Gov. Tate Reeves, on national television on Friday, was confronted with two troubling statistics: Mississippi has fully vaccinated just 14% of the state’s residents and ranks 47th in the nation in administering the COVID-19 vaccines that the state has received.
That data — widely reported by Mississippi Today and other state and national outlets — comes from the Mississippi State Department of Health, which Reeves has heavily relied on the past year, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Pressed during the live CNBC interview on why those numbers are so low, Reeves pushed back, saying, “Actually, I don’t think those numbers are accurate.” The governor said federal agencies like the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs are administering vaccines and not reporting the data to the state.
“I think the difference in being 20th or 40th (in the nation) is just a couple percentage points, and once we get accurate data in the system… what you’ll find is we’re going to be middle of the pack in terms of total vaccines distributed,” Reeves said.
Health care experts, including State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, have discussed that many providers in Mississippi who have administered vaccines — particularly small clinics in rural parts of the state — have not been quick to update the vaccine database. That delay may result, officials say, in lower-than-actual percentages of vaccines administered showing in the database.
Reeves on Monday said those lags could mean the state’s public reporting of vaccine data is as far as 10% behind actual shots administered. But that statement is speculation without the numbers to back it up.
According to the most recent data data from the CDC and MSDH, Mississippi has administered 1,134,883 of the 1,594,445 doses of COVID-19 vaccine that have been delivered to the state. That moves the state up one place in the national rankings reported earlier this week — now 46th in the percentage of doses administered.
Across Mississippi, 733,010 people — 24% of the state’s total population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than 426,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
Whit Hughes, Mississippi State’s dependable sixth man, celebrates during the net-cutting ceremony 25 years ago, when the Bulldogs defeated both Connecticut and Cincinnati at Lexington, Ky., to advance to the NCAA Final Four. (Photo courtesy MSU Athletics.)
Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Mississippians by the thousands traveled to Lexington, Ky. Most wore maroon. They were there for a basketball tournament that turned into a wild celebration.
Darryl Wilson, left, and Richard Williams discuss strategy during State’s victory over Cincinnati. (MSU Athletics)
The Mississippi State Bulldogs, coached by Richard Williams, were decided underdogs against first UConn and then Cincinnati in the NCAA Tournaments Sweet 16. The ‘Dogs needed to beat both in order to become the first Mississippi men’s basketball team in history to reach the NCAA Final Four. A quarter century later, they remain the only Mississippi team that has.
Today’s column will consist of memories of that special weekend in Magnolia State sports history. There are so many, beginning with this one: Williams went head to head, clipboard to clipboard with college coaching superstars Jim Calhoun and Bob Huggins — and out-coached them both.
The specifics: State first defeated UConn and Ray Allen, their All-American guard, 60-55 behind a spectacular shooting performance by Darryl Wilson. Then, State out-fought Cincinnati 73-63 in the South Regional final.
The memories:
The Bulldogs were 8.5-point underdogs to UConn, which had won 32 of 34 games and had lived in the top five of national polls all season long. Allen, who would go on to score 24,000 points in the NBA, was a leading candidate for National Player of the Year. The Huskies scarcely knew what hit them. Both Allen and State’s Wilson made nine field goals. But Allen needed 25 shots to make his nine. Wilson took only 14 shots. At halftime, after Wilson had swished five 3-pointers, one New York writer made his way down to where we Mississippians were sitting at the press table. “Who is this guy Wilson?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of him. Where’d he come from? Does he ever miss?”
So many of Wilson’s open shots came off bruising screens set by Russell “Big Country” Walters, who surely made ice packs a popular item in the Huskies’ locker room. Asked about all those picks in the locker room afterward, Walters said this: “That’s my job to get Darryl open. I did my job tonight. When he hits that open jumper, that’s when I get my satisfaction. That’s my role, and I realize that.”
Wilson was a great shooter; I mean, a great shooter. He was not a great interview. He avoided microphones like wasps. And when cornered by reporters, he never used 10 words when one would do. In contrast, Wilson’s teammate, Dontae’ Jones, loved microphones and cameras almost as much as he loved to play basketball. Jones overheard my post-game interview with Wilson and took over for his buddy. “Man, when Darryl had the ball tonight the basket was as big as a hula hoop,” Jones said. “When he shot it, man, that ball was going down.”
Williams, the Pearl native and former volunteer junior high coach in Natchez, was irritated and prickly much of that weekend in Lexington. That was mostly because he felt his team, a No. 5 seed even after defeating No. 1 Kentucky for the SEC Tournament championship, had been under-valued on a national scale. Someone asked him at the post-game press conference if he was surprised that his team dominated UConn early and never once trailed in the game. Williams glared at the reporter for what seemed like several seconds. “No,” he finally answered.
The UConn game was on a Friday. The Cincinnati game was on a Sunday. In between, there was Saturday, when both State players coaches and Cincinnati players and coaches were available in back-to-back press conferences. Cincinnati went first and much of the talk was about how physically strong and imposing the Bearcats players were and how so many of their players could bench-press 300 pounds and more. (They did look like an assortment of NFL tight ends.) Even Cincinnati point guard Keith LeGree looked like a bodybuilder. He talked that way, too. When asked about all the screening Mississippi State did to beat UConn, LeGree said, “At Cincinnati, we’re not allowed to be screened. You gotta be tough, you gotta fight through them. We will.”
State was up next. As you might suspect, State players were asked at length about what Cincinnati players had said about how strong and how tough they were. Walters, specifically, was told what LeGree said about screening. “Well, maybe he can fight through them,” Walters said in his decidedly Jones County drawl. “We’ll see.”
Erick Dampier, State’s center who would bat away so many Cincinnati shots the next day, was asked about how strong and physical the Bearcats were. Dampier, who like Wilson is a man of few words, leaned down into the microphone and answered, “We lift weights, too.”
Few words do I remember typing more than these in the final paragraph of the column about the State-Cincinnati matchup: “There is, however, one wild card. His name is Dontae’ Jones. If he goes off, State goes to the Final Four. Remember, you read it here first.” And, boy, did Basketball Jones go off the next day.
State’s victory over Cincinnati now seems a blur, mostly with Jones running around and shooting over the muscular Bearcats. He scored 23 points. He grabbed 13 rebounds. He also blocked two shots and led the cheers, shaking his fist throughout at the State cheering sections. He played almost as hard on defense as he did on offense, which is what Williams had been trying to get him to do all season long. Said Jones when asked about his defensive effort, “I knew if I didn’t guard I’d be sitting over there on the bench by Coach.”
There was one moment late in the game when Cincinnati was fighting back and making it close that Williams says he will never forget. One of those Cincinnati brutes came barreling down the court in the middle of a three-on-one fast break. The “one” was State’s Whit Hughes, a former basketball walk-on from Jackson Prep. Hughes stepped right in front of the Bearcat, took the charge, and was slammed to the floor banging the back of his head. Before he could get up, here came Darryl Wilson, diving on him, on the floor. They were face to face, hugging, laughing, yelling at each other and celebrating the moment. Said Williams in a conversation years later, “That moment to me epitomized that team, that season. You had two players, barely recruited, one from Jackson Prep and one from a small, Black school in rural Alabama, hugging each other and celebrating an effort play that helped win the game. That’s what that team was all about.”
Rick Cleveland
The Cincinnati victory was State’s eighth straight. In a span of two weeks, the Bulldogs had defeated the nation’s No. 1, 3 and 7th ranked teams. And we know what happened next. The Bulldogs played poorly and lost to Syracuse in the national semifinals at The Meadowlands, before Kentucky beat the Orangemen in the national championship. In retrospect, the Bulldogs were due a sub-par game. They played one.
But the NCAA Tournament, as CBS reminds us every year, is all about shining moments. Twenty-five years ago this weekend, those Bulldogs certainly had theirs.
Bart Hyche (22) and Russell Walters embrace during final moments of State’s victory in the Sweet 16. (MSU Athletics)
Last year, 23-year-old Phoenicia Ratliff of Canton was kidnapped and shot by her ex-boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself. Just a week earlier, he had been arrested on domestic violence and stalking charges.
Ratliff was one semester short of graduating from Jackson State University. She left behind a two-year-old little girl.
“To know her was to love her,” her mother Suzanne Ratliff said. “She was always smiling — you never knew what was really going on with her because she smiled through everything.”
Her tragic case illustrates the reality of a startling statistic: that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And one national study on intimate partner homicides showed women are more likely to be murdered with a gun than all other means combined.
In Mississippi, where gun laws don’t mirror the prohibitions placed on domestic violence offenders in federal law, the statistic sounds a loud alarm bell.
Under federal law, anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime, whether a misdemeanor or felony, is not allowed to purchase or possess a firearm. The same goes for anyone with a domestic abuse protection order (a specific type of restraining order) against them. The law is commonly referred to as the Lautenberg Amendment.
Thirty states and the District of Columbia have their own laws mirroring these federal prohibitions, but Mississippi does not.
Across the state, officials are hesitant to take away offenders’ guns, and in some cases even charge abusers with other crimes, such as simple assault, to avoid the task, a top law enforcement official told Mississippi Today.
In Forest Municipal Court, for example, Judge Norman Brown has ordered guns returned to domestic violence offenders, according to four sources, including current and former employees of the police department.
“He has literally handed the suspects their guns back in court … and that’s with us showing there’s a history of a conviction, not just being charged,” said one former Forest police officer who now works with another agency.
The officer remembers one particularly violent individual who had multiple run-ins with the law, including assault on a law enforcement officer and at least one misdemeanor domestic violence conviction.
“He still said that’s (his) right to own a gun,” the officer said.
Brown declined to answer questions from Mississippi Today, saying he does not discuss cases.
In Grenada, guns are never seized from individuals convicted of domestic violence or who are the subject of domestic abuse protections, according to an individual who works in the county court system.
These crimes aren’t being prosecuted at the federal level, either. Since 2013, the U.S. Southern District of Mississippi’s office prosecuted only three cases dealing with the unlawful possession of a gun by someone who had previously been convicted of a domestic violence crime. There were no cases prosecuted for the illegal possession of a firearm for someone under a domestic violence protection order in that same time period.
“We do train both law enforcement and prosecutors on due process requirements associated with the Lautenberg Amendment,” said Colby Jordan, director of communications for the Attorney General’s office.
The office declined to answer any other questions about the issue, including whether Attorney General Lynn Fitch would or would not push lawmakers to develop an accompanying state law or what the office is doing aside from training on this issue.
Efforts to align state and federal laws have proved futile in recent years. Last year, the National Rifle Association and global pandemic stomped out even the earliest conversations, according to Luke Thompson, former president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police and the former chief of police in Byram.
The idea was to modify the existing state statute prohibiting possession of a weapon by a convicted felon by adding “or otherwise prohibited by” the relevant federal law.
“Any type of gun legislation in Mississippi is met with a great amount of resistance, and the (National Rifle Association) got a hint on that and bashed it real quick before we had a chance to have discussions with people and say, ‘This is what we’re trying to do,’” said Thompson.
The National Rifle Association did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment on the issue.
After being painted as “pro-gun control” and supportive of “far-left” gun laws, Thompson penned a letter in February 2020 to Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and all House Republicans explaining his position.
He described a situation that captured the problems that arise because of the lack of a state law. Officers in his department responded to an incident in which a man fired a round from his gun through the ceiling of his home during an argument with his estranged wife. During the investigation, his officers discovered he had a domestic violence conviction and seized his weapons.
“Due to domestic offense being a state misdemeanor, federal authorities would not prosecute the possession case,” Thompson explained, going on to describe how he did not return the weapons to the offender, even when the offender and his lawyer began repeatedly contacting him over a five-year period and accusing him of illegally seizing the guns.
So Thompson set out to add the federal law language to the state law detailing which people cannot legally own or buy a gun.
“The intent was to give police chiefs an option when federal authorities would not assist and to keep local law enforcement officers safe,” he continued in his letter.
Although he never heard back from Gunn or other lawmakers, House Judiciary B Chairman Nick Bain said he’s aware of the issue Thompson was trying to address.
“I’m aware of an inconsistency there. I’m not opposed to talking about it, but I don’t want to go into a situation where we’re having more gun control than what is needed,” said Bain, a Republican from Corinth. “But I’m not opposed to having a discussion about it with our federal prosecutors, federal authorities and local state authorities.”
Bain’s counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Brice Wiggins responded similarly, saying he was open to a debate about possible legislation.
Advocates have kept their distance from the issue in recent years, though they see firsthand the failure to remove guns from the hands of abusers.
Wendy Mahoney, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she remembers having some talks years ago.
There was always pushback, she said. She remembers one person questioning where law enforcement would put the seized guns. Then last year, she saw what happened to Thompson when he brought the issue to lawmakers.
“I don’t think we have the support to even have an open conversation right now, even though we know … in most domestic violence situations, when a gun is involved, the correlation is very high with imminent danger and death,” Mahoney said. “That should be enough to have that conversation.”
The gap in federal and state law led former U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst to launch an initiative last year to combat what he said is a “lack of knowledge” among law enforcement and courts about federal restrictions on firearm ownership. The initiative, named “Operation Phoenicia” for Ratliff, continues today under the current U.S. attorney.
“Operation Phoenicia” involves educating and training law enforcement and judges about federal domestic violence laws in addition to other efforts to crack down on domestic violence offenders with guns.
Hurst, along with his then counterpart in the northern district of the state, vowed to prioritize prosecution of these crimes, and the efforts continue under his successor, acting U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca. The plan is to begin by identifying individuals in the city of Jackson who currently have a domestic violence protective order or a domestic violence misdemeanor and calling them into the office to put them on notice.
“We tell them it is a federal crime for them to possess a firearm and we tell them, ‘If we catch you, we will prosecute you federally,’” Hurst said.
They are also issuing what is referred to as “call-outs,” or working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to put domestic violence victims on notice if their abuser is attempting to buy a gun.
But as of March, no such cases have been prosecuted yet, nor have any call-ins taken place due to the pandemic, according to LaMarca. Call-outs have been ongoing through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The office is also working to ensure local state and local officials understand certain standards must be met in a domestic violence crime in order for federal prosecution to occur. For example, one deals with whether there was use or attempted use of force, while another deals with the type of relationship the victim has with the perpetrator.
LaMarca said he is collaborating with state and local officials to more fully identify certain specifics of domestic violence offenses, the relationship between the two involved individuals and the amount and type of involvement the offender has with the legal system. By doing that, officials can better understand whether the offense in question falls under the Lautenberg Amendment.
Mahoney, whose organization works with domestic violence shelters and victims, said the mixed messages and lack of enforcement around domestic abusers with guns creates fear and distrust in victims.
“If you’re not taking away their firearm, you’re invoking more fear” in an already fearful victim, she said. “It makes the victim question, ‘Is the system really on my side to help me?’”
Two South African immigrants are suing a Mississippi farmer over an alleged bait-and-switch scheme where they were recruited for falsely advertised agricultural jobs and then paid less than the federal minimum wage for their work.
Plaintiffs Dennis Appel and Christopher Boshoff were recruited in South Africa to migrate to Mississippi for jobs operating farm machinery on Kyle Mills’ farm in Winona. The pair allege that when they arrived in 2019, Mills instead made them work an average of 95 hours a week driving tractor-trailer trucks, delivering grain and fertilizer to farms across the Southeast.
Mills told the federal government that his business needed temporary foreign farm workers because he could not find U.S. workers to take the job. The suit alleges that he had no intention of hiring U.S. workers, but instead wanted foreign workers to drive for his trucking company so he could pay them significantly lower wages.
Mills paid the two plaintiffs $11.33 an hour — the hourly wage rate set by the federal government under the H-2A visa program for agricultural work — and not the $18.25 paid to local truck drivers.
Boshoff and Appel collectively spent thousands of dollars on transportation and H-2A visa costs to take the job. The lawsuit alleges that Mills refused to reimburse their pre-employment costs, a requirement under the H-2A program, after they arrived. Without the means to return home, they felt they had no choice but to work for Mills even though the job was not what they signed up for.
“When properly used, the foreign worker program protects companies, U.S. workers and foreign workers,” said Amal Bouhabib, a lawyer from Southern Migrant Legal Services who is representing the plaintiffs. “But when employers lie about the work, U.S. workers miss out on good job opportunities, foreign workers are exploited, and law-abiding employers are at a competitive disadvantage.”
The lawsuit, filed today in U.S. District Court in Greenville, alleges that Mills obtained Appel’s and Boshoff’s visas under false pretenses and violated federal minimum wage laws by paying them 40% less than the minimum wage for truck driving. The Mississippi Center for Justice and Tennessee-based Southern Migrant Legal Services filed the suit on behalf of the two immigrants.
“Our clients deserve to earn a fair wage for the work they did,” said Rob McDuff, an attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice representing the plaintiffs. “When employers are allowed to hire and then underpay foreign workers, it creates a cycle that favors the use of the H-2 program and depresses wages for all Mississippians. We hope this lawsuit will help ensure the system is working fairly for all workers.”
Beginning in the 2024 school year, all Mississippi elementary, middle and high schools will be required to offer computer science courses.
This week, Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law “The Mississippi Computer Science and Cyber Education Equality Act,” which sets out a timeline for schools to incorporate the curriculum.
The law, which the authors say will likely designate $1 million of new state funding for the curriculum, garnered bipartisan support in the Legislature and was backed by C Spire, which committed another $1 million to help schools with teacher training and implementation of the curriculum.
“Getting computer science in all Mississippi classrooms represents a tremendous opportunity to give our young people exposure to the fundamentals necessary for their future success in the workforce,” said C Spire CEO Hu Meena.
Currently, more than half of high schools in Mississippi do not offer computer science courses, yet there are 1,519 open computing jobs in the state with an average salary of around $72,000, according to code.org.
Mississippi adopted standards for a computer science curriculum in 2018, but there was previously no requirement for schools to offer computer science courses.
“We look forward to continued collaboration with educators and other partners in the expansion of computer science offerings to prepare our students for postsecondary study and for careers in this rapidly-changing career field,” said Nathan Oakley, chief academic officer for the Mississippi Department of Education.
The legislation also includes scholarships for teachers to be trained and receive computer science endorsements through Mississippi State University’s Research and Curriculum Unit.
Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, authored the Senate version of the bill and worked with his House counterpart Rep. Kevin Felsher, also a Republican from Biloxi, to ensure its passage. DeLano said he heard from businesses coming to Mississippi that are in need of workers trained in these skills.
“We know jobs for the future are going to demand more and more computer science, so we want to make sure that all students have at least the basic fundamentals required to be able to take advanced courses or help assist with training in the future as they move through their career path,” DeLano said.
He and others are also in talks with other businesses in hopes of shoring up more support.
Mississippi’s relatively small number of families receiving federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Family benefits will receive a monthly increase in payments of $90 under legislation Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law this week.
“Listening to some of the parents and grandparents talk about how the extra benefits are going to help their children, I think it is good,” said Sen. Sollie Norwood, D-Jackson. “It has been a long time coming.”
The increase is the first since 1999 for families in Mississippi receiving the welfare benefits.
The bill, authored by Sen. Joey Fillingane, increases the benefits from $170 per month to $260 per month for a family of four. The TANF benefits are paid solely through federal funds.
Norwood praised Mississippi Department of Human Services Executive Director Bob Anderson for advocating to the Legislature for increasing the benefits.
Anderson’s actions came on the heels of the scandal that occurred during the administration of former Gov. Phil Bryant, where former DHS Director John Davis and others were indicted on charges related to siphoning off the TANF money designed to help “the poorest of the poor” for personal use. State Auditor Shad White alleges that millions in TANF funds were being directed to nonprofits that were supposed to provide services for the needy, but instead the funds being diverted for personal use.
The state receives a federal grant each year of $86.5 million for TANF. Of that amount, $30 million is diverted to Child Protections Services that oversees the state’s foster child program.
While Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation, only between 2,500-3,000 families are normally in the TANF program, Anderson said earlier this session. In addition to increasing the benefits, Anderson has said he wants to re-evaluate the criteria for determining eligibility.
“We are in the midst of this pandemic,” Anderson said earlier this session. “We think this is an opportune time to provide this assistance for our TANF families… for the poorest of the poor in our state.”
The $260 per month for a family of three is higher than the benefits for all of the surrounding states except Tennessee, which provides $277 per month. Arkansas is the lowest at $204. In Mississippi, a family would receive an additional $24 per month for each child increasing the size of the family by more than three.
“There are so many people in need of additional assistance. So many are doing without,” said Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson. “Any little thing we can do to help is a blessing.”
Mississippi will receive about $6 billion from the federal American Rescue Act — an amount equal to the entire annual state general budget, and an amount state leaders say could change Mississippi for the better if spent wisely by state and local governments and bureaucrats.
“Clearly this is something that is transformative to Mississippi,” Hosemann said, saying state leaders are trying to get a grip on exactly how much money is coming to the Magnolia State and the rules for spending it. “… It is a good problem to have. Part of our process in my own mind is not only using this over the three years, but how to make this have an effect over the next five, 10 years or longer.”
While state and local leaders are still trying to suss some particulars on what money is going where, the money includes:
$1.8 billion to the state, to be spent by the Legislature
$97 million for Mississippi’s metro cities of Biloxi, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Moss Point and Pascagoula, with Jackson receiving the largest share at $47 million
$258 million for smaller Mississippi cities
$577 million for the state’s 82 counties
$1.6 billion for K-12 education, with most directed to local school districts using existing formula’s for federal money disbursement. For perspective, the state K-12 budget is a little more than $2 billion a year.
$429 million for Mississippi’s colleges and universities
$166 million for capital projects statewide, primarily for rural broadband access projects
Note: Story continues below chart.
Millions more will go directly to state agencies such as the Departments of Health, Mental Health and Human Services — with state leaders still working to learn those amounts and details. Hosemann said an estimated $3.4 billion will go to individual Mississippians through stimulus payments, tax credits for children, enhanced unemployment other benefits.
Half the money is expected to arrive by the middle of May, with the other half coming within a year later. Governments have until 2024 to spend it.
Fewer strings
Unlike past federal COVID-19 relief or stimulus funding, the money coming to states from the $1.9 trillion act passed by Congress has relatively few strings attached or directives on how it’s spent and a much longer, three-year deadline to spend it. And some of the money is earmarked directly to cities, counties and even state agencies and institutions.
“That’s probably one of the best provisions I’ve seen in a relief package in quite some time — going directly to the counties and cities to be put to work right away instead of any federal or state bureaucracy calling all the shots,” said Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes, president of the Mississippi Municipal League. His city, the second-largest in the state with a population of about 72,000, is set to receive about $18 million from the plan.
The federal law says local governments can spend the money on water, sewerage and internet infrastructure, but the U.S. Department of Treasury appears to have large discretion over the spending, and Gov. Tate Reeves and other state officials say they are working to get more specifics.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba did not respond to request for comment on the Rescue Act money. Hewes and other local leaders said cities and counties across the state have great infrastructure and other needs, and “we are going to do our best to apply it effectively.”
“Government closest to the people governs best,” Hewes said.
Hewes said the law does not appear to allow local governments to use the money for road infrastructure, something he hopes gets “fixed” by the treasury. He said other federal and state dollars — including in this package and in the last round of COVID-19 relief — have been allocated to broadband internet access, and many cities have greater needs for road work.
“Quite frankly, we are perplexed that roads and streets were left out of that allowance for how it can be spent,” Hewes said. “As president of the municipal league, and hearing from mayors across the country, there is a universal appeal that the treasury expand that definition of infrastructure to include roads, and we are all at a loss why that is not in the act.”
‘Pot of gold for cities’
Many mayors and county leaders this week were trying to glean more info, and in particular confirm how much their governments will receive.
Greenwood, a city of about 15,000, is set to receive about $3 million. Mayor Carolyn McAdams said that’s the number she’s heard and, “I’m hoping that’s the pot of gold we’re getting.”
“We’re still waiting to hear all the stipulations,” McAdams said. She said she would like to be able to use some of the money to provide “an across the board raise” for city employees who have had to “work doubly hard during the pandemic.” She said she understands this may not be allowable for the money and that it’s “one-time” money perhaps better suited to projects than recurring expenses.
“Trust me, in cities and towns, there are lots of ways to use that money, no shortage of needs,” McAdams said. “Right now we are in the middle of repaving streets. It would be nice to do a few more, add more sidewalks. We need improvements to our wastewater treatment plant — we have lots of old infrastructure … our ballparks need work on them … This money will be very usable.”
Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs said the Rescue Act money for local governments “is great news … and it couldn’t have come at a better time.” His city is expected to receive $4.88 million.
“From what I understand there might not be too many restrictions on it, other than it can’t be used to replace money cut out of a budget,” Flaggs said. “We’ll see … they may change some things, and we’re waiting to see all the stipulations.
“I’ve told my board, we need to only spend this on one-time expenditures,” Flaggs said. “I’m a conservative and I believe spend one-time money on one-time expenses, so you don’t inflate your budget. Things like infrastructure, or buying items like police cameras we’ve been trying to get. I hope we can use it on marketing, tourism.”
Flaggs said he’s pleased with the amount allocated to his city, adding, “they didn’t have to give us anything.” He said he’s unsure what calculus was used because he saw some cities larger than his receive less money.
Harrison County Supervisor Connie Rockco, whose county is set to receive more than $40 million, said her county’s leaders have not discussed the money and are awaiting more details.
“They haven’t even said the check’s in the mail yet, so there’s a hesitancy for us to get overexcited,” Rockco said. She said that, personally, she’d like to find ways to directly help small businesses in the county that have been hurt by the pandemic.
“Mental health, children’s services — there are many needs out there, many things that have been neglected by society as a whole,” Rockco said. “In our county, we also have an extreme need for fire services, because our county is growing so quickly, bursting at the seams. We have all sorts of needs, but we will have to see how it can be used.”
In Congress there was intense partisan debate over the Rescue Act pushed by Democratic President Joe Biden, and it passed along party lines.
Republican Hewes, a longtime former state lawmaker and former candidate for lieutenant governor, said that, as a mayor, he’s not focused on the broader politics of the act.
“Going from the state level of government to the local level, you take a large leap from the philosophical or theoretical to more pragmatic,” Hewes said. “A road we need to pave in the city is not a red road or a blue road. It’s a blacktop, and I need green to fix it, that’s what it comes down to.
“We as local leaders gave (Congress) some input through many of our associations and our delegations, and this is what came out of the machine,” Hewes said. “Rather than editorialize, I think folks on the local level just want to use what’s provided to us as best we can. There is an opportunity here to make a substantial impact, not unique to Gulfport or to Mississippi, but universally across the country.”
Mississippi Today reporter Alex Rozier created the searchable chart in this article.
The fragility of Jackson’s water system, plagued by decades of outmigration, deferred maintenance and declining federal support, was on full national display in February after a historic freeze left at least 40,000 without running water for weeks.
City officials are asking for state and federal support to help raise the $1 billion they say is needed to fix the system, which failed to produce safe drinking water for more than a month after the storm.
Mississippi Today spoke with several national policy experts about how other American cities have navigated large-scale water funding shortages and how Jackson could move forward. The experts offered several solutions, chronicled in the article below, but ultimately agreed that the absence of a more involved federal government leaves few answers for Jackson.
“A lot of these systems that are on the brink of falling apart, they’re just one extreme event away from a crisis,” said Dr. Newsha Ajami, director of the Urban Water Policy program at Stanford University. “That’s what happened in Jackson. It’s a cumulative effect of not investing in our infrastructure for so many years. Aging infrastructure, all of these extreme events that we’re experiencing, it’s all coming together.”
Some signs of short-term relief have trickled in during the past couple weeks. Jackson is set to receive $47 million from the American Rescue Plan, the name of the new $1.9 trillion stimulus bill President Joe Biden signed last week. Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith introduced a bill in Congress that would steer infrastructure funds towards the city.
But those measures still leave Jackson a long way from the necessary funding to repair and revamp its water system.
Federal water infrastructure support has plummeted since the 1970s, when the U.S. sent funds to cities to help comply with the newly-passed Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts. In 1977, federal support accounted for 31% of governments’ total water utility spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By 2017, that share had dropped to 4%.
Now, such spending largely comes in the form of loans rather than grants, mainly through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act that supports specific projects, as well as an annual allotment called the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which last year totaled $2.7 billion for the whole country.
“If Jackson alone has a $1 billion need, and the total EPA State Revolving Fund is $2.7 billion, that starts to give you an order of magnitude of how big the problem is versus how much money is actually available,” said Dr. Martin Doyle, Director for Water Policy at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.
As for many cities with rupturing infrastructure, the decline in federal support has coincided with Jackson’s sharp decline in population, which has shrunk by 20% since 1980.
Ajami, Doyle, and others discussed with Mississippi Today the ways other cities have tried to boost water infrastructure funding, such as consolidation and privatization, as well as different approaches to water billing.
Consolidation of regional water systems
For many cities, capital improvements such as upgrades to treatment plants and large-scale pipe replacements are simply unaffordable for their tax bases. Those cities instead focus what money is available towards regular operations and maintenance. But as bigger projects get pushed back, their costs only grow.
Dr. Newsha Ajami, director of the Urban Water Policy program at Stanford University
“The cost of recovering from the crisis is much higher than the cost of prevention,” Ajami said.
One successful cost-saving solution is consolidating utilities with neighboring towns and cities, similar to the way school districts merge to save money.
In 2014, after the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, a court ordered the creation of a regional authority that assumed the city’s water and sewer services. The Great Lake Water Authority took on $4 billion in debt from the city, and Detroit officials said the change allowed it to make infrastructure upgrades it couldn’t otherwise afford. Similarly, Raleigh, N.C., saw a decrease in maintenance and operation costs after combining utilities with nearby municipalities in the early 2000s.
“That starts to increase the scale of the operation, which means that you’re able to gain some efficiencies,” Doyle said.
In the U.S., there are more than 50,000 water utilities that operate independently, meaning they each have their own management and set of personnel, from engineers to customer service. When places combine utilities, they’re often able to serve the same populations at a lower fixed cost.
Despite the cost-saving potential, some city officials are unsure if Jackson and its neighbors could come to such an agreement, especially considering political and racial differences.
“I think it would be a difficult political thing to put a regional water system together, just because there’s a lack of trust issue,” said Jackson city councilman Ashby Foote. “A lot of the surrounding communities, I don’t think they would let Jackson run it, and I don’t think the city would vote to relinquish control of the systems.”
Foote and Jackson councilman De’Keither Stamps cited disagreements such as control over Jackson’s airport and the recent decision by West Rankin County officials to break off and build its own wastewater facility.
“Now (West Rankin) has to spend all this money to build a new sewer plant because of relationships and politics,” Stamps said. “How does that benefit the end user?”
Privatization of Jackson’s water system
While not as popular, privatization is a similar solution to consolidation, explained Doyle, who explored water-funding solutions for shrinking cities in an article for the American Water Works Association journal. Private water utilities, which serve 15% of Americans, can combine functions just as a regional utility would and can also provide more resources and expertise. Research also shows they are less likely to violate the EPA’s health-related drinking water statutes than public utilities.
The main concern around private utilities is cost. If a company took over Jackson’s water system, it would have to justify any rate increases with the state’s Public Service Commission; however, Doyle’s paper cites that “it is not uncommon for water rates to increase by greater than 10% when public systems are privatized, and in some cases, rates have reportedly almost doubled.”
Doyle said while it’s unclear how much more a private utility would cost Jackson, it should be considered a “tool in the toolkit.” Ajami and others were more skeptical.
“I don’t think privatization is going to solve the water problem for Jackson,” Ajami argued. “It’s probably going to make water more unaffordable. Their system will be upgraded, I’m just not sure that will lead to more affordable water rates for Jackson.”
Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. said he turned down the idea while in office.
“That idea was thrown out, I rejected it,” said Johnson, who was mayor from 1997 to 2005 and again from 2009 and 2013. He asserted that private companies don’t have the same accountability as elected officials, and that cities can get locked into long-term contracts without a way out. “The driving force there is the bottom line, it’s not service.”
Jackson City Council President Aaron Banks said that whether it’s consolidation or privatization, Jackson leadership needs to be open-minded.
“I think we have to explore all those options,” Banks said.
Balancing affordability and water revenue
Mississippi Food Network CEO Dr. Charles Beady Jr. prepares to load a case of water into a waiting vehicle March 6 at St. Luther M. B. Church. Nearly 1000 cases of bottled water were donated by the Mississippi Food Network for the giveaway in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Despite the city’s long list of needed system improvements, officials know that raising water rates could make the service unaffordable in a place where 1-in-4 residents live below the poverty line.
Even if Jackson leaders had the political will to raise customers’ rates, paying for a $1 billion municipal bond would add $55 to $60 a month in charges to every household, or about a full day’s work on minimum wage, according to associate professor Manuel Teodoro of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
In 2017, Philadelphia took an innovative approach to address affordability: its Tiered Assistance Program, the first of its kind in the country, allows low-income residents to make payments based on earnings rather than water usage, and it also provides a path for debt forgiveness. Like in Jackson, many Philadelphia residents had built up water debt and weren’t contributing to the city’s water revenue. Since TAP began, the city simultaneously reduced water bill debt and increased the number of customers paying for the service.
Henrietta Locklear, vice president at financial consultant firm Raftelis, worked on Philadelphia’s assistance program and told Mississippi Today that such a system could work in Jackson should the city decide to increase water rates.
“The role is really more to say, ‘We have to have rate increases, and we know it’s going to affect some of our customers detrimentally, and we’re offering assistance to help customers in need,’” Locklear said.
Adjusting the water billing formula
Another way to stabilize revenue could be to adjust the city’s billing formula. Ajami, the Stanford policy expert, explained that while Jackson’s first priority is addressing emergency repairs to its system, the city should also aim to maximize its future water funding.
Jackson, like many cities, charges residents based on both water usage and tiered pricing, which adds a fee after a certain threshold. Customers are charged $3.21 per hundred cubic feet, and then a $7 flat fee is added after 300 cubic feet, or a little over 2,000 gallons, according to a city spokesperson.
Cities rely heavily on volumetric, or use-based, pricing because the more water a utility treats and delivers, the more strain it puts on the system. Yet volumetric pricing can leave a utility with varying revenue returns, Ajami said.
“If you use a gallon or 10 gallons, I still need to operate the treatment plant, I still need to maintain the pipes, I still need to operate the pumps,” Ajami said. “If people use less (water), they’re paying less, and then I have less money to do all those things.”
She said that Jackson would benefit from some combination of its current system and a “decoupled” rate — a common format for energy bills — which includes a fixed rate that pays for the utility’s routine operating costs.
Doyle added that the varying, volumetric nature of water bills stands out from other government revenue streams.
“A lot of the services we get are not use-based,” he said. Many roads, for instance, are mostly paid for by property taxes, not by how much a person drives. “Same thing for jails, same thing for city governments, same thing for school systems.”
In light of affordability issues, Doyle and Ajami both wondered why the U.S. has no federal safety net for water bills.
“You can get money from the federal government to assist you in being able to pay for household food and energy,” Doyle said. “You can’t get that for water, and that’s kind of weird.”
Ajami agreed, pointing to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps pay for energy bills, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program that helps with phone bills.
“In a way you’re all subsidizing access to communication, which is important,” she said, “but if we have something like that, why can’t we have something similar for water?”
Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
A “barometer” of segregation
Jackson leaders in the past few weeks have asked state and federal officials to provide the city with money to begin repairing its water and sewer system.
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba met with newly-appointed EPA Administrator Michael Regan to discuss funding avenues, and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson pledged to support any request for federal help.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told Mississippi Today that state legislators “want to help.” Yet Hosemann, as well as Gov. Tate Reeves and Sen. Hyde-Smith, have criticized the city’s management of its past funding without mentioning other systemic causes that led to the crisis.
Mississippi Today reported on Wednesday that legislative leaders killed the city’s main ask to improve its water system: allow the Jackson City Council’s proposal to increase the city’s sales tax by 1 cent to be placed on to a citywide ballot.
“If you talk to a city councillor in Memphis, in New Orleans, in Birmingham, in Newark, they’ll tell you the same thing: the federal government has deserted local governments when it comes to infrastructure improvement, and we’re witnessing that now.”
Harvey Johnson Jr., former Jackson mayor
Activists and academics who spoke with Mississippi Today described the way racism has fueled the inability of the 82% Black-city to address infrastructure needs, from white flight to a lack of state support.
Yet even with more state-led enthusiasm, Mississippi alone can’t afford Jackson’s funding needs, said former Jackson city councilman Melvin Priester Jr.
“While we always talk about, ‘We want more help from the state,’ the state doesn’t really have a big pool of money available to flow down to municipalities for this,” Priester said.
Priester and Johnson, Jackson’s former mayor, emphasized that the federal government’s deflated water funding has only inflated the city’s need. For instance, Jackson is struggling to fight its way out of an EPA consent decree for violations under the Clean Water Act, and last year received a $500,000 fine for violations under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“There’s no resources coming from the federal government to help local governments to meet those standards,” Johnson said. “If you talk to a city councillor in Memphis, in New Orleans, in Birmingham, in Newark, they’ll tell you the same thing: the federal government has deserted local governments when it comes to infrastructure improvement, and we’re witnessing that now.”
Ajami agrees that political willingness is part of the issue, adding that the disconnect between Americans and how they receive water may be why there’s a lack of political pressure.
“Because it’s easy to access water for a majority of Americans, people don’t think about the complexity of the system that brings water to us,” she said. “You drive on the road, so if there are potholes, you experience them. You don’t see water pipes. It’s a hidden infrastructure that we don’t value as much, while it’s the most essential resource we depend on in our daily life.”
Ajami also underscored the impacts of funding shortages on a city’s poorer and disadvantaged citizens: they can’t afford to rely on bottled water or a filtration system, and they’re left with an aging infrastructure that their local government can’t afford to fix.
“We’re getting this segregation not just between households and not just between neighborhoods, we’re getting this segregation between cities.”
Dr. Martin Doyle
Cities have fallen into a cycle where the inability to afford repairs compounds the effects of the broken system, which is largely what created the desperation Jackson felt this past month. That’s why, Doyle explained, water utilities have become a good indicator of disparities across the country.
“Paying for water in a rich city is, on a per population basis, very cheap,” he said. “Paying for water in a poorer city on a per population basis is really expensive. So we’re getting this segregation not just between households and not just between neighborhoods, we’re getting this segregation between cities. That’s why I think one of the best barometers of how that big sorting in America is actually taking place is in the water utilities.”
Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe contributed to this story.
The Mississippi Senate, which has resisted an effort to provide a 1-cent sales tax for the city of Jackson to pay for improvements to its water system, voted Thursday by a 23-15 vote to allow Lee County to impose a 3/4-cent sales tax increase.
Senate Local and Private Chair Chad McMahan, R-Guntown, whose district consists of a large portion of Lee County, said before the sales tax could be imposed, it would have to be approved by voters during the next general election in 2023. In addition, Lee County supervisors, whom he said supported the bill allowing the sales tax increase, also would have to place on the ballot the projects that would be financed with the sales tax increase.
While the bill passed Wednesday does not list any specific projects to be funded through the sales tax increase, Lee County supervisors have recently proposed a sales tax increase within the county to finance a new county jail.
The Legislature has been reluctant to allow local governments to increase the statewide sales tax rate of 7%. Currently, there are two local governments with a local option sales tax on general items. The city of Jackson currently has a 1-cent sales tax for street improvements, and for decades the city of Tupelo has had a ¼-cent sales tax to help finance a surface water supply system.
This session, the city of Jackson has requested another 1-cent sales tax increase to help finance improvements to its aging water system that broke down during the February winter ice storm, leaving more than 40,000 people — mostly Black — without running water for weeks.
Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, filed a local and private bill to allow the city of Jackson to impose the additional 1-cent sales tax.
But House Local and Private Chair Manly Barton, R-Moss Point, said he does not plan to take up any requests for local-option sales taxes, including the Lee County proposal and the city of Jackson’s 1-cent increase, and that has been a consistent House position in recent years.
Barton said that the Lee County bill will die on the House side, as the Lee County delegation is not united in support for the tax increase.
“We have been very hesitant to do general sales tax increases for other cities — in fact, we turn them down every year,” Barton said. “We had four or five requests this year. A lot of times the bills don’t even get filed. We work with them on local food-and-beverage, hotel-motel taxes, but there’s just no appetite to do general sales taxes. We’ve been pretty consistent.”
Barton added, “Part of it is the precedent.” He said that if lawmakers allow a city to add a local sales tax, “… we’d better get ready to do 20 or 30 of them for other cities next year. That has just not been the policy here, with our leadership.”
Senate Hob Bryan, D-Amory, who also represents a portion of Lee County, agreed with Barton and spoke against and voted against the local option sale tax increase for Lee County. He said every county in the state had a jail or access to a jail that had been funded without the aid of a local option sales tax and questioned why Lee, an affluent county, needed the sales tax increase when others did not.
“If we let Lee County do this, every county and every city will be up here asking for a local option sales tax,” he said.
In addition, Bryan said the sales tax is an unfair tax, forcing low wage earners to spend more of their income on basic items than more affluent people.
He said the county would be asking the low wage earners to pay a larger percentage of their income to finance the jail if the jail was built with sales tax revenue.
McMahan countered that the sales tax is the state’s fairest taxing method.
While the House has a bill to allow Jackson to impose the additional sales tax, no similar legislation has been filed in the Senate. And no senator representing Jackson has endorsed such a proposal.
The bill allowing Lee County the local option sales tax, which needed a three-fifths majority, passed by one vote. And 14 of the senators in the 52-member chamber did not vote or voted present.
None of the five state senators representing the city of Jackson supported their city’s proposed sales tax increase — the chief reason the Senate never considered it.
Four of them met privately with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on March 12, and none of those senators — Democratic Sens. Sollie Norwood, Hillman Frazier, John Horhn and David Blount — told the lieutenant governor they supported the sales tax increase, according to several of the meeting’s attendees. Sen. Walter Michel, R-Ridgeland, could not attend the meeting but was said to oppose the sales tax increase.
During Wednesday’s final vote on the Lee County sales tax increase, Norwood and Michel voted yes; Frazier voted present; Blount voted no; and Horhn did not vote.
Did you know the first person to ever be diagnosed with autism lives in Mississippi? Don Triplett of Forest, now in his late 80s, was patient number one.
A new documentary, “In a Different Key,” by Caren Zucker (award-winning producer at ABC news) and John Donvan (journalist, broadcaster and debate moderator) debuts at the Oxford Film Festival and tells Triplett’s story along with a brief history of autism.
Some of the stars of the movie are the citizens of Forest, who show us all that it truly does take a village to show kindness and compassion to children and adults with autism. “In a Different Key” tells a powerful story and shows us a better way. It’s based on Zucker’s and Donvan’s Pulitzer-Finalist book of the same name.
