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Despite unprecedented revenue growth, both the House and Senate have put forth state budget proposals for the coming fiscal year that spend less state funds than what was appropriated during the 2021 session.

But Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, cautioned, “We are far from the finish line. This is just the starting line.”

Last year the Legislature appropriated $7 billion in state support funds for education, health care, law enforcement and for other vital needs that are funded with state general fund tax collections and other state funds. Both the House and Senate have passed budget plans of $6.6 billion.

The action taken earlier this week is the opening salvo for the 2022 session in developing a budget for the budget year starting July 1. The final product will be negotiated between House and Senate leaders in late March during the final scheduled days of the 2022 legislative session.

“Yes, I’m sure (spending) is going to increase in negotiations — it always does,” said House Appropriations Vice Chair Karl Oliver, R-Winona.

In developing the budgets, legislators are dealing with unprecedented growth in state tax collections. In the past fiscal year, the state collected $1.1 billion more than was budgeted and is on pace to do about the same for the current fiscal year.

Those surpluses are fueling discussions in both chambers of a tax cut.

READ MORE: Inside the income tax cut battle between House and Senate leaders

While the recent action might be “the starting line,” the proposals still indicate the conservative approach leaders apparently are taking in developing a budget. Both proposals do little to address the funding shortfall in the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which provides the basics of operating local school districts. It would take about $360 million in additional money to fully fund MAEP, a funding formula set into law by the Legislature.

The budget also does not address the possibility of expanding Medicaid as is allowed under federal law to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor. House Speaker Philip Gunn has indicated that he would not support expanding Medicaid.

Plus, the two budget plans, as they passed both chambers in their original forms, do little to address the rising costs agencies face from inflation.

Hopson conceded that moving forward inflation needed to be factored into the budgets.

“It is definitely a factor…(to) determine how far dollars will go,” said Hopson.

Oliver said, “Everybody’s aware of inflation — that’s a big topic of conversation right now.” He said inflation is part of what’s driving proposed pay raises for Department of Public Safety law officers and others in the budget.

Both Democrats and Republicans expressed concern that pay raises for state employees are needed during the current climate where salaries are being increased in the private sector to attract workers. But Hopson said safeguards are in plan to help ensure agency heads do not exceed their authority to provide pay raises.

“There seem to be a real concern about employees being overpaid and agencies trying to pay their employees more,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. “…It is very easy to see the cost of a salary. That is a dollar amount. We know the amount. We can deal with it. What we don’t see is the real cost of the key people in government, the super competent. When those people go, you incur a lot of other costs that you do not see in the cost of their salaries.”

The budget plans include $25 million for state employee pay raises. The intent of the funds is to ensure all employees are paid at least the minimum salary that they should receive under a new compensation system developed by the state Personnel Board. About 19,000 of the 24,000 Mississippi state employees who fall under the state Personnel Board guidelines received a raise of up to 3% in January to put their salaries in line with the new compensation plan, entitled SEC2. The $25 million will try to complete that realignment, Hopson said.

The largest new expenditure in both the House and Senate proposals is to fund the teacher pay raise plans that passed earlier this session. The Senate plan has about $170 million for its pay raise proposal with the plan to provide another $45 million raise in the 2023 session. The House has about $215 million for its plan.

On a separate, but related track, legislators are also working to decide how to spend $1.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds. Those funds can be spent on water and sewer improvements throughout the state and for various COVID-19 related items. The final decision on how to spend those funds, like the overall budget, will likely be decided in the final days of the session, which is scheduled to end in early April.

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Mississippi public schools will have access to mental and health care services for students for free as soon as August, education officials announced Thursday. 

The Mississippi Department of Education approved a $17.6 million grant for telehealth and teletherapy services available within schools provided by the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

The Department of Education initially planned to begin with a pilot program, but then decided to launch the program statewide instead. 

“The more we started finding out about (telehealth services), we really felt that if there was an organization or entity that could just launch this statewide and get more children access to it, then why not?” said Carey Wright, state superintendent of education.

The program is being funded by the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) and will last from July 2022 through September 2024. The program will start serving its first schools at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year.

The grant will cover laptops for video conferencing and specially equipped stethoscopes and otoscopes that transmit information to the doctors or nurse practitioners on the other end of the call. 

Healthcare providers will supply urgent care, mental health care, remote patient monitoring, and specialty consultations to children in any district across the state that has access to a school nurse.

“When you really look at the distribution of doctors in Mississippi, you have plenty in Jackson, Hattiesburg, Tupelo, and Biloxi, but you get out to (those rural counties) and you are really in a health care desert,” said Dr. John Gaudet, a Hattiesburg pediatrician and former president of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Telehealth is a way to keep kids learning, keep kids engaged in school and keep from having to pull them out to drive 40 miles for an appointment that could’ve been accomplished rapidly and easily by telehealth.” 

The pandemic has also caused increasing mental health issues for children, which Wright says this program also aims to address. 

“Statewide, we need to do a really good job of training our teachers and leaders on the signs and symptoms of children and adults that are struggling from mental health and social-emotional issues, and this will give them the great platform to gain access (to treatment) through our school nurses,” said Wright. 

The grant specifically partners with the UMMC Center for Telehealth, which has been recognized nationally for excellence in telehealth. 

“Healthy children learn, and children that aren’t healthy don’t,” Wright said. “If we could provide a way to make sure that our children are healthy and, if need be, families are healthy or staff are healthy and make the access that much easier…then that’s one thing we can cross off the list and don’t have to worry about anymore.”

The post Free telehealth services coming to Mississippi public schools this fall appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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On the week of Valentine’s Day, 2021, winter storms Uri and Viola incapacitated utilities in Mississippi and across the country. Southern cities and utility companies were especially unprepared, lacking shelter for their distribution systems that left customers without water and powers for extended periods after the storms.

In preparing for the possibility of more frequent winter storms, Mississippi’s Public Service Commission on Thursday released the results of a year-long investigation into the state’s public utility infrastructure. The PSC regulates rates and services from telecommunications, electric, gas, water and sewer utilities, but has no authority for appropriating funds to those utilities.

“One year ago this week, Mississippi was in the grip of historic winter storms,” Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey said. “The combination of freezing rain, snow and days of below freezing temperatures brought road travel to a halt, caused nearly 200,000 customers to lose power, caused more than 80 water systems to have low or no water pressure, and some telecommunications were even disrupted.

“For a few days it seemed almost as if the entire state was paralyzed.”

In the wide-ranging report, which also looked at recent damages from hurricanes, thunderstorms and tornadoes, the PSC looked at the most common vulnerabilities among utilities and ways to address them.

Although the report didn’t include specific funding amounts, it did recommend more proactive communication between lawmakers and utilities to discuss mitigation investments. Between the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Bills, Bailey said lawmakers could help upgrade aging systems, especially water and sewer plants.

The state health department reported that 79 water utilities issued boil water notices after last year’s winter storms. Municipal water and sewer plants suffer from a range of issues, such as old piping and pump stations, and a lack of maintenance. Rural water associations have reported undersized water lines, and aging treatment plants and wells. According to a presentation to lawmakers, Mississippi’s average water system loss from ruptures and leaks is 35%, compared to 18% nationally.

As far as specific fixes, the PSC’s recommendations include:

• Utilities adopting and updating emergency response plans
• Better vegetation management, including using technology such as drones or satellites to identify where to trim trees that could fall onto power lines
• Replacing wood utility poles with steel or concrete
• Creating fuel redundancy and diversity, which would include exploring options for increasing natural gas storage, as well as evaluating the feasibility of alternative fuel sources. A majority of Mississippi’s energy consumption comes from natural gas, which was in limited supply during the storm.
• Collaborating with other state agencies to enforce weatherization standards for water and wastewater plants

The post A year after winter storms paralyzed Mississippi, PSC calls for upgrades to aging utilities appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau sat down with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to discuss the historic amount of federal money Mississippi has to spend from the American Rescue Plan Act. Hosemann spoke about the Legislature’s decision process in determining what pressing state issues to use the funds on.

Watch the full conversation:

Editor-at-large Marshall Ramsey took the stage during the conversation to complete a live drawing that referenced the infamous commercial featuring Hosemann.

Stay tuned: The next Mississippi in the Know: Legislative Breakfast will be March 3, 2022, featuring Von Gordon, Executive Director of the William Winter Institute.

View the photo gallery:

A special thank you to our generous sponsor

Explore more Mississippi Today events.

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It’s time to do what Mississippians do best when it comes to college sports. That is, play ball. Baseball.

Defending national champion Mississippi State, NCAA regional champ Ole Miss, and perennial NCAA Tournament participant Southern Miss all begin their seasons Friday with home weekend series. To say the least, expectations are high.

Mississippi State, ranked highly in most preseason polls including No. 4 by D1Baseball, will play host to West Coast baseball powerhouse Long Beach State, ranked No. 24 in the same poll. The Bulldogs and Dirtbags will play single games at 2 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.

At Oxford, Charleston Southern (18-26 last season) of the Big South Conference will visit for single games Friday (4 p.m.), Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (2:30 p.m.).

At Hattiesburg, Southern Miss will play North Alabama (7-40 in 2021) for single games Friday (4 p.m.), Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).

The 2021 college baseball season ended with State’s All American closer Landon Sims getting the last out in the Bulldogs’ 9-0 championship victory over Vanderbilt in the College World Series at Omaha. State’s 2022 season will open with Sims on the mound at Dudy Noble, shifting roles from lock-down closer to Friday night starter. Sims, who saved so many of All American Will Bednar’s victories last season, will inherit Bednar’s role of front-line starter. 

The Bulldogs will be face a difficult foe. Long Beach won 15 of its last 17 games a year ago and features one of the nation’s best closers of its own. Sophomore Devereaux Harrison finished with a 3-1 record and a team-leading 10 saves last season. He struck out 42 batters in 34 innings and opponents hit just .175 against him.

At Oxford, Ole Miss returns its everyday lineup virtually in tact from a team that hit .288 with 85 home runs in 67 games. Rebel returners include shortstop Jacob Gonzalez who hit a team-leading .355 with 12 home runs and 55 RBI. Also back is first baseman Tim Elko, who gained almost legendary status in Ole Miss baseball annals last season when he played the last couple months with a torn ACL and still led the team with 16 home runs. Kevin Graham (.342, 14 HR, 54 RBI) also returns. 

This weekend’s series will mark the return of former Ole Miss player and assistant coach Marc MacMillan, who begins his second season as Charleston Southern’s head coach.

Southern Miss must replace two of the most productive starting pitchers in school history in Walker Powell and Hunter Stanley — and left-handed relief ace Ryan Och. But Scott Berry returns a deep pitching staff of strong arms and welcomes back most of a batting lineup that hit .275 with 83 home runs to help the Golden Eagles finish second in the Oxford Regional.

Southern Miss apparently will be competing for the last season in Conference USA and the Eagles are the coaches’ preseason pick to win the league.

The post Play Ball! College baseball begins Friday with high expectations appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Advocates want Mississippians who rely on mental health services to have a say in how the embattled Department of Mental Health spends $104.5 million in proposed federal relief funds, and they’re hoping the Legislature will make it happen.

On Feb. 11, leaders of four advocacy groups sent a letter to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn asking them to create a “stakeholder committee” to advise DMH on its spending of the American Rescue Plan Act money and monitor the outcomes. Members would include service recipients and their families, care providers, community health centers, law enforcement and others.

“This inclusive and holistic approach would increase the likelihood of better outcomes for people with mental illness and their families,” wrote the leaders of Disability Rights Mississippi, Families As Allies, the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, and the Mississippi Psychiatric Association. 

The federal money would flow to DMH, which employs more people than any other state agency, as it works to expand community-based mental health services. 

In 2016, the Justice Department sued the state for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by forcing people with mental illness to seek care in “segregated state hospitals,” far from their homes and loved ones. In 2019, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled that DMH had violated the rights of Mississippians with severe mental illness.

Reeves last year ordered the appointment of an independent monitor to verify DMH’s data and evaluate its progress in providing community-based services. But the state is fighting that order with an appeal to the 5th Circuit.

In her presentation to the ARPA subcommittee in December, DMH Director Wendy Bailey proposed using funds to add 60 beds at crisis stabilization units to help divert people from state hospitals, train first responders in mental health first aid, implement the 988 suicide prevention lifeline as it launches in July 2022, and address the agency’s staffing shortage. 

Joy Hogge leads Families As Allies, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for children with behavioral health challenges and their families. Hogge said the ARPA money could make a big difference for Mississippians seeking mental health services — if it’s used thoughtfully. Adding services that can’t outlive a temporary funding boost would be a mistake, she said. Tracking outcomes is important, too.

“Ten years from now we could look (and say), ‘Yes, things did get better, more people are getting services, there are more providers, we’re growing this,’” she said. “As opposed to just — here’s some services that might go away in just a few years and we don’t even know if it actually helped.”

Adam Moore, communications director for DMH, said the agency regularly gets feedback from service recipients and other stakeholders through a statewide survey and meetings with advisory councils that include family advocacy groups. 

Bailey was copied on the advocates’ letter. 

“DMH has not directly responded to the letter as it was not addressed to the agency, but we are prepared to share any information regarding our ARPA funds proposal as needed,” he said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “If the agency receives the funds, DMH will also track outcomes related to the services/supports provided through the use of the funds and will report that information publicly.”

Senate Bill 2865 would give broad discretion for the Department to spend about $86 million. An additional $18.5 million is earmarked for the Community Mental Health Centers.

The bill requires the department to consult with at least one outsider as it determines how to spend the money earmarked for community mental health centers: the coordinator of mental health accessibility, Bill Rosamond, a position created by the legislature in 2020.

As Mississippi backs away from institutionalizing people, the state’s 13 Community Mental Health Centers are increasingly important: The centers operate mobile crisis response teams and intensive services for people with severe mental illness. The department is shifting funding to expand their work.  

Bailey has said she plans to continue following the court’s orders despite the state’s appeal. 

“Most anything and everything we can do to divert from state hospitals and provide services in the community, that is what we are going to do,” she said in September. 

In its appeal, the state argues that community-based services are already available and that Reeves had subjected the system to “perpetual federal oversight.”

But Hogge and other advocates say it’s too early to say the system is working. 

Reeves appointed Dr. Michael Hogan as a “special master,” an official tasked with gathering information to inform a court’s decisions.

In his June 2021 report to the court, Hogan, who had tried unsuccessfully to help DMH and the Department of Justice agree on a remedial plan, wrote that Mississippi had made improvements over the last few years, such as reducing the number of people staying in state hospitals for long periods of time.  

But he concluded that the full picture of community services isn’t yet clear.

“Data on community service performance is not yet adequate to assess performance or to allow the Court to determine if the requirements of the ADA are being met,” he wrote. “Levels of services that are in place have not been verified. The actual availability of services to Mississippians is not yet certain.”

Polly Tribble, the executive director of Disability Rights Mississippi, the organization charged by Congress with advocating for people with disabilities in the state, said she wants to see the ARPA funds help accelerate the growth of community-based services.

“We don’t want that money to go into facilities,” she said. “We want it to go into services that are really helping people in the community.”

In addition to the creation of the stakeholder group, the advocates are asking DMH to use the money to strengthen the system’s infrastructure, not to provide temporary services. They are also requesting DMH be required to report outcomes to the legislature and the stakeholder group.

The advocates’ letter asks that their proposed stakeholder committee work with Rosamond and special master Hogan to help plan the ARPA spending.

SB 2865 is now with the House Appropriations Committee. The advocates hope the letter could lead to changes in the appropriations bill before it is passed. 

Hogge said as of Thursday, there have been no substantive conversations about implementing the letter’s suggestions. 

“I always try to be optimistic that there’s possibilities that anything can happen,” she said. “But just based on what I’ve seen, I’m not really leaning towards that is what’s going to happen. I certainly hope it is, and I think that would be the right thing to do.”

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A report by a group of Alcorn State University alumni alleges widespread issues contributed to falling enrollment and dozens of employee resignations in the last year at the nation’s oldest historically Black land grant university.

Alcornites for Change is now calling on the president, Felecia Nave, and her administration to address their concerns at next month’s mid-winter conference, an annual gathering of national alumni chapters, in Atlanta, Ga. 

The report is based on records requests and a series of workshops held by Alcornites for Change to investigate the “current student conditions” and was presented to members during a Zoom meeting last week. 

“It’s time to separate the drama from reality,” April Gilmore, a 2004 graduate, said during the meeting. “I went from not caring to angry in a matter of months. We need to invest in ourselves, we need to be heard. We want the leadership to respond to us.” 

The 64-page report covered nine areas of concern, including that fall freshman enrollment has dropped by half over the last five years, from 1,286 students in fall 2017 to 641 students in fall 2021. It also included a survey of 252 alumni which found almost 80% were dissatisfied with the current administration’s “willingness to listen to or address” their concerns. 

In an email to Mississippi Today, Maxine Greenleaf, Alcorn’s spokesperson, did not address the report specifically but wrote “Alcorn State University has succeeded against great odds for 150 years, and it’s because we work together. We will continue to work together with stakeholders to advance the mission of Alcorn.” 

Alcornites for Change began meeting in October 2021 after news broke that Alcorn State’s football team had to cancel training due to a lack of athletic trainers. In the report, the group describes itself as “born out of a genuine concern for current student conditions at Alcorn, as well as other data points that appear to threaten the sustainability of Alcorn State University.” 

The group has said in meetings that its goal is not to see Nave fired — which some students called for in a protest on the campus green last fall — but to “be a conduit of improvement” for Alcorn State. 

READ MORE: Why students at Alcorn State called for their president to resign

During the meeting last Tuesday, some alumni became emotional discussing pictures that Alcornites for Change had received of athletic facilities on campus. The pictures, which the report says were taken in January 2022, show exam tables with worn padding, broken cabinets in the locker rooms, and a swimming pool which the report says “has not been completely drained and has standing water which is now black from mold.” 

At least two SWAC basketball coaches, according to the report, “wouldn’t allow their teams to shower at Alcorn due to deplorable locker room facilities.” 

“Tonight I’m just mad, I’m angry,” said Janiero Smith, a 2001 graduate. “I’m angry at Alcorn because I know that we can do better. It’s unacceptable. I’m angry because tomorrow I know there are going to be people more concerned about their internet profile than … about our student athletes. I’m also angry at myself. I buy tickets, I buy parking passes, I travel to games. And you think it’s enough. Until you really understand what the cost of your entertainment is.”

The ailing infrastructure is not unique to the athletic department, the report said. Alcornites for Change also received photos of mold and mildew in dormitories and crumbling ceiling tiles in the J.D. Boyd Library, as well as a video of water dripping from a light in the math and science building. The photos and video were taken in the last year, according to the report.

Other findings in the report include: 

• Sixty-nine administrators, faculty and staff resigned or retired from Alcorn between May 2021 and October 2021. “As a result, remaining staff has had to occupy several full-time roles in limited capacity,” the report said. 
• Budgets for 14 academic departments decreased from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2022 while the five major deans’ offices saw budget increases. Funding for Alcorn’s bachelor of science in nursing program was cut in half during the same time period. 
• Alcorn State contracted with a consulting firm to write a strategic plan for the university. Administration has yet to release the strategic plan, which was scheduled to be published by April 2021. 
• Alcorn State was the only public HBCU in Mississippi to lose students from fall 2020 to fall 2021, according to the report. In fall 2021, High School Day, when thousands of students typically visit Alcorn’s campus, saw just 400 students. 

For many of the “perceived challenges” identified in the report, Alcornites for Change listed potential solutions the school could implement, such as waiving ACT scores to increase enrollment, partnering with local community colleges to offer key courses, and creating a listserv of alumni who can offer jobs and internships to graduating students. 

“We have offered 98 solutions, and we’d like to offer more,” said Jonas Crenshaw, one of the main organizers of Alcornites for Change. “We just want to be heard. We want to roll up our sleeves, we want to do this work that will lead Alcorn into the next 150 years.”

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While the state legislative leadership is consumed with cutting or eliminating the income tax, the state’s business community considers lack of skilled workers, Mississippi’s image and problems from the pandemic as far more pressing issues.

“… The Mississippi tax environment was not high profile nor even discussed significantly as a priority,” said a report released by the Mississippi Economic Council at the state Capitol on Wednesday, based on dozens of meetings and hundreds of surveys of business leaders across the state last year. “… A businessman raised the topic (at one meeting) and dismissed it as a bad idea (a distraction issue, but not really a hindrance to most businesses).”

MEC released the report, “Securing Mississippi’s Future,” on Wednesday after it held 51 town-hall style forums with business and community leaders across the state and from numerous sectors from July through September of last year. The income tax issue didn’t even come up at any meeting until the end of August, the report said.

“There was the thought (eliminating the income tax) could drive other costs up and it could hurt the state budget and households,” the report said.

But state lawmakers at the Capitol have been focused on cutting or eliminating the state’s income tax, and the House and Senate’s Republican leaders have been battling over competing plans. The House wants a massive tax overhaul that would include elimination of the state income tax over about a decade, and an increase in sales taxes. The Senate has a more modest plan of small income tax cuts over four years.

READ MORE: Inside the income tax cut battle between House and Senate leaders

This isn’t the first time business leaders have thrown cold water on the legislative income tax cut push. In summer hearings, MEC’s president told lawmakers it was not a top business priority, but some fear it could have unintended consequences. Other representatives of industry sectors voiced concern or opposition at the time.

The top issues “far and away” among state business leaders, the new MEC report said, were lack of workers, Mississippi’s image — and need for marketing the state better and stopping “brain drain” — and problems caused by the pandemic. The report noted that the meetings and surveys were during a spike in COVID-19 cases, likely contributing to that issue’s high ranking.

“In every community — without exception — the number-one issue was identified as ‘lack of qualified workers,’” the MEC report said. “… The number-one issue facing growth in Mississippi can be summed up easily: There are not enough qualified workers for current jobs, and even those willing to enter the workforce are not prepared for the task at hand.”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and House Speaker Philip Gunn attended a Capitol press conference Wednesday where MEC announced its report and subsequent “Goals for Charting a Bold Course for Mississippi.”

Gunn, who has said eliminating the state income tax is the greatest priority of his political career, did not mention that effort, but said lawmakers have been focused on improving workforce development. He said that last summer, he met with a national “site selector” who helps businesses choose where to locate, and asked him what he looks for in selection.

“He said number one is workforce — a qualified, educated, reliable and trained workforce,” Gunn said.

Hosemann, who has been more cautious about tax cuts and reluctant to eliminate the income tax as Gunn proposes, said, “The best workforce development we have is an educated child.”

Leaders across the state said there is a lack of skills among Mississippi’s graduates and better collaboration is needed between businesses, high schools and post-secondary schools. Those surveyed by MEC strongly supported financial incentives for keeping Mississippi high school and college graduates in state.

Broadband expansion and improvement of road and bridge infrastructure were topics that came up frequently with business leaders, the report said.

The MEC report also said that, except for those working for hospitals, medical centers and nursing homes, Medicaid expansion “received surprisingly little attention” as a topic among business leaders. Although the report said, “There was unanimous agreement that healthcare is 100% a workforce issue.”

READ MORE: State’s chamber of commerce mulling Mississippi Medicaid expansion

Those pushing Medicaid expansion in Mississippi had hoped MEC and its business leaders would join in the push for expansion. Last year, MEC President Scott Waller said he expected MEC to take a position on Medicaid expansion and make policy recommendations before the 2022 legislative session that began in January.

On Wednesday, Waller said access to health care is still an issue with the business community, but right now MEC’s focus would be “working on ways to better access care with the system we have now.”

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