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“It doesn’t look good.”

Former Gov. Phil Bryant’s own words about his role in the state’s welfare fraud scandal are a great understatement.

And now at the three-year mark since investigators began nibbling at the edges of what state Auditor Shad White has called the largest public fraud case in state history, things still don’t look good. But there remain as many questions as answers on how at least $77 million in federal welfare dollars was stolen or misspent. And by whom.

The questions in chief: Is the case being thoroughly investigated, top to bottom, and will all those responsible be held accountable? Have punches been pulled because of politics or celebrity?

READ MORE: Phil Bryant had his sights on a payout as welfare funds flowed to Brett Favre

Revelations about involvement of Bryant and former NFL star quarterback Brett Favre have fueled these questions. Text messages obtained by Mississippi Today have revealed that Bryant was at least briefed through texts about the flow of state money from welfare officials he oversaw to a private pharmaceutical venture Favre was backing. Bryant was set to accept stock in the company hours after he left office — until the auditor made arrests in the case.

The state auditor and Hinds County district attorney charged six people in early 2020, and four have pleaded guilty to the state charges – some as serious as bribery and racketeering. The state recently filed a lawsuit to attempt to “claw back” $24 million in misspent money from 38 people or companies, including Favre and the pharmaceutical venture’s owner. But to date, neither Bryant nor Favre have faced criminal charges or, at least to the public’s knowledge, the same scrutiny others faced.

It’s unclear where any continuing federal or state investigations stand at the three-year mark. No further arrests have been made since February of 2020. Interim Southern District U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and the U.S. Department of Justice declined comment.

This has raised questions, in particular, about state Auditor White, who spearheaded the initial investigation and charges with a local DA — for eight months — without involving federal authorities despite the case involving millions of federal welfare dollars. White has explained that he made arrests to stop the flow of funds to the allegedly corrupt nonprofits and afterward turned all evidence over to federal authorities.

But questions about if and when White’s office alerted other authorities to Bryant’s text messages remain. The auditor’s office refused to turn the messages over to Mississippi Today after a public records request, and the outlet has a pending Ethics Commission records complaint against the office.

Did White and his investigators know Bryant was in talks with the company at the center of the embezzlement scandal when they made the arrests, which derailed Bryant’s business arrangement with the company?

Also, there are questions about a forensic audit ordered up by the state Department of Human Services and White’s office, whether the state put too many limitations on the firm conducting the probe.

Should auditor have informed feds he was investigating for months?

White’s close relationship with Bryant — who directly supervised his welfare director as taxpayer money flowed to people and programs the governor favored — has been questioned. Recently, three former state auditors said White should have recused himself or limited his involvement in the initial investigation to avoid perception of conflict of interest.

White ran Bryant’s 2015 reelection campaign, worked for Bryant in the lieutenant governor’s office and was initially appointed auditor by Bryant, who then helped White win election to the post.

White’s office gathered the messages between Bryant and Favre in early 2020, but some parties to the cases hadn’t seen them until almost two years later, sources told Mississippi Today, raising questions about when the auditor’s office alerted other authorities to their existence.

White, who has often declined comment citing a long-running state judge’s gag order on the case, on social media blasted such questioning in Mississippi Today articles, calling it “garbage reporting” and a liberal attack. He said he would no longer speak with Mississippi Today.

READ MORE: Former auditors question whether Shad White was too close to investigate Phil Bryant

“Guess what? I did hand it to another law enforcement agency,” White tweeted recently. “After our initial arrests, I gave the FBI access to everything we have over two years ago. They have even worked from my office on the case. Between all of us, this case will be fully investigated. Period. … The reporting contains a blatant lie. ‘Questions about if and when White’s office alerted other authorities to [Bryant’s] text messages remain.’ Questions do not ‘remain.’ The FBI has had access to everything we have for years. That answers the ‘questions.’”

But experts in major federal investigations and criminal forensic auditing said there are some unusual or questionable aspects of the case to date.

“What’s really unusual is for (the state) not to reach out to the feds in a matter like this,” said law professor and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, referring to White’s office and a local DA bringing indictments and arrests without involving the FBI or U.S. attorney.

“Everybody likes to handle their own cases when they’ve found something, but in many ways the feds are able to bring in better resources,” Vance said. “… The federal government has better resources but can also move more quickly. It also typically has better statutory remedies — meaning people spend more time in prison if that matters to you in these types of cases.”

Vance said Mississippi’s welfare fraud case “implicates uniquely federal interests when you’ve got federal money involved.”

“The state auditor went to the DA, and the DA didn’t call (the feds) as a courtesy, either?” Vance said. “That’s a little unusual.”

Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens told Mississippi Today he did email a courtesy notice to the U.S. attorney’s office, but not until a day or two before the state secured indictments. This was after the state auditor had investigated for eight months. At the time, in early February 2020, then U.S. attorney Mike Hurst issued a release complaining, “We in the United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI only learned (the day of the arrests) from media reports about the indictments and arrests, at the same time the general public did.”

Hurst in the release said his office caught wind of the investigation and reached out to the auditor and DA and was given some information about the investigation the day before the arrests, but “… Neither the FBI nor the United States Attorney’s Office was contacted by the state Auditor or the Hinds County District Attorney about this investigation, although millions of federal dollars are alleged to have been stolen.”

James T. Wood, founder of Utah-based Venture Forensics, is a former longtime FBI forensic accountant and former head of the FBI’s Forensic Accountant Support team at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Wood said the state not involving federal authorities in the initial investigation and indictments is “an odd scenario.”

“I understand from reading about this that (White) said the feds take a long time to do anything,” Wood said. “Part of that is that they are thorough and when they bring an indictment they want to make sure their ducks are in a row … I do think it’s odd that they weren’t notified … The magnitude of the dollar amount here is not insignificant. It would be one thing if this were just $10,000 in TANF funds, the feds might not care.”

Vance said that in many states, federal and state authorities have good relationships and can hand off to each other to avoid perception of political conflicts of interest.

“But this is a different situation than that sort of usual reciprocal behavior,” Vance said, “because this implicates uniquely federal interests when you’ve got federal money involved.”

But both Vance and Wood said that just because the welfare scandal has dragged on for three years without federal authorities announcing action doesn’t mean the feds aren’t working on it.

“You won’t get any insight from them until there’s either an indictment or not,” Vance said.

Wood said: “I guess I might be surprised if there isn’t a federal investigation going on given the magnitude and the fact that it’s federal funds.”

But the question remains: Did the state’s decision to bring charges on its own stymie or delay federal intervention, or give others involved a chance to take cover?

Why was the forensic audit of welfare spending limited?

Other questions remaining about the case involve a forensic audit ordered up by DHS and the state auditor’s office after initial malfeasance was spotted.

The prominent national accounting firm Clifton Larson Allen was hired for up to $2.1 million to get to the bottom of where the state’s welfare money went. This report is what led the state’s lawsuit to try to recoup some of the money from people and companies.

But the forensic audit firm was limited in what and whom it was able to examine in its probe. In its audit reports delivered in September of 2021, CLA noted that it was not given access to former DHS Director John Davis’ computer hard drive and it was initially limited in whose emails it could examine.

“CLA was unable to obtain a copy of John Davis’ MDHS hard drive, as it was in the possession of the (Office of State Auditor) investigative division. Additionally, the scope of work limited CLA’s review of emails to include only John Davis’ MDHS emails. If other electronic evidence had been made available to CLA, additional information not currently known to CLA could impact the findings communicated in this report.”

MDHS explained that it asked CLA to review John Davis’ work emails as a starting point, and said that the firm was given freedom to review anything else in the agency’s possession the auditors deemed relevant. MDHS deferred Mississippi Today’s questions about why the auditor’s office did not let CLA examine John Davis’ hard drive to the auditor’s office and the auditor’s office has refused to respond to Mississippi Today’s questions.

CLA also noted that it was not provided records from Mississippi Community Education Center, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud scandal, and that MCEC did not cooperate with its probe. It’s unclear how many of these documents the auditor possessed but did not turn over to CLA – such as MCEC’s contract with Brett Favre for promotional activities, which was not discussed in the forensic audit.  The firm also noted it was not allowed access to John Davis’ personal finances.

“To the extent that CLA was limited in their ability to review records, MDHS was disappointed that the issues could not be fully explored in the forensic audit,” MDHS Director Bob Anderson told Mississippi Today in a statement.

In an addendum in late April of this year, CLA said it was allowed “expanded email review” by MDHS, with the agency providing the firm emails from a few others, including two other MDHS employees. The addendum still did not explore Bryant’s or Favre’s involvement in welfare spending.

Wood, who reviewed CLA’s audit reports, said, “I would say that scope limitation is odd.”

“I think that’s a fair question,” Wood said. “… The fact that (CLA) noted it in their report is what we call a scope limitation. It’s odd that they were not allowed access to the entire hard drive … It’s odd because the (Office of State Auditor) had it, so it wasn’t a situation where it was destroyed or the hard drive failed or something. It sounds like they have it, and I’m puzzled why they wouldn’t let them look at it.”

Wood said it also appears unusual that CLA was thwarted in trying to get nonprofit MCEC’s records.

“Were they not allowed to go up the ladder to the governor?” Wood said. “Sounds like from what you guys have uncovered, and from what’s cited in the OSA’s (earlier audit) report — it mentions Favre Enterprises — it strikes me as odd there’s no mention in CLA’s report of any of that. They did mention that they’ve reviewed the OSA’s report, and maybe they didn’t want to duplicate things.”

“There may be a reason why, but I’m surprised that there’s nothing discussed in their report about that,” Wood said. “OSA’s report mentioned a number of entertainers and things that they found were questionable … Usually a forensic audit is going to look at as much as possible. I’m not criticizing CLA’s work — It looks like they did it the right way as far as I can see.

“… It’s an interesting situation where OSA brought those actions, and then the state hires an independent audit firm, but then limits the scope of that audit,” Wood said.

THE BACKCHANNEL: Full coverage of Mississippi’s welfare scandal

The forensic audit helped the state Attorney General’s office craft its civil lawsuit trying to recoup misspent money intended to help poor people. While the lawsuit highlights the taxpayer dollars going to the private pharmaceutical venture, it does not scrutinize the role of former Gov. Bryant. Besides Favre, the lawsuit targets former football stars Marcus Dupree and Paul Lacoste, retired WWE wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase Sr. and his two sons, among others.

None of the audit reports or MDHS’s lawsuit contain relevant details reported in Mississippi Today’s investigative series, “The Backchannel,” such as Brett Favre’s communication with Bryant about pharmaceutical company Prevacus; a calendar entry in which John Davis recorded that the governor and Favre requested he meet with Prevacus; the athlete’s communication with Nancy New, John Davis and the governor about funding the volleyball facility; Nancy New’s relationship with the governor’s great nephew; or Bryant’s casual requests to John Davis to fund his favored vendors.

The lawsuit also fails to target numerous others involved in alleged misspending of welfare dollars. Notably, two entities that received welfare money through activities referenced in criminal proceedings — the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation and tech company Lobaki Inc. were not named in the suit.

Nonprofit MCEC’s director Nancy New and assistant director Zach New admitted to defrauding the government of $865,000 for a Lobaki virtual reality center and program. Zach New admitted to fraud by transferring $4 million in welfare money for the construction of a volleyball stadium at USM, disguised as a lease.

State officials have not said whether the state will try to recoup all misspent money from these entities or others that received payments auditors have questioned.

The News also recently pleaded guilty in a separate federal case involving public funding they bilked for their private schools. But in the state case, the News received a favorable plea deal that keeps them out of the state penitentiary, allowing them to avoid any more prison time for charges related to the welfare scheme, as long as they cooperate with the ongoing investigation. Such a deal suggest they may have valuable information prosecutors could use to pursue someone higher up the chain.

Bryant in a lengthy sit-down interview with Mississippi Today appeared to at least understand why people have more questions about the case.

“Now I can clearly see why you’re following those trails,” Bryant said. “And it doesn’t look good. Should I have caught it? Absolutely. I should’ve caught it. Was I extremely busy as governor? I can’t even describe to you what it is like on a daily basis as governor. This was not on the top of my list. This was not something that I was looking at every day. I’d get a text and it just kind of glance through it. I’d say, ‘Good,’ and I would go on and try to work on something really important for state government.”

Reporter Anna Wolfe contributed to this report.

The post ‘It doesn’t look good’: At 3-year mark, more questions than answers in Mississippi welfare fraud scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

INDIANOLA – The new crop of workers arrived with clipped accents and small khaki shorts. 

Richard Strong remembers the young men – farmers back home – had never seen a massive 28,000-pound tractor until traveling some 8,000 miles to Mississippi. 

As kids, Richard and his brother, Gregory, earned calloused palms chopping cotton in the swelter of southern summers. As adults, they spent 24 years filling acres with cotton, soybeans and corn on Pitts Farms – just like their daddy had. 

“Farming is actually in our DNA,” said Richard Strong, now 51. “I could close my eyes and drive a tractor.” 

But the brothers haven’t been on a tractor or in the fields in over two years. They say they unknowingly trained themselves out of jobs when the Pitts family hired South Africans through a visa program.  

The Pitts paid their foreign workforce nearly $12 an hour while their local workers – usually Black men – made just $7.25 to $9.50 per hour, according to a Department of Labor audit that spanned 2020 and 2021. The audit also found four local workers lost out on shifts when the temporary workers arrived. 

But the Strongs and other Black workers say the pay gap existed from the first day the South Africans started at the family-owned farm several years before. Records show the Pitts started seeking foreign workers as early as 2014. Locals got an occasional pay bump on the weekends, but mostly took home federal minimum wage as the farm started giving them fewer shifts, according to years of paystubs obtained by Mississippi Today.

The Strongs and six others – who worked for the Pitts for more than 100 combined years – say they were pushed out of their jobs completely.

“I just want to know how you do this with a clear conscience,” said Willie Mae Ward, daughter of a former Pitts worker. “I see it as slave driving.”

Pitts Farms is not the only Delta farm that has misused the program. A Mississippi Today investigation found at least five farms in the Delta paid their local workforce less money than workers who came to the state on foreign farm work permits – called H-2A visas – over the past few years.

All but one of those farms worked with an agency that specializes in recruiting South Africans, who are usually young, white and speak English. They’re eager for the American dollar, which holds 15 times the value of the South African rand. 

Across the Delta, farm owners say they’re responding to a generational shift from farming and a shortage of willing labor. Their local workforce is aging and foreign workers jump at the chance to come work in Mississippi.

But poor recruitment efforts among local workers, evidence of low wages, and a labor culture rooted in racism mean men like the Strongs wonder if there’s a future for them in the fields, or whether decades of family history end here. 

The brothers and their coworkers are named in a discrimination lawsuit against Pitts Farms. It was filed last year by lawyers with the Mississippi Center for Justice. The lawsuit alleges men, ranging in age from 42 to 71, were replaced by a younger and whiter workforce, in part by exploiting the visa program to import foreign laborers.

READ MORE: Here’s how we reported this story

Black workers have been sounding alarms across the Delta for the last year. 

This April, the lawyers handling the lawsuit against Pitts Farms filed another – this time, on behalf of five Black catfish farm workers at Harris Russell Farms in Sunflower. The workers made up to $3.38 less an hour than their South African counterparts, according to the lawsuit. 

The H-2A program is supposed to fill gaps for farmers when they cannot find enough local workers for seasonal positions. The program mandates a premium hourly wage, produced by a formula. This year in Mississippi, that wage rose to $12.45 per hour. Labor regulations mandate farms hiring H-2A workers must offer jobs to prior local workers at that adjusted rate and cannot pay current workers below it. 

Yet, another Black worker from a different Delta farm settled outside of court this year because his employer paid white South Africans more than him per hour. A recent Department of Labor investigation found two other catfish farmers – one in Indianola and the other in Tunica – paying local workers less money than those brought in through the foreign visa program, according to records obtained by Mississippi Today.  

“There has been a wholesale failure to adequately recruit U.S. farmworkers for H-2A jobs, particularly in the Mississippi Delta,” said Ty Pinkins, one of the Mississippi Center for Justice attorneys. “There are plenty of Delta residents with extensive experience who would eagerly accept a farm labor job that paid between $11 and $13 per hour.”

The Mississippi Delta is one of the country’s poorest regions with unemployment rates ranging from 4% to 12% across its 18 counties. 

The Pitts lawsuit was filed in September 2021 and is still moving forward in court. The farm, which has been family owned and run out of Indianola since at least 1987, declined to respond to Mississippi Today’s questions through their lawyer, but did offer a statement.

“We strongly disagree with the plaintiffs’ claims and we look forward to presenting the full set of facts in the course of the litigation and having this matter decided according to the law,” attorney Tim Threadgill said via email. 

The other farms Mississippi Today found underpaying local workers either declined to comment or never responded to a reporter.

So far this season, four of the five farms – including Pitts – have applied for foreign workers. The labor department has approved them all.

Nationwide, use of the H-2A program is exploding. 

It has more than doubled in size over the past decade, breaking a record last year when the U.S. issued nearly 258,000 of the temporary farm work visas.

In Mississippi, 368 farms asked for H2-A workers for the 2020-21 season, according to application data analyzed by Mississippi Today. Only 14 were denied. 

For the roughly 34,000 farms across Mississippi, about 400 cases have been opened by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in the past 15 years. Among that fraction, a Mississippi Today analysis found 81% of the cases ended with farms found breaking labor regulations. That’s about 10% higher than the national rate.

Critics say the fines for underpaying U.S. workers – $1,898 per offense – or failing to call back local workers for jobs are barely a deterrent. When farmers do get caught breaking wage rules, investigation records show they feign ignorance.

“For some of these employers, it’s like speeding down the highway when there’s not a lot of police out,” said Jim Knoepp, a lawyer and visa program expert with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s a good gamble they’ll never get caught.” 

Richard Strong would work for another farm if he could. Farmers talk, he said. As far as he can tell, he and his brother are blacklisted. 

Strong remembers a Pitts Farms manager telling him he was taking the farm into the “new millennium.” 

“A lot of stuff was going to change,” Strong recalled. “And there was a lot of people who wasn’t going to be a part of the farm.”

That meant men like Wesley Reed, 71, and Andrew Johnson, 67. Men who were born into the Jim Crow South and came of age during the earliest years of desegregation. Men who have only ever farmed. 

They may not be as spry as they were 40 years ago, but they know their way around a row-crop tractor. Both managed to find other jobs with farmers who don’t use South Africans.

“At the time I started, it was about the only job I could get because I have no education,” Johnson said as he refueled a John Deere tractor. 

He spent two decades working for the Pitts. He can’t read, but taught himself how to set up a tractor’s satellite settings. 

Johnson and Reed cannot afford to retire. They’ve never earned enough to save much.

One of their attorneys, Gregory Schell, points to payroll records Pitts Farms produced during the court case’s discovery: individual H-2A workers earned over $41,000 working for Pitts Farms in 2019. 

Reed, Schell said, earned $11,000 that year, as the Pitts stopped giving him as many shifts.

That was his last year with the farm. Johnson’s, too. Both had planned to come back in 2020. 

Reed – who had already asked for, and been denied, a raise – says he was told that year they weren’t sure they’d need him anymore. The South Africans were coming, Reed recalled.

Johnson waited for a phone call to return to work that never came.

Before Richard Strong found a pay stub that confirmed the South Africans were making higher wages, Reed had his suspicions.

A month after the lawsuit was filed, Reed sat in his shotgun living room, still in his dirtied denim overalls from a day plowing the fields.

“Did you know, when the South Africans started, they’d be paid more? How did you know?” Reed’s daughter, Willie Mae, asked. 

He smirked. 

“Skin color,” he said.

As attorneys with the Mississippi Center for Justice were piecing together the Pitts Farms lawsuit in early 2021, investigators from the Department of Labor were beginning an audit. 

It’s unclear what prompted DOL to look into Pitts Farms and whether it was related to the lawsuit. The department’s Wage and Hour Division, which handles H-2A program violations, has a hotline – 1-866-4-USWAGE – anyone can call to anonymously report mistreatment to help steer investigators. 

The audit of the farm’s payroll began in February 2021. The entire investigation was done remotely. The agency says that was because of COVID-19. 

Mississippi Today obtained a copy of the Pitts Farms audit through a public records request. 

On June 4, 2021, investigators had a conference call with Pitts Farms to explain that the Indianola business was facing 18 labor violations, owed local workers $76,000 in missing wages, and was being fined $25,000. 

Investigators wrote in their report Lisa Tharp, the office manager, said she and Pitts Farms were “not aware that local U.S. corresponding workers needed to be paid the same as H-2A workers.” 

But every year from 2014 to 2019 the Pitts applied for H-2A workers the farm’s owner, Will Pitts, signed agreements on its applications confirming that job opportunities for its local workers had “no less the same benefits, wages, and working conditions” as the incoming H-2A workers.

Despite Pitts Farms’ admission, the audit only looked at two seasons of the farm’s payroll: 2020 and 2021.

The two catfish farm owners in the Delta who were told to pay a combined $102,000 in back wages to their local workers in 2020 had a similar response when confronted about underpaying workers, according to investigation reports. The catfish cases also examined two years of payroll.

In a statement, the labor department said each of its investigations is driven by “the availability of evidence, including records and testimony.” Generally, the agency said, it applies a two-year investigation period as its standard scope. 

“Had they gone back even one more year, they would have picked up on every one of our clients being underpaid,” said Schell, one of the men’s attorneys. 

Of the eight men included in the Pitts Farms case, only one got a portion of the $76,000 in wages the investigators found missing from workers’ paychecks, according to Schell.

Before asking for foreign workers, Pitts – like all H-2A farms – was required to offer jobs to the locals who had worked at the farm before, usually by mail. Investigators found Pitts hadn’t done that, either. 

The farm argued that the local workers who lived on the farm’s property were drawing unemployment and did not want to work out of fear of COVID-19 exposure. Yet, as the investigators pointed out, the violations occurred before the pandemic began. 

Schell called the audit a perfunctory investigation.

He estimates the men in the lawsuit are owed more than $100,000 in unpaid wages. There is a larger amount being sought in addition that would cover lost hours. Schell said his team is still calculating that figure.

“I’m doing the math and the Pitts came out way ahead,” he said. 

When COVID-19’s omicron variant closed the U.S. borders to South Africans, Mississippi farm owners panicked. 

They had become so reliant on South African workers that the ability to harvest crops was dependent upon their arrival. In response, Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation President Mike McCormick wrote a letter to the state’s members of Congress, begging that South African farm workers be exempt from any potential travel bans.

The State Department made provisions within days so that the farm workers could travel without issue.

The visa program is popular because it brings in workers for eight to 10 months and sends them home during the winter season, McCormick told Mississippi Today

“It fits the farm industry,” he said. “No work for four months? That’s a hard thing to justify (to local workers). Maybe back in the old days, but as expensive as things are today, everybody needs to collect a paycheck every week.” 

Farmers say as their longtime workers reach retirement, there isn’t a young workforce eager – or with the proper skills – to take their places, which has added to the popularity of the H-2A program. 

“Coming generations of workers in our state, most of them did not grow up on a farm,” said Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson. “They don’t really know the current status of the type of work that’s performed or the high-tech technology it takes even to use a tractor today.” 

More than 90% of H-2A workers come from Mexico. South Africans make up about 3% of the program, according to DOL data.

Ricky Williamson, a rice and soybean farmer in Tutwiler, has been using Mexican H-2A workers for the past decade. Farmers have to reimburse travel expenses. Williamson said he uses workers from Mexico to keep those costs down. 

“I have no local labor because they don’t apply for jobs,” Williamson said. “I run ads in the paper and they don’t respond. I would like to have some, but I just think they’re not interested.”

Growers are required to advertise the jobs to U.S. workers before seeking H-2A employees. They often list farming experience requirements along with the ability to read and write or the completion of high school or high school equivalency.

Only six Delta counties have full-time WIN Job Centers, which host the job postings on their website. Swaths of the Delta struggle with reliable internet access. That leaves some agriculture experts unimpressed with the efforts farmers are taking to reach or train workers in their own zip codes.

Farm workers told Mississippi Today that finding a job is about who you know.

“White farmers say they tried to hire labor locally and couldn’t find it when they’re in a region with the highest unemployment rate in the country?” posed Lloyd Wright, the former civil rights director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

“That takes a big imagination.” 

Wright has researched the Delta. He’s spent time in South Africa, too, as an expert in rural farming. 

Most of his work at the USDA involved systemic racism that limited USDA funds going to Black-owned farms, making it all the more challenging for them to survive. 

White-owned Mississippi farms have an extensive post-slavery history of finding ways to both exploit, and minimize their reliance on, Black workers – from tenant farming and sharecropping to using European prisoners of war in the fields during World War II. A century ago, there were about 1 million Black farm owners. The USDA says of the country’s 3.4 million farmers today, only about 45,000 are Black

The mostly Black population of the Delta largely struggles in poverty. There are few industries to provide jobs other than agriculture. Small towns in the region can have upwards of 50% unemployment rates, according to a 2016 Alcorn State University study. 

Federal dollars regularly flow into the region – but to farm owners through the U.S. Department of Agriculture grants. Public records show Pitts Farms received nearly $2 million in USDA grants since 2018. 

“These towns are crumbling in the Delta,” Wright said. Since farmers accept this money readily, they need to “get local folks educated so they can provide for their communities. The bodies are available.”

Cindy Ayers Elliott is an investment-banker-turned-farm-owner based in Jackson. Like Wright, she worries the growing popularity of the H-2A program is sending needed money out of the Delta, as H-2A workers primarily save up to bring their earnings back home.  

If farm owners are struggling to attract workers, Elliot said, they need to ask themselves why. One of the answers? The children of farmworkers grew up watching their parents struggle on minimum wage. 

“Right now, systemic racism is in the farm culture in Mississippi,” she said. 

Farm owners don’t have the time to hunt down South African workers themselves – so they outsource the task. Most use an agency to handle the H-2A process from paperwork to finding a pool of applicants for a fee. 

Of the 354 Mississippi farms that were approved for H-2A workers last year, about half used the Mississippi-based agency C.O.C Placement Service. That same agency also handled finding workers for four of the farms Mississippi Today found underpaying its local workers. 

The company declined to speak to Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today contacted two dozen farmers that used the agency. Most declined to speak with a reporter out of fear it would bring attention to their farm and prompt a labor department investigation.

“These practices by third-party organizations, like C.O.C Placement, simply show that there has previously been – and likely still is – widespread non-compliance by farm owners to pay local U.S. workers the (wages) required,” said Pinkins, one of the attorneys.

Mississippi farmers say they like South Africans because they’re dedicated. South Africans say they like Mississippi farmers because they want to get paid American wages. 

“When they come here, they want to go six days a week,” said Allen Flowers, who runs a mom-and-pop soybean farm in Greenwood. “They’re polite and all about being on time.” 

A 15-hour workday isn’t unusual, H-2A workers said. Nor is seeing tractors in the fields after dark when visibility is low – a risk local workers told Mississippi Today they wouldn’t feel safe taking. 

The South African workers are usually – if not always – white. The apartheid regime fell three decades ago, but the country’s 80% Black population’s historic limited access to wealth and landownership hasn’t made it easy for them to join the H-2A program. 

Neil Diamond, the president of the South African Chamber of Commerce U.S.A., says his commission is working to bring more Black South Africans into the program but their lack of participation is a definite shortfall. 

The South Africans who do make it to America get a respite from their country’s own problems, as it continues to grapple with a high rate of violent crime.

“Everything is about the money,” said Dwayne Van Der Walt, a former H-2A worker from South Africa. “No man would leave behind his wife and children if it wasn’t for the good salary there, so you can buy burglary-proof stuff and better fences to keep homes safer.” 

Van Der Walt, 31, spent seven years working months at a time on U.S. farms, including in Clarksdale and Greenwood. 

In America, he was able to save up about $20,000. It went far in South Africa, where he’s now a trucker. He got his commercial license while working in America. The program helped set him up to support his 3-year-old child as a single parent. 

H-2A workers told Mississippi Today that performing a similar type of farm work in South Africa would pay just a few hundred dollars a month. 

The only raise Black Pitts Farms workers ever recalled getting was when the federal minimum wage changed.

That means as recently as 1989, these workers were making just $3.35 an hour. That’s about a $1 raise each decade to hit $7.25.

In December, civil rights group the Leadership Conference Education Fund wrote a letter to Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh stating the department’s efforts to protect Black southern workers was “falling short.” They were referring to the Pitts Farms lawsuit.

“Unfortunately, in all too many instances, importation of these foreign workers has been to the extreme detriment of rural U.S. employees, many of whom are people of color,” the letter said. 

The labor department responded by touting their Pitts Farms investigation – the one Mississippi Today found only captured a two-year payroll audit. 

Walsh’s office has since announced plans to hold a roundtable discussion in Indianola.

“Equity is a critical issue for the department, and the Wage and Hour Division is firmly committed to working with our stakeholders on the ground to protect the most vulnerable workers,” a DOL spokesperson said in a statement.

On June 8, the agents who investigate farm wages and other violations held a seminar in the Delta to explain regulations and the audit process – like the one the Pitts went through – to farm owners.

Diamond, the director of the South African commerce office, says any farm or agency found breaking the rules is kicked out of their trade group. 

“There are bad actors out there,” he said. “We don’t have control over everyone, it’s a very large program, but we encourage farmers and workers to be fully compliant with the regulations.” 

These days, Richard Strong makes money cutting hair. His brother takes on odd mechanic jobs. 

One of the other men in the Pitts lawsuit, a truck driver in his 40s, now drives for Dollar General rather than transporting crops. It’s the first time in his adult life he’s had health insurance. 

Richard misses the tractor’s steady thrum. Sometimes, he closes his eyes and he’s back. He can see the controls in his head. 

He has a 15-year-old son, Amaureon, who wants to farm. The teen is drawn to the powerful machinery, the massive tractors, the combines – just like his dad. 

He’s in a farming program at school where he works hands-on with equipment. He takes pride in watching dirt and seeds become corn through his hard work.

“Farming is the one thing I’ve always loved,” he said.

He knows what his father has gone through. He knows it’s unfair. But he still wants to farm.

He watched a tractor rake through a field across the street from his home on a recent morning. He thought about owning acres of land. Maybe one day he could be his own boss. 

That way, he wouldn’t be at the whims of someone else.

Note: Mississippi Today reporter Alex Rozier contributed to this report.

The post Exploited: White Delta farm owners are underpaying and pushing out Black workers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today reporter Sara DiNatale spent eight months investigating the state of the farming workforce in the Delta. She interviewed a dozen local and H-2A visa farm workers, including some currently living in South Africa.

She examined three investigation files from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which Mississippi Today obtained through public information requests.

What she discovered was alarming: At least five Delta farms paid their primarily Black local workforce less money per hour than temporary workers from other countries — most often, white men from South Africa.

“I started investigating the dynamics at play among the workforce on Delta farms because I knew it was more than just a lawsuit story,” DiNatale said. “I knew if I spent time listening and searching, records would back up what these men were telling me. And that’s what we were able to find.”

DiNatale along with data reporter Alex Rozier analyzed 15 years of labor department enforcement data to show the high rate Mississippi farms are found to be breaking labor laws when investigated by federal agents. They also sorted through nationwide H-2A applications data to identify trends among the Mississippi farms that used the program last year.

DiNatale contacted more than 30 farm owners throughout the Delta and spent time with veteran farmworkers. Her reporting was informed by interviews with agricultural academics from Alcorn State University, University of Arkansas and Tuskegee University, as well as researchers at the Economic Policy Institute. She attended a virtual session held by the Department of Labor meant to educate about farmworkers’ rights and missteps often made by farmers using the H-2A program.

While she used information shared in the Mississippi Center for Justice’s lawsuits against Pitts Farms and Harris Russell Farm, she also verified information shared by attorneys with former workers and experts familiar with the H-2A program.

“The problem our investigation uncovered is complex and nuanced,” DiNatale said. “But Mississippi leadership has made it clear they want to focus on creating well-paying jobs in the state. I think the biggest takeaway of everything is: Don’t forget about the Delta.”

The post How we reported the story: White Delta farm owners underpay, push out Black workers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo, representing Mississippi’s 4th District, became the first incumbent congressman to lose in a party primary in recent state history when he was defeated Tuesday by Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell in the Republican primary runoff.

Another incumbent congressman, Michael Guest of the 3rd District in central Mississippi, easily survived a runoff challenge from former Navy pilot Michael Cassidy in the Republican primary.

In the west Mississippi 2nd District runoff Tuesday, Brian Flowers defeated Ronald Eller and will run in the November election against incumbent Democrat Bennie Thompson, the state’s only African American U.S. House member. 

Incumbents Guest and Palazzo were forced to runoff elections because neither garnered a majority vote in the first primary earlier this month.

Guest, a former district attorney representing Madison and Rankin counties in suburban Jackson, actually trailed Cassidy, a campaign novice, in the first primary vote.

But in the runoff, the Republican establishment and the Guest campaign, which apparently had underestimated Cassidy, waged an intensive campaign, easily outdistancing Cassidy. Late Tuesday with results still coming in, Guest had a commanding 67% to 33% lead over Cassidy.

Palazzo did not have similar success in the runoff. In late results, Ezell had a 54% to 46% lead over the incumbent.

The Associated Press called both races late Tuesday.

Ezell in his campaign had hit Palazzo on a long-running complaint the 12-year incumbent has faced: That he is inaccessible to constituents and often absent from the district or in Congress. Palazzo also has been under a House ethics investigation over allegations he used campaign and congressional funds for personal expenses.

In 2010 Palazzo was a member of the state House representing Harrison County when he was a surprise candidate against incumbent Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor. Most gave Palazzo little chance of upending the long-time incubent Taylor, viewed as a fixture in Gulf Coast politics.

But Palazzo took advantage of the historic Republican wave in 2010 to upset Taylor.

Palazzo’s loss appears to be the first time an incumbent U.S. House member has lost a party primary election in Mississippi since 1962. In that year incumbent Jamie Whitten defeated fellow incumbent Frank Smith in the Democratic primary after they were placed in the same district after Mississippi lost a House seat.

In the 3rd District, Cassidy ran as a Donald Trump conservative, but Guest attacked his conservative principals in late campaign ads. Cassidy, a Lauderdale County resident, had touted on his campaign web page various social spending programs, such as a universal health care proposal. Cassidy later renounced those programs, but not before giving Guest campaign fodder.

Cassidy attacked Guest as a “Republican in name only” and for voting for the proposed Jan. 6 Commission to investigate the attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Trump opposed the commission.

In the November general election, Guest will face Democrat Shuwaski Young. Ezell will face Democrat Johnny DuPree and Libertarian Alden Johnson.

The post Ezell unseats Palazzo, Guest fends off Cassidy in Mississippi midterm runoffs appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Today’s January 6th Hearing testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson was nothing short of stunning.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Stunning Testimony appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A civil defendant in Mississippi’s massive welfare misspending scandal is arguing that if he’s being sued, so should former Gov. Phil Bryant.

That is just one explosive nugget included in a Friday court filing from Austin Smith, nephew to the now disgraced former welfare director John Davis and a former contractor of Nancy New’s nonprofit. The state is suing Smith for nearly half a million dollars.

Smith, in the filing, also alleges:

• That he was directed by members of Bryant’s inner circle to expend federal grant funds on an expensive advertising contract with the company that owns Supertalk Radio, the conservative network that spans the entire state and touts Republican leaders. 

• That Nancy New, who has pleaded guilty to misspending millions in federal grant money including for celebrity rehab stints, told Smith she also paid for rehab for the son of Supertalk CEO Kim Dillon. Kim Dillon denied this allegation on Tuesday.

• That Smith was wrongfully accused of calling his uncle and welfare agency director John Davis gay — a falsehood, Smith says, that isolated him from his family.

• That the state of Mississippi has protected other entities that were involved in misspending of welfare funds, including the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation and members of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, which allowed for the use of $5 million in federal public assistance funds to build a new volleyball stadium.

Bryant consulted concussion drug company Prevacus, one of the civil defendants that received stolen welfare funds, and the former governor was even poised to accept stock in the company after he left office — a deal only made public after Mississippi Today obtained text messages between Bryant and former NFL legend Brett Favre. Smith’s recent filing uses Mississippi Today’s reporting to criticize the state for failing to name Bryant as a defendant, considering what the news organization found about the former governor’s role in the scandal.

FULL COVERAGE: Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” investigation

Through a written statement Tuesday, Bryant rejected the notion that he should be held civilly responsible in the scheme.

Independent forensic auditors found that at least $77 million in federal welfare funds were misspent or stolen from Mississippi Department of Human Services during Bryant’s last four years in office. The agency filed a lawsuit in May seeking about $24 million from 38 individuals or organizations, but Bryant — who had the sole, statutory responsibility to oversee the spending of the state’s welfare agency — was not among the defendants.

The latest filing aims to demonstrate that Bryant had a close relationship with Davis and New and is just as responsible for the scheme. Without a bid or application process, Mississippi Department of Human Services, a department under the governor’s office, selected New’s nonprofit to receive tens of millions of welfare dollars, which they spent with little oversight.

“The most plausible reason for this massive transfer to New and her companies is the friendship between Bryant and New. There was no ‘full and open competition’ for this massive federal funding as required,” the filing reads.

New pleaded guilty to bribery, fraud and racketeering while Davis is still pleading not guilty to several similar charges. Much of the case deals with the fact that funds from a federal program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, which is supposed to provide assistance to needy families, were used in ways that didn’t help the poor.

“Governor Bryant’s personal involvement in these misexpenditures would have communicated to Governor Bryant’s immediate subordinate, John Davis, and to Governor Bryant’s long-time, personal friend, Nancy New, that Bryant did not require TANF funds to be used exclusively for the benefit of needy families, but that the governor ratified and approved use of TANF funds for non-TANF purposes,” the filing reads. “Thus, to the extent that Governor Bryant’s immediate subordinate, John Davis, and close personal friend, Nancy New, were expending TANF funds for non-TANF purposes without ‘full and open competition,’ Governor Bryant is jointly responsible.”

Denton Gibbes, a spokesperson for Bryant, defended the former governor in a fiery retort Tuesday.

“The ‘Answer’ filed by Austin Smith’s attorney is truly a work of fiction and an attempt to draw attention away from his client,” Gibbes wrote in an email. “Fortunately, the justice system requires more than hearsay, political jabs, and baseless conclusions. The only thing that doesn’t appear to be a complete fabrication or distortion of the truth is the fact that Governor Bryant was the whistle blower who turned the evidence over to the state auditor, the state watchdog over state agencies that traditionally investigates allegations of fraud and misspending.”

In response, Jim Waide, the Tupelo attorney representing Smith, noted that some lawyers take the approach that if you “deny something strongly enough, people will believe it.”

“I don’t see how he’s going to deny what he said in his own text messages,” Waide said.

Smith alleges in his filing that Bryant had promised Davis a position in the consulting firm Bryant established after he left office.

Instead, Davis explained to his family members, Bryant told him he was going to “fucking jail,” the lawsuit states, because Davis had allowed an agency contractor, retired professional wrestler Brett DiBiase, to use Davis’ own P.O. Box to receive payment of $48,000 from the agency.

This comparatively small suspected instance of fraud — not information related to the Nancy New nonprofit, the volleyball stadium or Prevacus, projects of which Bryant was aware — is the tip Bryant took to State Auditor Shad White in 2019.

“Governor Bryant apparently believed this check was a kickback,” the filing reads.

But in reality, the filing alleges, Brett DiBiase used his boss’ address to retrieve payment because he was in the middle of a divorce and wanted to hide the income from his wife. In a 2019 polygraph interview, in which state auditor’s investigators tried to discern whether Davis had received a kickback, Brett DiBiase explained that he used the money to lavish his girlfriend, not on Davis.

Davis helped direct over $5 million in welfare funds to organizations owned by the DiBiases. The state is also suing the DiBiases for repayment. If Davis received something of monetary value from the DiBiases in exchange for contracts, which would be a clear crime, officials have yet to describe what it was.

The recent filing touches on another wrinkle in the case that hasn’t become public thus far: Davis’ sexuality. Smith, in the filing, alleges that Brett DiBiase told Davis that Smith told DiBiase that Davis is gay. Smith said both Davis and his own parents became hostile towards Smith as a result.

Smith denies telling Brett DiBiase that Davis is gay, but much speculation has swirled around this case because of the flagrant favoritism the welfare director showed to Brett DiBiase and his brother Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. and the closeness of their relationships.

Davis and Teddy DiBiase swapped Christian devotionals, traveled out of state and exercised at the gym together, Mississippi Today first reported in its investigative series, “The Backchannel.” Davis frequently texted the older brother, “I love you.” The welfare director flew across the country to visit Brett DiBiase while he was in drug rehab, discussed his treatment options with a specialist and called him the “son I never had.” Davis directed New to use nonprofit funds to pay for Brett DiBiase’s rebab stint, text messages obtained by Mississippi Today show, resulting in criminal charges against New and Davis. When not together, Davis and Brett DiBiase shared long, late-night phone calls, phone records show.

Ties between the DiBiases and the welfare department are central to both criminal and civil cases against several defendants. Brett and Teddy are the sons of famous retired WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase, known as “The Million Dollar Man.” Smith’s filing alleges that Davis said Bryant was in on the welfare program’s partnership with the wrestlers — something the former governor has publicly denied.

“John Davis told Austin Smith that Governor Bryant wanted money received from a federal program called a ‘faith-based initiative,’ to be administered by the Heart of David Ministries, Inc., run by Ted DiBiase, Sr., ‘The Million Dollar Man,’” the filing reads. “According to what John Davis told Austin Smith, Governor Bryant claimed that Heart of David Ministries, Inc., and Ted DiBiase, Sr., would bring movies to the State of Mississippi.”

“Assuming that the ‘faith-based initiative’ actually means TANF funds,” the filing continues, “Governor Bryant could not have actually believed that Heart of David Ministries, Inc., operated by the DiBiases (a professional wrestling family), had a ‘special skill’ to expend welfare money for the benefit of needy families. Ted DiBiase, Sr., ‘The Million Dollar Man,’ was a champion in professional wrestling, a pseudosport, in which the champions are determined by fixed matches. According to a post about him on Wikipedia, ‘The Million Dollar Man’ repeatedly bragged that he was paying bribes for his championship belts.”

Michael Dawkins, the attorney for Ted DiBiase Sr. and Heart of David, said his client “acted in good faith reliance on the direction that was given to them by the state” and that the state monitored their work.

Smith’s filing also sheds new light on the state government’s relationship with conservative talk radio network SuperTalk.

In addition to working as a contractor for the Families First for Mississippi program, in which he was hired to develop a curriculum for an educational coding program, Smith also worked for the Mississippi Community College Board as a program manager for the state’s $10.6 million federal Preschool Development Grant (PDGB5). Smith alleges that a high level policy advisor in Bryant’s office, Laurie Smith, no relation to Austin Smith, called all the shots for how the grant would be spent.

“During his time with the Community College Board, Austin Smith refused to ‘sign off’ on only one expenditure,” the filing reads. “(Mississippi Community College Board President) Dr. (Andrea) Mayfield, in the presence of Dr. Laurie Smith, directed Austin Smith to sign an authorization for payment for advertising to TeleSouth Communications, a large media company which operates the well-known radio show ‘SuperTalk.’ Austin Smith declined to sign for this advertising because the time for making the expenditure under the terms of the grant had expired.”

SuperTalk heavily promoted the Families First for Mississippi program — through which most of the welfare funds were allegedly misspent or stolen. The parent company, TeleSouth Communications, received more than $630,000 from the two nonprofits running the welfare program, according to the state auditor.

“After the PDGB5 Grant expired, Austin Smith was the only grant employee whose  employment was terminated. Among the PDGB5 Grant employees retained were Austin Smith’s secretary, the niece of SuperTalk’s prominent host, Paul Gallo,” Austin Smith’s filing reads.

Davis had close communication with Supertalk CEO Kim Dillon and the two would discuss the progress of her son Logan Dillon, who worked as a lobbyist for the welfare department, Mississippi Today first reported in April.

“I talked with Logan last night and told him I had dinner with you. I didn’t go into what all we talked about but did let him know. I appreciate everything you have done for him!” Kim Dillon texted Davis in 2019.

Austin Smith’s filing could provide context for their communication: “Nancy New informed Austin Smith that she was paying for treatment for Logan Dillon, the son of Kim Dillon, the chief executive officer of TeleSouth Communications,” the filing alleges. “Logan Dillon is also a former legislative liaison for Governor Bryant. The fact that such welfare department funds were likely used for the treatment of Logan Dillon is corroborated by Logan Dillon’s former wife, an acquaintance of Austin Smith, who informed Austin Smith that her ex-husband, Logan Dillon, in fact, was receiving treatment paid for by Nancy New’s nonprofit.”

“Such a misuse of money intended for TANF beneficiaries is especially egregious since State law establishes onerous requirements for needy families to receive benefits,” the filing reads.

Kim Dillon denied the allegation, saying to Mississippi Today in a text message Tuesday, “Any medical treatment received by my son is subject to HIPAA laws and regulations. Any allegation that Nancy New or one of her related organizations paid for any medical treatment for my son is categorically false.”

Waide, Smith’s attorney, responded that HIPAA laws prevent providers from sharing medical records, but does not apply to the source of payment for medical treatment. “If they want to check out the sources to show they didn’t pay for it, then that’s the way to go about it to clear it up,” Waide said.

Smith’s filing also criticizes the state for failing to include as defendants the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation, which received $5 million in welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at the school, and Lobaki Foundation, which received nearly $800,000 to run a virtual reality program forensic auditors determined did not serve the needy.

Nancy New admitted to defrauding the government related to her nonprofit’s payments of $365,000 to Lobaki and her son and the nonprofit’s assistant director, Zach New, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government by paying the USM athletic foundation $4 million, which was disguised as a lease.

In addition to Smith’s filing, three other answers to MDHS’s complaint have been filed on behalf of defendants Amy Harris, Adam Such and his company SBGI LLC, and Ted DiBiase Sr. and his ministry Heart of David. Each of them denies the allegations.

Austin Smith’s answer to the civil lawsuit ultimately argues that the state has denied him equal protection of the law since the state did not also name Bryant and others as defendants.

“Arbitrarily naming Austin Smith, who has no assets with which to pay a judgment, while not suing politically-influential entities, such as former Governor Phil Bryant,” the answer reads, “… represents arbitrary denial of equal protection of laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The post Former Gov. Phil Bryant should be sued over misspent welfare funds, civil defendant argues to court appeared first on Mississippi Today.

All four Hinds County chancellors recused themselves from the lawsuit filed by the state’s only abortion clinic asking that a law banning abortions in Mississippi be stopped from taking effect.

The four chancery judges, Denise Owens, J. Dewayne Thomas, Crystal Wise Martin and Tiffany Grove, recused themselves from the case Tuesday and requested the state Supreme Court appoint a special judge to hear the case.

Earlier on Tuesday, attorneys for Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only remaining abortion clinic in the state, filed a request for a temporary restraining order.

The order, if enacted by the court, would temporarily halt a trigger law that would ban most abortions in the state and another law that would ban abortions in the state after the sixth week of pregnancy.

READ MORE: 1998 state court ruling leads to lawsuit that could prolong Mississippi abortion fight

Roe v. Wade, which upheld the constitutional right to an abortion, was overturned on Friday in a watershed decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch certified that Roe had been overturned, meaning that under an existing (or trigger) law, abortions would be banned in the state after 10 days.

But later Monday, the lawsuit was filed saying the trigger law and the six-week ban were invalid because an all but forgotten 1998 ruling by the state Supreme Court that held the right to an abortion was protected by the state constitution.

“Given that the decision was issued by the Mississippi Supreme Court based on the Mississippi Constitution, it is not dependent upon the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution,” the lawsuit filed on behalf of the abortion clinic said.

The 1998 Supreme Court decision saying the right to an abortion was protected by the state constitution upheld a decision issued by then-Hinds County Chancellor Patricia Wise. The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the abortion providers was originally assigned to Wise’s daughter, Chancellor Crystal Wise Martin, before she and the other Hinds County chancellors recused themselves Tuesday.

It is not clear whether the state will try to enforce the trigger law if the case is not resolved within 10 days. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Fitch’s office has said the office would not comment on pending litigation.

The post Hinds County judges recuse themselves from abortion lawsuit challenging ‘trigger law’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Northern District Transportation Commissioner John Caldwell postponed the disbursement of $100 million to cities and counties for emergency road and bridge needs Tuesday saying he wanted more details on how the funds were being divvied.

Caldwell said he had told Mississippi Department of Transportation staff he wanted data on how the projects were selected before voting on them. Because he said he did not have that information, he voted against approving the list of projects Tuesday at the monthly Transportation Commission meeting.

The other two commissioners – Tom King of the Southern District and Willie Simmons of the Central District – voted to approve the funds, but the law creating the Emergency Road and Bridge Fund in a 2018 special session mandated a unanimous vote of the commission to spend the money.

“We will get it worked out,” Caldwell said after the meeting. “I asked them (staff members) not to put it on the agenda if they did not have the data. I did not think they were.”

The Legislature appropriated $100 million for the fund during the 2022 session. The commission was voting Tuesday in an attempt to disburse the funds before the new fiscal year begins July 1.

“We told them in April not to put this out at the last minute,” Caldwell said. He said the hoped to have the list of projects finalized by early June so that it could presented to the Mississippi Municipal League and the Supervisors Association during their annual conferences and then the commission could vote on it at the Tuesday meeting.

The Legislature created the Emergency Road and Bridge Fund in a 2018 special session focused on fixing the state’s crumbling infrastructure, and helping local governments that were facing widespread emergency bridge closures because of disrepair.

In earlier rounds of funding for the program, MDOT was able to use some of the money — about a third — on state projects. But in this year’s session the Legislature, flush with money, provided more direct funds to MDOT and decreed that the entire $100 million it allocated to the emergency fund go only to county and city projects.

The Emergency Road and Bridge Fund has an advisory board, but the three-member elected state Transportation Commission must officially – and unanimously – sign off on projects. MDOT staff vets and analyzes the projects and makes efforts to spread them evenly through the three state transportation districts.

White said the plan initially was to use an existing list of approved city and county projects, but that because of inflation and other issues, the advisory council and MDOT staff decided to reopen the application process for the $100 million.

“The law (providing $100 million) was passed in April, and we opened the applications in mid-April to May for locals to apply,” White said. “… In keeping with what we’ve done since 2018, we used computer data analytics, had staff manually go through each application, and also followed the legislative intent that we have equity in projects across the state.”

White said the vetting took some time, and the recommended list was presented to the advisory council a little over a week ago. The council approved the list, White said, then it was provided to the Transportation Commission a week ago.

White said he intends to present the list again for ratification at the commission’s next meeting on July 12, and hopes that Caldwell will have had enough time to review it and the panel will vote unanimously. But under the law, White said, the money sits in limbo until the commission unanimously approves projects.

White said counties and cities presented more than $700 million worth of projects for the $100 million available. He said there were 378 applications, including 297 from counties and 81 from cities or towns. Of those, he said, 54 county projects and seven city or town projects were chosen to present to the commission for the $100 million.

The post Caldwell holds up $100M emergency road, bridge money for cities and counties appeared first on Mississippi Today.

We value the thoughts and opinions Mississippi Today readers have on news and other current events, which is why we’ve committed to listening and responding to topics that matter to readers. We want to know what you are curious about so we can get you the answers you need! We’ll prompt readers for questions each month. For June, we ask you:

Text your question to +1 (844) 626-5588 or write it below, and we’ll work to get you answers!

The post What questions do you have about LGBTQ+ rights in Mississippi? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Twenty-two years ago, The Tomato Place was nothing more than one of four fruit and veggie stands run by Luke Hughes.

“I was here sorting tomatoes, when this guy comes up, takes a look at my tomatoes and asks if we could make him a sandwich. I made him a sandwich. Guess he must’ve really liked it,” Hughes says with a chuckle. “Because the very next day, he came back for another one. The rest, as they say, is history.”

And, so began The Tomato Place, located just south of a wicked curve on the blues highway — U.S. 61 South — in Vicksburg.

A sign in the business brings a smile to the faces of all who come: “Welcome Home! We are a slow food, smell the roses, hear the music, feel the atmosphere kind of place.”

So, there was never a need for a Robert Johnson-esque deal with the Devil for success. The great food, friendly atmosphere, Americana art and souvenirs have made the little roadside business a worldwide attraction.

The post The Tomato Place, a Mississippi treasure appeared first on Mississippi Today.