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When Ole Miss next wins a baseball game — quite possibly this weekend in a three-game series at Texas A&M — it will mark Mike Bianco’s 800th victory at the university and his 900th as a college baseball coach.

Now then, here is what is most impressive about that: Only two coaches in Southeastern Conference history have won so many games as an SEC coach. Those coaches are named Skip Bertman and Ron Polk, the two all-time college baseball coaching legends — indeed, the two men most responsible for making SEC baseball what it has become, by far the premier college baseball league in the country.

This was mentioned to Bianco in a one-on-one interview with Mississippi Today in his office on Wednesday, the morning after his Rebels had won his Ole Miss victory No. 799, an ugly, 15-12 decision over Arkansas State. “Polk, Bertman and then Bianco — how does that make you feel?” he was asked.

His answer was typical Bianco, which is typically classy.

“I am not sure I belong in the same category as those two men whom I have so much respect for,” Bianco said. “I played for Bertman and have been a long-time admirer of Coach Polk, who visited my high school and talked to me about playing at State. I mean, those two men put college baseball on the map. They are responsible for all the huge stadiums, the TV, the crowds, everything you see in college baseball these days.”

He’s right about Polk and Bertman. And what he won’t say is this: Bianco is far and away the most responsible for what baseball has become at Ole Miss: the current nation’s leader in attendance, currently a Top 10 team and perennially in the national polls, a huge producer of Major League talent, and an almost annual participant in the NCAA Tournament. The current Rebels are 32-12 overall, 13-8 in the SEC and ranked as high as No. 9 in the various national polls.

And yet, Bianco often is criticized by Rebel fans, mostly for not faring better against arch-rival Mississippi State and for not winning more in the postseason. Ole Miss has lost 16 of its last 19 games against State, but before that Bianco was 35-29 against the Bulldogs. Despite making the NCAA field in 16 of his 19 seasons, Bianco’s Rebels advanced to the College World Series in Omaha just once in 2014.

We’ll dive more deeply into that criticism, but first let’s take a look at what it will take for the Rebels to advance to Omaha in 2021. Obviously, it will take getting hot and playing their best baseball when it matters most. That goes for everybody in college baseball. There are probably 50 teams capable of making it to Omaha, but baseball is always about matchups and about playing best when it matters most.

Let’s get specific. Despite an injury to slugger Tim Elko, Ole Miss remains plenty good enough offensively to advance through the regionals and a super regional. They lead the SEC in batting average and rank in the top five in nearly all the pertinent offensive categories. The starting pitching — especially the one-two punch of Gunnar Hoglund and Doug Nikhazy — is top shelf and bodes well should the Rebels reach a best-of-three super regional.

The team’s Achilles heel is the bullpen. Closer Taylor Broadway has been superb. The problem has been finding a bridge from the starter to Broadway. 

“We’ve got to be better out of the bullpen,” Bianco said.

“People talk all the time about Elko’s injury and that has hurt and would hurt anybody, but what might have affected us just as much or more was losing (Max) Cioffi,” Bianco said.

Cioffi, a senior, had been a dependable reliever — early, mid and late — in past seasons but pitched only twice in the early season before suffering a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL). The UCL connects the inside of the upper arm (humerus) to the inside of your forearm (ulna). Cioffi has undergone surgery to repair the injury.

Tuesday night’s victory over Arkansas State was a perfect example of the Rebels’ bullpen woes. Often it looked as if Arkansas State was taking batting practice. Seven Rebel relievers gave up 13 hits, five walks and 11 runs before Bianco, desperate, finally called on often-starter Derek Diamond to finally close out the game. Bianco didn’t need a treadmill to get in his steps Tuesday. He got plenty between the dugout and pitcher’s mound.

Is improvement possible? Freshman Jack Dougherty showed he could be a much more a part of a steady bridge to Broadway with a 3.1 inning, hitless, scoreless performance this past weekend against South Carolina. Continued success from Dougherty would be huge.

As for the criticism Bianco receives — mostly on social media and message boards — take a look at his records against SEC opponents. His overall records against Mississippi State and LSU are just under .500, but he’s dominated matchups against SEC West opponents Alabama (38-29), Arkansas (39-33), Auburn (37-27) and Texas A&M (15-9). He’s even got winning records against other storied SEC programs with recent national championships: Vanderbilt (27-23) and Florida (28-22).

When asked about the criticism in the interview this week, he took a comes-with-the-territory approach.

“I don’t read social media and message boards and frankly I sometimes think the world would be better without both,” Bianco said. “Every coach is going to get criticized, especially in the SEC. I do think sometimes it gets magnified by the size of your following. If you have 10,000 coming to the games, you are going to have more criticism than if it’s a thousand or two.”

That last part is true and so is this: The criticism, fair or not, will likely continue until the Rebels break through and win another regional and then a super regional and reach Omaha. And that won’t happen this spring unless the bullpen improves.

The post Mike Bianco is about to reach his 800th win at Ole Miss. Can his 2021 team get to Omaha? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Brett Favre has not repaid $600,000 he received in Mississippi welfare money after promising one year ago that he would.

A state audit released last May revealed that Mississippi Community Education Center — a nonprofit at the center of what officials call the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history — paid Favre $1.1 million in welfare money to promote a federally-funded anti-poverty initiative called Families First for Mississippi.

In explaining why he had entered a high-dollar sponsorship deal with the charity, Favre tweeted on May 6, 2020: “My agent is often approached by different products and brands for me to appear in one way or another. This request was no different, and I did numerous ads for Families First.”

His longtime agent James “Bus” Cook conversely told Mississippi Today when approached at his home last week that he had nothing to do with Favre’s contract with the public grant-funded nonprofit.

Favre, the 51-year-old Kiln native and south Mississippi resident, has not returned several calls or messages to Mississippi Today, but told his Twitter followers last year that he didn’t know the money he received was intended to help poor families.

Though officials have not accused him of a crime, Favre said he would refund the money. He made an initial payment of $500,000. Favre has not made any additional payments, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office told Mississippi Today on Thursday morning. Because federal authorities are still investigating the payment to Favre, no one has demanded he repay the funds. No other recipients whose payments were questioned in the audit have voluntarily refunded the money, either, the spokesperson said.

For a year Favre has remained mum on his involvement with now-embattled Mississippi welfare officials, instead expounding publicly about his support for President Donald Trump, how politics is ruining sports and his belief that Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin didn’t mean to kill George Floyd.

But his million-dollar Families First advertising campaign isn’t the only way Favre intersects with the alleged welfare fraud scheme, which federal authorities are still investigating.

Favre met with the former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis and the nonprofit founder Nancy New, according to emails and interviews, to discuss financially supporting a concussion research firm called Prevacus — the company that eventually received $2.15 million in allegedly stolen welfare funds.

Auditor’s agents arrested New, Davis and four others in February of 2020 for allegedly conspiring to embezzle a total of $4 million, which includes the payment to Prevacus.

Favre also talked to then-Gov. Phil Bryant about luring Prevacus to Mississippi, Mississippi Today first reported, but Bryant denied referring the project to the welfare department, an agency under the governor’s office. Officials have not accused Bryant of a crime.

Mississippi Community Education Center sent Favre Enterprises Inc., the football player’s for-profit company, a payment of $500,000 in December of 2017 and $600,000 in July of 2018. In the middle of 2019, Favre told Men’s Health he had invested nearly $1 million of his own money into Prevacus.

In an email, Davis told his colleague that Favre and Bryant wanted to meet Jan. 2, 2019, to discuss the “Educational Research Program that addresses brain injury caused by concussions,” as well as “the new facility at USM”. Bryant denied attending this meeting.

The nonprofit had also paid $5 million in human services block grant funds towards the construction of a new volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Today first reported. Favre had been helping to raise funds for the facility at the university where his daughter played volleyball.

Meanwhile, the state was serving fewer and fewer poor families through the federal program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formerly known as welfare, that the defendants were allegedly using as a slush fund.

The state, which has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation at nearly 20%, has wide latitude to spend this annual $86.5 million federal block grant how it wants.

Because the state chose to transfer large chunks of the grant to the private nonprofit, investigators found that recipients of funds from New’s organization may not have known where the money came from.

“I would certainly never do anything to take away from the children I have fought to help!” Favre tweeted. “I love Mississippi and I would never knowingly do anything to take away from those that need it most.”

The $500,000 Favre returned to the state is in a custodial account at the office of the state auditor, a spokesperson said, where it will sit until the federal authorities finish their investigation and determine which expenditures constitute misspending and which dollars it will retrieve.

The current Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson has said he supports providing more direct assistance to poor Mississippians and pushed an increase to welfare benefits, the first increase since 1999, through the Legislature this year. The agency has also imposed much higher reporting requirements on its TANF subgrantees.

During Davis’ administration, the welfare agency did not require subgrantees to provide the agency with its partner contracts or a record of expenditures, such as Mississippi Community Education Center’s payments to Favre Enterprises Inc.

A contract Mississippi Community Education Center supplied to the auditor’s office said the nonprofit hired Favre for three speaking engagements, one radio spot, one keynote address and for autographs for marketing materials, according to the single audit. The contract did not contain a price, the audit said.

The auditor’s office has not released the contract, calling it an investigative record.

Investigators also asked the nonprofit for the dates Favre supposedly spoke and determined Favre did not attend the events, the audit said. The audit labeled the payment to Favre a “questioned cost.”

Favre denied taking money for a job he didn’t complete, saying he conducted “numerous ads” for Families First.

SuperTalk, a popular conservative radio station known for hosting state officials and employees, posted a photo of Favre posing with Davis and New at the office of TeleSouth Communications, another questioned recipient of TANF funds, in August of 2018.

Both SuperTalk and Favre have blocked Mississippi Today’s reporter from viewing their Twitter accounts.

While Favre implied on Twitter that New’s nonprofit approached his agent to set up the Families First gig, Cook told Mississippi Today last week that he had no knowledge of the deal.

Cook told Mississippi Today when visited at his home last week that he was not involved in Favre’s agreement with Mississippi Community Education Center, his efforts to get the volleyball stadium built or his investments into Prevacus. Cook said he had not discussed these topics with Favre and had read little about them in the news. He said he preferred not knowing.

Cook said he did not know if anyone else was representing Favre in these ventures, but that $1.1 million was not an unusual amount for Favre to earn for promotional gigs.

The attorney for Ted DiBiase Jr., Davis’ close colleague, previously told Mississippi Today and Clarion Ledger that his client recalled Cook’s attendance at a meeting at Favre’s south Mississippi home to discuss a partnership between the state and Prevacus, the company that received more than half of the allegedly stolen welfare money. Cook had not responded to several calls or messages over the last year, but he told Mississippi Today last week that he never attended such a meeting and had never met Davis or New.

Cook said he was also not aware of Favre’s promise to repay the welfare money he received to the state. When asked if Favre is the kind of person who does what he says he is going to do, Cook said he would expect Favre to follow through on his commitments.

The post Brett Favre hasn’t returned welfare funds as promised a year ago appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The board of trustees of the Institutions of Higher Learning is scrambling to hold a special emergency meeting this Friday to consider several university agenda items — a meeting that wouldn’t be necessary had Gov. Tate Reeves made four new college board appointments on time.

The Friday meeting, scheduled for the same day the terms of four trustees are set to expire, was called while the 12-person board will still have enough members to vote on certain finance items. The board is expected to consider five items on Friday that one of the trustees, due to a potential conflict of interest, is likely to recuse themselves from voting on, sources close to the IHL board told Mississippi Today.

The items in question were initially on the agenda for the board’s upcoming regular meeting on May 20. But since Reeves, who is responsible for naming trustees, did not make his appointments in time for the mandated Senate confirmation hearings during the 2021 legislative session, the board may only have eight members at that meeting — exactly enough for a quorum. The anticipated recusal would render the board without a quorum and unable to legally vote on the items.

Reeves has not said when he might fill the four empty seats. Without the governor’s appointments, not only will the IHL board be unable to vote on any issue where a trustee must recuse themselves, but it will also be unable to hold a meeting in the event a member is absent.

This could affect the day-to-day operations of the state’s eight public universities, which the IHL board is tasked with overseeing. Trustees’ votes affect nearly every aspect of higher education in Mississippi, from approving new degree programs and granting tenure to how much tuition will cost and the medical equipment the University of Mississippi Medical Center can buy. 

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves still hasn’t made key appointments to college board, board of education

Because college board trustees are typically politically connected lawyers, doctors or businesspeople, recusals are a regular occurrence. Trustees have recused themselves from voting at 10 out of the 13 meetings held since May 2020 — a total of 46 agenda items, according to an analysis of IHL meeting minutes. The majority of those recusals come from attorney Gee Ogletree, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Phil Bryant in 2018, and Alfred McNair, another Bryant appointee who has been on the board since 2015. 

Ogletree, a partner at a law firm that represents a wide variety of industry clients, has recused himself 36 times since May 2020, often on items pertaining to requests from UMMC to acquire various medical equipment, such as lab tools used to identify the coronavirus and sleeves that prevent the formation of blood clots. Ogletree’s term expires in May 2027. 

McNair, a gastroenterologist, has recused himself five times since May 2020. McNair’s term expires May 2024. 

Since Reeves did not make appointments during the 2021 legislative session, it’s also unclear if he can make appointments without calling a special session of the Mississippi Senate. The state Constitution mandates that appointments be confirmed by the Senate.

Since his time as lieutenant governor, Reeves has a history of slow-walking and missing deadlines for important appointments. In addition to the delayed appointments to the college board, Reeves currently owes two appointments to the Mississippi Board of Education, which oversees the state’s K-12 public schools. That board currently has five members, constituting exactly enough for a quorum. The board of education had to cancel a November 2020 meeting because it lacked quorum.

In 2020, Reeves didn’t name people to the board to redesign the state flag until a week after the deadline set by the Legislature. That deadline was clearly spelled out in the bill Reeves signed into law himself.

And in 2017, some blamed the state’s late start on its bicentennial celebration — it didn’t fully roll out until near the end of the state’s 200th year — in part because Reeves didn’t appoint people to long-vacant slots on the Bicentennial Commission until late that year.

Reeves and several of his staffers have ignored questions from Mississippi Today reporters about when he will name appointments and why he hasn’t yet. Though Reeves does not often comment on appointments, he offered insight into his decision-making process for appointments during the 2019 governor’s race. After the 2019 University of Mississippi chancellor controversy came up during the first gubernatorial debate, Mississippi Today asked both Reeves and his Democratic opponent Jim Hood how they would decide who to appoint to the IHL board.

“The governor’s appointment power is one of the most important reasons why Mississippians should elect Tate Reeves and defeat Jim Hood,” the Reeves campaign said in a statement at the time. “It goes all the way to the top. Both our U.S. senators were appointed, and that makes a big difference in who sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. Jim Hood would make appointments that Nancy Pelosi will love but Donald Trump will hate. Tate will appoint conservatives and Hood will appoint liberals.”

The post College board, unable to work without Reeves appointments, calls emergency meeting appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Surprisingly, Jackson still had water after the tornado tore through.

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In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Layne Bruce, Executive Director of the Mississippi Press Association. Mississippi’s small newspapers have a rich history and provide an invaluable service to the communities they serve. But like many other small newspapers across the nation, they’re facing serious headwinds.  Ramsey and Bruce talk about  how COVID-19 and other business challenges has affected the MPA’s 110 members. They talk about topics from new ways to fund local news to challenges to big tech giants who have siphoned away advertising dollars. Bruce adds his perspective developed from his 15 years at the MPA and talks about problems many local papers face (like the recent issues with the Post Office, which affects delivery of printed copies) and opportunities as well. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The only security of all is in a free press.” 

The post Mississippi Stories: Layne Bruce appeared first on Mississippi Today.

How many of Mississippi’s roughly 26,000 state employees will receive raises and the amounts they receive will not be known until later this year.

Brittany Frederick, a spokesperson with the state personnel board, said there is currently a process to determine “a fair market” pay scale for state employees based on salaries for similar positions in other states and in the private sector. Until that process is complete, exact information on which state employees will receive pay raises and how much will not be known.

“We are currently in the phase of Project SEC where we ensure every state employee is properly classified,” she said in an emailed response to questions from Mississippi Today. “We must make sure employees are classified accurately, so they can be compensated fairly and equitably. Later this summer, we will establish market-based, data-driven salary recommendations, and the pay increases referenced in each agency’s appropriations bill will be based on these recommendations.”

Late in the 2021 session, which ended in April, the Legislature announced it was adding funds to the budget of each agency to provide up to a 3% raise for employees. That addition was based on the outcome of reworking what is known as the state’s Variable Compensation Plan, which is the mechanism of placing a fair market value on each position in state government.

According to information provided by the staff of the Legislative Budget Committee, $6.9 million has been set aside for the state employee pay raises for the upcoming fiscal year, starting July 1. But to limit the cost of the pay raise in its first year, it will not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2022. In addition, $23 million has been set aside to cover the rising costs in the health insurance plan that covers state employees, teachers and higher education faculty.

During the 2021 session, teachers received a pay raise of about $1,000 per year, costing $51.5 million. Money for university staff pay raises ($9.1 million) and for community college staff ($3.3 million) also was factored into the budget. The money for the higher education pay raise is enough to provide 1% across the board salary increases, but chief executives have the option to award the raises based on merit instead of across the board.

READ MORE: Pay raises for Mississippi higher ed employees: Too little, too late?

Even with the pending pay raises, Mississippi will be near the bottom nationally in terms of compensation for public employees, both those working for the multiple state agencies and those who work in education.

According to the Mississippi Personnel Board, the average pay for state employees is $39,896 per year compared to the average for the four adjoining states of $49,392. Additionally, Mississippi’s average pay for K-12 teachers is the lowest of any state in the nation. Higher education officials have said for years an ongoing problem for them is the low pay for their staff compared to pay in other Southern states.

The total state-support budget for the new fiscal year beginning July 1 is $6.6 billion, or $243.5 million more than the budget for the current fiscal year.

State revenue growth — spurred to a large extent by federal COVID-19 relief packages — has been strong, leading legislators to be able to increase funding for multiple state agencies and for education during the recent session.

The overall revenue for the upcoming fiscal year also includes $25 million from lottery proceeds diverted to education.

The first $80 million in state lottery revenue goes to transportation needs. Any amount above that goes to education. This year lottery revenue exceeded the $80 million mark in March. The Mississippi Legislature enacted a state lottery in August 2018.

The post Pay raises for state employees yet to be determined appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A reported tornado ripped through the Woodlea subdivision in northwest Jackson on Tuesday afternoon.

While several homes were damaged and trees were downed, no injuries or deaths occurred in the neighborhood.

The storm was part of a larger severe outbreak that affected several Mississippi communities — the second tornado outbreak in three days.

READ MORE: Another round of severe weather tears through Mississippi

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A nonprofit backed by the Mississippi Hospital Association plans next week to kick off its petition drive to put Medicaid expansion before voters on the 2022 midterm ballot, hoping to override a recalcitrant Legislature and put expansion in the state constitution.

Healthcare for Mississippi next week will hold two yet-to-be announced press conferences — one in central Mississippi and one in the north — announcing the drive and naming numerous other groups that are supporting the campaign.

Tim Moore, president of MHA and a founder of Healthcare for Mississippi, said the nonprofit has inked contracts with two Mississippi companies to gather petition signatures and is “getting print materials ready, lining up speakers for next week’s opening and there will be an educational campaign starting relatively quickly.”

“I’ve been amazed at the number of people who have called, and the other groups asking how to get involved and who to give money to,” Moore said. “We’re not going to name them until next week, but we have a wide assortment of groups that are involved in this. I think the numbers are growing even faster than we expected.”

Medicaid expansion through the federal Affordable Care Act has brought heated — and most often partisan — debate in Mississippi, the poorest state in the union. Mississippi, despite its dependence otherwise on federal money, is one of just 12 states that has refused to expand Medicaid, leaving hundreds of thousands of “working poor,” uninsured Mississippians without health coverage and rejecting at least $1 billion a year in federal funds to provide it.

Proponents estimate that expanding Medicaid would provide coverage for at least 200,000 working poor Mississippians, in addition to the roughly 750,000 poor pregnant women, children, elderly and disabled people already on Medicaid.

Most of the state’s Republican leadership, starting with former Gov. Phil Bryant, have opposed expansion, saying they don’t want to help expand “Obamacare” and don’t trust the federal government to continue footing most of the bill. Meanwhile, Mississippi’s hospitals — especially smaller rural ones — say they are awash in red ink from providing millions of dollars of care each year to uninsured and unhealthy people. Hospitals pitched a plan to lawmakers to cover the state’s share of expansion with taxes on hospitals and fees for new Medicaid enrollees, to no avail.

Now, Moore said, he believes voters should take matters in hand through the state’s ballot initiative process. He believes, in part based on polling, that the push will have bipartisan support among voters.

“What do you do after a decade of waiting for the Legislature and leadership to do something and it hasn’t happened?” Moore said. “Do you wait another decade? … This shouldn’t be political. We are talking about working Mississippians who can’t afford coverage, and that shouldn’t be political at all.

“Certainly, there will be significant support from the Democratic side, but I think there is more and more support on the Republican side as well. Too many Republicans have told me, off to the side, ‘It’s time. It’s time to do something.’”

READ MORE: ‘Let voters decide’: Mississippi Medicaid expansion ballot initiative filed

Moore and others have said expanding Medicaid by constitutional amendment is not the preferred path, and he noted that lawmakers still could tackle the issue themselves in next year’s legislative session starting in January. But should the petition drive successfully net about 106,000 signatures by October, the issue would still be on the 2022 ballot.

“(Lawmakers) can take action, not take action, come up with an alternative and put it on the ballot as well,” Moore said. “I would be tickled to death if they moved forward in January of next year… but they would have to address it early.”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he’s open to discussion on the issue, one of few state Republican politicians to say so.

But House Speaker Philip Gunn has remained steadfastly opposed.

Neither Gunn nor Hosemann immediately responded to requests for comment on the ballot initiative drive kickoff coming next week.

Gov. Tate Reeves has also reiterated his opposition to Medicaid expansion, and the ballot initiative campaign is likely to face opposition from other conservative corners.

Jameson Taylor, with the conservative Mississippi Center for Public Policy, recently wrote that “Medicaid expansion is bad for Mississippi.” He said that while Medicaid is an insurance program, “Medicaid is also a welfare program. This is the root of the problem for Medicaid.”

“… Unlike TANF (cash welfare) and other welfare programs, Medicaid is an open-ended entitlement,” Taylor wrote. “… In order for Medicaid to work better, two things have to happen. First, Medicaid needs to begin operating like other welfare programs. This means enrollment is going to have to be limited. (Which also means expanding Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults is a very bad idea if your goal is to provide healthcare to those who really need it.)”

But health care, racial justice and other advocates of expansion say it would help impoverished Mississippi tackle one of the global and persistent problems that keeps it on the bottom: the unhealthiness of its people. The ACA expansion would provide health coverage for people making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or about $17,600 a year for an individual.

Proponents say the expansion would also have pragmatic financial benefits for the state economy and state government budget. Besides helping hospitals cover the $600 million a year and rising they have to eat in uncompensated care for uninsured people, expansion would create thousands of jobs and improve the state health care industry overall.

The proposed Initiative 76 addresses some of this in its language, noting that the state would draw down at least $907 million in new federal funding in fiscal 2023, with the state share being about $99 million.

“However, an estimated 82% of these costs — or $80 million — would be offset by reductions in other state health care spending as a direct result of Medicaid expansion and the remainder more than offset by new tax revenue generated by productivity gains,” the proposed measure reads. “For example, in SFY 2023 Mississippi would save an estimated $51 million on currently eligible Medicaid enrollees, such as low-income pregnant women, becoming eligible for enhanced federal funding. The state would also save an estimated $29 million by accessing federal funding for hospital care for incarcerated individuals and mental health and substance use disorder treatment that currently is funded entirely by the state.”

It also says that, “Further, the infusion of new federal funding into Mississippi’s economy is projected to generate over $95 million in new state and local tax revenues each year. This would more than offset the remainins tate costs of expansion and result in a net benefit to the state budget of over $76 million.”

Besides the ACA covering 90% of the cost of expansion with federal dollars, the American Rescue Plan recently passed by Congress would further increase the federal share of the cost of traditional Medicaid for two years for any of the 12 holdout states that agree to expand the program.

The Medicaid expansion ballot initiative — and other pending ones including early voting and the state flag — face an uncertain future with a pending state Supreme Court decision. The high court has heard a constitutional challenge to the medical marijuana program voters approved in November through a ballot initiative.

READ MORE: Is the Mississippi ballot initiative working as intended?

The court is expected to rule soon whether the initiative was constitutionally flawed because the state’s initiative language says petition signatures must be equally gathered from the state’s five congressional districts. But Mississippi has had only four congressional districts since the 2000 census, and state lawmakers neglected to address the issue.

Moore said the Medicaid expansion initiative drive is trying to take that into account, and will try to collect enough signatures to be able to meet the thresholds for either four or five districts.

However, the Supreme Court’s ruling could also halt the state’s ballot initiative process, at least until lawmakers and voters rework state law and constitutional language.

PODCAST: Medical marijuana decision has major implications for Mississippi voters’ rights

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Following a string of alarming events in the Holmes County Consolidated School District, the Mississippi Department of Education is conducting an investigation and has appointed a financial adviser to oversee the district. 

But the appointment of the financial adviser has already stirred up controversy in the district, which has been rated as failing every year since 2016.  

The state department approved Shaquita Burke, the former chief financial officer of Vicksburg Warren School District, to serve as the financial adviser. When Burke was in Vicksburg, a 2019 audit not only revealed a host of problems with Vicksburg Warren’s finances but also pointed to possible “fraud, waste and abuse” on her part. 

A spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Education said the position was advertised, and Burke applied and met the qualifications. 

But before the state department appointed Burke as financial adviser, the Holmes County school board rejected Interim Superintendent Benjamin Torrey’s recommendation to hire Burke as chief financial officer for the district. That district-level position is currently vacant, according to Holmes County school board President Louise Lewis Winters, and the superintendent has not brought forth any other candidates for the position.

Winters said after the board voted not to hire Burke, she was surprised to hear last week that the state appointed Burke to serve as the district’s financial adviser.

“The board had no knowledge of this person or anything, so when we did get knowledge, you know, we decided to vote it down because of information that came forth,” said Winters of the board’s decision not to hire Burke. 

At the same time the financial adviser is working to set the district’s finances straight, the state education department is also conducting an on-site investigative audit of the district, according to an April 22 letter from State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright to the district’s interim superintendent. The audit is to determine whether the district is complying with accreditation standards and state and federal laws. 

Investigative audits are done following a formal complaint, which is not made public. The department has conducted comprehensive audits for five districts in the past five years, including Holmes County.

Holmes County’s investigation comes after a report by State Auditor Shad White that highlighted “widespread problems” in the schools. Those problems included extensive misspending and poor financial management and record keeping in the district. 

The audit revealed 25 total findings, including that taxpayers footed the bill for a “B.Y.O.B., adults only” party that cost $4,200, and that the former superintendent was paid $170,000 annually even though minutes from the board meeting show the board approved a salary of $10,000 less. 

A separate financial audit also revealed additional weaknesses, which then triggered the requirement for the Mississippi Department of Education to appoint a financial adviser to oversee the district. 

The department may conduct these unannounced audits at any time following a formal complaint made to the Commission on Accreditation. According to Shella Head, president of the newly formed community engagement council in the district and parent of four former students, she believes there were multiple complaints made to MDE about events in the district.

This is in addition to the fact the district has received an ‘F’ rating for six years straight. Head, an active member in the community who has been involved with the school district for more than 25 years in various roles, says the state of the district is “stressful and heartbreaking” right now. She also said she’s been sounding the alarm about problems in the schools for years now and wonders why the state is just now stepping in.

“We have people from outside looking in it, and, to me, it appears (they think) that nobody in the county wants a quality education for the kids, when that’s so far from the truth,” she said. “The last couple years … we literally had people, including in the community, that were screaming and throwing red flags up and saying ‘Hey, something is going wrong, we need some help.’”

At the end of its audit, the department will produce a corrective action plan for the district and can recommend the district’s accreditation status be downgraded to either probation, withdrawal of accreditation or state of emergency. A determination of a state of emergency, which triggers a state takeover of the district, must be approved by the State Board of Education before being sent to the governor. 

Torrey, who has acted as the interim superintendent for the district since January, reassured board members at their April 22 meeting the district is “putting processes in place to make sure we are in compliance” with accreditation standards and state and federal laws. 

“Those that we aren’t in compliance with, we will continue to work to be in compliance with,” he said. 

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