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On a Friday afternoon in October 2020, Matthew Tucker had his wife April Tucker in a headlock at their home in Meridian. She later told police he was strangling her, and when he finally let go, she vomited.

He held a kitchen knife to her neck and threatened to kill her, she told law enforcement. The incident report from the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department documented cuts and bruises on her neck.

Less than two months later, a few days before Christmas, he followed through on his threats. He strangled and beat her to death, according to her death certificate and law enforcement.

Law enforcement also believe he killed their 14-year-old son Bryce Tucker, April’s mother Beverly Fulton and his own grandmother before leading police on a chase that ended when he took his own life. While the case is still officially open, law enforcement say that based on the evidence, they believe Matthew is “solely responsible” for the deaths of his family members.

In the October incident, April managed to get away by persuading her husband to let her go pick up their son from school and promising to come right back, according to Andrea Goodwin, a longtime friend and co-worker of April.

April was always a peacemaker, a negotiator. When she worked in Goodwin’s medical clinic, she could diffuse people’s anger when they’d call in upset about a medical bill. Like many victims of domestic violence, she had learned her fair share of coping skills, including calming others down.

But as soon as she got out of the house and into her car, she drove directly to the home of Goodwin and David Bonner, Goodwin’s husband and April’s cousin.

“She came flying up in the driveway, and all of a sudden we hear screaming,” recounted Goodwin. “She was absolutely hysterical and crying, saying, ‘He’s trying to kill me, he tried to kill me.’”

They immediately made sure all the doors to the house were locked, and Goodwin, a family medicine doctor, checked April’s injuries. She saw the cuts, bruises and abrasions on her neck, and she also had a swollen spot on the back of her head where she hit her head after Matthew grabbed her off a stool, Goodwin said.

While Goodwin was tending to April, Bonner called 911 and told the operator the authorities better get to their house before Matthew did.

Two deputies arrived, and April told them she and her husband were separated. He had come to their house to get some of his things to take to his mother’s house, where he was staying at the time. They began to argue and “it turned physical,” the incident report states.

“She said that Matthew grabbed her and then grabbed a knife from the kitchen. She said that he put it to her throat and was threatening to kill her. She said that he kept screaming ‘I’m going to kill you’ over and over again while he held the knife to her throat,’” Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Deputy Ethan Mckee wrote.

“He then put her into a head lock and started choking her. She said that Matthew choked her so long in the head lock that when he finally let go, she vomited,” the report continued. “Sometime during the altercation Matthew scratched her neck and left abrasions on the inside of her mouth.”

The state’s domestic violence law mandates strangulation — and even an attempt to strangle — be considered an aggravating factor, or a felony. And this was not Matthew’s first time assaulting, or choking, someone. He had been convicted of simple assault on a minor in 2000 after a then-14-year-old girl’s mother accused him of choking her daughter, threatening to kill her and throwing her against a wall.

But on that day in October 2020, Matthew was charged with simple domestic violence, a misdemeanor. He was placed in jail for 12 hours and given a $1,000 bond.

April was assessed by a paramedic, given a brochure on domestic violence, and sent on her way.

Mississippi law states a person is guilty of simple domestic violence if he or she attempts to harm a spouse, romantic partner or certain family members, negligently hurts another with a deadly weapon or means likely to produce serious harm, or attempts to put another in fear of imminent serious harm.

The charge is a misdemeanor, and the punishment is a fine of up to $500 or up to six months in prison.

A person is guilty of aggravated domestic violence if he or she “attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another, or causes such injury purposely, knowingly or recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” This charge is a felony, which carries a fine of up to $1,000 or up to five years in prison.

The person is also guilty if he or she attempts to cause injury to another with a deadly weapon likely to produce death or serious bodily harm, or if he or she strangles or even attempts to strangle another.

But law enforcement and advocates for domestic violence victims say there is a reluctance to charge and prosecute aggravated domestic violence — particularly in the case of strangulation — because it is difficult for prosecutors to get a conviction in court.

In 2019, 8,952 simple, or misdemeanor, domestic violence cases went through the court system, compared to 564 aggravated domestic violence cases, according to court records compiled by the Center for Violence Prevention.

After the Legislature in 2010 added strangulation as an aggravating factor to the domestic violence law, “it’s never really taken off,” explained Luke Thompson, the chief of the Byram Police Department and former president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police.

“The reality is most DV choking (strangulation) cases are prosecuted as misdemeanors … It is a symptom of a much larger problem within the criminal justice system in Mississippi,” he said.

The reason is because intimate partner violence cases are generally difficult to investigate and prosecute, he said. There are often no other witnesses, victims may often be uncooperative, and sometimes, physical evidence of abuse is not always obvious.

Over the course of more than two months, Mississippi Today asked for information from and interviews with experts in the state attorney general’s office, which serves as the primary state agency that educates and trains law enforcement and prosecutors in domestic violence cases. None of the requests were filled, including those for information about what the agency teaches surrounding strangulation and aggravated domestic violence.

Cherie Wade, president of the Mississippi Prosecutors Association, declined to answer specific questions about prosecution of these cases but did issue a statement saying the association provides training to prosecutors and investigators and that it “recognizes the serious nature of domestic abuse, how dangerous domestic violence situations are and how quickly they can become deadly.”

Research shows that when an abuser strangles his victim, it can be a significant predictor for future deadly violence. It is also a highly dangerous form of abuse because as little as 10 seconds of pressure on the carotid arteries in the neck is enough time to deprive the brain of oxygen and cause a loss of consciousness.

If the pressure continues, brain death can occur in only a few minutes.

Sandy Middleton, the executive director of the Center for Violence Prevention, describes strangulation as the “pinnacle” of intimate partner violence.

The victims her organization serves must sometimes go through “repeated abuse” because of this breakdown in the system.

“It is a face-to-face demonstration of power and control that can result in the death of a victim,” she said. “It’s attempted murder.”

“We see many cases in our minds that should be aggravated domestic violence, but they aren’t charged at that level,” said Middleton, noting she has heard different interpretations of what constitutes aggravated domestic violence.

“We had a case years ago, this woman was beaten to a pulp. She was black and blue all over, had been dragged — it was the most horrific beating I’ve ever seen, but they would not charge her offender with a (felony) because no bones were broken,” Middleton said.

Beth McCord is the director of Bridge Forensic Services, an organization that provides medical services to victims of interpersonal violence and human trafficking, and is a certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE). A nurse practitioner, she’s been trained by the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, which provides the most current and up-to-date education on domestic violence and sexual assault strangulation crimes.

She said there’s more education needed in the state when it comes to strangulation, not only for law enforcement but also for medical professionals.

“When somebody’s been strangled, you always look to the neck, but you may not see anything there. If you don’t have the proper education, you don’t know that there could be evidence in other places like in the eyes, behind the ear, or inside the mouth,” she explained, adding that bowel and bladder incontinence is another little known symptom of strangulation.

McCord remembers a case from her early days as a nurse in the emergency room that she’ll never forget. There was a patient who had been sexually assaulted, and she told her there had been pressure applied to her neck during the assault.

“I remember looking at her neck and not seeing one thing. Then weeks later, after we’d lost touch with her, she had a stroke,” she said. “When I took this class (at the Institute) my eyes were opened to the effects of strangulation and how it can affect (victims) up to one year after. I kept thinking, ‘Could her stroke have been tied to that incident? Did I miss petechiae (tiny red spots due to ruptured capillaries) in her eyes, or did we miss it in her mouth and ears?”

McCord’s mission with Bridge Forensic Services is to provide medical services, including forensic exams, to victims who are receiving services from the Center for Violence Prevention, one of the state’s domestic violence shelters and an organization that serves victims of interpersonal violence and human trafficking.

But she also wants to strengthen partnerships with law enforcement and hospitals to ensure victims are receiving assessments and services by highly trained professionals like herself.

While there are only 12 SANE-certified nurses in the state, including her, there are many more who have received the 40 hours of SANE education but have not sat for the national exam to officially be counted as certified. The number of SANE-trained nurses is not tracked, so it’s unclear how many there are across the state.

Since the creation of Bridge Forensic Services in late 2018, McCord has offered her services in strangulation assessments to law enforcement in the metro area, but so far, only a few have taken her up on it.

And when law enforcement and medical professionals aren’t adequately educated on strangulation, the impact can be grave for victims.

“Victims who do not receive these forensic assessments are less likely to receive appropriate medical care, are more likely to suffer subsequent health issues and prosecutors are less equipped without the forensic evidence to support successful prosecutions,” said McCord.

When responding to and investigating domestic violence crimes, it is important for law enforcement to get context, said Thompson, the police chief. In his own department in Byram, Thompson implemented the lethality assessment program (LAP), a tool used by law enforcement on domestic violence calls that allows them to assess how much danger a victim is in. He also trains other law enforcement around the state on the tool.

The implementation of the LAP, along with other trauma-informed best practices in his department, led to a sharp decrease in domestic violence calls after it was implemented, along with a decrease in the outdated practice of “dual arrest,” when both parties in a domestic violence situation are arrested.

“The problem with dual arrest is it re-traumatizes the victim,” explained Thompson.

All of the tools available to law enforcement have one thing in common: they take into consideration the context of a particular incident.

“The old Joe Friday mentality is when an officer asks someone to tell him what happened, and they start telling him what happened last week or last month, and he responds, ‘No, I don’t want to hear that, I want to hear what happened today,’” he described.

But domestic abuse and the risk a victim faces are centered around patterns of behavior and a build up of power and control by the abuser over time. Without that historical knowledge, police officers can’t accurately assess how dangerous the abuser is — not only to his victim, but to the police officer.

“85% of people who kill police officers have domestic violence in their history. If we know those things happen, law enforcement, I believe, has a responsibility to evolve in the way we’re doing these things,” said Thompson.

Goodwin, who listened to the conversation on that October afternoon between Apriland the Lauderdale Co. sheriff’s deputies, said she remembers April telling them about an event the week prior in which her son and her mother witnessed Matthew beating her, and another sheriff’s deputy had come to their house.

But that day, the deputy indicated on the report there was no prior history of abuse and that the lethality assessment program was not utilized.

The LAP, which the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department trains its officers in, includes a 12-part questionnaire. A “yes” response to any of the first three questions, including whether the abuser has ever threatened to kill the victim or himself, indicates the victim is in imminent danger of being seriously hurt or killed by her abuser.

When following the protocol, law enforcement would then connect the victim to a domestic violence shelter while on the scene.

If that had been done, Goodwin said, it would’ve been “obvious” the situation was high risk. Matthew had not only abused and threatened to kill April, but he had also made threats to kill himself and was seeing a psychiatrist, she said.

Attempts to reach McKee, the deputy who charged Matthew with simple domestic violence in October of last year, were unsuccessful.

Lauderdale County Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun said he was not sure why the LAP wasn’t used in this particular case, but he guessed it either could have been done informally or the particular deputy wasn’t adequately trained in it.

He said April was given the contact information for the Care Lodge Domestic Violence Shelter in Meridian.

Bonner, a nurse who describes April as more like a sister than a cousin, has always believed in his ability to see that justice was done, or a wrong was righted.

As a medical professional, he’s a natural fixer, and he prides himself on being a well-connected community member who can bring the right people together to solve an issue.

After April was assaulted, he paid an attorney to help her get a domestic abuse protection order, or an order from a court that prohibits the person named in the protection order from contacting or coming close to the victim. They are input into a database housed by the Attorney General’s office and are also readily available to law enforcement.

But the order April received from Lauderdale County Court Judge Lisa Howell stripped away law enforcement’s ability to even know it existed.

“… this matter shall not be reported or enrolled to the local law enforcement or placed upon the records of NCIC (National Crime Information Center) by agreement of said parties and violation of the terms of this agreement shall be punishable by contempt proceedings only,” the order states. Below, both April and Matthew signed the document, along with their attorneys.

The language in the order meant no law enforcement was privy to its existence, and if Matthew ever violated the order, the only recourse for April was to go back to court.

It’s unclear how common these types of orders are, and questions submitted to the Attorney General’s office, which houses all domestic abuse protection orders in the state, were not answered. Howell, the judge, and Dustin Markham, the attorney for April, also did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for information by press time.

“Our hands are tied with orders like these,” said Lauderdale County Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun.

He said with a normal protection order, law enforcement are able to arrest the offender immediately, and they are held in jail without bond until they appear before the judge that issued the order.

Goodwin and Bonner had no idea about the specifics of this order. They said, however, that April believed it protected her, and it made all of them feel more comfortable for her to eventually return to her house after changing the locks.

Bonner has a distinct memory from that day in October after April was assaulted and came to him for help.

The deputy was walking out through the front yard to leave, and he turned around and said, “‘Now Mr. Bonner, please don’t go do anything stupid on your own and get yourself in trouble,’” Bonner recalled.

“I remember responding, ‘I’m not worried, I know y’all are going to handle it,’” he said, his voice becoming shaky. “I was confident in that.”

He doesn’t blame law enforcement, attorneys or anyone in particular for what happened to his family. He said the system as a whole is faulty.

“I had faith that the system was going to protect her, and that I could protect her,” said Bonner. “That didn’t happen.”

The post ‘I had faith that the system was going to protect her’: Law enforcement, advocates say abusers are under-charged in domestic violence situations appeared first on Mississippi Today.

I can’t complain. Well, I take that back. I can and I do complain. But this week, I feel fortunate. I have food. I have electricity (knock on wood). I have the ability to work from home. So many others don’t. So right now, let me take a moment to thank all of you who’ve been out in the storm this week. The linemen getting the power back on, the tow truck drivers and road workers trying to keep up on the road, the grocery store workers stocking the shelves, the medical workers (who are already exhausted), the municipal workers keeping our utilities going (God bless people working on Jackson’s water system), the meteorologists and media who are keeping us informed — you get what I mean.

Take a moment to say a quick prayer for everyone affected by the storm and if there is someone in need, let us know in the comments section and we’ll see what we can do to help. I mean “we” as in this community we have here in Mississippi.

It’s time for the chainsaws and casseroles to kick in. This storm is historic. It is very rare when the ground remains covered with snow and ice nearly a week later here in the South. Stay safe. Stay warm. I’m going to stay grateful.

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

Yes, says former Mississippi State baseball great Jake Mangum, he wishes he had been allowed to earn money from endorsements when he was hitting line drives, stealing bases and was the face of the popular Bulldogs baseball program from 2016-2019.

“There’s no doubt I could have made some money,” Mangum said. “Would have been nice.”

Mangum famously put off earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in professional baseball to play his junior and senior seasons at State. (Mangum was age-eligible for the Major League draft after his sophomore season.)

“It would have helped me make up for some of the money I lost,” he said. Mangum made it clear he thinks college baseball players, most of whom pay at least part of their way through school, should have an opportunity to earn money through endorsements.

Under separate bills passed this week by both the state Senate and House, college athletes would be allowed to contract with an agent for their names, images or likenesses to be used, for instance, to endorse a product and receive compensation for that endorsement. Mangum was one of the first athletes I thought of when the legislation was passed. He was the square-jawed, handsome darling of State fans. A car dealership or insurance company could have done a lot worse than have him endorsing their products.

And can you imagine the kind of money a star football quarterback — a Dak Prescott or an Eli Manning — could have made on the side during their collegiate days?

But Mangum, a smart guy who has professed a desire to some day work as a college athletics coach or administrator, does see possible pitfalls of an open earnings market for college athletes.

“If this is going to happen, and it looks like it will, I don’t just think it should be allowed for underclassmen,” Mangum said. “It never should become part of recruiting. I believe it should be for juniors and seniors.”

Mississippi athletic directors and coaches privately fear they will be at a competitive disadvantage against colleges from more populous states with more and richer corporations that might seek endorsement contracts with collegiate athletes.

“Sooner or later, you know it will eventually become a recruiting tool,” one in-state athletic director told me. “I don’t see how that is going to help us.”

And it is difficult to see how it will help more than a few of the brightest athletic stars.

In other words, the all-conference quarterback could make thousands. But what about the guards and tackles who block for him?

“The devil will be in the details,” said Deuce McAllister, the former Ole Miss and New Orleans Saints standout running back, and one of the most popular players in Rebel football history. McAllister believes he could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsements over his Ole Miss career when he rushed for more than 3,000 yards and scored 41 touchdowns for teams that won 30 games, including three bowl games.

What details?

“When do you become eligible for making endorsements?” McAllister answered. “What products can you endorse? Are there any limits? How do you keep it out of recruiting?”

Social media, McAllister says, will make it easy for college athletes to make endorsements. Many of the best known college athletes have Twitter followers in the tens of thousands.

The NCAA must decide those details. It is a task the organization has put off for years. But the clock is about to run out. At least four other states already have passed similar laws. Legislation is pending in many other states. Meanwhile, the NCAA has said it is waiting for the U.S. Congress to pass legislation to provide guidance on the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a relevant lawsuit in March and is expected to rule on the issue later this summer. Clearly, change is coming.

In big-time college athletics, coaches and administrators make millions of dollars and often move from school to school for larger contracts. They are free to make endorsements, and coaches such as Nick Saban and Mike Krzyzewski make hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsements on top of their salaries, already large enough to make corporate CEOs drool. Meanwhile, college athletes, at least above the table, get only tuition, room and board, and a modest stipend, can’t endorse anything and have little, if any, free time to even hold a part-time job. College baseball players often don’t get full scholarships.

That’s not right.

But McAllister is right. The devil will be in the details. And there are so many. Here’s one more: If you limit endorsements to upperclassmen, what does that do to the many elite college basketball players who normally play only one or two seasons before going pro?

The NCAA should have gotten ahead of this years and years ago. It did not. And now it faces a devil of a time and momentous change.

The post Where endorsements are concerned for college athletes, the devil is in details appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Below is a map where COVID-19 vaccines are being offered in Mississippi.

The map, which is updated weekly, includes Mississippi State Department of Health drive-thru sites, hospitals and other private partners, and Walmart pharmacy locations offering the vaccine.

For more information about how to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Mississippi, click here to visit the MSDH’s vaccine information page.

READ MORE: Frequently asked questions about COVID-19 vaccines in Mississippi.

The post MAP: Where Mississippians can get the COVID-19 vaccine appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Power linemen and water department employees working through cold nights to restore public services to thousands of Mississippians. Road engineers getting six hours of sleep all week working to keep major interstates and highways open. Police working overtime to respond to thousands of weather-related traffic accidents.

After the historic 2021 winter storm wrecked the state of Mississippi this week, officials are welcoming the winter weather’s forecast exit on Thursday and reflecting on the week.

“I have worked with (the Mississippi Department of Transportation) over 25 years, and have never seen such an event,” MDOT engineer Mark Holley wrote on Facebook. “Some might say we were not prepared. But in reality, we were more prepared than we have ever been.”

Holley continued: “I sincerely hope that in 25 plus years from now, we are still talking about this event as the ‘worst one ever.’”

The effects of the storm on the state:

• Several state highways remain closed Thursday after many of the state’s major interstates and highways were closed at different points during the week. By Thursday late morning, every major interstate had at least one lane open in both directions.

• At least 250,000 Mississippians lost power at some point during the week, including about 170,000 who were still without power on Thursday late morning.

• Residents in dozens of Mississippi cities and towns are without water or have low water pressure.

• Hundreds of schools and colleges across the state cancelled classes. In the north part of the state, many schools have already announced cancelling classes on Friday.

While the National Weather Service has forecasted that winter precipitation will end across the state by Thursday evening, freezing temperatures could still affects water and electric systems. A hard freeze warning is in effect through Thursday night for much of the state.

“Unlike a hurricane or tornado, where the event comes furiously and then ends, this has been a slow-moving disaster,” Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted on Thursday. “We have been in response mode, not recovery, constantly. There has not been a significant break in the freeze—it just keeps coming.”

READ MORE: Ice reported on roads in 74 of 82 Mississippi counties.

The post ‘Worst one ever’: Mississippi’s historic winter storm is forecast to end on Thursday appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lawmakers are trying to revamp incentives to businesses that expand or relocate to Mississippi, to simplify the process, provide more transparency and prevent boondoggles that in the past have left taxpayers holding the bag.

“This will be performance-based, not promise-based,” said Senate Economic Development Chairman David Parker, R-Olive Branch, author of Senate Bill 2822, the Mississippi Flexible Tax Incentive Act, or “MFlex.”

To qualify for MFlex incentives, a business would have to make a minimum investment of $2.5 million and create a minimum of 10 new full-time jobs. The application would be only a few pages, compared to hundreds of pages of code companies have to sift through for many current state incentive programs. A company using the MFlex program would not be able to participate in other tax incentive programs.

Scratching for jobs and development for a poor state, lawmakers over many years have created dozens of tax breaks, credits and incentives for new or expanding businesses. Many sit in the books unused by or unknown to qualified businesses. Others, economic experts have said, provide little benefit to the state. Lack of oversight on the incentives has in the past resulted in businesses taking the incentives then defaulting on providing promised jobs and investments, leaving the state on the hook for millions with little way to recoup.

Around 2010, the state gave seven “green” energy companies more than $400 million in loans and incentives on the promise of them creating at least 5,000 jobs. Instead, many of the companies failed or floundered, creating a little over 600 jobs. KiOR, a company pledging to make cheap bio-crude, received about $75 million in loans and other state incentives, but went bankrupt leaving taxpayers a $69 million bill. Nearly two decades ago, the state saw the famous “beef plant scandal,” where a Yalobusha County beef processing plant heavily subsidized by the state cost taxpayers millions when it went belly-up after just three months. The list goes on.

In its recent annual report on economic development programs on tax incentives, the state Institutions of Higher Learning reported that of 20 state incentives it examined for 2020, only nine “generated a positive return on the state’s investment and two generated a negative return.” Others had not been used in recent years, and “five could not be analyzed because of insufficient information.” It noted that the Department of Revenue had no info available on how much tax breaks for the Tourism Tax Rebate Program had cost in forgone taxes, despite 11 projects, including the Biloxi baseball stadium, a children’s museum and the King Edward Hotel, receiving the rebates.

The move to overhaul incentives is being championed by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who has in the past opined that Mississippi has lacked oversight and accountability in the tax breaks and other incentives it provides prospective businesses. Gov. Tate Reeves, who has also in the past called for more accountability on incentives, local economic development officials and the Mississippi Development Authority have all been involved in drafting the overhaul, Hosemann and Parker said.

Hosemann said the MFlex plan would help the state shift further from risky upfront incentives for businesses to rebates and credits. It would be attractive to businesses in its simplicity and ease of application, and would better protect taxpayers by providing more stringent annual accounting of jobs and investments created before companies would receive the incentives. Parker said it would also provide better “clawback” provisions for the Department of Revenue to use should a company be proved to have received more credits than it deserved.

MFlex would not create new incentives, Hosemann said, but would consolidate and simplify the process for applying for them, and require more accurate accounting of whether companies were producing the jobs and investments they promised in exchange. A “companion” bill would eliminate or change several of the dozens of incentives on the books that either are not often used or have shown not to provide a return-on-investment for taxpayers.

Both measures passed the Senate Finance and Economic Development committees on Wednesday and are expected to be taken up by the full Senate by the end of the week.

David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Community Development Foundation in Tupelo, is among several local economic developers who helped draft the MFlex measure. He said it would not only provide more accountability but more flexibility for new and existing companies. He said the state likely loses out on business or expansion when companies can’t figure out incentives or don’t realize they exist.

“It just streamlines the system,” Rumbarger said.

MFlex tax credit basic calculations would be based on:

• 1.5% of the total purchase or value of all manufacturing or processing equipment for a new or expanding business

• 7% of the total purchase or sales price or value of all non-manufacturing equipment

• 2% of the total contract paid for construction or improvements

Plus, if applicable:

• 15% of the of the total derived by multiplying the average wage by the number of full time jobs, if the average wage is equal or more than 75% of the average state or county wage

• Increased incentives if the number of full time jobs is 50 or more, the average wage is 110% more than the state or county average, and all full-time employees are offered health insurance, then 30% of the total from multiplying the average wage by the number of full-time jobs

• Increased incentives if a company creates 25 or more jobs and the average wage is more than 125% of the state or county average

Companies would have to provide a full accounting of their jobs, investment and tax liability to MDA each year before receiving the credits, instead of DOR or others having to dig for such information, Parker said.

Sen. Barbara Blackmon, D-Canton, was among several lawmakers who quizzed Parker on what the program would mean for economic development statewide, and what it would cost.

“This is not a new incentive, this just makes it easier and cleaner to apply,” Parker said. “The actual dollar amount going to companies might even be a little bit less overall, but the ease of application will far outweigh that … I think it will encourage economic development and new expansions in every area of this state.”

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said he has in the past been frustrated by the inability to look at incentives and “see if they’re working, a net positive or net negative for taxpayers.”

“There’s no way to do that presently,” Blount said. But he said he is also concerned about language in the bill that would exempt much of the MFlex transactions from the state Public Records Act.

“It looks like MDA would get the info, the governor and lieutenant governor and speaker and IHL would get the info, but nobody else – no public access,” Blount said. “… That transparency is the heart of accountability. This is a step in the right direction, but any time you’re hiding information from the public, that gets my antenna up.”

Parker promised to work with Blount and others to amend such language in the bill if needed.

“I agree with you,” Parker said. “We are trying to balance our desire to get companies here, and there is certain info they would not want shown in the public air, but I think we are both trying to reach the same result. I will continue to work on that, and I’ll be glad to meet with you on figuring that out.”

The post Hosemann pushes to overhaul Mississippi business incentives, avoid boondoggles of the past appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Sitting in his home in New Orleans, Andrea Lane watched in alarm as his toes began turning a dark color. 

Fearful, he headed to the hospital. “My toes just busted open and started filling with pus,” Lane said.

Doctors amputated eight of his toes. 

That’s when Lane, who has since returned to his native Vicksburg, learned the cost of diabetes. 

One of nine children, he said his mother also had diabetes – a family history that would have put him on his doctors’ radar as being predisposed to the dangers it presented and possibly headed off the outcome.

But Lane, 52, never had a doctor. He never underwent an annual physical. He has no insurance.

Since his toes were amputated in 2019, Lane has waited to be approved for Medicaid coverage. He’s twice been turned down. Four hospitalizations ranging from five to 15 days have left him owing more than $100,000. 

And like so many other Mississippians lacking health insurance, he’s turned to a patchwork of resources to save him from further complications and an early death. He’s leaned on the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center to get the insulin he can’t afford and the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi to provide needles and glucose monitoring. 

The father of three, who prepared food when he worked in New Orleans and also washed cars, saw his work history cut short by a chronic condition that caught early might have prevented the loss of his toes. He lost his food preparation job when he had difficulty standing for long periods of time. 

He’s trying to save the remaining two toes on his right foot. He’s treating with betadine a sore that’s developed on the left foot where his toes were removed while dealing with the pain. “My foot like it is, I stay off of it. I use a four-legged cane,” Lane said.

He’s also now dealing with high blood pressure.

“I need wound care, but when I try to go in, the first they ask is do you have insurance,” he said.

“I need a primary care doctor,” he said.

“Diabetes can take a wrong turn. … I don’t want anybody to have to take care of me,” said Lane, who lives with a sister.

Those lacking insurance, like Lane, turn to organizations like the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi and the Health Advocacy Center Program for help.

Both try to help those who could qualify for Medicaid to enroll or direct them to free or sliding-fee clinics if they don’t. 

The foundation serves as a conduit connecting diabetes patients to resources, like federal community health centers that can supply an older formulation of insulin at less than $25 a vial. 

“Insulin analogs are so expensive,” Irena McClain, associate director of the Diabetes Foundation, said, referring to synthetic-made insulins.

Insulin retails at $300 to $400 a vial, she said. “A lot of oral medications are running at $600 a month. That’s out of our (the foundation’s) price range” to provide, she said.

Pharmacy companies have patient assistance programs but require a doctor’s signature. 

Finding help requires knowing where to go, what to ask and education. 

“When kids with a chronic illness turn 19, they lose their Medicaid,” McClain said. “But their heart condition doesn’t go away. Their diabetes doesn’t go away.”

Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said 64% of Mississippians suffer from chronic disease, such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease.

Those who fall into the coverage gap “don’t have a lot of options,” he said. 

And there are plenty of Mississippians who fall in that gap. More than one in five Mississippians don’t have health insurance.

“We screen people to see if they are eligible for Medicaid or if their children are eligible for Medicaid,” Mitchell said.

“There are little-known ways to gain Medicaid eligibility that we have found over the years to find people eligible for Medicaid,” he said. “We’ve had to do a lot of Medicaid outreach. We’ve done it not just with providers but also hospitals.”

If individuals don’t qualify for Medicaid, Tammy Bullock, Medicaid consumer advocate with Mississippi Health Advocacy, said she checks to see if they can sign up under the Affordable Care Act. “But a lot of these people work part-time jobs,” she said. “In rural areas, they don’t even make enough to afford the premiums.”

She said she’ll then refer them to the few free clinics in the state or sliding-fee clinics like the federal community health centers. The sliding fees are based on household size and income. But there is no consistency in how much uninsured patients have to pay out of pocket. It may be as low as $10 a visit or, in one case, as high as $65, she said.

For specialized treatment, Bullock said she’ll connect them to financial assistance programs at hospitals. If they are still working, Vocational Rehabilitation will pay for such things as cataract removal with laser surgery, hearing aids and rotator cuff surgery. But Vocational Rehabilitation rarely covers hip and knee replacement surgery because such expensive procedures drain the agency’s funds, Bullock said.

The Mississippi Health Advocacy Program’s consumer assistance program was originally funded under the Affordable Care Act to help people enroll in the Health Marketplace. When the funding expired, the Trump administration didn’t renew it. Through private funding, the consumer program continued with a different objective, Mitchell said.

“It came out of people ending up on our doorstep, people who don’t have health insurance or who are having trouble with their health insurance carrier or provider,” Mitchell said.

Like the Health Advocacy Program, the Diabetes Foundation helps people navigate the system, McClain said. “If they are on Medicaid, we get them a case worker. The durable medical equipment companies seem to change every year. We have mothers calling: ‘Who can I contact to get my child’s (insulin) pump supplies?’ ”

Even Mississippians on Medicaid are limited to what they can get, she said. “Mississippi is one of the only states that Medicaid doesn’t pay for prostheses to those who have lost a limb.”

Because there are so many Medicare providers, the foundation tries to hook patients up with the equivalent of a case manager, she said.

The foundation has helped people taken in by Medicare provider companies’ “slick commercials” that say you may not have to pay a premium or deductible, she said. “These patients may wind up in that ‘donut hole’ where they have to pay for their medical supplies.”

Under Medicare Part D, this coverage gap (donut hole) begins after the insured and his or her drug plan have spent a certain amount for covered drugs — $4,130 on covered drugs in 2021. 

There has been a revolution in diabetes management with new medications, protocols, insulin pumps and glucose monitoring devices, but none of that is available to those without insurance, McClain said.

“You can have the best technology in the world, but if you can’t get it into the hands of those who need it, what good is it?” he asked. “You’ve got to have a level playing field.”

Medicaid expansion would help do that, McClain and Mitchell said. 

McClain said Medicaid would decrease amputations, keeping people healthy and working.

“Medicaid expansion saves lives,” Mitchell said. “It just says how high the stakes are. Health insurance is life or death.”

This report was produced in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s local news collaborative, which is independently funded in part by Microsoft Corp. The collaborative includes the Clarion Ledger, the Jackson Advocate, Jackson State University, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Mississippi Today.

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State senators plan to bundle up on Wednesday morning after they slip and slide into Jackson — Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann informed lawmakers that the heat, which was out at the Capitol on Tuesday, won’t be restored until Wednesday afternoon, “hopefully.”

“Take that into consideration when you dress for tomorrow morning,” Hosemann told senators, who gaveled in Tuesday, took up no real business, voted to relax the Senate’s dress code, then gaveled out a few minutes later with plans to return Wednesday at 10 a.m..

“We appreciate everyone’s patience while we work in the cold for the citizens, literally,” Hosemann said.

The House, meanwhile, met by Zoom online briefly Tuesday for what is certainly a first in the state’s history: Speaker of the House Philip Gunn presided over the lower chamber via video call. The House plans to reconvene Wednesday at 2 p.m.

The unprecedented winter storm that has impacted most of the state has ground work of the Mississippi Legislature to a near halt.

READ MORE: Ice reported on roads in 74 of 82 Mississippi counties as more winter weather approaches

But in terms of the legislative calendar, the winter storm came at a good time. The storm hit after legislators met the deadline of taking up bills that originated in their own chamber. If the storm had hit a week earlier, most likely multiple key pieces of legislation would have died because of the inability of many lawmakers to make it to the state Capitol to take up those bills.

Now legislators have a brief respite in their calendar.

Legislators have until March 2 to pass out of committee bills that had passed the other chamber. Before then, legislators face a key deadline of Feb. 24 to take up revenue and appropriations bills on the floor of the chamber where the bill originated.

READ MORE: Medical marijuana, transgender athletes, teacher pay: Bills to watch this legislative session

This deadline could impact several key pieces of legislation. For instance, Gov. Tate Reeves’ proposal to phase out the income tax must be taken up on the floor of one of the two chambers by Feb. 24 to remain alive.

But later this week, both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee are expected to meet. Those are the two committees where tax bills, such as a phase out of the income tax, would originate. The Senate called a Finance Committee meeting for Wednesday.

In addition, the House and Senate Appropriations committees also are expected to meet in the coming days as work on developing a state budget intensifies to meet the Feb. 24 deadline.

But on Monday and Tuesday, there was little activity at the Capitol. The House met completely via Zoom on both Monday and Tuesday. The Senate came in both days, but disposed of motions on bills passed or killed last week on Monday and did little on Tuesday.

On Monday, Gunn, R-Clinton, presided over the House session from the House chamber. Rep. Bill Pigott, R-Tylertown, was the only other House member in the chamber making the trip from his home in southwest Mississippi in the midst of the winter storm. Other members were on Zoom. The Senate on Monday met at the Capitol, with some members having to hitch rides in or home afterward with those with four-wheel-drive vehicles.

On Tuesday, Gunn presided via Zoom, presumably from his Clinton home, in a very informal meeting. He said he would be back in the Capitol to preside when the House convenes Wednesday afternoon. Other members also are expected to be in the chamber, though participating via Zoom still will be an option.

House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said he might preside over a meeting of his committee from his home in north Mississippi later this week, especially if another winter blast impacts north Mississippi as is currently forecast.

Gunn said during Monday’s session he had proposed pushing back legislative deadlines by a week to accommodate the winter storm, but Senate leadership had rejected the proposal. Earlier this session, Gunn rejected the proposal by Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, to postpone the session because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Mississippi State Department of Health announced Monday it confirmed the first case of a COVID-19 variant in the state that is known to spread more easily and quickly than other strains. The United Kingdom first identified the strain, called B.1.1.7, last fall.

So far 40 states have also reported cases, including neighbors Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Florida has the most known cases in the United States with 379.

While U.K. experts reported last month that the variant may be associated with an increase risk of death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more studies are needed to confirm that finding.

“Current available vaccines are expected to be effective against variant strains, but further research continues,” MSDH said in a release, adding that the department will expand surveillance for variants. The department said it hasn’t found any spread or international travel associated with the case but is still investigating.

MSDH advised the public to continue taking the same precautions, including wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and washing hands.

The CDC is also monitoring two other variants — one traced to South Africa and one to Brazil — both of which have less than 20 known cases in the U.S. However studies over the weekend identified several other variants that apparently originated in the U.S, the New York Times reported.

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