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Mississippi’s voucher program to help single working parents has been underfunded and difficult to navigate because of red tape. Carol Burnett and Matt Williams of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative explain how an influx of federal pandemic stimulus dollars could help. 

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Read a transcript of the episode below.

Geoff Pender: Welcome to The Other Side Podcast. This is Geoff Pender with Mississippi Today. I’m joined today by my colleague, Anna Wolfe. Anna, hello. How are you doing? 

Anna Wolfe: Good. Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Geoff Pender: And we’re also joined today by Carol Burnett. She’s the founder and director of the Mississippi Low-Income Childcare Initiative. Hello.

Carol Burnett: Hello. 

Geoff Pender: Welcome to the show. Thank you for being on. 

And we are also joined with Matt Williams, who is the research director for the Mississippi Low-Income Childcare Initiative. Matt, thank you for joining us. 

Matt Williams: Thank you so much for having us this morning. 

Geoff Pender: Sure, and a lot of topics to discuss. Anna, this is something you’ve been looking at closely for quite some time. Can you explain what brings us here today and some of the topics we’re going to cover? 

Anna Wolfe: Sure. So Carol and I have been talking about this for years now. And she’s here to talk about this sort of ever present problem within the state’s administration of the childcare payment program, which is the voucher that allows low income parents to afford childcare so that they can go to work, which is that it’s only ever reached a sliver of families in the state who qualify, who need it. But as I understand it in this particular moment, we have this unique opportunity to address this disparity because of all of this money that we’ve been getting from COVID relief packages. And we can really address this if the state has the vision to do something different and decide to target that money to help families who need it.

So I’ll let you explain sort of how we got here. And where we are. 

Carol Burnett: Alright, thanks. The state gets a federal block grant, and it’s called the Childcare Development Fund. States are allowed to shape that program with a great deal of discretion about the rules at the state level. There are very few federal rules, and Mississippi calls that program the Childcare Payment Program, and our state agency that administers that is the Department of Human Services. Parents apply to get childcare assistance. The assistance is provided in the form of vouchers to eligible parents. The vouchers that a parent receives help cover the cost of the childcare. They use the voucher, they go out and buy their childcare from a provider that participates in the program and the voucher covers the lion’s share of the cost.

So it makes childcare affordable for working parent who otherwise would find it very difficult to afford childcare because childcare is very expensive. That program serves families up to 85% of the state median income, which is a pretty high income level. I mean for a family of three we’re talking about like $45,000 a year.

So it really is a work support. It’s intended to be an assistance for those families who are among the working poor. Always that program has been super helpful for the families that have been fortunate to get a voucher. But as you pointed out, it’s always been inadequate to serve more than just around 25, 30% of the eligible families in this state.

So we’ve advocated that bigger investment go in, so more of our families in the state can be served. We’ve gotten a lot of information from our state economist who’s said that parents with young children would participate more in the labor force if they had affordable childcare. So there are lots of reasons for this program to be invested in that would be good for the children for getting early childhood, the parent for being able to go to work, the state for getting additional income into the economy.

So it’s good for everyone, but it’s been limited by the amount of money. And the other thing that has been a constant problem is the state has imposed a lot of application procedural barriers that make it difficult for parents to get into the program. And then once they’re in, they have to be redetermined eligible periodically.

And that redetermination process also has a lot of barriers in it. And so the other part of the work we’ve been doing is trying to make that whole access and retention process easier for the parents. So we have a moment now, as you pointed out, because the state has over $500 million in childcare money that can go toward shoring up the childcare industry that has suffered a lot of impact from COVID, expand services to larger number of children. The state has a lot of options under HHS guidance for how those funds could be used. And so it’s a moment when we could really do a lot better with this program that helps everybody.

Geoff Pender: And for prospective, $519 million that’s available through the American Rescue Plan Act. And that’s compared to typically we would get $60 million a year for this program, around that. So huge. 

Carol Burnett: It’s a big increased investment. It’s really unprecedented.

Anna Wolfe: What has the state indicated that they’re going to do with that money?

Carol Burnett: In the short term, they’re continuing some investments that have been really helpful. They’re continuing to eliminate the requirement that parents have to pay a copayment, share a portion of the childcare fee. They’re reimbursing childcare providers for services at a higher reimbursement rate, and they are also paying providers based on the number of eligible children that are enrolled in the center as opposed to the number of days eligible children attend, which helps to stabilize the revenue stream for providers.

And that’s really helpful. They have said that they’re going to make grants available to childcare centers for activities that are identified as eligible under the HHS guidelines for the stabilization grants, but we haven’t seen that grant program emerge yet. So we don’t really know what the scope of that is going to be and what eligible activities will be included.

Anna Wolfe: You’re in close contact with childcare centers all over the state, and you’ve surveyed them. Can you tell us what problems they’ve been dealing with lately? 

Carol Burnett: Yes. We recently completed a survey of the childcare centers across the state that participate in this childcare payment program. Not all childcare centers do, but most do.

And we heard a pretty consistent response from the large number of centers who responded to our survey, identifying these access and retention barriers that I was referring to. And the biggest one of those is that the state requires single parents who are 96% of the families on this program, mostly single moms, the state requires single parents to comply with child support enforcement before they can qualify to get childcare assistance. And that requirement childcare providers identified on our survey is an enormous deterrent for parents to even try to apply. For parents who are trying to comply, it is also procedural barrier that makes it difficult for them to navigate the application process.

And so the majority of the respondents told us that that requirement was the number one thing that is problematic for parents trying to get their childcare assistance.

Anna Wolfe: Right. So it’s, it’s kind of two-pronged. So we’ve got like funding issues historically that we haven’t received enough money in past years to serve everyone who needs it. But then the state doesn’t really make it very easy to get on the program in the first place even if you do qualify. What can we ask of the state to fix this?

Carol Burnett: The application process problems that were identified on our survey included things like not being able to get anybody from DHS on the telephone or submitting documents that DHS says weren’t submitted, even though the provider or the parent has evidence that they were in fact submitted or that a document was submitted, but DHS said that it was too dark or it didn’t, you know, there was something about it wasn’t adequate and so they had to be submitted again. Well, the application process has to be completed within a 60 day period of time. So if DHS gets around to looking at the documents on day 58, and says, “These aren’t acceptable,” you’ve got to send them in again. And if they’re not submitted before the 60 day deadline, that’s another problem. We also heard that DHS requires that a parent submit their most recent pay stub as documentation of their income. Well, if they’re paid every two weeks, and they submitted the most recent one when they submitted the application, but DHS doesn’t get around to looking at it until another month, then all of a sudden the pay stubs is not the most recently received. 

And so then they have to start over again, or if they bump up against the 60 day deadline, it means they have to go back and reapply and start that whole process again. So that’s the kind of stuff that happens when providers who frequently intervene in this to try to kind of be a parent advocate with DHS to get the parent through this process.

And often providers even have copies of a lot of the documents that are required because they know that they have the internet connection that some of the times the parents don’t have the capacity to scan an email and upload or, you know, do the application online as it’s required. So providers intervene a lot to help out, and they see a lot of occasions where this kind of communication problem and procedural problem get in the way. And the majority of the providers that responded to our survey said they have eligible parents on their waiting list, trying to get their child into the childcare center, they’ve got room for them to be there.

And the reason they can’t move the child into an available slot is because they can’t get the parent through this application process at DHS. 

Anna Wolfe: Right. And when the pandemic hit, they waived some of those eligibility requirements for parents to get the voucher, right?

Carol Burnett: Well, only for parents in a special new program that they created. They named it a special voucher program that was supposed to be available with some of that initial COVID funding for essential workers. But those essential workers they exempted from having to meet income requirements. They also exempted from having to meet the child support requirement while the regular voucher recipients also were essential workers, but still had to meet the income requirement and had to meet the child support requirements.

So it was a very inequitable setup, but that program has ended now. 

Anna Wolfe: And we just went through redetermination period in this last year for parents who were on the voucher prior to that, and apparently kicked off lots of parents from the program. 

Carol Burnett: Yeah. The annual redetermination of eligibility that I mentioned was waived for a time during COVID, but recently DHS has put it back in place.

And when that got put back in place, it resulted in the termination of families off of the program, not because they weren’t eligible again, but because they just weren’t able to navigate the process. 

Anna Wolfe: Yeah. I mean, this is a workforce problem, right? I mean, what is the impact when women, single moms, typically cannot get the care that they need?

Carol Burnett: It’s very much a workforce problem. And we think it would be really helpful if some employers and some of our allies in the workforce system would recognize the significance of this program to increasing Mississippi’s labor participation rate— 

Geoff Pender: which is lowest in the country, or has been often. 

Carol Burnett: Exactly. Improving that rate is a goal of many of our state leaders. And so making this program work so that parents get the childcare they need so they can go to work would be a very effective strategy for meeting the goal that they have. 

Geoff Pender: Carol and Matt talked about some of this money available could definitely help, but as I understand from DHS or the governor’s office right now, it’s not been really clear that any of this money will be used to help more children. What’s the status of that?

Carol Burnett: DHS says they’re reluctant to use the money in any way that can’t be sustained past the time the money is available. So in terms of increasing the number of children currently being served, they’re reluctant to do that now because they might not be able to continue serving those children three or four years from now when the money’s no longer here.

And we contend that that three or four years of service would be hugely beneficial in terms of early childhood education. It would also be hugely beneficial in terms of a workforce and income investment for the parent to get affordable childcare. And if you plan in advance for having that spike in income, you could find ways to manage the loss of those funds in future years if you were looking into the future. I strongly feel like if sustainability of service was a real goal, the procedural problems that parents currently on the program have through redetermination would be a great place to start because right now the biggest sustainability challenge we have is parents currently on the program right now making it through redetermination.

So there’s so many things that could be done if sustainability was really the issue. 

Matt Williams: I would add that the survey we just did really supported that. I mean, we did not hear from childcare providers that their concern was taking on too many new kids and not being able to sustain the services three years from now. What we heard was as one provider put it in response to a question that we included on the survey about whether or not DHS should spend the ARPA funds for childcare on increasing the number of kids receiving childcare, one provider said they definitely need childcare. And 92% of the providers that we surveyed said that Mississippi needs to spend these funds to serve more children than CPPP. 

Geoff Pender: Matt or Carol said early on that only a fraction of probably the eligible kids are being served. What are those numbers roughly?

Carol Burnett: The most recent number that we’ve seen reported from Mississippi was from last year that our state served 20,900 kids, and we estimate that about 112,000 are eligible. 

Anna Wolfe: You know, our state leaders love to talk about the emphasis on early childhood development, but childcare centers, private childcare providers usually are not being included in that conversation. Can you talk about sort of how the childcare payment program relates to early childhood development and how that’s kind of left out of the conversation? 

Carol Burnett: Childcare centers that participate in this program have fielded over the years. I mean, we did a report on how Mississippi’s handled this childcare program over its 20 years of existence. And one of the interesting things was how frequently there were efforts from the state level to impose different quality improvement ideas onto the childcare centers that participate. Those quality improvement ideas would change frequently. So we had tried this idea and then it would be gone and then we would try this idea and then it would be gone.

So the childcare centers that participate are always the impacted centers for any of these ideas for how to address the quality of early childhood education. But they are rarely able to participate successfully because they’re so under-resourced. Every survey that we’ve done of childcare providers has shown that they’re eager to participate in quality improvement activities, but the obstacle that stands in the way is that they don’t have the money to implement the kinds of quality improvement criteria that are usually used to evaluate whether a center has a quality early childhood education experience or not. We recently surveyed providers on that point, and they were in complete agreement with what the traditional definition is of quality, but they added to that definition that they needed to be financially resourced to be able to implement those criteria.

And they wanted to add to the definition that the service needed to be affordable to parents and the service needed to be available hours, that support employment, so that the system was equitable. Because when the affordability isn’t there and the hours that support work isn’t there, it’s too frequently the case that it’s women and women of color in particular who are most impacted by the absence of those features of any kind of equality definition. 

Geoff Pender: Do you know at this point, are there deadlines coming up as far as DHS having to say what they might do with this money? As I understand it from speaking with you earlier, they’ve essentially only done kind of a copy and paste plan, a placeholder plan, I guess, is how maybe they’ve even described it. So we really don’t know yet how they might use this money. When does that have to be figured out? 

Carol Burnett: What you’re referring to is the states are all required to submit state plans to HHS, even absent of the American Rescue Plan Money, so it’s just a regular sequence in administering this program. It just happened to be the case that this year when they had all that extra ARPA funding, it also came at the same time that they were supposed to submit their new state plan to HHS for the years 2022 to 2024. And the state plan they submitted really didn’t reveal much about what they plan to do in the future.

And as you cite, you know, we were concerned about the fact that the plan that did get submitted had old information in it from prior plans that had been submitted. And DHS indicated that it was, as you say, a placeholder and that they would amend it as they figured out what they were going to do.

So, no, we don’t yet know. With regard to the deadlines for when they have to make a decision or when they have to spend these funds, Matt, do you know offhand? I mean, there are some liquidation of funds and obligation of funds deadlines that are built in to some of the funds, but I’m not really sure what the deadline is for when they need to spend these?

Matt Williams: Yeah. I don’t know offhand the details, but I believe the ARPA money and some of the other money we’re looking at a liquidation period of about three years. 

Geoff Pender:  Yeah. The ARPA plan in general, looking at other funds, I don’t know if this would be the same. I think it’s gotta be allocated by December 24 and actually spent by December 26.

I don’t know if that would be the same for this money. Somewhere in that range perhaps.

Anna Wolfe: How hard is this program to administer? Like what might the state be dealing with that is preventing them from pushing this money out? 

Carol Burnett: It’s not hard to administer. I think there are two issues at play. One is it’s so influenced by politics. Because it’s housed at the Department of Human Services and DHS is an executive agency, the head is appointed by the governor. And so it really is what DHS does and doesn’t do is really determined by political decisions more than by how to do best with the program you’re charged to administer.

The other thing is it’s a very decentralized program. Vouchers go to individual parents. The vouchers are used in a whole lot of very small businesses located all over this state, and the decentralization of it I think contributes to the lack of awareness that many people have about it but it’s very influenced by the attitudes around public assistance.

And that means that we’re dealing with a lot of negative attitudes toward poor people, toward Black people that there’s just a lot of gender and race bias that’s overlaid onto this program. And that’s why we really feel like it needs to be characterized as a work support program and seen as one of the things that we could invest in that could increase the number of employees.

I mean, gosh, for net right now, it would be hugely helpful to have a larger number of available employees. And I just want to say too that, you know, DHS says that they don’t have a waiting list for this program that anybody who wants a voucher right now can get one. And that was another thing we found from the survey we did that providers actually have waiting lists, as I mentioned, of eligible parents who can’t get in because they can’t afford it, and they’re trying to navigate the application process. So it isn’t true that everybody who needs and wants childcare assistance has it right now. It is the case that there are a large number of parents who either haven’t been able to get through the application process or got kicked off through redetermination and need to get back on. 

Geoff Pender: Do childcare centers themselves have the capacity to serve more kids? 

Carol Burnett: They do. We’ve surveyed that they are as a system. I mean, there are individual centers that are full and some that have way more capacity than others, but system-wide our surveys show that there is about 30% under-enrollment among the centers that are in this program right now.

So the slots are there. The parents are there, the kids are there. The money is there. Let’s make it work.

Geoff Pender: What are some things that would make this work, set it up? And I think you’ve mentioned this before, provide it to kids until they age out, you know, three, four years or however long this money is going to last?

Carol Burnett: The children remain eligible until they’re age 12 in this program. So parents, even of young school aged kids, can get assistance. I mean, the number one thing that we have called for for a long time is to eliminate the requirement that parents have to comply with child support enforcement. That would be a huge help. 

Anna Wolfe: And that’s just automatically going to increase the number of eligible parents who are able to get the voucher because they don’t have to go through this process.

Matt Williams: Yeah. Our survey strongly supports that recommendation. We included two structured questions as I will refer to them where we had answer choices built in, and overwhelmingly providers indicated that the child support requirement is experienced as harmful to parents’ efforts to obtain CCPT assistance.

And what that looked like from the survey response was 83.2% of CCPT providers said the requirement deters parents in that they serve from even applying at all to CCPT. And another question found 73.2% of CCPP providers said the requirement results in parents, CCPT application denial. So parents that have tried to apply have been denied for that reason.

So that’s the vast majority of CCPT providers, indicating that this is a huge problem for parents that try to apply, for parents that can’t even begin the application process because of that requirement specifically. And when we looked at the number that providers reported of parents they serve that are affected by this policy either that it’s deterring their application or resulting in their denial, what we found was an estimated number of about 5,500 to 6,300 parents in Mississippi being served by the centers that participate in CCPT are locked out of that program because of this requirement. And that multiplies out into almost 10,000 kids.

I want to say too the survey finding on child support being a major barrier is really significant because not only did we get that response in those structured questions I mentioned, but we also asked an open-ended question and we didn’t include any structured response. And we didn’t even say, “Tell us about child support.”

In this open-ended question we just asked providers, “What are the main reasons that parents can’t get approved for CCPT?” And even in those open-ended responses, the providers, the vast majority of providers wrote in the child support requirement. And so it’s just another very strong indication from the survey, how harmful that requirement in that policy is.

And I do think these survey results show that if that policy was removed, we would be looking at a very immediate increase in parents who are able to get into this program. 

Geoff Pender: So parents can’t wade through one pile of red tape because they can’t get through the other pile of red tape, basically. 

Matt Williams: And that point just reminded me that the survey, also it providers and parents, when you talk to them about the child support enforcement requirement, it is essentially its own application process.

So when you’re, you know, you have a single mom applying for childcare assistance, she actually has to go also in that process apply essentially through the child support enforcement division. So it’s really a dual application process.

Carol Burnett: And it depends on DHS to be internally communicative about an application. So we’ve had parents that were trying to comply, and child support just didn’t get the information that childcare needed within DHS. And so that kind of stuff happens. But the other thing I just wanted to underscore about this child support requirement is that it’s not federally mandated in this program.

I want to make clear that it is a choice the state has made to impose this requirement, and it’s a choice they could make to eliminate it.

Anna Wolfe: And just in case for our listeners, this is a requirement that it makes usually single moms sue their children’s father in order to get child support, they have to turn that money over to the state in order to qualify for this assistance.

It’s not something that’s federally required. It creates problems for single moms who, you know, might not want to go that direction with their child’s father, but even when they are in the program through redetermination for childcare assistance, they have to go to a child support office and get a letter of certification, proving that they’re in the program in order to qualify for childcare.

So even just the process of going to get that letter can create a barrier, one because there’s not child support offices in every county and it can be difficult to make that happen, so I’ve found talking to parents and providers. 

Carol Burnett: Yeah. And parents have a range of reasons that this is such a barrier from, you know, a mom who might have a decent relationship with the dad and they’ve arranged an informal agreement where he’s going to pay the rent or the car note or whatever. And those agreements get renegotiated depending on if his employment situation changes all the way to cases where the absent dad is abusive either to the mom or to the children, and so there is literally a worry about harm. And in those cases, DHS says that there is a way to seek an exemption from having to comply. But we’ve had parents who had legal documentation of injunctions in court orders. And even in those cases, the DHS still imposed the requirement. We’ve had a mom tell DHS that the dad was dead, and the DHS was still requiring— I mean, it’s just really a barrier. It’s really a barrier. 

Anna Wolfe: And in particular is indicative of those attitudes surrounding public assistance and who should get them and why. 

Geoff Pender: Matt, Carol, thank you both for being here. This sounds like something we could perhaps schedule some future episodes and definitely want to keep track of what happens here.

We truly appreciate you joining us today and pointing out these issues, and yeah, we’re going to have to be watching to see what DHS does or doesn’t do. Hopefully some of these issues can be addressed with this extra funding. 

Carol Burnett: Well, thanks for having us. It’s good to talk about these issues and, you know, we are very hopeful. I think I was trying to make clear DHS has a lot of power to make decisions that would correct the problems. The survey gives us information from people who I think have the greatest expertise in this program because they use it. The parents who have it or trying to get it, the providers who rely on it, they see it in operation on the ground.

And so it’s consumer input for DHS to hear about how it’s working and not working and how changes could be made, and it’s easy for DHS to make those changes. So we would call on them to do so. 

Geoff Pender: Thank you everyone for being here.

Matt Williams: Thank you.

Adam Ganucheau: As we cover the biggest political stories in this state, you don’t want to miss an episode of The Other Side. We’ll bring you more reporting from every corner of the state, sharing the voices of Mississippians and how they’re impacted by the news. So, what do we need from you, the listener? We need your feedback and support.

If you listen to the podcast on a player like iTunes or Stitcher, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. We also have an email in which you can share your feedback. That address is Podcast@MississippiToday.org. Y’all can also reach out to me or any of my colleagues through social media or email. And as always thank you for your feedback and support.

Subscribe to our weekly podcast on your favorite podcast app or stream episodes online at MississippiToday.org/the-other-side. For the Mississippi Today team, I’m Adam Ganucheau. The Other Side is produced by Mississippi Today and engineered by Blue Sky Studios. We hope you’ll join us for our next episode.

The post Podcast: Federal funds provide opportunity to fix child care program for working parents appeared first on Mississippi Today.

At the Country Club of Jackson this weekend, Joe Sanderson surely enjoyed what he has desired all along since he stepped up and effectively rescued Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament from extinction back in 2013.

Now, we’ll see what the future holds for the 54-year-old Sanderson Farms Championship, which has raised millions upon millions for Mississippi charities, primarily Children’s of Mississippi Hospital. We’ll get to that uncertain future shortly, but first let’s count the ways that the 2021 championship was precisely what Sanderson has envisioned:

• Weather. When humid, warmer-than-normal October temperature is the lone complaint for a tournament that has endured spring floods, broiling July heat, tornadoes, hurricanes and more, we can consider that a good thing.
• World class golf. Sam Burns, one of the tour’s hottest young guns won with a final round 67 and a 72-hole total of 22 under par. You’ve never seen so many birdies. Ten golfers finished the 72 holes with scores of 19-under par or better. The most accomplished field in the tournament’s history took advantage of the cooperative weather and the pristine greens to pepper the leaderboard with red numbers from start to finish.
• Crowds. There were none last year because of COVID, but the galleries returned this past week — and especially over the weekend — helped by Mississippi’s major college football programs all playing road games Saturday. Mississippi’s PGA tourney had the look and feel of a what we see on network TV on a weekly basis.

Any other time you’d say the future appears brighter than Sunday’s sunshine. And it still could be. But it is no great secret what clouds the Sanderson Farms tournament’s future. It’s the pending $4.5 billion sale of Sanderson Farms, the Laurel-based poultry company, to Cargill and Continental Grain, two international agricultural conglomerates. The sale is expected to go through before the end of the year or early 2022 at the latest.

Yes, Sanderson Farms is under a current 10-year contract the PGA Tour to sponsor the tournament through 2026, but that contract is non-transferable in the event of new ownership, Joe Sanderson said earlier this week. What that means is that it will be up to the new ownership to determine whether to keep funding the event.

“There are no guarantees, but I am optimistic,” said Sanderson. “Both the buyers are community minded companies. I have high hopes they will see fit to continue. This tournament has been a blessing for Jackson, for Mississippi and for Mississippi children.”

And perhaps the new owners will continue what has become a Mississippi tradition. But there’s no possible way the new ownership could be as invested in the Magnolia State as Sanderson. You should know that Sanderson is as Mississippi as grits and biscuits. He grew up in Laurel, played halfback in high school for the legendary Barney Poole and went to college at Millsaps. Sanderson Farms, under his guidance, has grown from a community farm supply store — a family business that sold seed, feed, fertilizer and other farm supplies — into the country’s third largest poultry producer. Yes, and corporate offices are still listed at 127 Flynt Road, Laurel, MS 39443.

In contrast, Continental Grain was founded in Belgium and has offices in 10 countries with headquarters in New York City. Cargill has home offices in Minnesota and Delaware.

“I have high hopes this tournament will continue and will continue to grow here,” said Sanderson, who said he will make the first payment to the PGA Tour toward 2022 tournament next month.

Meanwhile, Steve Jent, the tournament’s executive director, says work on the 2022 event will begin immediately.

“We are working on the assumption that we have five years left on the agreement with the PGA Tour,” Jent said. “But we aren’t privy what is going on with the sale. For us, right now, it is business as usual.”

Business was good, really good, this past week. As for the future, clearly, it is very much up in the air. Count the championship’s newest champion, Burns, among those hoping to see it continue. The 25-year-old Shreveport native and former LSU player turned pro in 2017. His first PGA event that year was Joe Sanderson’s baby.

“This is one of my favorite events on tour, I always enjoy coming here, being close to home…” Burns said. “God willing I’ll be able to play here for the next 20 years, and it will always have a special place in my heart.”

The post Sam Burns won the Sanderson Farms Championship. Now we’ll see what the event’s future holds. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Karen Matthews, Chief Executive Officer and President of the Delta Health Alliance. Matthews talks about growing up in Fulton, Mississippi, studying engineering and accounting and how she made the pivot to healthcare.

She also shares some of the success stories of the Delta Health Alliance from the past 20 years and some of its (and the state’s) biggest challenges. Created by the late Senator Thad Cochran, DHA funds and operates 40 different healthcare initiatives in 38 Mississippi counties. Health truly does equal wealth.

The post Mississippi Stories: Karen Matthews appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Last year, the state crime lab completed an autopsy from 2011.

Today, the backlog of 1,600 autopsies for the crime lab to perform includes those where the deaths occurred in 2015.

Commissioner of Public Safety Sean Tindell recently stressed that the policy is to perform as soon as possible the autopsies needed for criminal investigations and trials.

“I will emphasize most of that backlog on autopsy reports are non-homicides..,” Tindell recently told the Legislative Budget Committee members who are working to develop a budget recommendation for the next fiscal year starting in July. “There just has not been a lot of pressure on getting them done. That is no excuse.”

He added, “I think where there is a murder or homicide we want to expedite those as soon as possible.”

 Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is chair of the Budget Committee, said six years is too long to wait for any autopsy.

“The non-murders are, for example, one who contacted us was a mother and two children whose husband died unexpectedly,” Hosemann said. “They couldn’t get their life insurance benefits and that is the only money they had. With all due respect, I think those are important.”

Tindell wholeheartedly agreed and said that is why he is working to ensure all autopsies are completed in 90 days. And truth be known, Tindell, who was appointed public safety commissioner when Reeves’ term as governor began in January 2020, cannot be held responsible for a backlog, caused at least in part, by years of underfunding of the state crime lab.

The underfunding does not end with the crime lab. Point a random finger at almost any entity in state government and an example of underfunding can be found. For years, Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, has been beset with a multitude of problems and a limited amount of state revenue to address those woes. Whether it be teacher salaries or salaries for employees at multiple other governmental agencies, or aging technology or dilapidated school buildings or poor health care, the list of problems facing the state goes on and on.

Yet in about a five-year period during the last decade, about 50 tax cuts were enacted that when finally, fully phased in will take more than $700 million annually in revenue out of the state’s coffers.

Now Reeves and legislators are eyeing more tax cuts. Thanks in large part to the massive influx of federal COVID-19 relief funds that arguably helped Mississippi more than any state in the nation, state coffers are relatively flush. Many leaders are bragging about the state’s fiscal condition, taking credit for it and saying now is the time for a tax cut.

Yet, during one day of recent budget hearings, one agency head after another bemoaned the problems they face because of primarily a lack of funding. Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain reported that if he does not find a way to hire more prison guards, who have perennially been underpaid, then the federal Department of Justice is going to step in and sue because of the state’s inadequate prison conditions.

Brad White, executive director of the Department of Transportation, lamented his agency’s inability to hire employees.

“We are no longer in a position to adequately compete with the private sector,” White said.

Revenue Commissioner Chris Graham said, “Our applications (for employment) have dried up.”

State employees and teachers are paid less than their counterparts in surrounding states.

Wendy Bailey, executive director of the Department of Mental Health, said the work force for her agency has decreased by almost 4,000 since 2009.

Various studies have even cited the state’s declining workforce as one of the reasons for the struggles to fund the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System. Put simply, the reports say there are not enough workers paying into the retirement system to support it.

Back in the last decade as legislators were cutting taxes, many leaders said their goal was to starve government.

“We Republicans have campaigned for many, many years that we are for living within our means. We are for controlling spending. We are for reducing the size of government,” House Speaker Philip Gunn said in 2017 as reported by the Associated Press. “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. We are for reducing the tax burden.”

The governor echoed those thoughts.

“That’s what voters elected us to do. They elected us to live within our means,” Reeves said. “They believe they ought to send less money to the government. They believe that they are already overtaxed and overburdened.”

Perhaps Reeves could add that many Mississippians, whether it’s the family waiting for that autopsy report needed to collect life insurance or the child lacking a certified teacher, are also underserved.

The post As leaders eye tax cuts, state services go unmet appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Last week, Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 5 to 11. Currently, the youngest group eligible for vaccination are ages 12 to 17. Overall, minors have accounted for almost 18% of total cases in Mississippi to date.

View our data comparing the total COVID-19 cases by age group and their approval for vaccination.

View more COVID-19 in Mississippi demographic data here.

READ MORE:

• COVID-19 in Mississippi schools, 2021-22 school year

• Vaccination progress by age group in Mississippi

The post Data: COVID-19 cases in children appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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As cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations decline statewide, some schools have done away with mask requirements.

But after three pediatric deaths in the month of September and six since July, the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is pleading with schools not to drop their guards yet.

“It is really concerning that schools are dropping mask mandates and putting children at risk,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, president of the Mississippi chapter of the AAP.

The group also cites the fact that while cases and hospitalizations have declined as a whole, around one-third of total COVID-19 hospitalizations at Children’s of Mississippi are children under the age of 12.

“Acute COVID hospitalizations are increasing again it seems, and it is timed exactly with schools dropping mask requirements,” said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, professor of pediatric infectious disease.

Most recently, two children between the ages of 11 and 17 died after contracting the virus, according to the Mississippi Department of Health. One of those was a 16-year-old football player from north Mississippi, the Sun Herald reported.

At the beginning of September, a baby died of COVID-19.

“MSAAP urges school boards, superintendents, teachers and parents to continue with masks requirements in all indoor school settings to slow the transmission of COVID-19,” the statement reads.

Currently, 26 school districts are mask optional.

The group points to two studies published in the last week showing that masks in school settings work. The studies were done in Maricopa and Pima counties in Arizona in July and August of this year, and found that schools without mask requirements were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks.

Schools in Madison and Rankin counties, along with Ocean Springs School District, have recently rolled back their mask requirements. The Rankin County School District school board voted unanimously to rescind the district’s mask mandate last week.

In a Sept. 23 letter to families, Madison County School District Superintendent Charlotte Seals cited a “significant decline in Covid-19 cases and quarantine” in the district.

“The data now supports a change in our Covid-19 protocol level,” the letter continued, referring to a tiered COVID-19 response system the district developed. “As of Friday, September 24, Madison County will transition to Covid-19 Protocol Level 1, which includes recommended but not required mask wearing in school buildings.”

When asked whether the district will reconsider based on the pediatricians’ plea, Gene Wright, director of communications, deferred to the school board, which will meet Monday.

Ocean Springs School District Communications Specialist Trey Brennan said the district is monitoring data and will “make decisions based on local conditions in our community.”

A spokesperson for the Rankin County School District did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions on Friday morning.

Since the beginning of the school year, 26,817 teachers, students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Health.

The post Pediatricians plead with schools not to drop mask mandates appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s job training and partnerships with private companies aren’t consistent or extensive enough to grow a bigger and better-skilled workforce, according to Accelerate Mississippi’s first-ever public report. 

The 6-month-old office and its director, Ryan Miller, are tasked with setting the state’s disjointed workforce development efforts on a strategic path — one that ends in more Mississippians at jobs that pay $40,000 or more a year. 

Miller says that means “looking in the mirror” and assessing how past job training funds were spent. With new legislative guidelines for spending job training funds and Miller at the helm, the state is at the beginning stages of redirecting millions of taxpayer dollars to target skills training for the state’s most in-demand jobs. 

“One of the things that frustrates me the most… is when I hear the old saying ‘Why are we doing this?’ and the answer comes back ‘because that’s the way things have always been done,’” Gov. Tate Reeves said during his first joint press conference with the new office earlier this week.

 “When it comes to workforce development, I refuse to allow our state to adopt this mentality.”

Accelerate Mississippi’s 2021 “Talent Development Assessment” was published Wednesday. The new office is required to write an annual report under the legislation that created the office and new training dollar guidelines. 

“It’s a transition,” Miller told Mississippi Today. “We’re on a path to improve.”

Miller’s office may be new, but the Legislature has put it in charge of a $25 million job training fund, which contains money from the state’s Workforce Enhancement Training.or “WET” fund, and Mississippi Works fund. The pot of money is collected via an unemployment insurance tax on businesses. 

In 2020-21, nearly $1 million from the WET fund covered safety training at private companies, according to a Community College Board breakdown. It’s unlikely any federally required safety classes or CPR training will continue to qualify under the new guidelines, Miller said.

Nearly $3 million funded “basic skill” classes across the state’s community college classes during the same period of time. It’s one of the largest uses of any of the WET funds. 

Miller said if those classes don’t show paths to career advancement or opportunities for better wages, that WET funds will likely no longer cover them. 

“We have to prioritize with the limited funding for which we have responsibility,” Miller said. “We make those decisions on priority based upon data, and the input from our industry sector.”

The bulk of the money was previously under the guidance of the state’s Community College Board, which is still involved in the spending and its disbursement among the state’s 15 community campuses. 

The Accelerate Mississippi report specifies that state money has funded programs that were “important to individual communities” that no longer fit under the new office’s state-mandated guidelines to target fields with the largest gaps in skilled workers. 

The report highlights linemen to metal workers and nurses as some of the most in-demand, and above-average-paying jobs with the largest gap between the number of graduated skilled workers and open positions. 

It also says the state needs to collaborate to improve its funded job training efforts; that there have been “micro” successes but few on a “macro” level. The state’s successes often happened in silos, without the collaboration needed to “improver offerings and optimize the use of workforce training funds.”

To do that, Reeves and Miller announced it will be breaking the state up into eight regions or “ecosystems.” Each area will have an Accelerate Mississippi representative to understand the niche job skill needs of that community. 

The state already has four local workforce development areas that are manned by offices called the Planning and Development Districts. Each of those designated areas will have two of the “ecosystems” within them. 

Miller said the new Accelerate Mississippi positions won’t duplicate the existing efforts, but complement them.

The post New report shows Mississippi’s job training programs are struggling to grow appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Don’t look now, but a wave of highly talented, really young Mississippi golfers is about to make a splash on the PGA Tour that will be unprecedented in the state’s golf history.

You don’t have to take it from me. Listen to 2019 U.S. Amateur champion Andy Ogletree, from tiny Little Rock in Newton County, who shot a first round 67 Thursday in the Sanderson Farms Championship at Country Club of Jackson.

“Yeah, it’s really cool to see all the young guys from Mississippi out here,” Ogletree, 23, said. “I’m not surprised. We all started young and we’ve been playing together for years all through the junior ranks. Got recruited together. There’s a lot of talent right here in Mississippi, a lot of us about the same age.”

Hayden Buckley of Belden also shot 67, Ogletree played with Fulton native and former Mississippi State golfer Chad Ramey, who shot 70. Davis Riley, another PGA Tour rookie from Hattiesburg, shot 71. West Point’s Cohen Trolio, the current Mississippi Amateur champion and just a freshman at LSU, also shot 71.

Before the tournament even began Jackson’s Wilson Furr shot 67 in the Sanderson Monday qualifying at Deerfield, but lost a five-hole sudden death playoff for the final spot in the Sanderson Farms field. You haven’t heard the last from the talented Furr – or from former NCAA champion Braden Thornberry, who also failed to survive the Monday qualifying but will play again on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022. Jonathan Randolph, now of Oxford, still plays the Korn Ferry Tour, as well.

“Never before,” long-time Mississippi golf pro Randy Watkins answered, when asked when the state had produced so many tour-quality golfers at the same time. “It’s amazing, and you can add Ally Ewing to it if you want to include female golfers. She’s won twice on the LPGA Tour, one of the best ones out there, another golfer from Fulton.”

Why now? Why are so many potentially great players coming along at the same time? Golf has existed in Mississippi since the early 1900s. We’ve never had more than one or two golfers playing the PGA Tour at the same time.

“If you had to put a finger on it, I think there’s a couple reasons,” said Watkins, a former U.S. junior golf champion and tour player. “We’ve had so many great golf courses built in Mississippi over the last 20-25 years. I mean, world class courses. And the instruction is so much better for young golfers these days, guys like VJ Trolio and Tim Yelverton at Old Waverly, and I give a lot of credit to Jim Gallagher, who has taken an interest and played with a lot of these young guys coming up.”

The 2019 U.S. Amateur, played at fabled Pinehurst in North Carolina, was probably the best advertisement ever for Mississippi golf talent. More than 7,000 golfers from all 50 states and around the world entered the qualifying process. When the tournament reached the semifinal stage, two of the four remaining were from Mississippi, Ogletree and Cohen Trolio, then just 17. Ogletree defeated Trolio in the semis and went on to win the championship the next day, the first Mississippian to ever claim that crown.

Ogletree was just getting started. He was the low amateur in the 2020 Masters, finishing in a tie for 32nd. He turned pro after that, but his career has been on essentially a six-month hiatus since he underwent surgery on his left hip in April.

“It just feels good to be playing golf again,” Ogletree said after finishing his 67 Thursday. “Regardless of score, I’m playing pain free and that’s the most important thing for me right now.”

Asked if the bad hip had make it difficult to make a natural turn in his golf swing, Ogletree chuckled and then answered, “It made it hard to even walk.”

But Ogletree had a spring his step Thursday coming off the ninth green (his 18th) where he sank a seven-foot birdie putt to complete a round that included five birdies and an eagle. After all, this was a tournament he had in mind during those weeks and months of rehab from the surgery.

“Yeah, this is kind of the one we had circled hoping that I would get a sponsor invite into this one and kind of all of my rehab and preparation was that I would get a start here,” Ogletree said. “So it’s kind of all worked out kind of the way we wanted to and really happy to be playing in Mississippi, a lot of familiar faces out here this week, a lot of friends and family out watching, so it’s a good time and I’m glad everyone gets to see me play.”

Is there added pressure playing in front of so many home folk?

“No, I like playing in front of a crowd,” Ogletree answered. “The first nine PGA events I played before my surgery there was no crowd because of COVID. It’s nice to have a few people clapping now and then.”

The gallery had plenty to cheer from Ogletree and other Mississippians Thursday. When you consider all the talent, mixed with so much youth, this really could go on for years.

The post On display at CCJ: Most promising group ever of Mississippi golfers appeared first on Mississippi Today.