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Hattiesburg is, no matter how you strike it, a Democratic city.

In 2020, Democratic President Joe Biden earned at least 60% of the votes in the state’s fourth-largest city. Of the 16 voting precincts that are within the city limits, Donald Trump received above 40% of the vote in just two. Democrat Jim Hood earned at least 65% of the city’s votes in the 2019 governor’s race, and a Democrat previously served as the city’s mayor for 16 years.

That’s why when 39-year-old independent Toby Barker won a second term Tuesday with an astounding 85% of the vote against Democrat Lakeylah White, it turned heads.

“We already knew Barker was good,” said Brannon Miller, director of voter targeting for the Jackson-based political consulting firm Chism Strategies. “He was the only Republican House member with an opponent in 2015 to get a higher share of the vote than former Gov. Phil Bryant, and he beat a Democratic incumbent in 2017. But he may well be the most talented politician of his generation.”

Barker, who previously served as a Republican in the Legislature, wasn’t the only successful independent winner this week. Notably, independents unseated several prominent local officials of both major parties.

In Gautier, independent Casey Vaughan unseated Republican incumbent Mayor Phil Torjusen. In Columbus, independent candidate Keith Gaskin appears to have unseated Democratic Mayor Robert Smith. In Pass Christian, incumbent Republican Alderman James “Buddy” Clarke was defeated by independent Betty Sparkman.

Well-known independent Mayor George Flaggs coasted to re-election in Vicksburg, independent Mayor Robyn Tannehill was re-elected in Oxford, and independent Mayor Richard White was re-elected in Byram.

In today’s political environment rife with polarizing pandering and intense partisan bickering, what explains the appeal of these independent candidates in so many Mississippi cities?

“I don’t think there’s a Republican or Democratic way to pick up garbage or pave streets,” Barker told Mississippi Today on Wednesday. “There’s no political philosophy, in my mind, that does that one way better than another. If you care about your community and seek to take care of needs and lead everyone equitably, I think being an independent is the best way to do that.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find any Republican or Democratic elected official talk about all of their constituents — regardless of their party affiliation or race — the way Barker talks about his. And a close examination of the effects of his work in Hattiesburg the past few years could explain why he won re-election so definitively.

When he took over as mayor four years ago, the city was mired in financial reporting problems. Barker has balanced the city’s budget and begun making visible investments across the city. In 2019, he championed a 1% restaurant, hotel and motel sales tax increase to pay for upgrades to the city’s parks. That vote passed with 81% approval.

In 2019 and 2020, the city received separate million-dollar transportation grants to improve infrastructure and mobility problems. The city’s school district had previously been at risk of state takeover because of financial reporting problems, but district leadership have achieved several fiscal and academic gains recently.

As his first term wore on and wins began piling up, Barker began sensing a transformation in how Hattiesburg residents thought about their city.

“The most rewarding thing to me is seeing people from every walk of life fall in love with our city again and find a place in it,” Barker said. “From day one, it’s been about bringing everyone to the table, listening to folks, communicating, and telling our story — the good and sometimes the bad.”

Barker continued: “It’s about helping people try to find their place in where the city is going, and how we’re going to tackle our challenges together… I could sense over time that people began celebrating each other’s successes regardless of what side of the city you’re on. We’ve tried to communicate that your neighborhood is as important as mine, and every neighborhood needs to see progress.”

Flaggs, the Vicksburg mayor, said leading as an independent, not a partisan, is critical to a local government’s success.

“Running municipal government is about providing services at the least cost to the taxpayer,” Flaggs told Mississippi Today. “It has nothing to do with political posturing or policy. You can’t be effective in managing municipal budgets without the state and federal government. In order to access money from the state and federal government, you have to be in a position to follow money and not the party.”

Flaggs continued: “Politically, all Democrats are not right, all Republicans are not wrong, and vice versa.”

But as statewide politics remain one-sided as ever, there is a growing sense that the state’s local officials — led by independents who have experience building coalitions based on people and issues, not parties — could pose unique electoral problems for top statewide officials.

A glaring example of the pushback state officials saw from local officials was COVID-19 policy. As Gov. Tate Reeves struggled for consistency in issuing statewide mask mandates and business requirements, mayors set policies in their own cities.

In Oxford, Tannehill became one of the first Mississippi mayors to issue a mask mandate, before Reeves finally gave into pressure from medical experts begging for the wearing of masks to stem the quick spread of the virus. The same could be said of Barker in Hattiesburg, as well as Flaggs in Vicksburg.

After Mississippi voters decided in 2019 to remove the Constitutional provision that effectively nullified any independent candidate’s chances to serve in a statewide elected position, the prospects of an independent’s statewide success has become more enticing to consider.

“People are looking for people that represent people,” said Flaggs, who said he has “certainly prayed about” a possible 2023 statewide run. “I believe (changing the Constitution) creates an opportunity to where an independent candidate — particularly an African American candidate — can be elected at the statewide level.”

In the meantime, though, Flaggs and Barker both said they expect the rise of local level independents to continue. 

“I think it started with my generation — people identifying more with causes or people rather than a set, rigid partisan ideology,” Barker said. “I think people understand that there’s a lot of gray out there. Sometimes, running as an independent, you can define yourself and define what you believe in. It allows you to have some very open conversations with people who might otherwise label you as a partisan before they even meet you.”

As for what his success and the success of other Mississippi independents means for our polarized political system today?

“It shows that even in this polarized world, there’s a way back,” Barker said. “It’s hard — it really isn’t easy because you never know what position you’ll be forced to consider because of the reality you’ve created for yourself — but we should be encouraged that there is a way back.”

The post The rise of independent elected officials in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

CARRIERE — It takes $80 to fill the gas tank inside the beat-up white cargo van 34-year-old Michael Beard calls home.

He can’t afford that, so he usually fills it in $20 increments. He spends no more than $5.40 on food each day. The shower and washroom at a nearby Pearl River County truck stop are his biggest expense, eating up one of the largest chunks of his weekly unemployment checks after child support. Each shower costs $13.

“I have to, though,” Beard said. “No one wants to hire someone who hasn’t showered.” 

That’s what Beard says he’s wanted for the last year: to land a job. But all he has to show for his efforts is an inbox of auto-generated rejection emails. Soon, the money he’s relied on to get by will be more than halved because Mississippi is dropping out of the federal pandemic aid program.

Ahead of the June 12 end date, about 87,000 Mississippians were collecting an extra $300 in unemployment on top of the state’s average payout of about $200 per week. Mississippi is one of the first states to drop the federal benefits, creating a mess of anxiety for people like Beard who say finding a decent, stable job after losing work to the pandemic has been a struggle. 

Beard says in the state’s smaller towns, like his own, that struggle is only amplified. He keeps a marbled notebook with information about each job he’s applied for written in black ink. He started a new notebook a few weeks ago after filling the last one.

“I applied for nine jobs so far this week,” he said, looking down at the pages. It was only Tuesday.

Gov. Tate Reeves announced the program would end as early as federally allowed, giving recipients a four-week notice. Reeves, and two dozen other U.S. governors, have said the extra benefits have kept people from going back to work.

“I’m tired of this narrative that we are lazy,” Beard said. “People want to work. I want to work.”

At most, Mississipians can collect $235 per week from state unemployment. At minimum, $30. The extra $300 in federal benefits put minimum-wage workers above what they could make at $7.25-per-hour jobs each week.

Reeves said in a statement last month that after talks with small business owners, it “became clear” that the unemployment assistance “may have been necessary in May of last year” but wasn’t anymore. Reeves’ decision came after politicians and business leaders said people were denying job offers to continue collecting unemployment. 

In response, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security pushed businesses to report people who denied offers to continue collecting benefits. The employment office says they’ve gotten 4,300 reports of “refusals to work” since January. Those are just the incidents that have been reported, not confirmed by the department’s investigators.

Even if the department’s investigators found every one of those reports to be true, they would still only account for about 5% of those collecting the extra aid in the state.

Mississippi’s labor outlook, while improved, still hasn’t recovered to what it was before the pandemic.

“Our job growth has kind of stalled out over the last few months,” said state economist Corey Miller. 

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows about 28% of Mississippi jobs — or 42,000 jobs — that existed before the pandemic have not returned. The job count has actually worsened since the start of the year. The April jobs report, the latest available, showed 4,600 fewer jobs accounted for than there were in January.

Although Mississippi’s service industry jobs — typically minimum-wage positions — are returning some, industries like construction and manufacturing have lost positions, according to the labor data.

Economists largely agree low wages, the cost of and lack of child care, and fear of COVID-19 are all contributing to the labor demand.

“The federal aid is just part of it,” Miller said. “It’s not the whole story.”

Before the pandemic, Alexis Lee, a 35-year-old Vancleave resident, was a teacher’s assistant in Gulfport. 

Lee, a single mother of four, went home for spring break and was never called back in. Her position wasn’t needed during remote learning.

She briefly collected unemployment starting in May 2020. By August, she became a COVID-19 substitute teacher for Jackson County. It was a good fit; she’s working on a degree online in secondary education. 

It was in the final days of the school year, just before her last paycheck, when Lee learned the extra $300 in federal benefits would end.

“It was heartbreaking. Mississippi has the lowest everything,” she said, from wages to education ranks. “How can you say we shouldn’t have this anymore? And to cut them so fast? People didn’t get enough time to prepare.” 

Unlike permanent teachers, substitutes like Lee don’t collect a paycheck over the summer. Further, her substitute position isn’t guaranteed to be available next school year. So, she signed up for unemployment a second time. 

She thinks the state should have weaned back the federal funds, rather than cut them off completely at once. But right now, she’s not collecting anything. She has a hold on her account with the employment office over a discrepancy she doesn’t understand. 

She says after more than a day waiting to hear back from the office by phone, she was told an investigator would look at her claim and potentially clear it up so she can receive the money in three to six weeks. Other substitutes have reported the same issue. 

The Mississippi Department of Employment Security did not respond to request for comment regarding Lee’s issue. 

She has been applying for a mix of jobs: seasonal retail gigs to get her family through the next few months and teaching assistant jobs in case she isn’t offered a substitute position for the fall.

She said when she is honest with employers that she intends to go back to teaching in the fall, they’re no longer interested. 

“It isn’t as easy as people think,” Lee said. “I got rejected from McDonald’s.” 

Tara Owens, a 39-year-old Gulfport resident, used to work in childcare. Now many of her former clients work from home and don’t need her to watch their children like they used to. 

Two of her own children are Type 1 diabetics, which makes Owens hesitant to take a public-facing job. Should those children contract the virus, they’re at a higher risk of having complications. She also has asthma and a history of bronchitis, which puts her in the same high-risk category.

She and her husband have six kids total, five of whom still live at home.

“I’ll apply to any and every job that’s COVID safe,” she said, “but a lot of places aren’t.” 

Mississippi has one of the lowest rates of vaccination at about 29% and was one of the first to lift its mask mandates and business restrictions.

Owens has focused on applying to jobs paying above minimum wage. Ideally, she’d have a customer service job she could do by phone at home. The cut in benefits won’t change the types of job she applies to. 

“I’m going to sit here and apply for jobs like I have all along,” she said. “I’m not going to stop doing what I’ve been doing.” 

She said the decision to pull back the federal aid should have been matched with a minimum wage hike. 

For now, she’s shifting her focus on her own online retail business selling mugs and T-shirts online. It’s something she can do from home, something with a chance of a payout above a bleak $7.25 an hour. Her family can’t survive on that. 

“I just have to believe the good Lord would never give me more than I can carry,” Owens said. 

Beard says he doesn’t see a major demand for workers in Pearl River County, where he’s lived his entire life. It’s home to about 55,500 people — 18% of whom are living in poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That’s double the national average.

On a recent afternoon, Beard pulled his van off Interstate 59 in Carriere, a few miles outside the even smaller town where he held his last job — the McDonald’s in Derby. He was laid off at the onset of the pandemic, but then the franchise owner decided to shut down the fast-food spot altogether.

Beard tucked his van onto a dirt lot with a drive-up ice machine. It was hot. He sat on a camping chair — a gift from a stranger — inside the flat back of the van so he could face the roadway. 

A white poster board was beside him: “PLEASE HELP! HOMELESS MAN START A BUSINESS!! WILL WORK.”

Beard had been at McDonald’s for about a year. Even then, he was always looking for something better. He’s done the math: He’d need to make at least $14.25 an hour to inch above the poverty line in Mississippi.

He has completed some college in computer engineering, which left him $16,000 in student loans. He has worked call center jobs, which he’d like to get back into, but a lot of them are now making those positions permanently remote.

He sighed as he gestured to the van. Remote work, obviously, isn’t an option.

Beard balanced the laptop he bought with his stimulus check on his passenger seat, using his phone as a hotspot as he checked the payout balances on the state employment website. 

Mississippi usually sends him $116 a week, though sometimes it’s as low as $53 when his child support is sent out. He expects the last $300 from the federal program to be deposited June 14. 

His whole life is packed up in the compact space. He sleeps sprawled across the two front seats at night. Three plastic bins hold all his clothes.

His father’s ashes are in a tin box on a shelf secured to the van’s back wall. His mother died right before the pandemic, and he can’t afford the drive to Jackson to retrieve her ashes. 

Beard recently decided he will broaden his job search to the Gulf Coast, where the summer tourism surge has meant a pick-up in business. Outside of his immediate surroundings, he’d been applying largely just across the state border in Louisiana and Alabama where he found slightly higher wages.

Ashley Edwards, the CEO of the Gulf Coast Business Council, said there’s a labor demand in his region but that doesn’t mean getting a job there, or anywhere, during this time isn’t challenging.

“I think with the demands comes increased wages, and in some areas increased wages increases competition,” Edwards said. “It’s clear employers are looking for talent. We live in a human capital economy in which workforce talent and workforce skills are one of the major driving factors.” 

He also sees businesses recovering and having record months. That’s especially true of the coast’s casinos, which just reported another record-breaking revenue month in April. 

But Edwards says workers who lost jobs in 2020 are not walking into the same economy or employment outlook as they apply for jobs in 2021. The market isn’t static, he said.

For Beard, years living with little have made it feel impossible to catch up. He just got his current van in February, but he has been living out of a vehicle for the last two years.

Scratched in his notebook is a job opening that has given him more hope than any other in a while. He had to plan when he could take the typing test around which days the public library in Picayune was open. 

It’s at a call center that pays $13.35 an hour. It’s in Bogalusa, Louisiana.

The post Jobless Mississippians fear what’s next as $300 unemployment checks end appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson Public School District was facing a teacher shortage crisis several years ago, not unlike many districts across the state.

In Mississippi’s second largest school district, hundreds of teacher positions were unfilled, and many of the educators in the district were either uncertified or teaching outside of their content area.

But in recent years, the district took advantage of statewide initiatives and implemented its own incentives to combat the problem. The number of “limited service” teachers, or those with college degrees in a subject but who have not obtained a traditional teaching license or those with licenses who are teaching outside of their certification area, dropped from 184 in 2018 to 29 in 2021, according to recent data. 

In addition, the number of overall vacant or unfilled teaching positions dropped from 246 in 2018 to 75 in 2021. While enrollment has declined drastically in the district, the reduced number of students is only a small part of the picture, district officials say.

READ MORE: Mississippi’s public school teacher shortage crisis

Wingfield High School math teacher Brittney Friday said for years she struggled with passing the Praxis, a required test for teachers to be certified, and had health issues that negatively impacted her efforts. But with the help of the district and private tutoring, she passed the Algebra 1 portion of the test last September.

She’s now working on her master’s degree and completing her remaining license requirements at the University of Mississippi, which partnered with the district to offer free tuition in exchange for a commitment to teach in the district for three years after graduation.

“I had support from my principal … pushing me to go ahead and get certified. My math coaches and district-level officials like Mr. (Tommy) Nalls stayed on me about getting my certification,” Friday said, referring to the district’s full-time teacher recruiter, Nalls. 

Now, she said, she is attending Ole Miss for free and learning real-life skills that translate to the classroom. During one of her courses, a professor visited her class and offered feedback on her teaching practices. Another course she’s taking is helping her learn more about Individualized Education Programs (IEP), or the academic plans developed for students with special needs.

Once she finishes her requirements, she will be issued a standard license. And when she has her master’s degree, she will get an increase in pay as a result. 

Friday is the quintessential example of the teacher the school district is looking to help get certified — the more they can help teachers who are already in the district achieve those three- and five-year licenses, Nalls and JPS Chief of Staff Michael Cormack said, the more likely they are to be able to retain them for a longer time period. 

From spring of 2019 to spring of 2021, 480 teachers requested special non-renewable licenses, which are conditional, temporary licenses for first-year teacher teachers in the process of obtaining certification. The district assisted 246 of those 480 in transition to three or five-year traditional educator licenses. Of those 246 teachers, 216 stayed in the district and are committed to return next year, Cormack said.

The district has also implemented efforts to ramp up teacher recruitment from outside of its schools, either those from other areas or those who have recently graduated from a program. 

District officials also implemented a $5,000 signing bonus for new teachers. The payment is spread out over the course of three years to ensure the teacher stays, and the district is considering increasing the bonus to $7,500 for certified teachers in the district’s highest areas of need: elementary education, math, special education and English as a Second Language. 

Altogether, the efforts have resulted in the district moving from the district filling 87% of its staffing capacity in 2018 to nearly 96% in March of 2021.

They are also looking to help current teacher assistants become teachers, especially in areas like special education where the need is critical.

“We had 82 assistant teachers in special education, and when we did a deeper dive, nearly 30 of them had a bachelor’s degree,” Cormack said. “ … We are pairing them with the coursework that’s necessary to become certified teachers. For single parents and folks on the lower end of the economic strata, to work one job that pays a living wage is transformative for both them and our students.”

Cormack and Nalls are confident the pandemic won’t erase the district’s progress. 

“Very candidly, this has been a very challenging year,” said Cormack. “But we have not seen an uptick in number of retirements (of our teachers). Our staff has been incredibly resilient and adaptive to this crazy year. I think they’re looking forward with hope with vaccinations and getting back to in-person instruction and recapturing some of these learning opportunities.”

The post How Jackson Public Schools tackled its teacher shortage appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Supreme Court Justice Michael Randolph used a little-known provision in a 2012 law to quietly — and without legislative approval — award pay raises to himself and all of the state’s judges earlier this year.

Randolph wrote a letter last December informing state Personnel Board Executive Director Kelly Hardwick that he was authorizing a $15,000 pay raise for himself to bring his salary to $174,000 annually and award similar salary increases for other members of the state’s judiciary. That included salary adjustments for the state’s nine Supreme Court justices, 10 Court of Appeals judges, 57 circuit judges and 52 chancellors. The pay raises were based on a Personnel Board recommendation of adequate salaries for judges.

“As chief justice, in my capacity as chief administrative officer of all courts in the state, the salaries for judges and justices shall be as follows,” he wrote before outlining the pay raises that went into effect on Jan. 1.

While most every other elected official in Mississippi has their salaries set by the Legislature — traditionally the only governmental body with the power to appropriate money — a provision in a 2012 law gives the Supreme Court chief justice the power to raise salaries of the judiciary without legislative approval.

“The Court recently implemented salary adjustments utilizing the authority granted by the Legislature in the Mississippi Code,” Beverly Kraft, a spokesperson for the Court, confirmed to Mississippi Today.

The plan approved by Randolph, which he based on a study conducted by the Personnel Board, increases the salaries:

• For Supreme Court associate justices from $152,250 to $166,500 per year.
• For Court of Appeals associate justices from $144,827 to $158,500.
• For chancery and circuit judges from $136,000 to $149,000.

In the 2012 session, a much-discussed bill providing pay raises for judges also contained the little-discussed provision that apparently gives the Supreme Court chief justice, based on a recommendation from the state Personnel Board, the authority to increase the salaries.

The 2012 legislation provided incremental pay raises for judges, district attorneys and other court staff through 2016. Then, starting after 2019, the new law called for the Supreme Court justices and other judges to receive an automatic pay raise if funds are available, based on a determination of “an adequate level of compensation” as determined by the state Personnel Board. That board regularly conducts studies to determine the salary levels for state employees based on various factors, such as pay for similar positions in the private sector and in neighboring states.

Before the 2012 law, the Personnel Board had not played a role in the pay for most elected officials. That was left up to the Legislature, which, based on multiple past court rulings, has the sole authority to appropriate funds.

Legislative leaders have not been willing to discuss the pay raises the judges received. However, various members told Mississippi Today that Randolph did communicate with legislative leaders before enacting the pay raise, and there was some level of disagreement about whether he should enact a pay raise on his own without legislative approval.

In the 2020 session, House Appropriations Chair John Read, R-Gautier, authored legislation that would have provided a judicial pay raise but would have removed the 2012 language that allowed the judges to set their own salary based on the Personnel Board report. The legislation passed the House, but died in the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg.

Hopson, a prominent attorney and recent past president of the Mississippi Bar, did not offer comment about the judicial pay raises when contacted by Mississippi Today. Read, a pharmacist, also did not offer comment.

In September 2020, less than six months after the 2020 legislation died, Randolph contacted the Personnel Board inquiring about its salary recommendation report for the judiciary. That recommendation was for about $2 million starting in January 2021 — a pay increase greater than what was proposed in the 2020 House bill.

In addition to providing the power to raise judiciary salaries, the 2012 legislation, authored by then-House Judiciary A Chair Mark Baker, R-Brandon, also increased the fees on various court filings — such as the fee to file a civil lawsuit or on the levies in criminal proceedings — to help pay for the salary increase. Some argued at the time the increase on the various court filings was equivalent to a tax increase for those who use the courts. But then-Chief Justice William Waller Jr., who advocated for the 2012 legislation, said judges at the time desperately needed a pay increase and he was trying to be responsible by providing a method to pay for it.

Waller could not be reached to comment on whether it was his intent to remove from the Legislature the authority to set the judicial salaries.

The money from the increase in fees goes into the Judicial System Operation Fund, which is supposed to be used in part for judicial salaries. The 2012 legislation says the salaries “shall be fixed” at the level recommended by the Personnel Board “to the extent that sufficient funds are available.”

Some legislators question whether the Supreme Court has enough money in the Judicial System Operation Fund to pay for the raise without receiving a deficit appropriation during the session. But in a letter to legislative leaders, Personnel Board Director Hardwick said the Court has enough money in a special court fund to pay for the pay raises.

Hardwick informed House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann of Randolph’s plan to increase the salaries in a January letter. He praised the 2012 legislation for taking “steps that will ensure that Mississippi continues to recruit and retain the best and the brightest for the bench. Allowing the judiciary this flexibility will enable Mississippi to close the pay gap with neighboring states.”

Based on data compiled by the National Center for State Courts, with the salary increases Mississippi judges still would trail those in neighboring states in terms of pay with the exception of associate Supreme Court justices and trial judges in Alabama.

The pay in Mississippi for state employees and teachers also trails that paid in the four contiguous states. And in general, the pay for judges in Mississippi and the four surrounding states is more competitive nationally than for teachers and state employees.

The post Supreme Court chief quietly gave pay raise to himself and other judges without legislative approval appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi received $1.25 billion in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act pandemic relief in 2020.

Here’s a breakdown of how state lawmakers spent the money, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Note: You can read a bulleted list under the graphic.

Housing assistance: $20 million for rental assistance grant program, providing grants up to $30,000 to eligible rental businesses that lost rent income from March-December 2020.

Elections: $1 million for pandemic expenses for elections

Higher education: $10 million for private schools and colleges

Veterans Affairs: $10 million

Health: $10 million for Health Department to establish Mississippi ICU Infrastructure program.

Health: $129.7 million for health care, including $80 million for hospitals and nearly $50 million for other health providers and nonprofits, including food pantries.

Tourism: $15 million

K-12 education: $150 million for K-12 distance learning

Unemployment: $181.8 million for unemployment trust fund.

Judiciary: $2.5 million for courts and judiciary

Corrections: $20 million for corrections

Small business relief: $300 million for small business relief grants (only about half of this was used for the grants, with the remainder redirected to other programs or the unemployment fund)

Health: $4 million to the Health Department to reimburse specialty hospitals for pandemic expenses

Emergency/disaster response: $40 million to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency for pandemic expenses.

Higher ed: $50 million for community colleges.

K-12 education: $50 million for K-12 internet connectivity

Governor: $50 million for governor’s discretionary fund

Higher ed: $50 million for universities

Workforce: $55 million for workforce development

Local government: $70 million for cities and counties

Broadband/technology: $75 million for grant program for electric cooperatives and providers to expand high-speed internet access and $10 million to the Mississippi Wireless Information network for communications for first responders and hospital ERs.

The post Here’s how Mississippi spent $1.25 billion in CARES Act funds appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Growing up in Greenwood in the 1980s, Sue Anna Joe was an artsy person.

Joe, 45, remembers The Greenwood Little Theater, a non-profit community theater that is run by volunteers. Despite the theater’s presence, the Delta’s remoteness — it was common for people in Greenwood “to drive down to Jackson” — removed Joe from the hum of city life and new adventures.

“I think as a creative person that I like to try new things and see things from someone else’s perspective,” Joe said.

After working a couple of clerical jobs post-college, a friend recommended web design to Joe. Ultimately, she felt that Mississippi could not provide her the diverse lifestyle nor the higher pay found in other states.

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“When I was getting ready to move, I wasn’t really thinking about the graphic design thing, but I wanted to leave for two different choices: I wanted to leave for a place with a bigger variety of lifestyle choices, and I felt that no matter what type of job I got in Mississippi that the pay was going to be kind of low,” she said.

So she left. Today, she’s a front-page web developer in San Francisco. She says California connected her childhood artistic interests to web and graphic design and offered her a reasonable wage for her career. 

Joe is among thousands of native Mississippians who have left the state to build careers in arts or other creative fields. The effects of this particular exodus undoubtedly leave a void in one of the state’s most appealing and successful aspects: its arts and culture scene. Dozens of creatives responded to Mississippi Today’s NextGen Mississippi survey and shared why they took their talents to other states.

SURVEY: Tell us why you left Mississippi, why you stayed in Mississippi, and what more you need from Mississippi leaders.

Some creative Mississippians shared experiences of “belonging” when they left the state to pursue their crafts.

“I didn’t feel I was able to be completely open as myself (in Mississippi)”, said Ellice Patterson, a 26-year-old native of Boonesville who now lives in Boston.

Identifying as Black, queer and disabled, Patterson’s latest ballet production, FireBird, which premiered on Zoom on May 14-15, drew on the art administrator’s and director’s personal identity as it comprised a myriad of sub-cultures like BIPOC, LGBTQ and Disability. 

However, the executive director and founder of Abilities Dance Boston focused on the conversation FireBird elicits surrounding intersectionality, a term that refers to understanding how a person’s social and political identity creates different modes of discrimination or privilege. 

“It was inviting allies and folks who don’t identify with certain communities,” Patterson said. “I believe intersectionality is the key to a better future.”

When asked about creating a production like “FireBird” in Mississippi, Patterson highlighted the “lack of opportunities” and the “lack of support” for creative Mississippians. 

“I think there are practical ways that the work can exist, but there’s no real theater,” Patterson said when referring to her hometown of Booneville. “There are no professional dance companies in Mississippi.”

Tony Adams Reimonenq III, a 23-year-old actor from Hattiesburg who now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, described acting as something that makes him “feel like a superhero.” 

“What I have gathered is that it has always been my escape,” Reimonenq said. “In real life, I stutter. But when I act, I don’t stutter. So, it empowers me to speak in front of all these people.”

Since he was 3 years old, Reimonenq has acted and credited Mississippi for birthing talented “superheroes” because the state has “a special kind of power” to curate creative people. 

But, Reimonenq also acknowledged that the state does not support its creative people in return. 

“I knew I was always going to leave Mississippi because just seeing how the arts are supported elsewhere,” Reimonenq shared.

At Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg, Reminoneq recalled his theater group receiving little funding, while “sports was supported more.” Beyond financial support for artistry, Reminonenq has experienced a sense of genuine community in Louisville.

“When it comes down to true love, empathy or support, everyone will not show that because of political or family backgrounds,” Reminonenq shared when describing the reasons young and older Mississippians are polarized from each other.

However, Reimonenq has hope for Mississippi and plans to open a performing arts theater one day to support upcoming actors and actresses.

“My advice is to cling on to this passion you have for this craft and don’t let your circumstances stop you,” Reimonenq said. “Use your experiences from Mississippi in your craft.”

Hanna Lane Miller, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker, TV, and film producer from Collins, MS who now lives in Los Angeles, left the state to sharpen her artistic skills.

Previously working as a production assistant at Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Miller’s creative interests eventually transcended into documentary filmmaking, but the aspiring filmmaker sought outside educational opportunities to establish credibility.

“I just knew that if I wanted to have a name or credentials in this industry, then I knew I couldn’t go to a school in Mississippi,” Miller explained.

While Miller acknowledged the value of a Mississippi education, her words like “credentials” and “a name” reflect the sparse education for film and media studies in Mississippi because just four colleges — the University of Mississippi, Millsaps College, University of Southern Miss, and Mississippi University for Women — offer a film and media curriculum.

Additionally, Miller acknowledged the state’s complex history with social justice issues, which the native of Collins connected to hard but rich storytelling in Mississippi. 

“While all Southern states are stigmatized, there’s a very special stigma for Mississippi. I think Mississippi particularly has a complex history of social justice,” Miller shared when asked about creating documentaries in Mississippi that deal with social justice issues. 

After living in Jackson for just a year, Miller admitted that her short time in the capital city does not grant a current view of Jackson’s artistic community, but the “little interaction between Black and white creators” reflected a divisive atmosphere that still surfaces today.

Even though Miller went to a predominately Black school, she admitted being unaware of the intersection of race, art and politics where she recalled Black friends who entered majority-white, artistic spaces in Jackson.

Now, the 30-year-old documentary filmmaker recognized that “we have to be set on stepping out of our comfort zone” to bridge the gap between misunderstanding and collaboration. 

Other creative Mississippians reflected on the lack of state support for Jackson, the capital city and state’s only large metropolitan area that serves as a cultural hub. They shared nuanced emotions towards the city itself and state leaders’ policies that drive young creatives out of the state. 

“I’ve always wanted to support Jackson; I’ve never wanted it to fail, but people don’t want to invest in Jackson. They treat it like a lost cause,” said Maggie Hubbard, a 24-year-old Brandon and Flowood native who is now a graphic designe and animator in New York City.

Acknowledging that New York City is not perfect, Hubbard’s ability to find more jobs as a graphic designer, hear “different languages,” and “see many different types of art” — aspects that continued during the pandemic — appealed to her. 

“All of the measures they took to make life bearable really stuck with people,” Hubbard explained, contrasting the divisive political leadership surrounding the Jackson water crisis during the pandemic.

All of the young creatives interviewed for this piece expressed hope for Mississippi. 

Annsley McRae, a 25-year-old event coordinator and Tishomingo native who now lives in Nashville, looks forward to creating more events in Mississippi one day and acknowledged she “could quite have the market share in Mississippi” based on what she knows now about the state.

Other creative Mississippians like Miller have found a way to contribute their talents to the state from afar; Miller is currently working on her first Mississippi-based feature film that examines “a sense of belonging.”

“My advice for anyone who wants to be the best in this field is to leave Mississippi but to come back,” Miller said. “I still love Mississippi a lot, and the one thing about Mississippi I love when I work there is that I know exactly who I am and why I’m there because in Mississippi there’s no getting lost.”

Photo collage graphic by Bethany Atkinson / Photo credits: Annsley McRae, Mickey West Photography, Kyle Ware from Kentucky’s Shakespeare and flag design by Sue Anna Joe

The post Young creatives share why they left Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Stacey Spiehler for an incredible story of trauma, addiction, collapse, resilience, sobriety, recovery and success. After suffering crushing life challenges, Spiehler sank into the world of addiction. After nearly losing everything, she clawed her way back to sobriety and success.

First, by working as a waitress and then restarting her education, Spiehler now is chasing her dream of being a journalist. To help make that dream come true, she recently was awarded one of 15 prestigious Lyceum Scholarships from the University of Mississippi, allowing her to attend college tuition-free. The Lyceum Scholarship is awarded to transferring community college students on the basis of community service, academic excellence, leadership abilities and perseverance. As you will discover, Spiehler has plenty of perseverance.

Prepared to be inspired. 

Read more here.

The post Mississippi Stories: Stacey Spiehler appeared first on Mississippi Today.

CANTON — Last school year, Krystal Williams’ son Ca’Marion was named a “star student” in first grade at McNeal Elementary School in Canton Public School District. 

In September of 2020, he was honored as a “high flying” second-grader, which recognizes students who are active in class, complete their assignments and are top performers.

But the longer his school stayed exclusively virtual, the more his grades suffered. By this spring, the end of a full academic year of distance learning, he had failed the second grade despite attempts by his mom to get him help along the way. The principal recently informed Williams her son is reading on a preschool level.

Canton Superintendent Gary Hannah declined to answer Mississippi Today’s questions about the district’s decision to remain virtual, but said in a statement the decision to was made “after careful consideration of the well-being of our students, staff, and community.”

There are countless stories like these in the six Mississippi public school districts that never returned to in-person learning during the 2020-2021 school year. The districts include Canton Public School District, Sunflower County Consolidated School District (with the exception of kindergarten through fifth graders at the end of the year), Holmes County Consolidated School District, East Tallahatchie School District, and West Tallahatchie School District.

All of the districts, with the exception of the C-rated Sunflower County, were rated “D” or “F’ in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available. Their students are overwhelmingly Black — a group of people who were disproportionately affected by the spread and fatality of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parents in these districts, especially those with younger children and those with disabilities, described the year to Mississippi Today as “rough,” “horrible” and a “nightmare.” The mother of a 5-year-old autistic boy in Greenville said both she and her child would become so frustrated she would sometimes just take the pencil from him and do the work herself. 

A mother of six in Sunflower County Consolidated School District said her kids got As and Bs before the pandemic, but their grades dropped drastically this year. Now, they’re doing virtual summer school, but she said attendance is a big issue. Sometimes teachers don’t even show up.

“I got one, his teacher hasn’t been in class all week. And the school don’t know (what’s going on),” said Lakita Richard. “It’s been chaotic.”

Education experts say that even a short period of virtual learning during the pandemic could have profound negative effects on generations of students – especially if access is an issue or they were already struggling. In the coming weeks and months, the experts predict data will bear that out.

Denise Soares, director of graduate studies at the University of Mississippi’s School of Education, said while there’s not much quantitative research available yet about the effects of extended virtual learning, qualitative studies point to virtual learning’s major challenges.

“We see across the board technological issues being the most significant, and a lack of student engagement and social interaction,” Soares said. “Also, these additional responsibilities are falling on the parent” to supervise and even teach their children. 

And virtual learning may have a disproportionately negative impact on students with disabilities. Soares said special education students rely on individualized instruction, as evidenced by the individualized plans they receive in school often referred to as an IEP. 

“Individualization is really hard when you have a virtual program that’s trying to serve everybody,” she said.

Cedrikia Johnson’s daughter Deniyah, a second grader at Goodloe Elementary in the Canton district, struggled with virtual learning. Her dyslexia made it hard for her to keep up at the same pace as the other students, and her mom, who was battling health problems, couldn’t be by her side at the computer. 

“There were days she would sit in class crying for hours,” said Johnson, who would overhear her from the next room. She was limited with what she could do to help after suffering a stroke early this year and suffering subsequent heart problems.

Johnson had a family member come sit with Deniyah to try and help her with her schoolwork, but in April, they all contracted COVID-19. Johnson also developed pneumonia and was in and out of the hospital, and Deniyah missed school for almost a month — pushing her even further behind her classmates. 

Despite the fact she struggled and missed almost all of May, she won’t have the option to attend summer school, her mother said. The principal told her the spots were already filled.

Fallout in Canton

Krystal Williams and other parents in Canton are being told their children have been selected to attend summer school, or what is referred to as “extended school year,” during the month of June. But they must also repeat their current grade next year. 

Terricas Travis’ fifth grader at Goodloe Elementary has always been an average student, but after this year, he is failing, she said. He, along with Ca’Marion, was receiving extra help through a virtual after-school program funded by federal dollars called the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant Program. 

But in November, Travis and Williams said the program abruptly stopped without explanation. “Due to unforeseen circumstances. We are not able to service second graders at 21st Century After-School! We apologize for the inconvenience,” a Nov. 9., 2020, message from one of Ca’Marion’s teachers read.

The 21st Century grant program funds activities that provide academic and other support for students in low-income and low-performing districts. There was no disruption in the program’s funding during the 2020-2021 school year, according to the Mississippi Department of Education, and it’s unclear why the program apparently stopped being offered to Williams and Travis’ children. 

The district told the state education department it ran the after-school program at every elementary school through March of 2021.

Williams never stopped working as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home during the pandemic, so she was never able to stay home with Ca’Marion and her three other children. Her children and her mother, who stayed home with her kids during the day, depend on her income, she said. 

Williams said she reached out to teachers, the principal and called the district office about getting extra help for her son, who had been on honor roll in kindergarten and was regularly recognized for his academic performance. She ramped up her efforts in the spring, but got no response. 

She kept messages and emails showing she asked for tutoring help, but one of his teachers told her she couldn’t tutor him because he was her student. 

After speaking with the principal at the end of the year, however, Williams was told Ca’Marion was being tutored by that same teacher twice a day in areas of reading comprehension, further adding to Williams’ confusion.  

“I reached out to the principal in February… I specifically said my biggest fear is that my 8-year-old will have to sit back in the second grade, and she said she would help me, she was going to come up with a strategy to help, and she never did,” said Williams. 

Kendria Plummer, a parent of three children in Canton, has a similar story. She said the way all of her children’s grades dropped was “unbelievable.” She ended up paying for private tutoring for her 9-year-old both during the school year and now for the summer after he wasn’t offered a spot in the district’s summer school program.

“My children ain’t never had no F, no D … but since virtual learning they’ve had awful grades,” she said. She said she called the high school and elementary school throughout the year but would never hear back.

When the school year ended, Williams said she finally began receiving information about Ca’Marion — including an email from the principal telling her her son reads on a preschool level and would have to repeat the grade. 

“Well, my question to her was: how did you allow my child to get to second grade” if he’s reading at a preschool level, said Williams. 

Frustrated and upset, she took to Facebook Live to talk about her issues with the school district. She wanted to connect with other parents so they could get together and figure out what to do, she said. 

“Something is wrong,” she said after receiving comments from other parents whose previously well-performing children were facing a similar situation. “They hurt our kids.”

Several parents also point to the fact that at the same time children were struggling behind computers at home, Canton and other districts, despite the fact they kept the school doors closed, allowed athletics to resume.

Canton High finished its boys’ basketball season with a 6-10 record and its abbreviated football season with a 2-4 record. And just north, Holmes County Consolidated Public School District, the high school boys’ basketball team played a total of 30 basketball games and even won its first ever state basketball championship — all while its students remained at home in their rural and under-connected district. 

Officials with Canton Public School District, along with school board members, ignored questions from Mississippi Today about the parents’ grievances, the discontinuation of the after-school program for these students and its decision to allow athletics to resume while not resuming in-person learning. Recordings of past school board meetings offer no answers, either; they are mostly inaudible.

But benchmark testing data, or the tests given to students at the end of each nine weeks by the district to monitor progress, shows a decline in every end-of-the-year subject area test for high schoolers last school year compared to the previous year. There was also a decline in every subject except Biology compared to the 2018-2019 school year for the same assessment. 

What’s next

Other school districts that operated virtually saw similar trends. The same data for Sunflower County Consolidated School District shows the district fell from an overall grade of “C” two years ago to an “F” this year. 

The latest wave of federal COVID-19 relief funding sent a huge amount of money, referred to as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), to all schools in Mississippi. Law requires 20% to be spent addressing learning loss created by the pandemic, and many are implementing summer school, or an “extended school year.”

Canton, for example, received around $13 million for its district of about 3,000 students, while $22.3 million went to Sunflower County and $19.7 million to Holmes County schools. Districts are funded based on Title I allocations, which are federal dollars given to schools with a high number of low-income students enrolled. 

These districts, along with others in the state, will use this money to safely return to in-person instruction if they have not already done so and to address students’ knowledge gaps. Officials don’t know the extent of the gaps at this point statewide, as state assessment results won’t be available until later in the summer. 

Immediate intervention for students who need it most is critical to mitigate learning loss, Soares said. 

“Every instructional minute that students are in a classroom or online needs to be effective, no matter the delivery,” she said. “… We’ve got to have students engaged in learning and able to access learning.”  

Next year, students must return to the buildings. The state education department has said it expects in-person learning to be “the primary delivery model” for all schools by the beginning of the upcoming school year.

But students will bring with them the losses they experienced the prior year. Those include not only learning loss but other losses – loss of family members, loved ones, or even the loss of the routine, structure and social interaction found in school.

“It’s very hard to understand the level of stress in our children from not having that consistent school schedule and the impact that’s going to play in their knowledge and regression,” said Soares. “(We need to figure out) how do we teach children to adjust to that new reality as we’re asking them to handle more stress than they ever have before?”

The post These Mississippi schools never returned to in-person learning. Here’s what happened. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

There isn’t necessarily a bad time to win a Pulitzer Prize, but the middle of a global pandemic certainly isn’t ideal.

Jericho Brown lived this reality in May 2020. He had been on tour for almost a year when he came home to Georgia in March as COVID-19 swept across the U.S. At first, locked up in his home, he had been secretly glad to have the break. But winning the world’s top prize for poetry made that feeling a little more difficult.

“I was like, ‘Where is everybody? I want to have a party!’” he said.

Brown, the 45-year-old Louisiana native who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection “The Tradition,” will be a featured guest at the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 21. Ahead of his visit to the state, Brown spoke with Mississippi Today about his life and the weight of his recent success.

The pandemic was just one disruption from the American norm when Brown won the Pulitzer last summer. After the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, tens of millions marched the streets the next few weeks in what would become one of the nation’s most profound reckonings on racism.

Brown’s work met that moment perfectly. The Pulitzer Board heralded “The Tradition” as “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.” As a gay, HIV-positive Black man in the Deep South, Brown knows these kinds of bodies intimately.

“I sort of knew my entire life that folks would be upset about the fact of my existence,” Brown said.

Asking people hard questions, to Brown, is the job of a poet. In an environment where you can’t state basic facts about institutional racism in America without upsetting people, Brown said he can’t allow himself to worry about how people will perceive any particular poem.

“My ability to do my work means that I have to tell the truth, and the fact that people are turned off by that is going to have to be their business because it can’t be mine,” Brown said. 

Still, Brown doesn’t think of himself as bravely taking on topics others are too scared of or would like to ignore. Instead, he thinks it’s the reality that some people just run from the truth.

“Jesus is a really good example. There’s absolutely no way you would think that people would really enjoy hanging out with Jesus in 21st century America,” Brown said. “He was anti-capitalist, quite interested in the rights of women and spent a good deal of time with sex workers.”

Brown has been inspired by poetry since he was a little boy. Drawn by poems because they were short and approachable, he spent a lot of time reading them at his local library in Shreveport, where he and his sister would spend much of their time because their mother couldn’t afford child care.

Poems were all around Brown as a child, and he attributes much of his early appreciation for poetry to Black church tradition. The church he attended was a place where you could hear a child read Psalm 23 before another recited Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise.”

“It put me in contact with the fact that words can have a powerful effect on emotions,” Brown said. “That the well said thing could very well lead to shouting and clapping and crying.”

Being in church taught Brown that there was an order to things, but that didn’t mean it had to be predictable or boring. When he was in church, he always knew what would happen, he just didn’t know how it was going to go about.

“You know when it’s time for a song, you know when it’s time for the sermon, you know when it’s time for the offering,” he said. “But you don’t know what it’s going to be like Sunday to Sunday… You want that to be the case in your poems because you want to be in a position where you can surprise yourself.”

That was the case with “The Tradition.” Writing the poems that would become “The Tradition” steered Brown’s life for a few years and became the most important thing to him.

“I became vulnerable to it… And I know that as I was writing the poems, I was moved by them, and I was excited by them,” Brown said.

Brown thinks that opening himself up to the work in this way translates to the reader and makes that space safe for them to be similarly vulnerable. Winning the Pulitzer brought a lot of the attention to “The Tradition” at a time when people needed it, Brown says, and that cured any bouts of sadness related to not being able to celebrate the award normally.

“I realized, you know, you are where you’re supposed to be,” Brown said. 

Another claim to fame Brown possesses is the invention of his own poetry form, the duplex. Its invention is tied back to that inextricable link formed in his youth between the church and poetry. 

“Poems are like prayers. And, of course, because they’re like prayers, they’re also like chants and spells,” Brown said. 

So Brown invented a form that would allow for that chant, that spell casting, if the line is musical enough. He describes it as a form of repeated lines and juxtaposition, where you take couplets that seem to have nothing to do with each other, but because they are next to each other, you begin to understand that they do go together.

People sometimes approach poems like they’re mysteries and get too in their heads about it, Brown said. They see a line break and get scared. He doesn’t think you have to approach poems that way.

“I think people should read poems from sentence to sentence, like they read everything else,” Brown said. “And I think if people were to do that, without trying to figure things out as they go, and just enjoy what they were reading, they would have a much better time with poetry if they’re having a bad time with it at all.”

Brown doesn’t know why “The Tradition,” in particular, has garnered levels of success that his previous work hasn’t. He thinks part of it is tied to a level of appreciation that poets are given in especially tumultuous periods.

“The poets are often neglected. It’s not until we have a pandemic or an all out open fight for racial justice, that people get to calling on the poets,” Brown said. “People don’t realize sometimes how much they need the poets until a certain circumstance arises, or until the poets are missed, for some reason.”

That’s why poetry is written with being immortal in mind, Brown says. Poets understand that their work might not be appreciated in their lifetimes, as evidenced by many poems being shared and posted online about pandemics that are helping cope during COVID were written a century ago about some other illness or virus. 

“I think the wonderful thing, if there is such a thing, about this moment is the hope that I’ll be able to look back on it and say that I survived it,” Brown said. “I think we’re looking forward to telling people who haven’t even been born yet about these times so that they can be prepared to live in a world where they can stop times like these from happening.”

Looking forward, Brown is excited about the coming summer. He hasn’t written much over the past year, but he’s trying. We’re all trying, he said. He was sure to mention he remains excited about the work of younger poets, from whom he gets his own energy.

He said he’s misplaced his vaccination card — that golden ticket granting a return to normal life — and needs to find it.

“I think this particular summer will be the summer that I feel a little more free,” Brown said. “And I’ll finally be able to get back in the rhythm of things.”

The post Poet Jericho Brown tells his truth, especially during a difficult year appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A new poll says a majority of Mississippi voters not only want the Legislature to create a medical marijuana program like the one the state Supreme Court nullified, but they favor allowing recreational use of pot.

Nathan Shrader, chair of government and politics and director of American studies at Millsaps, said the poll shows a vast divide between Mississippi voters and politicians on marijuana and other issues.

The latest State of the State survey by Millsaps College and pollster Chism Strategies reports that 63% of those polled want the Legislature to enact something “mirroring” Initiative 65 — a medical marijuana constitutional amendment that voters passed overwhelmingly last year but the state high court shot down. It reported that 52% of those polled support recreational marijuana legalization, with 37% opposed.

READ MORE: Medical marijuana protesters call on Mississippi politicians to ‘stop the steal’

The poll reported that 20% said legalizing medical marijuana is the most important issue in how they’ll vote in the next statewide election.

The poll also reported that 52% of Mississippians support expanding Medicaid to cover roughly 200,000 working poor Mississippians. A move to put this before voters was also derailed by the recent Supreme Court ruling that declared the state’s ballot initiative process constitutionally flawed because of outdated signature gathering rules.

Despite years of debate and fizzled attempts, lawmakers have balked at allowing medical use of marijuana or at accepting federal dollars to expand Medicaid despite growing movements to do both. The divide has typically fallen along partisan lines, with the supermajority GOP leadership thwarting both efforts.

READ MORE: ‘Human issue, not political’: Medicaid expansion ballot drive begins

“Mississippi voters overwhelmingly support legalizing medicinal marijuana, which was actually done by the electorate last November,” Shrader said. “They also favor legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes and expanding Medicaid by healthy margins. If
you look closely at what the voters are expressing in terms of their policy preferences, you will see they do not appear to be anywhere near the same ideological positions as the majority of the state’s elected officials. The coming months, including the 2022 legislative session, will be a test of how long the state’s elected leaders can hold positions that are greatly at odds with the majority of Mississippi’s voters.”

The poll, part of a continuing quarterly survey since 2017, was conducted May 26-28 with a sample size of 659 via cell phone and landline, weighted to reflect voter turnout in 2020 elections. The margin of error is reported at 3.82%.

The poll also reported:

• 38% of voters believe the state is heading in the wrong direction, while 34% think the state is moving in the right direction. Just over 28% are unsure.

• A 28-point gap exists between those who approve and disapprove of the state Legislature’s performance, with 49% disapproving and 21% approving of their work. 30% are unsure.

• 48% disapprove of the performance of Gov. Tate Reeves, while 35% approve and 17% are undecided.

• 64% of voters who favor expanding Medicaid do so because they believe too many Mississippians are unable to get access to the healthcare coverage they need.

• Opponents of Medicaid expansion are almost evenly split between their concern of
  becoming overly dependent on Washington, D.C., and those who think expansion is too
  expensive for taxpayers.

• 55% support Gov. Reeves’ decision to opt out of federal unemployment benefits that
  provided an additional $300 to help Mississippians who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. 35% oppose the decision, while 10% are unsure.

• Less than a quarter of those who have not already received the COVID-19 vaccination say
  they are likely to get vaccinated, while 61% of those who are unvaccinated say there is
  nothing that will convince them to get the vaccine.

• Nearly 40% of voters want the census-driven congressional and legislative redistricting
  process this year to be conducted by a non-partisan commission of citizens and experts.
  24% would like a hybrid panel of citizens and elected officials, 15% think redistricting
  should continue to be handled by the state legislature, and 22% are unsure.

• 60% support the job police are doing in their local communities, and nearly 75% believe police should have pay raises.

The post Poll: Mississippians and politicians at odds over marijuana, Medicaid appeared first on Mississippi Today.