OurTupelo

Years before Mississippi’s welfare scandal broke, one statistic provided a foreshadowing: The state had approved just 1.5% of applications for cash welfare in 2016.

In the month of April of 2017, when the figure hit the local news, the Mississippi Department of Human Services approved just five out of 824 applications, or 0.06%, for assistance under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program.

Inexplicably, the department’s TANF application approval rate immediately increased to around 25% after that. But the caseload of people on the program continued to decline. In 2018, at the height of the scandal, Mississippi spent $113 million in federal TANF funds – its annual allotment of $86.5 million plus unspent funds from past years – and just 5% went to cash assistance for needy families. That left over $100 million in virtually free money for officials to spend.

But Mississippi isn’t the only state that turns away most applicants for TANF. Texas, for example, is approving less than 5% of people applying for the aid, according to federal data analyzed by Mississippi Today.

Nationally, only about 21% of families living in poverty received cash welfare in 2020. In Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, that figure is 4%.

The current assistance program, born out of welfare reform in the 1990s, replaced the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children entitlement program with a block grant that allows states broad flexibility to spend the money as they wish. The assistance program became a work program. The main metric states would be required to track within the program was the percentage of recipients meeting work requirements.

Since then, the number of poor families that receive what is commonly referred to as the “welfare check” has fallen nationally from a monthly average of about 4.5 million families in 1996 to less than 800,000 in 2022. In Mississippi, the number fell from nearly 48,000 families to about 1,600.

Instead, states spend the bulk of the federal money, about 80% of the $16.6 billion nationally in 2020, on other services such as workforce training activities ($2.6 billion), child care ($1.4 billion), child welfare ($1.2 billion), out-of-wedlock pregnancy prevention ($129 million), and fatherhood programs ($114 million).

But there is no federal repository of data showing which organizations actually receive the money to perform these functions, what specific programs they offer, how they spend the money, who they help and what outcomes they achieve. In the case of Mississippi, the state didn’t compile this information either.

The open-ended program resulted in one of the biggest public fraud scandals in Mississippi history under the administration of former Gov. Phil Bryant, whose office oversaw the welfare department’s strategy and goals. State and nonprofit officials used tens of millions in federal funds that were supposed to assist very poor families — or at least offer opportunities to families to help them avoid falling into poverty — to purchase property, lavish their friends and family, or to prop up programs that had little to do with alleviating poverty. Meanwhile, the state divested from the legacy public assistance programs, which were serving fewer and fewer people.

Welfare expenditures inspired by NFL legend Brett Favre — including a $1.1 million advertising contract, $5 million in payments towards the construction of a volleyball stadium and $2 million for a pharmaceutical venture he was investing in — have made national headlines.

Millions in total also went to other purposes, including pro football players and wrestlers, lobbyists, a virtual reality academy, expensive PR campaigns and a conservative talk radio station.

Mississippi characterized most of these purchases to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as "Work Supports" or "Fatherhood and Two Parent Family Formation," but the federal government did not require the state to report virtually anything more than that.

The state auditor, who is responsible for annually auditing state agencies that spend federal funds, uncovered the purchases, but only after a Mississippi Department of Human Services employee took a small tip of suspected fraud related to the former welfare director and the wrestlers to Bryant, who turned that over to the auditor.

Today, Mississippi’s use of TANF funds is not totally clear. Of the $86.5 million it receives from the federal government each year, just $3.7 million went to direct cash assistance in 2020, the latest federal financial data available. In the two years since the scandal broke, TANF caseloads continued to decline to a low of 166 adults and 2,067 children in January of 2022. They’ve grown slightly since then, but nowhere near the roughly 6,700 adults and 17,500 children on the program 10 years ago in 2012, and even further from the roughly 33,000 adults and 96,000 children on the program in 1996.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services still pushes out a large portion of TANF funds to nonprofits and organizations to provide various services.

After the auditor's investigation began, the department began requiring organizations applying for TANF subgrants to submit formal requests for proposals — a standard accountability procedure that hadn’t been in place since 2012, according to records Mississippi Today requested. It also now pays subgrantees on a reimbursement basis, instead of making upfront payments. In the 2021 grant year, the department awarded grants to 25 organizations for a total of around $36 million in awards.

The grants cover parenting initiatives ($8.1 million), after school programs ($13.7 million), and workforce development ($14.9 million).

"In its continuing training cycles, MDHS is also striving to define more clearly what a model subgrantee looks like," the agency said in a statement Monday. "That model subgrantee is a partner who delivers genuine value to the TANF population by focusing on key activities such as, but not limited to, workforce training and parenthood initiatives."

The department has not yet issued awards for the 2022 grant year, which ended this month.

The state also uses around $30 million in TANF funds each year to supplement the budget of the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, the state agency tasked with investigating child abuse and overseeing the state’s foster care system, which is typically shortchanged by the state Legislature.

It’s unclear how Mississippi Department of Human Services may be using the rest of the grant funds. In the state’s public accounting system, not all TANF expenses are labeled “TANF,” making it impossible to conduct a full accounting with the publicly facing data.

Asked for an accounting, MDHS only provided the figures for subgrants ($34.5 million) cash assistance ($4.1 million) and child welfare ($30 million), which leaves out nearly $20 million in funds available to the state annually.

"MDHS can draw down the remaining funds in the future for purposes allowed under the four tenets of TANF. MDHS is looking to create long-term solutions that address the past TANF block grant problems in Mississippi," the statement reads.

Historically, the department has offered transportation vouchers of $250 to people in the work program. Mississippi Today has retrieved records in the past reflecting these payments, but the department did not provide a current figure reflecting this service.

The agency says it is working to revise its annual report — which has historically provided meager information — to include a fuller accounting of the program by the end of this year.

In 2020, following the scandal, the state racked up $47 million in unspent federal TANF funds. The current balance is not reflected in public records.

With the corruption reportedly quelled, Mississippi Department of Human Services is now approving about 8% of people applying for cash welfare.

The following graphs, compiled using federally available data, paint a picture of the history of the TANF program in Mississippi.

MDHS explained the fluctuation in TANF application approval in a statement Monday, saying: "Given abnormalities in the TANF Block Grant from 2017-2020, MDHS cannot speak to the validity of the data referenced. Decreasing TANF participation rates are not isolated to Mississippi. Data that tracks TANF approval rates since 1996 shows that TANF participation rates continue to decline nationwide. This is likely a result from PRWORA (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the federal law enacting TANF) amending welfare (AFDC) to workfare (TANF). As the state continues to emerge from the pandemic, MDHS is experiencing increased approval for TANF cash assistance, while also working to recruit new workforce partners to open additional opportunities for families to participate in the program."

MDHS addressed the state's TANF caseload, saying, "MDHS experiences the same issues with eligibility today, as when PRWORA was created in 1996. MDHS is committed to reaching as many Mississippians as possible. In the past year, MDHS has taken steps to connect Mississippians to funds that provide tangible help  In 2021, MDHS instituted the first TANF cash assistance increase since 1999. In November 2021, MDHS instituted the Child Support pass through. From July 2021-June 2022, MDHS saw an increase in number of qualified participants."

"MDHS continues to make efforts to promote the TANF program to clients and address any barriers to participation," the statement continued. "We believe that over time more families will choose to participate in the program. To some extent, the current emphasis on abuses of the past may likewise be having a chilling effect on current applications.

"As the agency moves forward, MDHS is committed to creating a viable TANF plan that will work for generations, not just 'good enough for now,'" the agency statement reads. "This requires long-term strategic planning, in which the agency is presently engaged MDHS is currently developing a new strategic plan and data definitions to track TANF utilization accurately and closely going forward."

The post Data Dive: Mississippi not the only state turning away most welfare applicants appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After three months and nearly losing her job, Shavondra Smalley of Natchez is hopeful her 8-year-old daughter can now get the medical care she needs so the mother can get back to work.

Smalley, who struggled to find nurses to care for her bed-bound daughter, is hopeful the situation will improve thanks to a proposed increase in pay from Medicaid for private duty nurses and rewritten doctor’s orders that specifically allow for the use of licensed practical nurses when registered nurses aren’t available.

The nursing shortage, exacerbated by high-paying travel and contract nursing jobs, meant very few nurses were interested in working for the meager hourly reimbursement rate approved by Medicaid for private duty nurses, who work one-on-one with patients in their homes. And confusion over some of the care Smalley’s daughter Layla was receiving prompted a months-long period where the licensed practical nurses (LPNs) who had been taking care of Layla for years were no longer allowed by Medicaid.

This left Smalley, a single mother, with no choice but to take an unpaid leave from her job to take care of Layla, who is bed bound. Her daughter requires 20 hours of nursing care a day because of complex medical conditions including a rare brain malformation called lissencephaly. 

On average, each week for the last three months, they had a nurse for about 40 of the 140 hours Layla needed, Smalley estimated.

“The main issue was my child needed care and me being a single mother, I needed to work,” said Smalley. 

READ MORE: Nursing shortage, low reimbursement rates mean this 8-year-old can’t find care

Layla also suffers from scoliosis, chronic respiratory failure and pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency, among other conditions. She is on a ventilator around the clock. 

She is enrolled in Medicaid’s Disabled Child Living at Home program, which allows certain disabled children with long-term disabilities or complex medical needs who live at home with their families to qualify for Medicaid. 

The state Division of Medicaid on Sept. 30 submitted an emergency amendment to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for a 15% increase in reimbursement rates for private duty nurses for as long as the federal Public Health Emergency lasts. The proposal is still pending before the federal government, but if approved, the increase will retroactively take effect as of Oct. 1. The amendment says the rate increase would be “to ensure that sufficient health care items and services are available to meet the needs of individuals enrolled in the respective programs… .” 

The Public Health Emergency could end as soon as mid-January, so the rate increase would expire at that point.

“We’re still evaluating private duty nursing rates post-Public Health Emergency, but doing the emergency amendment to the state plan is allowing us to be a little faster than what normally submitting things for federal approval is,” said Matt Westerfield, communications officer at the Division of Medicaid. “We’re attempting to provide as quick of a relief as we possibly can.” 

Currently private duty nurses are paid ranging from $17/hour for certified nursing assistants to $34/hour for registered nurses, or RNs. RNs who take care of patients on ventilators in the home – like Layla – are paid $51/hour. A 15% increase would mean the rates would rise to nearly $20/hour and $39/hour, and up to $58.65/hour for registered nurses taking care of patients on ventilators. 

Layla’s physician in September also rewrote a plan of care that calls for RNs but allows for LPNs when RNs are unavailable. The revised plan of care was originally denied by Medicaid, Smalley said, but she did what she’s been doing the past three months and picked up the phone, prepared to file an appeal. 

“I’d been speaking with a lawyer and she told me if I’m not happy with the services, I can file for an appeal,” Smalley said.

When she got the news the plan of care had been denied, she called Medicaid to initiate the process and left a message with the person who handles appeals.

“About 20 to 30 minutes later, I got a call from somebody completely different with Medicaid … who wanted to hear my side of the story. I explained to her what was going on and told her the doctor approved for there to be RNs and LPNs and (there has been clarification) that we’re not doing deep suctioning, and you all are still denying these services.”

There had also been confusion over whether nurses were performing a task called “deep stem suctioning” on Layla. Smalley and Layla’s caregivers also had to get clarity from the Board of Nursing that the tracheostomy care Layla receives is not deep right main stem suctioning that extends beyond the carina, a section at the bottom of the trachea, but is instead routine tracheostomy care. LPNs are not allowed to perform deep suctioning.

The next day, the employee called Smalley back and told her the care had been approved by Medicaid – days before Smalley’s employer told her if she wasn’t able to return to work the following week at the end of her leave, the job would have to be posted.

Smalley returned to work Monday – the same day her 12-week leave ended – and has the next several weeks of care lined up, she said. 

The post Proposed Medicaid pay increase could help in-home nurses amid shortage appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In partnership with the American Journalism Project, Mississippi Press Association and Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi Today will host acclaimed media critic Margaret Sullivan in conversation with editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, at 6:00 p.m. on November 17, 2022.

Margaret Sullivan is a groundbreaking journalist and award-winning author with a particular focus on the relationship between the press and current threats to American democracy. Sullivan most recently served as media columnist at The Washington Post and now joins the public policy staff at Duke University. Prior to joining The Post, she served as The New York Times public editor, and as chief editor of the Buffalo News. Her memoir, “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) From an Ink-stained Life” (October 2022), is her second book examining the role of journalism in American democracy. 

The post Mississippi Today to host acclaimed media critic Margaret Sullivan appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Secretary of State Michael Watson announced Wednesday morning a statewide partnership with Mississippi businesses to combat human trafficking.

Through the Mississippi Businesses Against Trafficking initiative, a website will be produced by the Secretary of State’s Office and videos and other training devices will be made available to help businesses recognize and report instances of human trafficking. Watson said the initiative made sense since businesses in the state must register with the Secretary of State’s Office.

Citing statistics from the Department of Health, Watson said a case of human trafficking is reported every other day in Mississippi. And there are almost 25 million instances of human trafficking “at and given time” worldwide.

“Sadly, human trafficking is more common in our state than people realize,” Watson said. “I personally know victims and met with several during my time in the state Legislature. Our goal is to rescue victims and ensure all Mississippians are safe from this heinous crime.”

Legislation has been passed in recent years to deal with human trafficking in the state and to put in measures to try to protect victims of human trafficking. Watson said his initiative, in partnership with businesses, is patterned after programs in other states.

“Through partnership and collaboration with other secretaries of state, we researched how to utilize our current role with the business sector to educate and raise awareness through grassroots efforts,” Watson said in a news release. “All Mississippi business owners are invited to join our fight to combat human trafficking in our state.”

Representatives of the hotel association and massage therapists joined Watson at Wednesday’s news conference as did an officer with the Dutch Group that owns Sprint Mart convenience stores. The massage therapists, convenience stores and hotels/motels are all industries where human trafficking might be more prevalent.

“Sprint Mart is proud to partner with MBAT because we recognize the critical role convenience stores and travel centers can play in the identification and reporting of suspected human trafficking,” said Matt Bogue, vice president of the Dutch Group.

The Mississippi Braves minor league baseball team is partnering with the Secretary of State’s office, and team representatives were involved in Wednesday’s news conference.

Businesses can learn more about the initiative at sos.ms.gov/MBAT.

The post Secretary of State partnering with businesses to combat human trafficking appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Two Queens appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Sanderson Farms Championship is in the books, the Braves are on the rise and the Saints are sinking, but the Magnolia State’s “Big Four” college football teams are all on the rise. The Cleveland boys touch on all of it, and discuss Deion Sanders’ future at Jackson State in a grab-bag conversation about Mississippi sports.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: Rebels, Bulldogs and Eagles, Oh My! appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The city of Jackson requested the largest amount of money, $36 million, of any city or county from a designated water and sewer fund that came through the American Rescue Plan Act.

State lawmakers established the fund earlier this year to help pay for infrastructure needs by matching what money cities and counties received directly from ARPA.

In total, Mississippi’s cities and counties applied for $435 million from the Mississippi Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program, equaling nearly all of the $450 million the legislature put into the fund.

In their applications, cities and counties list out specific water and sewer projects and include funding amounts from their own direct ARPA appropriations. Then, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the program, can provide up to a 1-to-1 funding match, or 2-to-1 for places that received less than $1 million in direct funds.

Jackson applied for a $23 million match to help fix its drinking water system, which would give it $46 million in total. On the wastewater side, the city is requesting a $12 million match to give it $24 million total.

Hinds County did not submit an application, according to a list provided by MDEQ. The county agreed to use $17 million of its ARPA money for Jackson’s water system, WLBT reported last month.

Half of the funds sought in the applications, or $216 million, were for wastewater projects, $139 million were for drinking water projects, and $79 million for stormwater projects.

The city of Gulfport is seeking the most money for wastewater improvements, at $26 million. For stormwater projects, Rankin County applied for the largest amount at $21 million.

An MDEQ spokesperson said the agency anticipates that cities and counties will receive funds by the end of the year, and that there will also be a second round of applications for remaining money.

MDEQ provided a breakdown of how much entities are seeking for different projects. Use the tables below for a breakdown by spending area:

The post Cities and counties apply for $435 million from state’s water and sewer ARPA fund appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Eight years ago this week, Mississippi State and Ole Miss had climbed to a tie for No. 3 in the Associated Press college football poll. Both had begun the season unranked.

It was wild. 

Remember? Ole Miss had just knocked off Alabama. State had cold-cocked Texas A&M.

We hadn’t seen anything yet. It was about to go from wild to crazy.

State proceeded to clock No. 2 Auburn 38-23 and move to No. 1. Ole Miss dispatched A&M 35-20 and remained at No. 3, just two votes behind No. 2 Florida State. Both the Bulldogs and Rebels were a perfect 6-0. Two measly votes kept State and Ole Miss from being 1-2 in the land.

This football-crazed state was nuts.

The college football nation was astonished. Indeed, even the talking heads at ESPN began to correctly distinguish between Ole Miss and Mississippi State, two teams they had often mixed up in the past.

Eight years later, we’re not to 2014 level — at least not yet — but college football in Mississippi has rarely been better than it is at this juncture.

Could this be 2014 all over again? Ole Miss, 5-0, has moved to No. 9 in the AP poll. State, 4-1, moved up to No. 23 after last Saturday’s 42-24 trouncing of the Texas Aggies. There’s more to celebrate in Mississippi. Jackson State, 4-0, has moved to No. 8 in the FCS rankings. The Tigers appear to be the head and shoulders above the rest of the SWAC. Southern Miss is a much more modest 2-2, but has now won four of its last six games over two seasons and finally has something to hang its hat on after a huge road victory over otherwise undefeated Tulane.

In Division II, surprising Delta State moved to 5-0 with a 70-31 run-away victory over 13th ranked Valdosta State last Saturday. Meanwhile, Mississippi College stunned No. 15 West Georgia 39-38.

So back to the question: Could 2022 be 2014 all over again?

State’s lone defeat, 31-16 at LSU, makes a repeat of 2014 with both the state’s SEC teams ranked in the top 3 highly unlikely. But Ole Miss clearly has a navigable road to move much higher in the polls.

If the games were played today, Lane Kiffin’s Rebels would be favored in each of their next four: at Vanderbilt, Auburn at home, at LSU and at Texas A&M. At this point, Kiffin probably would borrow from his former boss Nick Saban and tell his players not to read the rest of this rat poison. But here it is: Ole Miss could conceivably be 9-0 with Alabama coming to Oxford on Nov. 12.

Now that would reach 2014 levels of Mississippi football craziness. It could happen.

State’s immediate schedule is exceedingly more difficult. The Bulldogs first play Arkansas at home, then at once-beaten Kentucky, then No. 1 Alabama, then Auburn, and then No. 2 Georgia. Oh, the joys of competing in the SEC…

So much is still to be determined, but the stakes could be much higher than usual when State plays Ole Miss at Oxford on Thanksgiving night.

Back to 2014: You will remember that Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs, led by Dak Prescott, held their No. 1 ranking for five consecutive weeks until Alabama popped the Dogs’ bubble 25-20 at Tuscaloosa. State then crushed Vanderbilt before losing both the Egg Bowl and the Orange Bowl (to Georgia Tech) to finish at No. 11 in the AP poll. 

Ole Miss? The Rebels did win the Golden Egg, but dropped all the way to No. 17 after being trounced by TCU 42-3 in the Peach Bowl.

Important to remember when comparing 2022 to what happened eight years ago: Starting strong is merely good; finishing strong is epic.

In 2014, the start was epic, the finish not so good. 

That’s where 2022 could be far, far better. We’ll see. That’s enough rat poison for one day.

The post Can Rebels, Bulldogs match 2014 success? Clearly, the goal is to finish better appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s long-running mental health lawsuit could trigger an upheaval in how legal protections for people with disabilities are enforced, potentially reducing pressure on state and local governments to guarantee disabled Americans equal access to services. 

The Department of Justice sued Mississippi six years ago claiming it had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by institutionalizing people with mental illness instead of providing community-based services. A district judge sided with the federal government, approved a remedial order for the Department of Mental Health and appointed a special monitor to oversee the agency’s compliance. The state appealed that ruling last year, arguing that the mental health system had already made improvements and that the district court had wrongly imposed “perpetual federal oversight.”

But the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday is interested in a much more fundamental question: whether the Department of Justice could legally have sued Mississippi at all. 

If the judges decide the answer is no, that would create a split with another federal appeals court. Then the question could wind up in front of a U.S. Supreme Court that is deeply skeptical of federal authority and willing to overturn long-standing precedents like Roe v. Wade. 

For years, federal lawsuits like the one against Mississippi have been the major vehicle pushing state and local governments to offer equal access and services to people with disabilities, which is required under Title II of the ADA. 

The panel’s decision to pose a question that neither Mississippi nor the Justice Department raised in their own briefs suggests the judges are interested in changing that. 

“The disability community is extremely worried,” said Ira Burnim, legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. 

Burnim co-authored an amicus brief by several national organizations advocating for people with disabilities or mental illness. The brief, submitted before the panel raised the question of whether the Justice Department should have been able to sue at all, argued that Mississippi had violated Title II and that oversight was necessary to ensure the state expanded community-based mental health services.  

“The Department of Justice’s ability to bring lawsuits is critical to the enforcement of Title II,” he continued. 

Accessibility at public buildings like courthouses, accommodations for hearing-impaired people to participate in juries, and wheelchair lifts on public buses are all areas where the Justice Department could sue under Title II.

The law has also been applied more broadly. In the 1999 case Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court ruled that “undue institutionalization” violates Title II because depriving people of the chance to live in their community constitutes discrimination. The Justice Department has relied on that precedent to force states to provide community-based services for people with mental illness. 

From 2009 to 2016, the department was involved in 50 such cases, including the Mississippi suit.

The judges assigned to hear the Mississippi case are Edith Jones, James Ho and Leslie Southwick, all Republican appointees to the most conservative appeals court in the country.

The language of Title II does not explicitly say the attorney general can sue state and local governments to enforce it, while other parts of the ADA do. But the Justice Department has initiated lawsuits to enforce Title II since it came into effect in 1992, and it has argued that Congress clearly intended the attorney general to have the authority to compel state and local governments to comply with nondiscrimination law if they won’t do so on a voluntary basis.

If the Fifth Circuit panel determines that the Justice Department could not have sued Mississippi, that ruling would conflict with a recent ruling by the Eleventh Circuit in a Florida lawsuit.

Like the Mississippi case, that federal lawsuit involved claimed Florida was unnecessarily institutionalizing mentally ill or disabled people.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected Florida’s argument that the Justice Department could not sue it directly. Florida then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that federal Title II lawsuits can affect “virtually all state and local activities and programs.”

“Through lawsuits brought against states under Title II, the United States has asserted sweeping authority to reshape all manner of state programs, shifting the balance of federal-state power,” the state’s petition said. 

The Supreme Court recently declined to hear the Florida case. But if the Fifth Circuit reaches a different conclusion from the Eleventh Circuit, the highest court may step in. 

“This is pure speculation, no one knows the reason for the Fifth Circuit action, but one possibility here is that if the Fifth Circuit were to find that DOJ lacked authority to bring lawsuits in federal court to enforce Title II, then there would be a circuit split and it would make it more likely that the Supreme Court would accept a case that raised that issue,” Burnim said. 

In addition to the mental health lawsuit, the Department of Justice has pursued legal action against Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Jackson, and other cities and counties to enforce compliance with Title II. In most cases, that action resulted in a settlement agreement rather than a years-long lawsuit.

If the Justice Department were unable to sue states directly, individuals or organizations representing a group of such individuals could still sue. But these lawsuits are time-consuming and expensive, and the Justice Department has the staff, expertise and resources to see them through, said Clarence Sundram, an attorney and expert on institutions and community services for people with mental disabilities.

“Many times private individuals will complain to the DOJ to invoke its assistance in these kinds of cases for precisely these reasons,” said Sundram.  “So to rule that DOJ doesn’t have the authority could remove one very significant avenue of enforcing these laws.”

Advocates for Mississippians with mental illness will be watching the case closely, too.

Joy Hogge, executive director of the nonprofit Families As Allies, which advocates for kids with behavioral health challenges, said she has seen “genuinely good things happening” in the state’s mental health system under the remedial order. But all of that has been directly linked to the lawsuit, she said. If the order were overturned – which the Fifth Circuit could do even if it doesn’t reject the Justice Department’s authority to sue states under Title II – she’s not sure progress will continue. 

“I’m afraid that everything might just come to a screeching halt,” she said. 

The Fifth Circuit website says the court aims to issue opinions within 60 days of oral arguments.

The post ‘A screeching halt.’ Judges’ question in mental health lawsuit has implications beyond Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On Aug. 29, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Jackson’s water system was failing. The city water system has been plagued with problems for years, including tens of thousands of residents losing water between one and three weeks during a 2021 winter storm. In this episode of MT Speaks, environment reporter Alex Rozier answers six reader questions about the crisis.

The post MT Asks: Your questions about the Jackson water crisis answered appeared first on Mississippi Today.