have one thing in common: They would be phased in over time. In other words, it would be a phase-in on top of the current phase-in.
A phase-in, they reason, reduces chances of a large negative impact on revenue. During recent debate on the Senate floor, Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, explained the logic of the phase-in.
McDaniel said that if the Legislature had acted 13 years ago to phase out the income tax, the state could now be rid of that worrisome tax and still have more revenue now than it did 13 years ago — presumably revenue primarily from the sales tax on retail items.
What politicians often do not explain is that revenues normally always go up as wages, inflation and presumably the number of people paying taxes go up.
But the fact remains that in red Mississippi or in blue California, it takes a lot more money than it did 13 years ago to run a household or to provide governmental services.
Mississippi, to be sure, has a lot of money right now. Many believe that money should be used to address the state’s many needs.
But if leaders are determined to return funds to taxpayers, there are at least two ways to do so. It could be done through traditional tax cuts that remove revenue from the state revenue stream permanently, or it could be done through a one-time rebate of, say $1,000, that could be done without impacting future recurring revenues of the state.
If the surplus continues in coming years, additional rebates could be provided while not mortgaging the state’s future or without knocking that turtle off his fencepost.
Legislation that has passed the House and is pending in the Senate would make it easier to remove racist language from Mississippi property deeds.
State Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, who also is an attorney, said he authored the legislation after representing clients who were purchasing some land in Pearl River County, when, through his research, he discovered old language in the deed prohibiting African Americans from owning or living on the land.
“I told them the language was not enforceable,” said Owen, who said the African American family still felt uncomfortable having the language in the deed for their property.
Owen said he decided to introduce the bill to make it inexpensive for families in similar circumstances to remove the racist language.
“People take great respect in the property they own,” Owen said. “It means something to them.
“This is just a simplified way for people to show the property they own was once held by individuals who believed they should not own it because of their skin color. It shows that has been removed from the chain of title by the property owner.”
Owen said people purchase property and want to pass it on to their children and such discriminatory language makes them uncomfortable. Owen said his clients who led to his introduction of the legislation expressed the desire to remain unnamed.
In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled such language as discriminatory and unconstitutional, making those deeds unenforceable. Federal laws have been passed to fortify the Supreme Court ruling.
During earlier debate on the House floor, Rep. Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, and others questioned why the bill was needed since the language is unenforceable. Boyd questioned whether it was “a lawyer’s bill,” giving attorneys an opportunity to make money.
Owen said under current law it takes an attorney to file the motion in chancery court to remove the language, making the process costly. Under his bill, an attorney would not be needed. The landowner could simply fill out a form that is in the bill and a chancellor could sign off on the form without holding a hearing.
Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, who is an attorney and member of the Legislative Black Caucus, said he thought it would be good to provide a simple mechanism to remove the language.
“I have run across similar language, and I just did not bring it forward,” Clark said. “It is unenforceable. But I could see where real estate attorneys who wanted to be safe would feel they are obligated to” not remove the language from the deed on their own.
Clark voted for the measure. A similar measure passed in Texas.
The Senate has unanimously voted to add $300 million to the state’s Emergency Road and Bridge Repair Program.
The proposal, which could speed repair of more than 200 bridges statewide that are closed and/or posted for structural problems, now heads to the House.
“Right now, we have millions of dollars in federal relief funds flowing through our economy,” said Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. “Our cities, counties and constituents have asked us to dedicate our resources to better maintaining our infrastructure. We are listening and hope to send this legislation to the governor posthaste.”
But the legislation is also likely to get hung up in House and Senate debate over major income tax cuts and other spending decisions.
Senate Bill 3167, authored by Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, would direct $300 million of $1.1 billion in surplus state revenue this year into the program. The Legislature passed the emergency repair program in 2018, with hundreds of state bridges in dangerous disrepair, and initially funded it with $250 million in borrowing. Lawmakers spent another $89 million on the program last year.
The ERBR Program is run by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and an advisory board of industry and local government leaders.
Just five days before a key deadline, a Senate committee chairman would not say definitively that he will keep alive legislation to revive the state’s ballot initiative process.
“I do not have a definitive answer to that at this time,” Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee Chair John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, said on Thursday.
March 1 is the deadline for bills approved by one chamber to pass out of committee in the other chamber. The House passed legislation earlier this year to restore the right for citizens to bypass the legislative process and place issues on the ballot.
If Polk does not pass House Concurrent Resolution 39 out of his committee by Tuesday, it will die unless revived by suspending the rules — a rare and difficult feat at the Capitol. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, referred the bill to Polk’s committee instead of Constitution Committee, where it normally would be sent. Constitution is chaired by Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg.
“We are still studying it. We have to do it right,” Polk said when asked on Feb. 24 about the legislation. “After we do all the studying, we will see where we are and decide what to do then.”
The issue is before the Legislature this session because the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the initiative process last May when it ruled that the medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in November 2020 was invalid. The court ruled the process invalid because language in the Constitution mandated the required number of signatures be gathered equally from five congressional districts. The state has only four congressional districts, losing one as a result of the 2000 Census.
The proposal that passed the House would require a pro rata share of signatures be gathered from whatever number of congressional districts the state has.
The language that passed the House would allow voters to place issues on the ballot to change or amend general law. The initiative adopted in the early 1990s and that was struck down by the Supreme Court allowed voters to amend the state Constitution.
After the Supreme Court struck down the initiative, both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Hosemann expressed support for restoring the process. Both Gunn and Hosemann advocated for using the process to amend general law rather than the Constitution.
If the proposal dies Tuesday, it would take a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers to revive it. But it also takes a two-thirds vote to pass the resolution under normal circumstances restoring the initiative process because to do so means amending the Constitution. Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers and approval by voters.
Expanding Medicaid would provide a significantly bigger boost to the Mississippi economy than the far-reaching tax cut proposed by House Speaker Philip Gunn, according to studies from the non-partisan state economist’s office.
The studies reveal that expanding Medicaid would create more jobs and grow the state’s population and wealth more than would Gunn’s tax cut proposal that has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.
The Legislature is currently contemplating major tax legislation. The House plan, championed by Gunn, would eliminate the income tax, which accounts for about one-third of general fund revenue, cut the cost of car tags in half and reduce the tax on groceries from 7% to 4% while increasing the sales tax on other retail items from 7% to 8.5%.
The Senate has proposed a more modest plan that would cut the income tax and grocery tax and eliminate a $3 to $5 fee on the cost of car tags. Gov. Tate Reeves has proposed eliminating the income tax.
Neither the House nor Senate this legislative session is seriously considering Medicaid expansion, which would provide health coverage to at least 225,000 Mississippians. This projection mostly includes coverage for people who politicians often refer to as the “working poor” — Mississippians who are employed but cannot afford health insurance.
An analysis compiled in February by State Economist Corey Miller and Sondra Collins, a senior economist at the University Research Center, looks at Gunn’s House tax cut plan. This analysis has not yet been released publicly, but has been delivered to legislative leaders.
A September 2021 analysis was conducted by the same two economists to determine the impact of the state expanding Medicaid as is allowed by federal law and paid for in large part by federal funds.
Note: Story continues under the chart.
The economic effects of the two analyses are stark. In 2024, Medicaid expansion would increase the gross domestic product, which is the value of the state’s goods and services, by $779.4 million, compared to just $317.9 million for the House tax cut. The GDP growth for 2027, the fifth year of Medicaid expansion, would be $777 million, but just $162.8 million for the tax cut. The state’s current GDP is nearly $100 billion.
In terms of growing the state’s population, which has been cited by both Gunn and other leaders as one of the primary reasons for eliminating the income tax, expanding Medicaid would again provide significantly more bang for the buck. The tax cut would generate 3,748 people moving to Mississippi in 2024, according to the analysis, while expanding Medicaid would generate 7,757 new residents that same year. In 2027, the state’s population would swell by 11,505 by expanding Medicaid, while it would grow just 2,132 by enacting the House tax cut plan.
Perhaps the most jaw dropping part of the analyses was the comparison of jobs and wages. In 2024, the study projected Medicaid expansion would create 11,526 jobs with an increase in personal income of $684.6 million. In the same year, the tax cut plan would generate just 4,457 new jobs with an increase in personal income of $213.5 million. In 2027, the Medicaid expansion would generate another 11,081 jobs with an additional $812.4 million in personal income, compared to 1,815 new jobs and an increase in personal income of $85.8 million for the tax cut plan.
“The additions to personal income (through Medicaid expansion) are larger each year from 2022 to 2027 and range from approximately $539 million to $812 million,” the study said. “The largest increase is in 2027 represents 0.7% of total personal income in Mississippi in 2019.”
But the analysis found that 60% of the jobs created by Medicaid expansion would be in health care and social assistance fields.
“An important caveat, however, is this estimate represents potential jobs,” the study pointed out. “Many healthcare jobs in Mississippi are currently unfilled.” To reach the projection, new workers would need to be found.
“An increase in Medicaid enrollees, in theory, could attract additional medical personnel and facilities to the state if these enrollees are viewed as a sustainable source of revenue,” the study surmised.
The analysis of Medicaid expansion covers only five years, ending in 2027. But in each of those five years, Medicaid expansion provides more growth in terms of jobs, wealth and people than does cutting taxes.
The study of the tax plan goes until 2035, presumably covering the phase out period of the income tax.
Starting in 2032, the analysis projects that the tax cut plan would result in a loss of population, albeit a small loss, and a reduction in employment and personal income. By 2034 there also would be a reduction in the gross domestic product that by 2035 would be $11.6 million. There also would be reductions of 939 jobs, $166.7 million in personal income and 2,964 people in 2035.
The study cites as the reason for the losses the reduction in government services caused by less state revenue as a result of the full enactment of the tax cuts.
The Medicaid expansion study cites the reason for the significant economic boost to the large amount of federal money that would come to the state as a result of Medicaid expansion. Those federal funds would more than offset the cost to the state of expanding Medicaid while growing Mississippi’s economy, the study found. The state generally is responsible for 10% of the cost of Medicaid expansion.
Mississippi is one of 12 states to not have expanded Medicaid. Both Gunn and Reeves, the two most significant proponents of eliminating the income tax, have been vocal opponents of Medicaid expansion. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has publicly voiced support for expanding Medicaid, though he does not use the term “Medicaid expansion.”
Both studies from the economist’s office rely on projections applied to a Tax-Pi model, which is a widely used process among economists and others in developing projections based on government revenue and spending.
Note: Mississippi Today reporter Alex Rozier created the chart above based on the state economist’s office analyses of Medicaid expansion and the Gunn tax cut proposal.
The program distributing federal rental assistance dollars in Mississippi has significantly increased the amount of money it is paying out to landlords and tenants after a slow start last year.
Mississippi received $186 million in rental assistance funds from a December 2020 COVID-19 stimulus bill. As of Jan. 31, the state has obligated $110.3 million to landlords and renters in need, according to the Mississippi Home Corporation.
The Rental Assistance for Mississippians Program (RAMP), managed by the Mississippi Home Corporation, exists to pay the rent and utilities of tenants who have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 and whose total household income is under 80% of their county’s median income.
Last summer, Scott Spivey, director of the Home Corporation, described the influx of cash as like “drinking from a firehose.” But eight months later, fewer Mississippians are at risk of eviction or foreclosure, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, and advocates say the program has made some meaningful improvements.
“When we first started working on this program, I was receiving multiple calls a day (seeking help with applications),” said Matthew Campbell, a field organizer with the NAACP. “I haven’t received nearly as many calls as I used to…which is of course a good thing. Hopefully, that signifies that people aren’t having as many problems, which I don’t believe they are.”
Rivers Ormon, communications officer for the Mississippi Home Corporation, said this increase is the result of changes made several months ago having time to take effect. Those changes include:
Changing the application process to allow individuals in 50 counties to apply without income documentation
A statewide advertising campaign to inform renters and landlords about the program
In-person rental assistance fairs to walk people through the application process
Contracting with a third-party payment processor
Making a paper application available for individuals with unreliable internet access
Multiple advocates noted the changes made to the paper application, which Campbell called a “good faith effort” to streamline the process and make it easier for people to apply. However, applicants who fill out the paper application have had a harder time getting information on the status of their application, according to Gwen Bouie-Haynes, director of the National Association of Social Workers, Mississippi Chapter. She said this is because applicants who utilized the paper application are reaching out to the call center for information and sometimes get put on hold for hours.
Ormon said the average hold time over the last few months ranged from 30 minutes to an hour and a half, but that a change made last week got the wait time down to five minutes on Friday. The change redirects calls related to recertification, or applying for additional funds due to continued financial hardship, to a third-party contractor who is handling that portion of the application process.
Applicants are experiencing significant wait times between approval and payment, advocates say.
Antwan Bragg, a landlord in Winston county, applied to RAMP in September 2021 and got approved in November, but is still waiting on his payment.
“It’s not (the tenants’) fault,” Bragg said. “All of my tenants are really good people and prior to the pandemic they were never late, took really good care of the place, but they all lost their jobs. They got on unemployment at first but then they cut their unemployment off and that’s when things got kinda dicey.”
Bragg said he didn’t want to go through the hassle of evicting his tenants if there was a better option, but has now told them he’s giving RAMP to the end of March before he begins eviction proceedings.
Diane Standaert, senior vice president at the Hope Policy Institute, said she hears similar stories with issues of timeliness of payment once applicants are approved. Of the applicants approved to receive RAMP funds, 66% were employed, and the majority are Black and female, according to the program.
”Thankfully, there are many times where once these situations are escalated, they are able to get resolved on a case by case basis,” Standaert said. “We’re thankful for that responsiveness, so it becomes, how do we increase that responsiveness across the board to reduce the amount of tension?”
Ormon said the average processing time from approval to payment is two weeks if account information is correct, and that this can take longer if a check is going through the mail. She said if payments are taking months, there is another issue.
While more money is going out to those who need it, the number of applicants who are denied has doubled from October 2021 to January 2022, with 14% of applications rejected, Standaert said.
Of the applicants approved to receive RAMP funds, 66% were employed, and the majority are Black and female, according to the program.
When discussing next steps to continue to improve the program, Bouie-Haynes suggested expanding the partnerships with housing counseling agencies to provide more direct assistance to applicants.
“I look at it from this lens — social work professionals are out in the community on a regular basis and would likely have the skills to help process applications,” she said. “If you get more nonprofits involved, then that tends to spread the accessibility issue that I talked about, meaning that you would have a wider reach and more people would be getting the help they need.”
Ormon said training for new providers is ongoing.
Campbell is working to expand housing assistance infrastructure beyond RAMP, using other stimulus funds to build affordable housing and create eviction diversion programs.
”The most important thing now is not only that this money is continued to be spent in a positive way, making sure that households receive this rental assistance aid, but I also think that there is another opportunity to take this work around affordable housing even further with these (federal relief) funds,” he said. “So that’s what I’m looking forward to. It’s a once in a lifetime investment to really make some positive, constructive changes in people’s lives, and it takes a concerted effort from pretty much every unit of government to meet those needs.”
