With the help of Phil Bryant’s own words in candid, never-before-published conversations, Mississippi Today’s series “The Backchannel” uncovers the depth of the former governor’s involvement within a sprawling welfare scandal that plagued his administration.
Each story in the series will delve into an aspect of Bryant’s entanglement with the welfare agency’s spending — whether the ties to his personal business dealings, his relationships with players in the scheme, patterns in his leadership, agency directives or nepotism.
While he was Mississippi’s governor, the welfare department that Bryant oversaw misused and squandered at least $77 million in federal funds meant to assist the state’s poorest residents — and so far he’s skirted all accountability.
This scheme wasn’t confined to a rogue government employee forging checks.
It was the inevitable outcome inside a public assistance office that had distorted its supposed mission to uplift people in poverty, while throwing tens of millions of welfare dollars at pie-in-the-sky plans with virtually no oversight.
The diversion of the funds away from the needy happened largely through sanctioned government processes — whether by the state agency or a private nonprofit — and in many cases with permission and in broad daylight.
The head of that system was Phil Bryant.
“I’ll take my responsibility,” Bryant told Mississippi Today in a three-hour interview on April 2. “Yeah, I was the governor. I wish I had been able to catch it. The moment I did, I called in the state auditor.”
Since the auditor arrested Bryant’s appointed director in 2020, state and federal investigators and prosecutors have failed to publicly scrutinize the governor’s role — which is palpable in written communication they’ve possessed for more than two years. The state auditor, a former Bryant staffer and campaign manager who the former governor later appointed as auditor, said that he believed it was the welfare director’s duty to reject any improper requests from the governor, not the governor’s responsibility to know agency spending regulations.
Mississippi Today scoured thousands of pages of text messages gathered by law enforcement agents in the course of their investigation. The communications, shared with our news organization, were sent between some of the key players and during limited time periods. We also reviewed thousands of emails and agency documents we received through more than 80 public records requests. Mississippi Today analyzed these records and conducted dozens of interviews.
Together, the trove of documents reveals the ease with which Bryant wielded his influence over the funding decisions of his eager-to-please welfare director. It also shows the lengths Bryant was willing to go to help his friend and retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who was the inspiration behind more than $8 million in improper welfare payments.
The messages Mississippi Today obtained set a stage for the events that led to what state officials consider the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history. They also raise questions about whether any officials plan to hold him accountable — and what more may have occurred under Bryant’s watch that he didn’t discuss in writing.
On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with William “Bill” Parker, Meteorologist-In-Charge of the NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson, Mississippi. Bill, a native of New Orleans, is the nation’s first African American to head one of the nation’s 122 National Weather Service’s forecast offices.
A New Orleans native, he was always fascinated by the weather; however, a statistics class and a love of math cemented his desire to go into meteorology. A proud Jackson State grad, Bill thought he’d go into the broadcast but instead landed as a meteorologist in Louisiana. After years of forecasts and shift work, Bill landed back in Jackson in 2016, replacing Alan Gerard, who transferred to the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma.
Bill discusses the mission of the National Weather Service and talks about some of the roles the team of 20 meteorologists performs. He also talks about mentorship and gives great advice for how someone can break into the field of meteorology.
Gov. Tate Reeves, members of the media and other politicians are touting the $246 million teacher pay raise passed this session of the Mississippi Legislature as the largest in state history.
“The largest teacher and assistant teacher pay raise in Mississippi history is now law,” the governor proclaimed on social media.
Often, people lose perspective and are caught in the moment when they proclaim something is the best, biggest or most significant in history. But in terms of sheer dollars, it is true that the proposal approved during the 2022 legislative session is the largest single year pay raise for Mississippi’s kindergarten through 12th grade teachers in the state’s history.
But there are many nuances to the claim “largest in state history.” Through the history of the state, despite being known for perennially poor pay for teachers, there have been significant salary bumps for Mississippi’s kindergarten through 12th grade instructors.
The pay raise passed this session provides teachers an average increase of $5,140, costing $246 million annually.
On social media, Ray Mabus, who served as governor of the state from 1988 until 1992 and later served as U.S. Navy secretary, said he did not see how the pay raise passed this year could be the largest in state history.
“We passed an average $4,400 pay raise in 1988. Adjusted for inflation, the raise today to be the largest would have to be an average of $10,000 or more,” Mabus said on social media.
According to the Associated Press, the 1988 legislation increased teacher pay on average 18% compared to more than 10% for the current raise.
In the 2000 session, at the behest of then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, the Legislature approved a multi-year, $338 million pay raise that was fully enacted in 2005. At the time, the raise increased teacher pay from an average of $31,892 per year to $41,445 or an increase of 30%, according to reporting by the New York Times from the 2000s.
And earlier, starting in 1997, the Legislature under then-Gov. Kirk Fordice approved a three-year raise totaling an average of $1,297 when fully enacted.
In the 2014 session, during the first term when Republicans controlled both chambers, the Legislature approved a $2,500 pay raise spread out over two years, and then a $1,500 raise in 2019 and a roughly $1,000 raise in 2021.
The point is that the 1988 and 2000 pay raises were at least as significant as this year’s effort by the Mississippi Legislature.
That is not to diminish or downplay the efforts of the current Legislature. Legislators are to be commended. But the fact is that in the coming years — not too far in the future — the Legislature most likely will pass another raise that can be called the largest in history. After all, almost every year legislators tout they have appropriated the most money in history for education. They never go on to add that they also have approved the largest overall budget in the state’s history.
But that is what happens with inflation. Just like in the private sector, inflation drives costs up.
State Economist Corey Miller said recently that wages and salaries grew by 7.2% in 2021. Considering recent wage growth and inflation, it would be almost surprising if the Legislature did not pass the largest pay raise in state history this year.
And it could be asked why it took so long after that watershed pay raise of 2000 for the Legislature to again approve such a significant proposal for teachers.
After all, almost every politician elected since 2000 has spoken of the importance of education and of teachers to the state.
The proof of that commitment might not be this year’s admittedly significant — even historic raise — but what happens going forward. Every politician from Reeves to most legislators said this year’s pay raise was only the beginning in terms of the state’s commitment to public education.
Said Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, “We want to continue this. It will not be the end.”
That continuance, if it occurs, could indeed be historic.
But at some point, that commitment also will have to include more than the level funding that legislators continue to budget for the other aspects of public schools. After all, schools’ costs for gasoline, utilities and other items also are increasing.
The final debate on the Senate floor about a large tourism spending bill didn’t focus on the millions of dollars earmarked for the state’s visitors bureaus, but over the future of the state song – rather, songs – and the lack of Black members on the song-selection committee.
All but one of the six is white. Senators opposed to the bill pointed out the committee does not reflect the demographics of the state. While the legislation removes a racist state song, it would also create a committee comprised of mostly white members to select new ones.
Mississippi lawmakers passed a bill late Thursday that removes “Go, Mississippi” as the official state song. In addition, it allocated $40 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds toward tourism and marketing.
“I know that we’re coming to end of a very difficult session and we are trying to get out of here and make the best decisions in the short period of time we have left,” said Sen. John Hohrn (D-Jackson). “But this is a bad decision.”
“Go, Mississippi,” adopted as the state song in 1962, has its roots in Mississippi’s segregationist past. The song was an adaptation of segregationist Gov. Ross Barnett’s campaign song, “Roll With Ross,” which included anti-integration lyrics and was introduced at a rally during Barnett’s fight against integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith.
“Go, Mississippi” is the tune of Barnett’s campaign song with lyrics rewritten. There have been efforts for many years in the Legislature to adopt a new state song and repeal “Go, Mississippi,” but they failed, often because lawmakers couldn’t agree on a new state song. Unlike many other states’ official songs, “Go, Mississippi” is relatively obscure and little recognized, even by many Mississippians.
The bill names former Gov. Phil Bryant-supported song – “One Mississippi” by Steve Azar – as the state’s official “contemporary genre song.” The committee will decide more state songs by genre, such as country and blues.
The committee will be headed by the directors of the state’s development authority’s tourism division; the director of the Mississippi Tourism Association; the chair of the House tourism committee; the chair of the Senate tourism committee; the director of the Mississippi Arts Commission; and the director of the Two Mississippi Museums.
“It is ill conceit that the leader of the museum that’s whole mission is about music is omitted,” Horhn said, referring to Cleveland’s Grammy Museum, “and that there is a scarcity of African Americans on this committee.”
In response to those criticisms, Sen. Bart Williams (R-Starkville) said he viewed the committee as a “starting point, not an ending point.”
“Mississippi has not only transformed the course of America’s music, it has revolutionized it, and because of this, it is important that the official songs of the State of Mississippi truly reflect the state’s phenomenal musical heritage, while enthusiastically looking forward to its future,” the bill says.
If the bill is signed by Gov. Tate Reeves, it will go into effect July 1. The bill was passed by a 37-7 vote. Two senators abstained. The sister bill in the House also passed with an overwhelming majority.
The bulk of the bill focuses on tourism spending, split predominantly among the state’s destination marketing organizations. About $20 million will be split among the state’s top 10 destinations, leaving Coastal Mississippi – the Gulf Coast bureau comprising three counties – with the largest chunk of the federal dollars.
Just under $9.5 million has been allocated to be shared among the state’s smaller tourism bureaus. No bureau will get less than $250,000. A formula using each destination’s 2019 marketing expenses determine their exact share.
During a Coastal Mississippi board meeting Thursday, commissioner Brooke Shoultz said she estimates the bureau would receive more than $6 million if the bill was signed as is by the governor.
The bill also allocates $5 million to non-profit museums and $5 million to the state’s smaller cities that are part of the Mississippi Main Street Association.
The bill mirrors Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act spending that was dispersed among tourism groups in 2020.
“This is, of course, tremendous,” said Mississippi Tourism Association executive director Danielle Morgan. “We saw how well it worked the first round and it’s why Mississippi fared better than some other destinations and is still leading the southeast in visitor spending.”
During the immediate COVID-19 recovery, Mississippi casinos boasted record-breaking revenue. Destinations across the state focused on markets within driving distance, capitalizing off the break many tourists took from flights.
Legislators, working with an unprecedented amount of money thanks to record state tax collections and $1.8 billion in federal coronavirus-relief funds, are slated to return to the state Capitol Monday morning with hopes of finalizing a state budget.
House Speaker Philip Gunn said the goal is to complete the task and end the 2022 legislative session by Tuesday.
Legislators were scheduled to complete the budgeting process early last week, but twice have had to extend the session to complete the process.
“We have a few little details to take care of” to finalize a budget agreement, said Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg.
The budget is likely to be about $300 million more than the $6.56 billion overall state support budget passed during the 2021 session. That will include the $246 million already committed for a pay raise averaging $5,145 for teachers and a 3% raise for state Highway Patrol troopers and for Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics officers. Money also will be set aside to provide raises for some state employees to get their salaries closer to regional averages.
Hopson said the final budget agreement that will be offered for legislators to vote on also will likely include additional funds for early childhood education and for the school building fund.
It is not clear, though, whether the budget will include additional money for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which provides the state’s share of the basics to operate local school districts. Early budget projections had MAEP about 10% short of full funding.
Negotiators said they are likely to commit to spending $1.5 billion of the $1.8 billion in federal COVID-19 funds this session. The bulk of those funds will be used to help local governments with their water and sewer infrastructure needs.
The funds also will be used:
To provide funds to the departments of Corrections, Mental Health and Child Protection Services to deal with lawsuits or pending lawsuits based on substandard conditions.
To enhance tourism efforts.
To shore up needs in the health care system highlighted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Finance Chair Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, said the state will be able to save about $30 million this year by not passing a bond bill. The Legislature often incurs debt for the state by issuing bonds to finance various construction projects. Instead, this year the projects will be funded through the more than $1 billion in surplus funds the state has because of the unprecedented revenue collections. Those funds are expected to be used for state building construction, construction at the universities and community colleges and for road and bridge needs.
Those funds also could be used for local construction projects approved by the Legislature.
Katina Spaulding’s daughter started walking at 15 months. Spaulding thought that was normal: This was her first child, and she had no one to compare her to.
But when Spaulding enrolled her daughter in the Head Start program in Biloxi, a developmental screening revealed she wasn’t learning at her age level. Additional tests showed the little girl couldn’t hear properly because her eardrum was full of fluid.
“That made her walk late, talk late– she wasn’t connecting the dots,” Spaulding said.
The screenings revealed the problem and pointed the way to solutions. Spaulding’s daughter, now 16, was able to get treatment.
“I would haven’t been able to get any of that without the screening,” said Spaulding, who now works as a family health service specialist at the Moore Community House Early Head Start Program in Biloxi. “My baby would have been worse off.”
But the experience of Spaulding’s family is not typical in this state. In 2016, only about 17% of Mississippi kids under three years old completed a developmental screening, according to a national survey– the lowest rate in the country and well below the national average of 30%. That means Mississippi kids often aren’t able to access services and treatments to help them catch up to peers.
Early childhood experts say the picture is improving. Funded by a $17 million federal grant, the Mississippi Thrive Child Health and Development Project has spent the last five years working to improve children’s developmental health, including by increasing screenings. In recent years the share of kids completing screenings has put Mississippi closer to the middle of the pack nationally– but that still means most kids aren’t getting screened, said principal investigator and University of Mississippi Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Susan Buttross.
And with an estimated 15% of all kids experiencing a developmental delay, many Mississippi children start school with developmental delays still unidentified and untreated, affecting their ability to learn and shaping how their teachers and peers relate to them.
Spaulding worries about what that means for them as they grow and try to learn in classrooms that aren’t always designed to give them individualized attention.
“If your shoes ain’t tied like Johnny’s shoes, your shoes ain’t right,” she said. “That child gotta find their way. So where are they? They’re lost. They’re labeled.”
Franklin Head Start students practice identifying colors during class at Franklin Head Start in Bude, Miss., Thursday, March 31, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Developmental screening involves reviewing a checklist to see whether a child has reached milestones for their age. At the center where Spaulding works, the screener for babies under three months asks caregivers to answer questions like: “Does your baby smile when you talk to him? When your baby is on her back, does she kick her legs?”
The screenings can identify early whether a child has a developmental delay, and research shows intervention before a child is 5 years old improves long-term outcomes.
More than 20 years later, though, screenings are far from universal. The study that found less than 20% of Mississippi kids under three years old had been screened in 2016 also found rates varied widely across the country, with the highest figure in Oregon, at about 60%.
In Mississippi, Buttross said, many children don’t have a primary care pediatrician. About half of Mississippi’s population is rural, and some counties don’t have a single pediatrician. Kids without a pediatrician get medical care when they need it at an emergency room or an urgent care center, but they don’t have a “medical home” where a doctor tracks their development and health over time.
And some pediatricians working in the state were trained years ago, before universal developmental screening was the goal and before evidence-based tools were widely used.
“Many times children who had milder delays were not discovered,” Buttross said. “Some of it was education, some of it was lack of resources.”
A joint project of UMMC and the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University, the Mississippi Thrive initiative has focused on educating pediatricians, nurse practitioners, social workers, childcare providers and parents on the importance of developmental screenings and how to conduct them.
“Healthy children mean a healthy future, and so the better we take care of our kids early on and the more we link them to needed services, the better off they will be, the better off their families will be and the better off our state will be,” Buttross said.
Franklin Head Start students practice identifying colors during class at Franklin Head Start in Bude, Miss., Thursday, March 31, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Given Mississippi kids’ patchy access to pediatricians, child care providers can play an especially important role in screenings. And for decades, Head Start has shown how this can work.
The federally funded child care centers serve infants and toddlers from low-income families, and their operating rules require them to provide developmental screenings. Though Head Start centers comprise only about 10% of the state’s childcare centers, they completed 30% of all developmental screenings by child care providers, according to a 2021 study by the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi.
More than half of all childcare centers in the state did no screenings.
Nita Norphlet-Thompson, executive director of the Mississippi Head Start Association, called developmental screenings “a cornerstone” of Head Start programming. With centers in all 82 counties, Head Start serves 23,000 pregnant moms, infants, and toddlers. Every child enrolled gets a physical, a dental exam, and screenings for speech, vision, and overall development.
If a child fails his hearing screening, for example, the center will refer the family to an audiologist who can start treatment. If a family can’t afford the costs, Head Start steps in to cover the expenses.
The results guide the center’s instruction and goals for each child.
“How do you know where to go with a child if you don’t know where the child is?” Norphlet-Thompson said.
Cathy Gaston, executive director of Friends of Children of Mississippi, which runs Early Head Start programs serving about 3,500 children across 20 counties, said that when a child leaves Head Start and begins kindergarten or first grade, the program coordinates with their school to make sure they get services right away.
“[The screenings] also give you an opportunity to start really early,” she said. “Many times, you find by the time they reach school age you’ve kind of worked through those things.”
Tricycles are in place for students at Franklin Head Start in Bude, Miss., Thursday, March 31, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
What will it take to continue increasing developmental screenings in Mississippi?
Head Start leaders suggest screenings could be mandatory for all child care providers. But Buttross said conversations with child care directors suggested that mandated developmental screenings could be burdensome for the centers, potentially affecting their ability to operate.
“If child care is needed, the worst thing we could do is set up a barrier,” she said.
One possibility could be to create a “gold star” to reward child care centers that do provide developmental screenings.
Gaston said Head Start and other programs can partner with local organizations in underserved communities to set up free screening events. Incentive programs for parents and more mobile services could help, too.
“You’ve got to be really willing to go to those rural areas where you know there’s a challenge,” she said.
Buttross’ team has also documented another problem: When a developmental delay is discovered, parents aren’t always able to find specialists who can treat the issue. Some private health insurance plans don’t cover key services like speech therapy.
Families of kids with developmental delays are supposed to be able to access free developmental services through the state’s Early Intervention Program. But families often face delays in accessing services because of staffing and funding issues, Head Start leaders said.
Norphlet-Thompson, who has worked for Head Start since 1988, said she and her colleagues have always seen the importance of developmental screenings. In recent years, she’s seen more discussion of the topic across the board in Mississippi.
“We’re so glad that everybody else is catching up,” she said.
Mary Harrington, Early Head Start director; Katina Spaulding, family health service specialist; and Margaret Crawford, education specialist stand outside their office at the Moore Community House Early Head Start program in Biloxi.
So much going on in the sports world, including on the golf course, where Chad Ramey of Fulton became the first native born Mississippian to win on the PGA Tour in 52 years. This week, we’ve got both the men’s and women’s Final Fours and so much high level college baseball. The Cleveland boys talk about it all in this episode.
Senior political reporter Bobby Harrison sat down with State Economist Corey Miller to talk about Medicaid expansion at the third and final Mississippi in the Know: Legislative Breakfast on Thursday, March 24. Miller, alongside Senior Economist at the Mississippi Institution for Higher Learning Sondra Collins, has recently published a study from the University Research Center analyzing the effects of Medicaid expansion on the state.
Watch the full conversation:
Editor-at-large Marshall Ramsey took the stage during the conversation to complete a live drawing that referenced the role Miller’s research has played in the tense 2022 legislative session.
Mississippi’s largest hospital went out of network with the state’s largest insurer on Friday, meaning thousands of Mississippians will now face higher out-of-pocket costs for their health care or be forced to leave the state for certain specialty care.
This is the first time the state’s only academic medical center has officially gone out of network and not had an active contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, according to UMMC officials’ knowledge.
Even though representatives for both sides have been meeting in person each week since January, the two entities were not able to agree to a new contract before the March 31 deadline.
UMMC is asking Blue Cross for substantial increases to inpatient, outpatient and professional reimbursement rates, some as large as 50%. UMMC maintains it’s asking for below market rates for academic medical centers, while Blue Cross officials say that steep rate hikes would necessitate a substantial increase in customer premiums.
“We are disappointed that Blue Cross doesn’t value the Medical Center enough to agree to a fair contract and keep us in its network,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the UMMC School of Medicine, said in a press release. “We know that patients are disheartened and frustrated. We must – for the health and wellness of all Mississippians – stand firm in our resolve that Blue Cross should agree to pay us at fair market rates.”
The two sides have also sparred over Blue Cross’ quality care plan, which measures hospital performance and whether services provided to patients are adequate across 15 different categories. UMMC leadership has said that the complexity involved in the care the hospital provides means it should have an individualized quality care program, while Blue Cross maintains that UMMC should be held to the same standards as its other network providers.
“It is unfortunate we have not been able to reach an agreement,” said Cayla Mangrum, corporate communications manager at BCBSMS, in a statement. “Unreasonable demands by UMMC for increased payments, along with their unwillingness to agree to Network Hospital quality requirements, are not in the best interest of our Members and Groups as we seek to provide access to quality, cost-effective health care. We will continue to work to reach an agreement with UMMC, but until then, our primary goal remains our Members’ health.”
There are certain services and facilities UMMC has that cannot be found anywhere else in the state. These include Mississippi’s only Level 1 trauma center, Level IV neonatal intensive care unit and children’s hospital, among other critical care services.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney told Mississippi Today this week that he questions whether BCBS could meet the state’s Managed Care Plan Network Adequacy Regulation without UMMC in its network. The regulation requires health insurance providers to “maintain a network that is sufficient in numbers and types of participating providers to assure that all devices to covered persons will be accessible without reasonable delay.”
Cheney also said his office would get involved if the two parties didn’t strike a deal by Friday.
This week, Mississippi Today spoke to parents whose children have been receiving specialty care at Children’s of Mississippi. Few have received answers about what the future holds and some are scrambling to find an alternative provider for their children.
“The truth is we can’t go anywhere else,” said Lanier Craft, whose son has Pompe disease, a rare genetic condition that affects the muscles. “This is all there is for us. Batson has been there since I walked in the door in February eight years ago with my child. They have done everything for us, and to just completely lose that within a day because of an agreement over money is unimaginable.”
There are three groups of Blue Cross Blue Shield customers that UMMC’s out-of-network status won’t apply to:
Those enrolled in the Mississippi State and School Employees’ Health Insurance Plan. Though that plan is administered through BCBS, only commercial insurance plans are affected.
Patients who come into UMMC’s emergency room or are transferred from another hospital.
Patients for which UMMC has a continuity of care obligation. UMMC can’t stop caring for, say, a pregnant woman in her last trimester of pregnancy or a cancer patient who is in round two of 12 rounds of chemotherapy. For these patients, this period of coverage will expire 90 days from April 1.
