Need a game? Greenville Christian needs willing football opponents
Tiny Greenville Christian has defeated the defending Class 6A Mississippi football champion Oak Grove Warriors. They have blown out traditional private school powerhouses Madison Ridgeland Academy, Jackson Prep and Jackson Academy.
The Saints, the all-Black team playing in Mississippi’s traditionally white private school league, are the No. 1 ranked high school football team in the Magnolia State and deserve that ranking.
READ MORE: This all-Black team in Mississippi’s private academy league is making history
But here’s the flip side to all this success: Now, nobody wants to play them.
This week, Rossville (Tenn.) Christian School became the third opponent this season to cancel a game with Greenville Christian. Saints coach Jon Reed McLendon received the news Tuesday and immediately used social media to search for a replacement game.
There have been no takers. Earlier this year, both Hillcrest Academy and North Point Christian of Southaven backed out of games with Greenville Christian.
McLendon said Rossville Christian’s reason for not playing was “they were concerned with player safety. They’ve had some injuries and thought it was in the best interest of their kids not to play.”
After the earlier cancellations, McLendon reached out on social media to search for a game on Sept. 16 when the Saints had an open date. Then-undefeated Oak Grove, which has played in the State Class 6A championship game the past two years, answered with an invitation to play in Oak Grove. Greenville Christian won a 48-41 thriller at Oak Grove.
READ MORE: Greenville Christian knocks off reigning 6A champs Oak Grove
Since then, Oak Grove has defeated perennial 6A powerhouses Warren Central (37-20) and Petal (48-14). Meanwhile, Greenville Christian has slammed Riverside (44-0) and Jackson Academy (30-9) to raise its record to 7-1. The Saints’ only loss was at Collins Hill (Georgia) 37-22 in a game that was much closer than the score indicates. Unbeaten Collins Hill is ranked in the national top 10 and has outscored its other six opponents 209-10.
“Obviously, our kids are disappointed,” McLendon said. “They want to play. Heck, we need to play. Here we are in October and we have only had one home game.”
McLendon says he understands the concerns of the teams that have cancelled games. “We’ve been down that path before, where we had some injuries and only 13 or 14 healthy players,” McLendon said “I know how that feels. We haven’t always been like this.”
In fact, Greenville Christian’s roster numbered in the teens last in August of 2020 before several Delta high schools cancelled the football season due to COVID-19. Several of the Saints’ key players transferred to Greenville Christian and have remained there. The roster now numbers 36 players and the Saints have shown they can compete and win against much larger schools.
They might have a chance to do that again.
Greenville Christian is in discussions with St. John’s College High School of Washington, D.C., about playing a game Friday, Oct. 15 in D.C. Both St. John’s, a Catholic school powerhouse, and Greenville Christian have open dates. St. John’s, 5-0 and ranked No. 23 in the USA Today’s national poll, has outscored opponents 167-13.
“They want to play and, like I say, we need to play a game,” McLendon said.
The devil is in the details.
The nation’s capital is a 16-hour bus ride away. The trip is expensive. McLendon said St. John’s has offered a $10,000 guarantee to Greenville Christian but that won’t cover the team’s expenses.
“You’re talking about getting 50 people including coaches, managers and everybody, on a bus charter with a couple nights in a motel or hotel and then meals,” McLendon said. “We’re trying to figure out a way to make it work. It would be a great experience for our kids.”
Count Jackson Academy coach Lance Pogue, the national coach of the year in 2010 when he was at South Panola, among those hoping the Saints get to play the game at D.C.
“I have so much respect for those players and those coaches,” Pogue said. “They have a lot of talented guys and they play the game the right way. Those coaches do a terrific job.”
As it is, Greenville Christian has only one game regular season game remaining on Oct. 22, a home game against Delta Streets of Greenwood.
Said McLendon, “They have assured us they are going to play, so that is at least one more game and a home game we will get to play.”
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State appeals judge’s ruling to reform mental health system
The state of Mississippi appealed a federal judge’s ruling that would shape the future of the state’s mental health system to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday.
The state’s appeal is the latest development in a more than decade-long battle between the federal government and the state of Mississippi. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a letter to the state saying Mississippi was not doing enough to provide mental health services outside of institutional settings. After five years of the state doing little to offer more community-based services, the DOJ sued in 2016, and District Judge Carlton Reeves later ruled that the state was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Reeves told the state on Sept. 7 that it had four months to develop a plan to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of people experiencing mental illness in state hospitals, and submit that plan to the DOJ. Lawyers for the state then asked for the deadline to be postponed because of its plan to appeal the ruling.
The state not only opposes having to develop the plan ordered by Reeves, but also specific services and accountability measures required by the order.
One order the state opposes is a requirement to implement peer support services at community mental health centers across the state’s 15 mental health regions by the end of the 2022 fiscal year.
The state also opposes a requirement to fund an additional 250 CHOICE housing vouchers for the 2022 fiscal year, another 250 during the 2023 fiscal year and then sustain that level of funding going forward. The CHOICE housing voucher program provides rental assistance for Mississippians with severe mental illness.
The Mississippi Legislature increased funding for CHOICE by $400,000 in 2021, but as the state’s record of distributing pandemic-related rental assistance shows, just because funding is appropriated for a worthy cause doesn’t mean it will get to the people who need it. Mississippi’s CHOICE program has never spent the full amount appropriated by the Legislature.
The state also opposes a requirement that the Mississippi Department of Mental Health conduct clinical reviews with 100 to 200 patients per year “to assure that services are working as intended to address the needs of people with serious mental illness.”
Joy Hogge, executive director of the mental health advocacy organization Families as Allies, doesn’t buy the lawyers’ argument that these requirements would cause “irreparable injuries” to the state.
“I think the only explanation (for the state’s appeal) is that they don’t want to be accountable,” Hogge said. “What they have really objected to all along is anybody having any input or oversight. They don’t want our mental health system to be accountable to anything outside itself.”
Reeves’ order also requires the state to begin collecting a vast amount of data on the people interacting with the state’s mental health system. This includes tracking who is receiving core services at community mental health centers, calls to mobile crisis teams, and state hospital stays that last longer than 180 days, among others.
This data collection would give the state Department of Mental Health a more complete picture of which services are working and which aren’t. The department develops a “strategic plan” every four years that includes statewide goals and benchmarks for improving services. However, these “living documents” never include quantifiable measurements for identifying if these desired outcomes are achieved.
“I don’t know where the evidence is that the people who most need the services are getting them. Do we know if those services are helping them live in the community and reach the goals that they want to reach? We don’t know that because they aren’t collecting that data,” Hogge said.
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Following the New Summit scandal, these grandparents took the Hattiesburg school into their own hands
At first, school staff at Kimmi Farrell’s kindergarten thought she might be autistic.
Later, one of her teachers said ADHD. By the end of the first grade, teachers were saying that she needed to be held back because she couldn’t read. It was then her family took her to get tested and found out she had dyslexia.
She was enrolled in South New Summit School in Hattiesburg to receive dyslexia therapy and instruction specialized for students with learning disabilities.
“She found her place. This child who was beaten down by the public school system because of her inability to keep up with others — she blossomed,” said Wendy Farrell, Kimmi’s grandmother.
Along with the specialized resources that the school provided, Farrell said that being in community with other students who are struggling with similar issues helped Kimmi believe she could succeed.
“They were all the same. Not that they all had the same diagnosis, but they had all been through the wringer,” she said.
The school, founded in 2015 as The Institute for Diverse Education (commonly referred to as TIDE school), was sold to Nancy New’s private for-profit company, New Learning Resources, in 2018. A grand jury indicted Nancy New and her son Zach New in February 2020, alleging they embezzled federal welfare dollars through their separate nonprofit. The charges resulted in financial ruin at their four schools, rendering them at times unable to make payroll.
A subsequent federal indictment in March of 2021 assured the schools’ collapse: authorities charged the News with filing fraudulent claims with the Mississippi Department of Education to pay the salaries of teachers, including teachers at South New Summit.
The charges left many parents at New Learning Resources schools stunned because they knew their students would struggle to receive the specialized education anywhere else.
Steven and Wendy Farrell, Kimmi’s grandparents, were among those concerned and felt compelled to save the school because of the positive change they saw in their granddaughter. They took over in February of 2021, renaming the academy Innova Prep.
“We didn’t want to let this school go by the wayside because we didn’t think (Kimmi) was ready to go back to public school,” Steven Farrell said. “We decided to take it on and fund it until we could get it working…and then hopefully pass it on to a younger generation.”
Before the News, Christie Brady founded TIDE school to serve students like her son, who had been diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD and anxiety. She had been homeschooling him for a few years, but they felt it wasn’t the best situation.
“A best situation didn’t really exist for him, so we set out to create it,” Brady said.
Two special purpose schools already existed in the Hattiesburg area, the DuBard School for Language Disorders and the 3-D School, but both only serve elementary students. Brady, who had worked as a professor of psychology at a community college, originally founded her school to serve the middle and high school aged students of the same population. The school later expanded to serve elementary students who had learning disabilities or disorders that did not fit into the specified missions of Dubard and 3-D.
“I think those other two programs being here really helped the development of the school because the community is already so supportive of these special purpose situations, so it was not a novel idea for there to be a school for middle or high school for students with learning challenges,” Brady said.
Special purpose schools like TIDE can be very expensive to run because of the individualized attention they provide to students, a challenge that was exacerbated by TIDE’s commitment to serving students regardless of their financial status. When New Learning Resources approached Brady about buying the school, it seemed like a great solution to their financial difficulties since the News had a seemingly successful track record running other schools like theirs.
The Farrells first learned of financial difficulties at the school in the fall of 2020, meeting with Nancy New and Roy Balentine, executive director of New Learning Resources. When New began talking in January about closing the school, the Farrells decided to take over immediately.
They started a new nonprofit school, but are still waiting on their 501c3 status to be approved. After finishing out the 2020-2021 school year, they moved the school to a newly renovated campus. Steven said they have already invested over half a million dollars into the school and expect to spend another $300,000 this year.
“We’re learning by the seat of our pants,” Steven, the chief medical officer of Forrest General Hospital, said. “We’ve got good educators and administrators with us, but those of us who are on the board haven’t worked in schools before so we’re learning something new.”
Fifty-six students currently attend Innova Prep, with the goal of gradually bringing that number up to 100 over the next two years. Steven said that at 100 students, the school will have enough tuition funds to be self-sustaining. They are currently enrolling new students year-round.
Attempts were also made to save New Summit School in Jackson and North New Summit in Greenwood. A group of parents attempted to save New Summit School in Jackson through a corporate custodianship, but that effort was not successful. According to court filings in July, Gary Herring, the court-appointed custodian, had not been able to secure any financial backers to keep the school open, but had been counseled by the News’ attorneys not to expressly say that it would not be open.
Herring told Mississippi Today that they are in the process of closing the custodianship. North New Summit in Greenwood has reopened as Leflore Christian School, also turning into a non-profit.
Parents like Sasha Barnes are extremely grateful for the specialized services that these types of schools provide. Both of her kids attend Innova Prep, starting last year while it was still South New Summit.
“They were very into knowing who Mason and Erin were, what problems they had at their other schools, and what they could do to help them when they came to South New Summit,” Barnes said.
Barnes felt that the school did a good job of compartmentalizing and keeping the things consistent for the students and parents. She was not aware that there had been issues at the school until the meeting when she found out the Farrells would be taking over, but said she almost appreciated this because it kept her from panicking.
A school automatically loses its accreditation status for at least one year if it changes ownership, according to Mississippi Department of Education regulations. For students like Mason and Erin, this means that they can no longer receive the dyslexia scholarships that they are eligible for, since those scholarships must be used at an accredited special purpose school.
In order to offset this burden, the Farrells chose to personally cover the portion of tuition — more than $5,000 of the $9,300 it costs to attend Innova Prep annually — that would have been paid for by the scholarship, leaving the parents of eligible students with only the remaining tuition balance. This option is open to all currently enrolled students with dyslexia scholarships and any dyslexic prospective students.
“We have no doubt we will be accredited in 12 months. In the meantime, we just need the kids,” Steven Farrell said.
Barnes said she was very grateful the Farrells made it possible for her kids to, in effect, still receive the dyslexia scholarships, particularly because of the positive growth she has seen in her children since transferring.
“We’ve gone from teachers thinking Erin couldn’t talk to her being the class clown and Mason crying because he couldn’t do his schoolwork to receiving the golden owl award. It’s a major difference,” she said.
Barnes also said that the open communication style of the teachers of Innova Prep is a welcome change of pace from her son’s previous experiences.
“If there’s anything he’s struggling with, I know I could contact any teacher here… and they’re on it, telling me why he got that grade and what can be done to help,” Barnes said.
That open communication style has been part of the culture since the school’s founding, a culture that Sharon Ladner has worked to develop. As principal and executive director of Innova Prep, Ladner is in her fifth year at the school. With nearly 40 years of experience as a teacher and administrator, Ladner champions the specialized teaching styles that the school uses.
Ladner offered up the image of a Venn diagram, with one circle being traditional students and the other being special education students, explaining that the area in the middle is larger than people realize.
“Many students that we have, because of size and opportunities in larger schools, those students get lost. Because of our size and the way that we provide instruction, we are able to help students in the middle of that Venn diagram have more of an opportunity for a diploma than they might have had at a public or private school of a larger size.”
Ladner said they do not give away any diplomas or skip any requirements, they just present the information in a different manner. She believes that for their students, it’s never a question of cognitive ability, but of environment and presentation.
“We have the ability to pick the best staff that we possibly can,” Ladner said. “These are people who really love this type of learner, and are willing to go above and beyond to make those lessons come alive.”
Ladner said she is a public school advocate, but she also understands the realities of large schools and the challenges they face — some students just need more time and attention, which larger schools can’t always provide. She does not see Innova Prep as being in competition with any other schools, but rather working to fill in gaps.
“Everyone has their niche, and this is ours,” Ladner said.
Gabby Holm has been a student in a special purpose school since fourth grade for speech and language processing disorders and high functioning autism. When she was about to age out of the Dubard School, her mother, Lenora, considered placing her back in the public school system, but they ultimately found her a home at TIDE school.
Lenora Holm explained that she believes the population of students that the school serves are some of the most vulnerable in the state, because they have the ability to be independent and productive citizens, but if ignored, are going to become dependent on the state. Because of this, she felt it was particularly essential for the state to provide more scholarships, and more control over those scholarships, for the education of students like her daughter.
“I understand the struggle of having a child with different learning styles,” Lenora Holm said. “That struggle is real, and if I had to, on top of that, see something that I knew would be best for my child but just know that there was no way I could bridge that gap financially, that would be devastating to me as a parent.”
Lenora Holm is one of the parents who has seen the school through each iteration of its leadership. She felt that there was a lack of involvement and care during its time as South New Summit, but clarified she wasn’t referring to the teachers. In her eyes, all of the benefits that were supposed to come from joining New Learning Resources just never transpired.
“We’ve had more energy, enthusiasm, and hope again in these past six months than we had for years, and seen more progress,” Holm said.
Steven and Wendy Farrell undoubtedly bring the energy. Steven had a lot of ideas for the future, including a scholarship program to send low-income students to any special purpose school in the area and improving protocols and lowering the cost barrier to dyslexia testing in public schools. But for the moment, they’re focused on keeping the doors of the school open.
“Sometimes you find a second purpose in life,” Farrell said. “Our mindset is ‘What can we do to contribute to everyone living their most independent life?’”
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Fact check: Medicaid chief missed nuances while disputing experts who made economic case for expansion
Drew Snyder, the executive director of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, said that based on a study conducted by University Research Center economists, most of the people who would gain health care coverage if Mississippi expands Medicaid already have coverage.
Referring to the study conducted by State Economist Corey Miller and Senior Economist Sondra Collins, Snyder recently said, “What really jumped out to me was that 65% (of the people who would be covered under Medicaid expansion) already had some form of insurance… What it looked to be was this was primarily not providing individuals with a new affordable coverage, but shifting insurance coverage for people already covered.”
The report, as Snyder correctly pointed out, does conclude that a significant majority of the people who would sign up for Medicaid expansion if the state provided it already have health care coverage. Gov. Tate Reeves and others have argued that enacting Medicaid expansion would allow people to drop private coverage they are at least partially paying for and enroll in a program — Medicaid expansion — paid by the federal and state governments. But the study pointed out nuances.
The study estimates that 233,489 people would be added to the Medicaid rolls if the state expands Medicaid as is allowed under federal law.
Of those 233,489:
- 82,204 would be people who currently have no insurance.
- 11,623 would be people with employer-based coverage.
- 28,910 would be people with private insurance through the federal Healthcare Exchange where they currently receive federal subsides to help pay for the coverage.
- 110,752 would be people currently covered by the state Medicaid program.
But Snyder did not mention the fact that if the state had Medicaid expansion like 38 other states and the District of Columbia, those 110,752 could be diverted from the current Medicaid program, where the state must pay a greater share of the match than the state would if the people were covered through Medicaid expansion.
Put simply, under Medicaid expansion, the state would be paying less for the health care for those 100,000-plus.
Mississippi has the best matching rate for its traditional Medicaid program with the federal government paying 84.5% of the costs during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the federal matching rate for those covered through Medicaid expansion is 90%.
READ MORE: State economist refutes politicians’ claim that Mississippi cannot afford Medicaid expansion
There are currently about 780,000 people covered by Medicaid in Mississippi. Those people include the disabled, poor pregnant women, poor children and a segment of the elderly population. Most healthy adults who are not pregnant cannot garner coverage through the current program except for in certain caregivers of those on the Medicaid program living in extreme poverty.
Under Medicaid expansion, coverage is provided to those making up to 138% of the federal poverty level or $17,774 annually for an individual.
The study estimated that the total state population that would be eligible to enroll in any potential Medicaid expansion is 330,000, though a significant number of that group would not enroll in the Medicaid expansion program.
Reeves, who opposes Medicaid expansion, and others have argued that more people would sign up for Medicaid expansion than projected in many studies. During his successful 2019 gubernatorial campaign, he also said that in neighboring Louisiana when that state began Medicaid expansion, many people with insurance through other means dropped that coverage and enrolled in Medicaid expansion.
The study by the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center surmises that Medicaid expansion would produce an average of 11,000 jobs per year between 2022 and 2027 and provide an additional $44 million per year for the state general fund.
The positive results, the study concludes, are the result of several factors, including the economic boost from the infusion of the federal money into the state, the savings from moving certain groups from the traditional Medicaid program to the expansion program and from other incentives provided by the federal government to expand Medicaid.
Snyder questioned the validity of the study.
“We recognize these are big decisions,” Snyder recently told legislative leaders of the possibility of expanding Medicaid. “…This is not a free or add-on to the state. It will cost money. The question now comes is this the money we want to spend.”
After making his comments, Snyder conceded he is not an economist.
Snyder first was appointed as executive director of the Medicaid Division by former Gov. Phil Bryant and re-appointed by Reeves. Both Reeves and Bryant have been adamant opponents of Medicaid expansion.
READ MORE: Mississippi chamber of commerce mulling Medicaid expansion
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Pandemic funds could fix Mississippi’s troubled workforce child care program
As state leaders continue their perennial efforts to improve Mississippi’s workforce training and participation, federal pandemic dollars are providing a golden opportunity to address a major issue: child care for working parents, particularly single moms.
Will the state take advantage of this, and fix a program that has struggled, and often failed, to help many working parents? That remains to be seen. The state Department of Human Services, an agency plagued with mismanagement, malfeasance and scandal, appears to be dragging its feet on how it might spend $519 million in American Rescue Plan Act money earmarked for child care.
Mississippi’s Child Care Development Fund is a federal block-grant program that provides child care assistance to working parents earning up to 85% of the state’s median income, $45,937 for a family of three.
In the past, the program has received about $60 million in federal funds each year, and was serving an estimated 10% of low-income children. Congress bumped Mississippi’s allocation up to around $90 million for 2018 and 2019, and the state received nearly $145 million in 2020 due to pandemic relief, allowing the state to serve an estimate of up to 30% of income-eligible kids currently. But advocates argue there are still tens of thousands of low-income children disconnected from any publicly available early childhood program. The influx of hundreds of millions of additional federal dollars would appear to be a godsend for the program.
But it’s unclear exactly what DHS, an agency that reports to Gov. Tate Reeves, will do with much of the money. The agency has said it will provide stabilization grants to child care centers, but has provided few details, and offered no plans to help more working parents. Child care advocates have made recommendations — and other states are moving forward with planning and spending the funds — but DHS has only submitted a “placeholder” plan and says it’s still developing its strategy.
READ MORE: Mississippi procrastinates as other states plan for, spend billions in pandemic stimulus
DHS leaders have said that since the ARPA funds are technically one-time money that must be spent by 2026, they’re loathe to use it to expand the program to help more families and children.
“God forbid we serve another kid this year that we can’t serve four years from now when the money runs out,” said Carol Burnett, director of the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative.
PODCAST: Federal funds provide opportunity to fix child care program for working parents
Meanwhile, the program, which has been described as a “minefield of bureaucracy,” is serving only a fraction of low-income families. Single working moms report a byzantine, nearly impossible to navigate web of red tape to get into the program, then a “redetermination” system that frequently kicks them out once they’ve gotten in. Parents have reported losing their workforce child care vouchers for providing copies of paperwork that were too dark, or required documentation they submitted expiring because DHS took too long in making eligibility determination.
Recently, the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative reported between 3,600 and 4,100 parents lost their child care assistance amid the worst of the pandemic. Child care centers have also suffered from the pandemic, and from problems with the state’s voucher program for working parents.
One major issue with the child care program in Mississippi is that parents, typically single moms, are required to participate in the state’s child support system, using state contracted attorneys to go after their spouses in court. In essence, working moms have to navigate through one poorly run state bureaucracy in order to try to participate in another. This requirement provides mounds of red tape for parents, and often results in child care vouchers being denied or lost.
Other states are using their ARPA child care money to help eliminate red tape burdens and expand their workforce child care.
Advocates have made many recommendations to DHS for using the federal funds, including serving an additional 35,000 children, eliminating the child support requirements, and helping child care centers recruit, hire and retain qualified staff with higher wages and training. As for the money drying up, advocates say that more children could at least be served over several years, and money could also be used to help train single parents for better jobs.
Poverty-plagued Mississippi has struggled with its workforce. The state’s labor force participation rate, currently at 55.9%, is the lowest in the nation. Having an anemic and under-trained workforce holds the state back economically, and hampers economic development efforts to attract industry and jobs to the state. Helping single parents with child care so they can work would appear a no-brainer as officials focus on workforce development.
As Burnett recently said, “Parents with young children need child care in order to work. Because child care is expensive, many Mississippi parents need help affording the high cost … DHS should be working quickly to use these funds to serve more families.”
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Though half of Mississippians struggle to make ends meet, 31% don’t qualify for assistance
A third of Mississippians can’t afford basic household necessities but fail to meet the federal definition of poverty, a new United Way report finds.
The report, released in August, measures the number of households that earn above the federal poverty level (FPL) but are still struggling to make ends meet. This is a group the report refers to as ALICE — asset limited, income constrained, employed.
The report was presented to the Senate Labor Committee last week during their two-day hearings on raising the minimum wage, which is currently set at the federal rate of $7.25 an hour.
“Everyone knows ALICE,” said Michele Connelly, executive director of the United Way of West Central Mississippi and co-chair of the Mississippi ALICE Project. “If you haven’t been ALICE, you very much know ALICE and interact with ALICE every day.”
The report found 1 in 2 Mississippians experience financial constraints, though only 19% live below the federal poverty level (neighboring states Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee fall between 15-18% on this metric). The report attributes this gap to the outdated nature of the FPL; the authors instead use a metric they developed, the basic household survival budget, which accounts for modern necessities like smartphones and is adjusted geographically based on local costs.
The basic household survival budget accounts for housing, child care, food, transportation, healthcare, technology, miscellaneous expenses, and taxes at the least expensive rates. An annual salary of $21,924 would cover these basic costs for a single individual, $55,980 for a family of four.
Connelly specifically pointed to the oversized impact on single mothers — 83% of families headed by single mothers fall below the ALICE threshold.
“So many single mothers cannot make ends meet, and that is wrong,” Connelly told Mississippi Today. “I’m a strong believer that we need to make childcare accessible to ensure that women can do what we need to do to go out and support our families.”
Connelly also pointed out that many of the professions which fall below the ALICE threshold are the essential workers who have been keeping our economy running during the pandemic, but as the report shows, cannot provide for themselves.
Lead Researcher Stephanie Hoopes identified the state’s low workforce participation rate, 56% before the pandemic, as a barrier to employers voluntarily raising wages. With so many people out of the workforce, these individuals act as a reserve of potential workers that enable employers to offer non-competitive salaries.
“The strength of the state economy is tied to the financial security of its residents,” Hoopes said in the Senate hearing.
Advocates have a lot of ideas about how to improve conditions for ALICEs — down payment assistance, laws against discriminatory lending practices, and payday lending regulations, but Sara Miller, a member of the report’s research advisory committee and analyst at the Hope Policy Institute, said that she thinks the most pressing issue for ALICE families is the looming eviction crisis.
“Evictions have long-term consequences, damaging credit scores and making it harder to get housing… In addition to what we hope will be the swift deployment of rental assistance funds, state and local governments can enact local eviction moratoriums to give that money time to get out,” Miller told Mississippi Today.
Cassandra Welchlin, lead organizer of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, specifically cited the need for two Mississippi policy changes: Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill. Through her work, she has met the women who are the breadwinners of many ALICE families and found that they often fall in the coverage gap. Expanding Medicaid would allow these households to allocate their limited resources to other necessities, she said.
“Mississippi can do better,” Welchlin said. “Just as there were policies that were created that made these households ALICE, we can create policies to give these households solutions.”
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New audit shows ‘a tragic amount’ misspent, but can’t find what happened to $40 million in welfare funds
A long-anticipated independent audit of the Mississippi Department of Human Services meticulously describes some agency expenditures but provides little explanation of the misspending of tens of millions of welfare dollars in recent years.
Accountants from CliftonLarsonAllen LLC found a total of $12.4 million worth of possible fraud, waste or abuse, such as high-dollar contracts with vague responsibilities or a lease on a building that sat empty. It found $36.1 million in welfare purchases that weren’t allowed under federal rules, such as a virtual reality lab and sports camps. The firm could not account for another roughly $41 million.
Nancy New, a key figure awaiting trial in the alleged welfare embezzlement scheme, had suggested the forensic audit would vindicate her.
But then she refused to cooperate with the audit, so the firm was unable to parse out what happened to $40.6 million her nonprofit spent.
The auditors did not determine whether any of these purchases — some of the most egregious and widely publicized in a scandal uncovered last year — constituted fraud, waste, or abuse, or whether they were even allowed under federal grant rules.
Auditors deemed just $1.7 million, or 3%, of the New nonprofit’s spending “allowable,” meaning the purchases conformed to federal rules for welfare spending.
The state spent $2.1 million for the outside firm to conduct the audit of the welfare agency’s spending in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 under its former director John Davis.
The report did not analyze payments from New’s nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, to:
- retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre’s company
- the biomedical company Favre and former Gov. Phil Bryant tried to recruit to Mississippi
- the foundation of famed high school running back Marcus Dupree
- high-powered lobbyists, or
- Nancy New’s private education company.
This latest report does offer more details surrounding $12.4 million in potential fraud, waste or abuse — most of which focused on how former Mississippi Department of Human Services director Davis used his influence to direct federal money to his friends and family. Because the accountants didn’t have access to Davis’ personal financial records, they could not determine whether he personally benefited from the scheme.
Some payments indicative of possible fraud, waste or abuse from the report include:
- $5,101,710 to retired WWE wrestlers Ted DiBiase, Ted DiBiase Jr. and Brett DiBiase.
- $1,112,285 to Brian and Austin Smith, Davis’ brother-in-law and nephew.
- $168,733 to Nick Coughlin and $250,790 to Adam Such, individuals introduced to Davis by the DiBiases.
- $1,309,183 to Victory Sports Foundation, owned by retired professional linebacker Paul Lacoste.
- $26,962 for youth to travel to an out-of-state football tournament.
- $200,000 to Soul City Hospitality, a public-private partnership represented by Jackson restaurateur Jeff Good.
- $2,734 in first-class air fare for Davis and his former deputy Jacob Black.
In February of 2020, agents from the State Auditor’s Office arrested Nancy New, her son Zach New, Davis, retired wrestler Brett DiBiase, agency employee Latimer Smith, and nonprofit accountant Ann McGrew within an alleged scheme to embezzle a total of $4.15 million in federal grant dollars. Brett DiBiase is the only one who has pleaded guilty.
In May of 2020, the auditor released an audit that officially questioned more than $90 million in agency spending from 2017 to 2019 and involved dozens of subgrantees and individuals.
But the revelation of a potentially much more massive scheme — and an ensuing FBI investigation — has resulted in no new arrests nearly a year and a half later.
“This independent forensic audit commissioned by DHS corroborates my team’s work over the last two years, and it shows what we have known for some time: there was a tragic amount of welfare money misspent here,” State Auditor Shad White said in a statement Friday. “The completion of the audit is an important step toward fixing the problems with how the state handled TANF money.”
Most of the money in question came from a block grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a few-strings-attached federal fund which states can use to provide cash assistance, formerly known as the welfare check, to very low-income families or on a number of other programs.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services had offered small contracts to New’s nonprofit and another nonprofit called Family Resource Center of North Mississippi over the years. But in 2017, the agency began funneling tens of millions to the two organizations under the guise of a family-stabilizing initiative called Families First for Mississippi. The two organizations then subgranted with dozens of other people and organizations but kept very poor track of the spending or what the recipients were supposed to be accomplishing.
Even though Family Resource Center and Mississippi Community Education Center were working on the same initiative, the nonprofits would swap funds and sometimes paid the same employees or contractors for the same work.
The forensic audit shows Family Resource Center made several of the purchases that were indicative of fraud, waste or abuse, including:
- $375,750 to Chase Computer Services to build a program to track participants in Families First for Mississippi, an application that ultimately did not function.
- $27,500 to Marcus Dupree, Families First for Mississippi “motivational speaker and celebrity endorser.”
- $57,953 to Amy Harris, the nonprofit’s media coordinator.
- $25,000 to Through the Fire Ministries, LLC for religious children’s books authored by Christian musician Jason Crabb.
- $118,936 to Southtech Inc.
- $30,000 to Northeast Mississippi Community College Development Foundation, a sponsorship for the Northeast Mississippi Football Coaches’ Association All-Star game.
- $49,190.06 to Warren Washington Issaquena Sharkey Community Action Agency or WWISCAA for fabricated services, Mississippi Today first reported in June.
A large chunk of Family Resource Center’s misspending involved the New family or their companies, according to the report:
- $2,137,436 to Mississippi Community Education Center.
- $583,096 to New Learning Resources, Inc., Nancy New’s for-profit private school company.
- $1,761 to Nancy New.
- $57,456 to Zach New.
- $34,506 to Nancy New’s other son Jess New.
While the overall Families First for Mississippi program was riddled with alleged corruption, the current criminal cases focus more on the money that mysteriously flowed through New’s nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center. New has maintained her innocence.
“The forensic audit is going to prove a lot,” Nancy New told reporters in November. “This has become a numbers case.”
The forensic audit states that attorneys for New’s nonprofit provided all the documentation the accountants requested, but that it contained errors.
When the firm followed up with the nonprofit representatives who would have direct knowledge of the finances — defendants Nancy New, Zach New and McGrew, the nonprofit accountant — they refused to meet with the auditors.
Zach New provided a written response to the firm stating, “MCEC disagrees with all of the MCEC-specific findings listed in the OSA report and welcomes the opportunity to discuss further any findings listed in the auditor’s report.”
But he never responded to the firm’s requests for such a discussion.
Attorneys for Nancy New, Zach New, McGrew and Davis did not return calls to Mississippi Today on Friday.
To determine how certain individuals came to be welfare recipients, the forensic auditors had greater access to internal records from its client, the Mississippi Department of Human Services — such as Davis’ emails — than it did to the private businesses that received subgrants.
“Based on the contents of email communications identified,” the report states, “it was apparent that John Davis had a very close relationship to the DiBiase family and may have had some control over the establishment of certain entities owned by the DiBiases.”
Davis had a hand in awarding direct agency contracts to Ted DiBiase Sr.’s Christian ministry Heart of David to conduct faith-based programming and to Brett DiBiase’s company Restore2 or Recover2 (the name alternates on agency documents) for opioid addiction education.
Ultimately, it was the $48,000 contract with Brett DiBiase, which the department paid him while he was in rehab in California, that landed the wrestler and Davis in jail.
But, the auditors found, Davis also played a role in securing contracts — much larger ones — between the nonprofits running Families First for Mississippi and Ted DiBiase Jr., or “Teddy.”
Davis frequently copied the DiBiases, especially Teddy, on emails discussing internal agency business.
“The inclusion of various DiBiase family members in emails regardless of their official role with the respective organization shows the fluidity of the relationships and the level of involvement of John Davis with Ted DiBiase, Ted DiBiase, Jr., and Brett DiBiase,” the report states.
The emails weave a tangled web: At one point, Davis even asked Nancy New’s son Jess New to help him find an available corporation name for Ted DiBiase Jr.’s new motivational speaking and leadership training venture called Law of 16. Much of the $3 million Ted DiBiase Jr. received in federal public assistance money was for “leadership outreach.”
In addition to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds, the $3 million Ted DiBiase Jr. received also included emergency food assistance money and funds from another federal program called the Social Services Block Grant.
The audit states that in 2017, Brett DiBiase introduced Davis to Nick Coughlin, who co-owned a company and attempted to produce a movie with Ted DiBiase Jr. Davis immediately began discussing a role for Coughlin at the agency, in which he would “create opportunities for conversations with industry leaders and potential employers for indiviudals [sic] seeking [MDHS] services.”
Coughlin’s company NCC Ventures received a total of $168,733 in payments from the agency and each of the nonprofits.
“Based on the lack of any deliverables from NCC Ventures and the limited information included in the invoices to MDHS, there is little evidence to support any time and effort by NCC Ventures to perform the services as described in the agreement,” the audit states.
Davis then also hired one of Coughlin’s relatives in the state office. Coughlin now works for the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, according to his LinkedIn.
Coughlin’s attorney, Francis Springer, advised Coughlin not to discuss his work with the welfare department since the criminal investigation is ongoing. Springer said he didn’t believe Coughlin was under investigation.
“As far as I know it was all legitimate work and was verified by the auditor’s office,” Springer said.
Similarly, Ted DiBiase Jr. introduced Davis to consultant Adam Such, whose firm SBGI, LLC then received a contract and an up-front payment of $250,000 from Family Resource Center. While the contract was initially intended for programs to help at-risk youth, Family Resource Center told auditors “the scope as intended concept was not feasible,” so the nonprofit gave him an administrative role.
“Although there is some evidence of activities performed by Such, there is limited information to support a fee of $250,000,” the audit reads.
Mississippi Today could not reach Such on Friday.
Overall, auditors could only determine that $49.4 million, 40% of the $126 million in welfare spending they examined, was allowable.
Because the agency was skirting rules under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, it’s possible that some legitimate organizations running necessary programs in accordance with their agency subgrant also made unallowable purchases if the subgrant agreement they signed with the department did not follow welfare guidelines.
When the Mississippi Department of Human Services hired CliftonLarsonAllen in September of 2020, it said in a press release, “The audit will provide a complete review of the agency’s practices and ensure it is operating with integrity and in compliance with departmental policies and state and federal laws.”
An agency spokesperson said an additional report on the agency’s current operations and internal controls will be released in coming weeks. The latest reports published Friday “look back, while the controls report will look forward.”
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