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When school lets out for the day, Operation Shoestring students are excited to get to Project Rise for reading circles, playtime, and homework help in addition to STEM clubs and arts-centered experiences. Based on his experiences in the Project Rise afterschool program, third-grader Tylen now can say that “doing math is fun for me. I love rounding numbers and seeing the patterns.” But  Project Rise isn’t just a fun place for kids to work on academic essentials. It’s also a pathway to address the education gaps and emotional trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted low-income children of color from communities like the ones Operation Shoestring serves. 

Founded in 1968 in response to the struggles of the civil rights era, Operation Shoestring was born out of a desire by faith-based leaders to put their faith into action by uplifting children and families in the central Jackson community, especially in the areas of education, health, and economic self-sufficiency. Ever since then, they’ve provided year-round academic, social, and emotional support to children and families in these neighborhoods with the goal of empowering families to live self-determined, healthy, hopeful lives. Part of that work is Shoestring’s annual Conversation about Community event which will take place this year as a short series exploring what it will take to create a community that really values its children, and what we are all willing to do, individually and collectively, to make that happen.

The Conversation about Community’s purpose is to encourage Metro-Jackson residents to commit and recommit to creating an equitable community. Through a compelling and sometimes challenging conversation series, Operation Shoestring hopes to open up the dialogue about the state of children in the Metro-Jackson area. “All of Jackson’s children need supportive, nurturing, and joy-filled experiences from birth to adulthood in order to reach their full potential and for our community to thrive. The question is what are we willing to do individually and as a community to make that happen,” asks Robert Langford, Shoestring’s executive director. 

By improving the lives of kids in their community, Operation Shoestring aims to improve all of Jacksonians’ lives and thus build a better city. The premiere of the new Conversation about Community web series on November 3rd features a roundtable discussion moderated by Mississippi Today managing editor Kayleigh Skinner and with panelists Attorney Letita Johnson (JPS parent and board trustee), Dr. Michelle Owens (OB/GYN and faculty member, UMMC) and the Rev. Chuck Poole (senior pastor, Northminster Baptist Church).

In the series, community leaders will share their own ideas and experiences surrounding what a community that truly values children looks like and the barriers preventing our own city from reaching that goal. Operation Shoestring hopes that viewers will come away from the series with a clearer understanding of what it means to affirm and empower all children within their city and to also have tangible action steps to make this idea a reality. For example, panel participant Dr. Michelle Owens believes that “taking intentional steps like offering encouragement to a young person, talking to our friends about offering encouragement to young people, and challenging ourselves to reach out to people who may be different than us and letting them know they have value too” is a way to create a Jackson where all kids can thrive. Operation Shoestring and so many of our community members agree: it will take all of us to reach a day where all children are affirmed and supported. 

Operation Shoestring knows that supporting all of Jackson’s children means uplifting their families too. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, most of Shoestring’s families have reported experiencing higher levels of stress and increased feelings of isolation. That was also the case with Shoestring parent Shalonda Hannah. She and her son both felt increasingly alone as the months dragged on. For Hannah, the parent programs Operation Shoestring offered were a lifesaver. She said at the time that “being able to come out and be around other women, different age groups, different home styles, different lifestyles, this is a piece of heaven for me. It honestly is my safe space.” 

If every parent in Jackson can access safe spaces like Hannah can, Jackson can become what its many citizens believe it could one day be: a place where all families can thrive. As another Shoestring parent, Melishia Grayson-Brooks, says of our program: “For the most part, Jackson is a working-class city. School hours are not conducive to hours for working-class folks. If your kid is able to go to a program where they are being cared for, given snacks, and provided homework help, then it allows you to not struggle with having your kid at home by themselves.” Afterschool helps families, which helps their workplaces, employers, and employees, and which then helps everyone in our city have their afternoons and evenings run a little more smoothly. “I think afterschool is something that’s needed in our city. It’s something that should be accessible for everybody. It’s a natural response to the needs of the community,” observes Melishia. Operation Shoestring, and many others, believe that honest conversations focused on what it will take to meet the needs of our community’s children are the first step to achieving that goal. 

Find out more about what participants on the 2021 Conversation about Community panel think about children and their potential for success in our city by going to operationshoestring.org/cac and visiting our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.

The post Conversation About Community 2021: Creating a City that Values Children appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The war between State Auditor Shad White and Brett Farve spilled over onto social media. I figured Shad would like a souvenir for his efforts.

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

Gov. Tate Reeves, in a blistering social media post, said on Tuesday he and Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch expect to file a lawsuit later this week challenging the vaccine mandate being imposed on certain businesses by President Joe Biden.

Reeves said the federal mandates “threaten every Mississippian’s individual liberties. They are nothing short of tyranny.”

Biden had said in September he intended to impose vaccine mandates on federal agencies, businesses with federal contracts and companies with more than 100 employees.

READ MORE: In a reversal, IHL requires employees be vaccinated by Dec. 8 to comply with federal order

The Biden administration released guidelines for federal contractors on Monday. The guidelines allow companies to make exceptions to the mandate for religious convictions and for those who might not take the vaccine because of health issues.

“Although the federal government has not followed through on a single threat, many institutions across the country have acted rashly out of fear of losing their federal funds,” Reeves said, apparently referring to the religious and health exceptions. “They should be reminded that the state of Mississippi will not be in the business of subsidizing or supporting institutions that fail to go out of their way to respect at least these basis human rights.”

Reeves continued: “Every Mississippi business, university and hospital should bend over backwards to accommodate and presume good will.”

Guidelines for private companies employing more than 100 people are expected later this week. That mandate will be based on provisions of law giving the federal government the authority to impose regulations to ensure worker safety.

To date, COVID-19 has killed 10,129 Mississippians, giving the state the highest death rate in the nation. Mississippi has one of the lowest vaccination rates in America, ranking 47th, though vaccines are free and widely available.

READ MORE: Reeves downplays Mississippi’s highest-in-nation COVID death rate

Earlier this summer Reeves said he did not believe governmental institutions could impose vaccine mandates. When it was pointed out to him that the state of Mississippi imposes vaccine mandates to enter public schools and universities, he refused to say whether he wanted to eliminate those. He later said he did not believe such mandates should be issued by executive order.

The courts in the past have upheld vaccine mandates, though those involved state and local governmental mandates.

Fitch, in her second year in office, has a history of filing lawsuits on national issues. Earlier this year she joined litigation trying to disenfranchise millions of voters in key battleground states in an effort to reverse the outcome of the presidential election. That lawsuit was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. She is currently involved in a lawsuit trying to reverse the constitutional right to an abortion.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves says he and attorney general will sue over Biden vaccine mandate appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Around 50 people, mostly clergy members representing various Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities, gathered in Jackson on Tuesday for a memorial service dedicated to Mississippi residents who have died from COVID-19. 

To date, COVID-19 has killed 10,129 Mississippians, giving the state the highest death rate in the nation. This is more Mississippians than were killed by cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and kidney disease combined in 2017. Mississippi has either the highest or second highest death rate in the nation for all these diseases.

The event was organized by Working Together Mississippi, an emerging statewide organization of various religious institutions and nonprofits. Several speakers said they are praying that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, and Mississippi is certainly in a much better position than it was a few months ago. 

The state’s 7-day average for new cases has decreased by more than 87% since the all-time peak seen in mid-August. Still, Mississippi has one of the lowest vaccination rates in America, ranking 47th, though vaccines are free and widely available. 

Ten reverends and bishops prayed over the crowd and reflected on the pain and loss caused by the pandemic.

“I bring you greetings of grace and peace. But I’m also here as a boy that misses his daddy,” said Rev. Hugh Hollowell, community pastor at Open Door Mennonite Church. 

Hollowell then told the story of his father, also named Hugh Hollowell, who was the director of emergency management for Marshall County. In October 2020 he was delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) to first responders on a Thursday, and then was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Saturday. He died the following Tuesday. 

The pain of it, in addition to the normal pain that comes with losing a loved one, Hollowell said, is that his father was supposed to retire in June, but decided doing so in the middle of a pandemic would be unethical. 

“I know that that’s not a solitary story… we are collectively members of a horrible club that we didn’t ask to be part of,” Hollowell said. 

A moment of silence for the dead was held as the sound of church bells filled the air at noon. That period of reflection was nearly overwhelming for Rev. Heath Ferguson, director of pastoral care and faith relations at Mississippi Baptist Health System.

Ferguson leaned in and tried to think of all those he’s ministered to over the past 19 months. The thousands of COVID rooms he’s walked into, the hundreds he ministered to at their bedside as they lay dying. 

“They all came rushing in and it was a little too much,” Ferguson said. 

Ferguson encouraged attendees to honor the memories of those lost by caring for their neighbors. 

“Tend to the grieving, care for the caregivers, and make peace in this world. Let’s do that,” Ferguson said. 

The post Interfaith clergy members gather for COVID-19 day of mourning and remembrance appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Trials for Nancy New and her son Zach New for their alleged roles in the state’s sprawling welfare embezzlement scheme have been postponed to early 2022, more than two years after the first indictment was filed.

Nancy and Zach New were scheduled to appear at jury trials for both state and federal charges against them in early November. But all their trials have been postponed to early 2022.

At the state level, the News are accused of embezzling $2 million in TANF dollars, also known as cash assistance, through their nonprofit called Mississippi Community Education Center to their for-profit company, New Learning Resources. Documents were allegedly falsified to hide this accused theft.

They face state charges of two counts of conspiracy to embezzle, seven counts of embezzlement, two counts of making fraudulent statements, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, and mail fraud. If convicted of all state charges, the News could each face up to 170 years in prison and $220,000 in fines. 

The accountant for the Mississippi Community Education Center recently pleaded guilty to embezzlement for her role in this scheme and has agreed to work with prosecutors. 

At the federal level, the News are accused of filing fraudulent claims with the Mississippi Department of Education to the tune of $4 million for special education scholarships and reimbursements on behalf of students who no longer or had never attended their schools, teachers who no longer worked at their schools, or claiming that teachers had higher certifications than they did. 

The News face federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy, money transactions with unlawfully acquired funds, and nine counts of aggravated identity theft. If convicted of all federal charges, the News could each face up to 218 years in prison and $5 million in fines.

The News requested a continuance of the state trial in early September, following the court’s rescheduling of the trial from October 4 to November 8 as a result of the spike in COVID-19 cases from the delta variant. Court filings show the News requested this continuance because of the close proximity of the new date for the federal trial (which had been scheduled to occur on November 10) and asked that the court maintain the previously established order of trials: federal first, state second. 

The state court rescheduled the trial for Feb. 7, 2022, at the Hinds County Courthouse.

Independently, the federal trial has also been rescheduled at the request of federal prosecutors, a move that was not opposed by the News. Prosecutors said they needed additional time to prepare or negotiate a plea. The federal trial has now been rescheduled to Jan. 3, 2022.

Nancy and Zach New have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

John Davis, the former director of the Department of Human Services (the state agency that administers TANF), was also indicted in this scheme. His trial was scheduled to take place on Nov. 1, 2021, but did not occur. Davis had also requested for his trial to be postponed from the Nov. 1 date at the end of September, saying they needed more time to prepare — a motion that was not opposed by the state.

No other additional information has been filed with the courts, and attorneys for Davis could not be reached on Tuesday.

The post State and federal trials for Nancy New and Zach New postponed to 2022 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Far Far Away appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In Mississippi, applying for public assistance like food stamps or a child care voucher isn’t as simple as showing that you are poor.

Applicants — mostly single moms — must also provide the address, social security number, employer, bank accounts, names of relatives and other information about their children’s father so that the state can locate and go after him for child support payments.

Mississippi isn’t required to force custodial parents to sue their children’s other parent in order to qualify for these federal programs — but it does anyway.

“They try to make the woman the policeman of their division by putting the father under child support. It’s not her job to do that. She did not create that rule,” said Theophilus King, owner of Christian Mission Learning Center in Jackson. “They’re trying to drive a greater wedge between the two people.”

Advocates for working mothers cite this rule as one of the biggest barriers for those seeking child care, and therefore employment. Of any policy change within the program, they say removing the child support requirement could have the biggest impact on the low-income people they serve. But Mississippi officials have refused to entertain the idea.

Moms applying for the federally-funded food assistance program or child care voucher must secure a letter from the child support office to prove they are cooperating, even though both programs are run by the same state agency. The outdated computer programs at the Mississippi Department of Human Services don’t communicate with each other, making the application process all the more cumbersome. If the applicant can’t get through to child support’s often overwhelmed call center, she might have to drive 30 minutes or an hour to the nearest child support office.

In some cases, the child support requirement not only exposes the agency’s clumsy case management, but can create absurd scenarios.

“I have a mom right now whose child’s father is deceased, but CCPP (the Child Care Payment Plan voucher program) still wants her to put child support on the father even though he died in 2018,” said Pamela Reynolds, a case manager for the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative’s Employment Equity for Single Moms project. “She said she has shown the death certificate — everything.”

The state does allow exemptions to the requirement for custodial parents who might be a victim of domestic violence, who fear that the other parent might retaliate if they sue them for child support. Of course, advocates point out, many women in this situation may have been reluctant to report previous violence — and therefore lack the proof needed for the exemption — for the same reason.

Out of roughly 263,151 cases in the child support system, the state has made a “good cause determination” — identified one of a few accepted reasons for a parent not to cooperate — in exactly three open cases in 2020. Advocates question whether the agency is following its own policies, considering the extremely small number.

Belinda Thornton, another case manager for the employment equity project, said she worked with a mother in that very situation.

“She had the police report. She had the peace bond. She took that to the child support office and showed them those reports, and therefore she did not feel comfortable or safe placing that dad under child support, and she was denied (the assistance) because of it,” Thornton said.

The agency did not reverse the decision until Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative Director Carol Burnett intervened.

“It took me contacting Chad Allgood (director of the Division of Early Childhood Care and Development) at DHS to say, ‘Y’all aren’t following your own policy. You need to do this,’” Burnett said.

Asked if he was confident the agency was consistently applying that exemption, Allgood said: “I really can’t speak to that because that is not my division that handles the child support piece of it. Literally, we have access to a database that says that an individual is or is not in cooperation. That’s the extent of what I can speak to.”

The federal government does require that states impose this child support rule on applicants for Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance program, the block grant that replaced the old welfare entitlement program during welfare reform in the 1990s.

Like many rules within the federal cash assistance program, the child support cooperation requirement illustrates the racist roots of welfare programs, which in the early 1900s existed almost exclusively for widowed white women. When more Black mothers began accessing the program, the government imposed new restrictions, such as work requirements, that were based on racist stereotypes about the poor.

But the federal government doesn’t actually require this policy for other anti-poverty programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, or the child care voucher. Mississippi is one of just seven states that impose this rule on the food program and seventeen that require child support cooperation for the child care subsidy, according to a 2018 report.

Mississippi hasn’t always mandated child support cooperation in the child care program — only since 2004. After the agency added the requirement, the number of parents waiting to be approved for a voucher immediately fell from over 10,000 to 200, according to a report by the nonprofit Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, illustrating the measure’s effects on parents and children. The initiative also found that the centers it surveyed served 40% fewer children after the rule change.

In January of 2019, Mississippi Today published a story with the headline, “Mississippi demands accountability from parents on public assistance — so why is the state so secretive about how it manages welfare funds?”

Mississippi Today asked the deputy administrator of the division of economic assistance at the time, Dana Kidd, if she thought the child support requirement was problematic because of the position in which it puts single parents.

“Yeah, it is,” she said, “but that’s our state policy and federal regulations. So we have to.”

Asked whether she thought it was a good policy, Kidd, who is Black, said, “Everybody’s going to have a personal opinion on that.” Asked what her personal opinion is, her white male colleague, then-deputy director Jacob Black, cut her off: “Careful,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Kidd responded. “Careful,” Black repeated.

Today, the answer to the 2019 headline is clear: At the time it published, state and nonprofit officials were allegedly engaging in one of the largest public embezzlement schemes in state history. The welfare agency’s director at the time, John Davis, is awaiting trial. Black, Davis’ deputy, took over as interim director in early 2020, but he left the agency to go work for Medicaid after the new director, Bob Anderson, took office in March of 2020.

And while the agency’s new leadership promises to right the ship with respect to spending its federal grant dollars, the same controversial child support requirement remains.

State statute does not mandate the welfare department require child support cooperation within the child care voucher program. That means that the state agency could change the policy itself without the Legislature. The welfare department just accomplished something similar when it created a child support “pass-through” itself without having to sponsor legislation.

Mississippi Department of Human Services solicits public comment about how to improve the Child Care Payment Program — recommendations that the agency claims to use in drafting new state plans it sends to the federal government. Nearly every stakeholder in this system, which exists primarily to help low-income working parents, has pleaded with the state to remove the child support cooperation requirement.

But agency leaders aren’t willing to discuss it.

“At this point, I mean, that is our agency policy, is that child support cooperation is a requirement of the program,” said Allgood, the division director.

Asked if there would be any talks of changing that policy since state law does not mandate it, he responded, “it’s agency policy.” Asked who sets agency policy and whether the child care division that he oversees would consider engaging them in a conversation about it, he responded, “I mean, it’s just, it’s agency policy. I mean, that’s the extent of what I can tell you.”

Asked if he thought the policy change would improve his department, Allgood insisted on moving to the next question.

“My concern is that MDHS is designed to destroy the nucleus family of the people in Mississippi,” said King, the child care center owner. “They are creating rules that are inconsistent with the rules from the Department of Health and Human Services — the federal government. On the federal level, they say that they are family friendly. But here in Mississippi, it is designed to keep poor people poor, uneducated and to further destroy the family, just like they were doing during slavery times.

“The same thing now is being perpetuated,” he continued. “They are creating burdens and barriers that cannot be overcome, therefore destroying the relationship between a man and a woman who has children. Instead of creating rules that will bring them together, they create rules to keep them separated and put the burden, most of the time, on the woman.”

The post Welfare agency won’t budge on a rule that advocates say is ‘designed to destroy the family’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rep. Jon Lancaster, elected to the state House of Representatives in 2019 as a Democrat, is the latest to switch affiliation to the Republican Party, adding to the GOP’s legislative supermajority.

Lancaster’s defection was a bit surprising in that so many legislators have switched over the past two decades that it almost appeared that there were none left to change parties. There are now at least 12 current members of the House of Representatives who were elected as Democrats but are no longer serving as Democrats.

Lancaster’s flip also further divides legislative party lines by race. There are now just two white Democrats in the Senate and four in the House. And only four of those Democrats — Hob Bryan of Amory in the Senate and Tommy Reynolds of Water Valley, Tom Miles of Forest and Shanda Yates of Jackson in the House — are elected from majority white districts.

Lancaster, a Chickasaw County farmer, was elected to his first term in 2019 with 54% of the vote. He succeeded long-time Democrat Preston Sullivan of Okolona, who did not seek re-election. Lancaster’s District 22, which consist of Chickasaw and Pontotoc counties, was generally viewed as a district where a Democrat always had a chance of winning.

“I feel this gives my constituents a real seat at the table,” Lancaster told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo. The switch “gives me a opportunity to better represent them.”

Lancaster’s flip gives Republicans 77 members in the 122-member House. Republicans have 36 seats in the 52-member Senate. In both chambers, the GOP holds a supermajority, meaning it needs no Democratic votes to pass any major policy.

“They (party switchers) believe it is best for their political survivor,” said Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez, the House Democratic leader. “They believe it is best to help them to keep their seat.”

That feeling of survival could be more about what legislators believe is the best way to ensure Republican leaders draw districts for the former Democrats that give them the best chance of winning re-election. House and Senate legislative districts are slated to be redrawn during the upcoming 2022 session to match population shifts found by the 2020 U.S. Census.

Johnson said legislative Democrats — primarily Black members — have not made white Democrats uncomfortable by supporting radical political positions or by not working with the Republican leadership.

“The House Democrats have been nothing but mainstream, middle of the road,” Johnson said. “We have embraced issues that affect the working people of Mississippi.”

Johnson said the Democrats’ primary issues have been:

• Expanding Medicaid to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor.
• Fully funding public education.
• Providing equal pay for women.
• Raising the minimum wage.

For decades most legislators were Democrats, and the splits in the chambers were based more on geography — urban versus rural and other factors — than on party affiliation.

But in the 1990s with the election of Vicksburg contractor Kirk Fordice, the state’s first Republican governor since the 1800s, the trend of legislators switching parties began — first as trickle then as a tidal wave.

One of the last strongholds for rural white Democrats was Lancaster’s home area of northeast Mississippi. For much of the 1990s and 2000s, northeast Mississippi rural, white Democrats were the dominant power structure in the Legislature, and especially the House.

For 24 years, the speaker was a rural, white Democrat: first Tim Ford and then Billy McCoy, both of whom represented portions of Prentiss County. But with Lancaster’s defection, all of those rural white Democrats, with the exception of Sen. Bryan, are gone.

Of Lancaster’s switch, Frank Bordeaux, chair of the Mississippi Republican Party, said in a statement to the Daily Journal, “Since being elected, Rep. Lancaster has voted with Republicans on several key issues, and we are glad he’s made the decision to join the GOP. We look forward to continuing growing the MSGOP and pushing back against Joe Biden’s radical agenda.”

READ MORE: Mississippi Today publishes three-part series on the dysfunction of the Mississippi Democratic Party

The post Another Democratic defection adds to Republican supermajority in Legislature appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi produces more NFL players per capita than any other state, and it’s not really that close.

A new, thorough study confirms what I have long contended to be true. That is, the Magnolia State, relatively small and poor in so many ways, kicks tail when it comes to producing football talent. Always has.

That’s right, Mississippi, for its population, produces more pro football players than Texas, Florida, California and more than Louisiana and Alabama, as well. Remember, we’re talking about per capita here.

Since 1936, when the NFL began to keep accurate roster records, Mississippi has produced 788 NFL players. When you factor in population, the state produces 26.6 pro football players for every 100,000 people. 

The research was done by Sidelines, a sports technology and digital media company, which also found that Texas has produced the most NFL players (2,515) of any state. But the Texas total computes to only 8.5 players per 100,000, about one-third of what Mississippi has produced.

Nebraska (21.3 per 100,000), Oklahoma (also 21.3), and Louisiana (21.2) were the three states closest to Mississippi in NFL players per capita. Alabama (17) was a distant fifth. You might mention that the next time the Crimson Tide kicks your favorite team’s butt, as it has done to Southern Miss (63-14), Ole Miss (42-21) and Mississippi State (49-9) this season.

Ousmane Diallo, a data analyst for Rise at Seven, led a team of five that did the research and tallied the results. That Mississippi led all other states, said Diallo, “was the part we found super interesting.”

“You’d probably expect huge numbers from the likes of Texas, California and Pennsylvania, but when you take into account population, it completely changes the outlook,” Diallo said.

It’s not just quantity we’re talking about either. It’s quality, as well. The NFL’s all-time leading receiver and touchdown scorer is Jerry Rice, from Crawford and Mississippi Valley State. Walter Payton, from Columbia and Jackson State, is the NFL’s second all-time leading rusher. Brett Favre, from Kiln and Southern Miss, is No. 4 on the league’s all-time passing yardage list. 

“Mississippi not only produces the most NFL players per capita, but not only that, the state also produced the most Pro Football Hall of Famers per capita, as well,” Diallo said.

Again, it’s not even close. In 2016, Favre became the ninth native Mississippian inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That’s more than much larger states such as New York (7) and New Jersey (6). The population of New York State is nearly 20 million, compared to Mississippi’s fewer than 3 million.

And that Mississippi number doesn’t count such NFL legends as Ray Guy, Robert Brazile and Gene Hickerson, who played their college ball in Mississippi after growing up in nearby states. It also doesn’t count, for instance, a player such as Peyton Manning whose roots are firmly in Mississippi soil and who spent much of his childhood in the Magnolia State.

Nor does that number reflect on native Mississippians who should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame such as Charlie Conerly, Kent Hull and Jimmie Giles.

Another amazing fact: Jackson State, alone, has produced four Hall of Famers, three of them native Mississippians. That’s as many Pro Football Hall of Famers as both Florida State and Georgia have and twice as many as Auburn, Ole Miss and Southern Miss have produced. Mississippi State has no former players the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Yes, Bulldogs Dak Prescott and perhaps Fletcher Cox are future Hall of Famers but that’s a few years away. Their time will come. Or should.

Meanwhile, the Magnolia State has plenty to celebrate when it comes to football — or writers and entertainers, for that matter. We just don’t have available stats on the authors and musicians. Would we Mississippians rather be ranked No. 1 in health, wealth and education? That’s a no-brainer. Or should be. But we’ll take what we can get.

The post Best producer of NFL talent? If you guessed Mississippi, you are right. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Keronique Davis, a mom of four, bounced from gig to gig for years while she finished two degrees from Coahoma Community College.

The 29-year-old often struggled to juggle a job, online school and caring for her children. At around $2,000-a-month, according to costs compiled in the recent market rate survey, child care for her four children is well out of reach.

It wasn’t until last year that Davis secured some much needed relief through the state’s Child Care Development Fund, which provides child care vouchers to low-income parents. Mississippi’s federally-funded program recently received a $200 million boost from the American Recovery Plan Act.

Davis spoke with Mississippi Today in April and her story illustrated how much the state’s assistance meant to her, how the state would be able to help even more like her because of the increase in federal funding.

Then came her “redetermination” for the assistance. She was between jobs and didn’t have a check stub readily available to provide to caseworkers.

The state kicked her off the program, making it even harder to secure a new job. Once she did, she reapplied.

“Once I received the check stub, I went back in to reenroll. So that means I had to do the process all over again. And once I did the process all over again, they still denied me. They said I didn’t send all the information in,” Davis said in October. “So it was kinda hard this time around to actually get accepted into the program.”

Advocates for working parents say the seemingly endless red tape in the child care voucher application process has prevented countless women from receiving the support.

On top of that, Mississippi Department of Human Services is now saying it does not plan to use the extra $200 million to expand the voucher program. (This $200 million supplement to the Child Care Development Fund is separate from the $319 million the federal government gave to Mississippi for child care center stabilization grants, which the state has yet to administer. When the application opens in coming weeks, it will appear at this link).

Davis is just one of thousands of parents who have been kicked off the Child Care Payment Program in recent months, according to Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative’s recent survey of child care centers.

Mississippi Today spoke with the case managers overseeing the four regions for the Initiative’s Employment Equity for Single Moms project. The program helps single moms secure higher-paying jobs by helping them navigate childcare, adult education and workforce training. When a mother signs up, the program provides her with three months of childcare.

In the meantime, it’s often the case manager’s first goal to guide the mom through the voucher program to secure consistent childcare for the future.

“The first barrier is it’s absolutely too long and too difficult. It should be on a — I believe a sixth grade level is the norm. And it’s not. It’s very lengthy. It took me an hour and 15 minutes the first time I did it,” said Zaffron King, the case manager for the state’s northeastern region.

Pamela Reynolds, the case manager for the Delta, said that after her clients upload all their paperwork to the online application portal, the agency workers don’t review the material until three or four days before the application’s completion deadline. Then, Reynolds said, they’ll tell the applicant that paperwork is missing — even if she submitted it.

“They’ll say, ‘The check stub looks old.’ But you didn’t look until 30 days, so of course the check stub is going to be old.” Reynolds said. “So they’ll kick that out and say, ‘We need a new check stub.’ OK. But they actually don’t do it until three or four days before the case ends up being closed. They don’t give them enough time to get the new check stubs in.”

Reynolds said her clients have difficulty reaching anyone on the phone in the centralized state office where childcare applications are processed. There are no childcare representatives in the local MDHS offices. Reynolds said employee turnover in the office is great, so a mom might get a different case manager, unfamiliar with her application, every time she calls.

“Some of the moms just say, ‘Well, forget it.’ They get tired and they just, like, give up,” Reynolds said.

Mississippi Today submitted a public records request to Mississippi Department of Human Services for voucher application data in September. Instead of supplying the periodic reports that agency officials said they generate for internal review, the department created an original report for the news organization. (The agency attempted to charge Mississippi Today $400 for the report before the news organization objected and it waived the cost).

The report showed that out of 16,562 total applications the agency received from the beginning of 2021 to mid-September, it approved less than half. But the agency only actually “denied” 4% of the applicants, the report shows.

Most of the remaining applications fall under a category the agency calls “applications abandoned by applicant.”

There are over 4,600 of these applications, which reflect the parents who never made it through the process before their application timed out at 60 days.

“For them to say that a parent abandoned the application, when what really happened is that DHS just threw up so many obstacles and barriers and boulders and obstructions that they didn’t meet the deadline, that’s not abandonment,” said Carol Burnett, director of the Low-Income Child Care Initiative. “And that word is so offensive as a descriptor for what happened to the parents.”

The total applications in the report include new parent applications, those who did not currently have a voucher, redetermination applications for parents already on the voucher and applications to add a child to an existing case.

Many of the “new parent applications” probably reflect applicants like Davis, who actually had a voucher but had to begin the process over because of a denial during redetermination.

The state doesn’t currently have a good way to actually track this occurrence.

“If an application is abandoned, that doesn’t mean that that parent doesn’t go in and start a new application,” said Chad Allgood, director of MDHS’s Division of Early Childhood Care and Development. “And so one of the other things that we really would like to take a look at is, if a parent abandons an application, are they going back in and starting a new application? Or are they abandoning the application and just abandoning seeking the assistance?”

As for the division’s performance, Allgood could say that once the caseworkers receive all documentation, the turnaround time for when an application is approved is usually same-day or no more than eight days.

“We do monitor those numbers pretty closely,” Allgood said.

But that’s not the point of the application process most advocates are worried about.

Debbie Ellis, owner of child care center The Learning Tree in Greenwood and leader of a coalition of providers in the Delta, said it seems as though the agency prioritizes the computer system over the people.

“They are showing more consideration for their IT division and maintaining the built-in processes — the time sensitive calendars built into their software system — then they have for the working families who require child care assistance,” said Debbie Ellis, owner of child care center The Learning Tree in Greenwood. “They’ve shown more consideration for IT than they have for Walmart, Target, Kroger and these employers who are screaming for applicants.”

“They’ve made it easier for themselves and hard for the economy,” she added.

Allgood said that the department is in early stages of improving these systems to better serve applicants.

“We do know that the documentation submission process is somewhat of a holdup. And we do know that that’s something, we’re looking at some ways that parents could upload their documentation in other ways. We live in the technology age. We’ve even talked about looking at making it where parents could fill out the entire application, including document submission, via their smart phone,” Allgood said.

Many of the issues applicants face can be traced back to Mississippi’s outdated computer programs. Child care applicants must, for example, secure a physical letter from the child support office to prove they are in cooperation, even though both programs are run by the same state agency, which should conceivably be able to automate that portion of eligibility determination.

Last year, the Legislature gave Mississippi Department of Human Services a $5 million capital expense appropriation “to begin to look at these old, old, old data systems that we have,” MDHS Director Bob Anderson said at a recent budget hearing.

Anderson told lawmakers that the agency had hired a government consulting firm called BerryDunn to evaluate and assess the state’s antiquated eligibility verification systems and offer recommendations for improvements. BerryDunn, a Portland, Maine-based company, used to employ a former director of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid and the program manager for the state child support program’s Centralized Receipting and Disbursement Unit.

“We have four basic eligibility data systems, none of which are interoperable. They don’t talk to each other at all. They’re written in COBOL, which is essentially an extinct computer language,” Anderson said.

COBOL, one of the oldest programming languages invented in 1959, is characterized by a black screen with lime green lettering.

“We expect to get a report from them in early January about the cost of replacing all of our data systems. We anticipate that cost to be anywhere between $40 and $60 million, but we need to complete this study to know what’s in front of us,” Anderson told lawmakers.

In the meantime, Allgood encourages parents who are struggling with their applications to reach out to the agency, even request to talk to him.

“I can’t imagine being a parent right now. I can’t imagine how difficult that is,” Allgood said. “I absolutely respect and admire, especially these single working moms. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes.”

“If there are issues, please call our call center. It’s not perfect. We are expanding, but please reach out to us, email us,” he continued. “If they’re having a lot of difficulty getting through, they can send an email. They can request to speak to one of the supervisors. They can request to speak to someone all the way up to me if they’re not getting the help that they need.”

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