Lawmakers plan to hold two days of hearings on eliminating or cutting Mississippi’s individual income tax on Aug. 25 and 26.
The hearings will be before a joint select committee of eight senators and eight House members, selected by the lieutenant governor and speaker, Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins said on Tuesday. Harkins said the hearings will likely include testimony from state and national tax experts, agency leaders and business people, but its itinerary hasn’t been finalized.
The hearings are in response to House Speaker Philip Gunn’s push to eliminate the state’s individual income tax, cut taxes on groceries in half and increase sales and other taxes to make up the lost revenue. The House in this year’s legislative session passed Gunn’s plan, but the Senate killed it without a vote, saying the plan needed more vetting and vowing to study it over the summer and fall.
Recently, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said, “The Senate will hold hearings … on comprehensive tax reform, and we have invited the House to join us.” While he has stopped short of agreeing that individual income taxes can be eliminated, Hosemann has said recently he expects at least a cut in income taxes, with state revenues coming in at a record click recently.
Gunn’s plan has raised concern from numerous interests. Advocates for poor and moderate income Mississippians and retirees fear it would shift more of the state’s tax burden on them. Big business interests such as manufacturers and some small business groups fear the sales tax increases in the plan would increase their “input” costs drastically down their supply chains.
Some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle fear the major change in tax structure — individual income taxes generate about $1.8 billion a year, or 32% of the state’s revenue — would tank the state budget.
While Gunn has had trouble getting business and interest groups to sign on with his plan, he said last week that it has been warmly received by many people as he’s traveled the state talking with civic and business groups in recent months. Gunn said the nine states with no income tax, including Florida, Tennessee and Texas, are economically thriving and attracting more people, unlike Mississippi, one of just three states to lose population over the last decade.
No state has ever phased out an individual income tax. Alaska, the only state to eliminate an existing income tax, did so in one fell swoop.
Harkins agreed with Hosemann’s assessment that at least an income tax cut is in the offing next year. But he said eliminating income taxes or a major overhaul of tax structure will take much deliberation and study.
“You’ve got one chance to do this right, and I want to make sure that we are really looking for everything, dotting our Is and crossing our Ts,” Harkins said. “There’s a reason no other state has done this, because it’s hard to do it, but I know other states are in the process of trying … My goal with these hearings is to provide a lot of information — how the money comes i n, from what sources, how much, what are some of the diversions and tax credit exemptions … What are the pitfalls? Proceeding with caution is how I would describe this.
Hosemann also recently said, “All of the hearings will be webcasted because we want you to be a part of the process. It is your money.”
As the COVID-19 delta variant has given Mississippi the third highest infection rate in the nation, and the state’s hospitals remain completely overwhelmed with patients, there is at least one bright spot: The state’s vaccination rate has shot up for four straight weeks, increasing 107% over the past month.
Though Mississippi is no longer last in the nation for the share of its population that has been vaccinated, it still trails 48 other states. Just 35% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Medical experts are pleading with Mississippians to get vaccinated as the state’s hospital system has reached its full capacity to care for COVID-19 patients — a vast majority of them unvaccinated. And things inside hospitals are becoming more dire than ever.
As of Sunday, there were 1,349 Mississippians hospitalized with COVID-19, with 345 in ICUs and 205 on ventilators. On Monday, none of the 827 adult ICU beds in Mississippi were available.
Across the nation, this latest stage of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be one of the unvaccinated, and the numbers bear that out. Between July 13 and August 9 in Mississippi, 97% of COVID-19 cases, 89% of hospitalizations and 85% of deaths were among the unvaccinated, according to health department data.
And there is no end to this wave in sight. The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 3,488 new cases on Tuesday, the highest single-day caseload the state has seen throughout the pandemic. Physicians say these high daily case numbers will translate to record hospitalizations in coming weeks.
This strain on the healthcare system is not sustainable, health care experts warn, and has created an environment where, as of Monday, more than 200 COVID-19 patients were receiving care in emergency room settings when they should be in an ICU. This not only limits the ability of healthcare workers to effectively care for these patients, but it also causes delays in the time-sensitive care that non-COVID patients need.
Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs and COVID-19 clinical response leader at University of Mississippi Medical Center, has warned that UMMC has not had to turn away any patients yet, but that breaking point is approaching.
“We are not infinite resources,” Jones said. “We can break. We can have to close… And I think we’re rapidly headed that direction.”
The exhaustion and anger of healthcare workers is bubbling over in a myriad of ways as they deal with a system stretched to the brink by preventable infections and deaths. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs tweeted Tuesday morning that he has begun listening to the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers in the morning, “a long standing indication of irrepressible frustration” for him.
In the absence of substantial vaccine encouragement from political leaders like Gov. Tate Reeves, other prominent Mississippi figures are stepping up.
Archie Manning, the Mississippi native and patriarch of the Manning football family, partnered with the Delta Health Alliance to encourage Mississippians to get vaccinated.
“We know the vaccine works, but only if you get it,” Manning said in a promotional video. “It’s easy and it works. Please get vaccinated, my friends, and stay healthy.”
On Sunday, Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin announced that the entire football program, including players, coaches and staff, had been fully vaccinated. No other college or NFL football team has gotten all of their players vaccinated. Following the announcement, Kiffin called the decision to not get vaccinated “irresponsible.”
As scientists continue to collect data on the newest variant that is spreading rapidly, medical experts continue to reiterate that vaccination remains the best protection against contracting the delta variant. The nation’s leading medical researchers agree that vaccines are nearly as effective against the delta variant as the original strain, greatly minimizing the chance of infection and nearly eliminating the risks of developing a serious illness.
Studies suggest, however, that being fully vaccinated is the only adequate protection against the delta variant, as a single shot of either of the two-dose mRNA vaccines provides only weak protection against infection.
Of the 2,510 Mississippians who died of COVID-19 between Jan. 1 and Aug. 4 of this year, just 51 were fully vaccinated.
CLEVELAND — Schools across the state are beginning a new school year this month with in-person classes. With no statewide mask mandate from the governor, districts are deciding for themselves what COVID precautions to put in place. In the Cleveland School District, masks are required. Mississippi Today photojournalist Vickie King visited the district on the first day of school.
Photo Captions:
Pearman Elementary School students masked up and excited for class on the first day back to school Monday, Aug. 9, 2021.
Yuri James, 12, listens intently as his history teacher Bill Hatcher greets students during the first day of school at Cleveland Central Middle School.
Cleveland School District students attended their first day back to class. Masks were required for students and staffers.
Pearman Elementary School Principal Precious Redmond greets students and welcomes them back on their first day.
Students and staffers wear masks on the first day of school in the Cleveland School District.
Cleveland Central High School students on their first day back to school,
Cleveland School District Superintendent Otha Belcher welcomes Pearman Elementary 5th grade students on their first day back to class
Cleveland Central High Schoolers start their first day back to school with stretching and mild exercise.
Photo Captions:
Cleveland School District students returned to school, Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. Students and staff are required to wear masks.
Chundra Grisby and students in her Cyber Foundations II class on the first day of school at Cleveland Central Middle School.
Cleveland Central High School teacher Lynn Rush greets her students on their first day back to school.
Cleveland School District students change classes on the first day back to school.
Math teacher Krupa Kaneria and students on the first day back to school at Cleveland Central Middle School,
Every intensive care unit bed in Mississippi is full, and hospital leaders are begging — praying — for relief. Thousands of Mississippi students are going back to class without masks, and several schools have had to shut down after immediate COVID-19 outbreaks. Government leaders fear the effects if a critical state of emergency order expires as scheduled next week.
Nearly everyone in the state — medical, government and education leaders and voters on the political right and left — is asking: Where is our governor?
Gov. Tate Reeves is holed up most days at the Governor’s Mansion, according to people close to the governor. Reeves, who has defiantly rejected issuing any new statewide orders, has isolated himself from many of his closest advisers in recent weeks. He’s holding no press conferences, decidedly not making himself available to the public as he did earlier in the pandemic. Right now, as the crisis reaches its biggest inflection point, he’s out of state at a Republican Governors Association candidate conference.
His penthouse Sillers Building office, where governors traditionally work, has been rarely used since he took office in 2020. And as the crisis mounts, Reeves is hemorrhaging staff. Since Mississippi Today reported in late June that Reeves has lost four senior staffers and several policy staff since he took office in 2020, four additional staffers have left his office.
Liz Welch, his interim chief of staff and well-regarded state government veteran, is splitting duties, working mostly from the Woolfolk Building as she continues to run the Department of Finance and Administration. Prominent officials who are desperately trying to get in touch with Reeves are reaching out to David Maron, the governor’s chief counsel and deputy chief of staff who had never previously worked in state government.
When asked who Reeves has been taking advice from in recent weeks, the name that several people close to the governor brought up most consistently is Brad Todd, a political consultant who works in suburban Washington, D.C. Todd, a nationally-known politico who helped run the campaigns of former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, has managed Reeves’ campaigns dating back to his treasurer’s race in 2003.
The best explanation that anyone can come up with for Reeves’ continued absence during the crisis and why he’s listening closely to Todd’s counsel: politics. Reeves is receiving relentless criticism from seemingly every quarter in Mississippi. He’s flip-flopped many times depending on the politics of the moment, and nothing he does or says seems to land with any base or constituency.
The wunderkind who has quickly risen the ranks because of his ability to read the state’s political winds is seeing that those winds are swirling. So, too, is he during the worst days of this crisis.
Reeves’ previous public statements about the pandemic are so strikingly different from his statements today that they could be coming from a different politician.
A year ago, as schools were going back into session and a second COVID-19 wave was growing, Reeves issued statewide mask mandates, saying masks were “important not only to protect oneself, but also to avoid unknowingly harming our fellow Mississippians through asymptomatic community transmission of COVID-19” and “the key to reducing transmission of the virus.”
The past two weeks, though, as the politics of mask-wearing and other COVID-19 orders are as volatile as ever, Reeves has capitulated. He’s gone out of his way to cast doubt on the recommendations of medical professionals in public forums and sow distrust in policies he previously enacted himself.
“The change in the CDC’s mask guidance is foolish and harmful and it reeks of political panic to appear that they are in control,” Reeves said during his speech at the Neshoba County Fair in late July. “It has nothing to do with rational science … In Mississippi, we believe in freedom.”
A year ago, Reeves consistently defended his COVID-19 policies with talk of keeping the state’s hospital system above water during peaks of virus cases.
“Our goal in Mississippi has never been to completely eradicate the virus. It has never been to completely eliminate the virus, because we do not believe — or at least I don’t — that that’s a realistic goal,” Reeves said in October 2020. “Our goal has always been to protect the integrity of our healthcare system.”
Today, the Mississippi healthcare system Reeves claimed he wanted to protect a year ago is failing because of the state’s debilitating COVID caseload, and he has barricaded himself in the Mansion and has made little contact with the public.
Health care experts say the vaccine is the quickest, most effective way to defeat COVID-19 and save lives. Reeves, however, has worked hard to have vaccine policy both ways. He has seen and heard the disagreement and the conspiracy theories, and, knowing much of it is being spawned on his side of the political aisle, has avoided decisiveness.
“It was recently said nationally that the delta variant was becoming a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’” Reeves posted to social media on Monday. “The most recent data from Mississippi suggest the same. Talk to your doctor. Assess the risk. Do the right thing for you. Do the right thing for your family.”
The response to his carefully-worded post shows how divided Mississippians are: Many people panned Reeves for not doing enough to encourage mass vaccination, and others criticized him for being too hands-on and preaching to them. And if politics are dictating Reeves’ actions (or inactions) right now, it’s important to highlight recent reporting that Reeves could have at least one formidable 2023 challenger for governor in Republican Speaker of the House Philip Gunn.
So many Mississippians are scared, tired and as divided as ever, and are now at the precipice of what appears to be another few weeks of difficult changes. They’ve lost friends and family members, personal time and life experiences, and it’s likely they’ll lose even more.
In other states, including neighbors run by Republicans, governors are leading. They’re facing the tough politics head-on and providing a steady hand and a clear message: Get the vaccine, wear masks in public, look out for your neighbors. By going underground the past few weeks, Reeves has left a vacuum of leadership that stands to greatly increase the likelihood that the virus will harm many more Mississippians and continue to overload the state’s hospitals.
As criticism of Reeves grows during this phase of the pandemic, fewer people are seemingly coming to the governor’s defense. Alan Lange, a conservative commentator and longtime close political ally of Reeves, recently took to Twitter to critique Sun Herald reporter Anita Lee’s analysis about the governor’s recent absence from the public sphere.
Lange’s tweet, published five days ago, has just one “like” — from the governor’s trusted political adviser Brad Todd.
Imagine you are a football coach. You have a quarterback, both accurate and resourceful. He gets the job done. He’s a winner. You have a wide receiver who runs a 4.3 40-yard dash and can catch everything thrown anywhere near him. But, despite defeat after defeat, you steadfastly refuse to play either.
Your team keeps losing. The scores are lopsided. You are in last place in your conference. Every week, the statistics are frightful. You are in 49th place in a 50-team division, but you stubbornly stay the course, keep your best weapons on the bench, and keep on losing.
Yes, you are right, that scenario sounds inconceivable. What coach in his right mind would refuse to use all the weapons available to win?
Rick Cleveland
Dr. Thomas Dobbs, this state’s chief health officer, must feel sometimes like he’s watching that football team play.
Mississippi ranks 49th of 50 states in percentage of its citizenry fully vaccinated. The pandemic is raging. The delta variant of COVID-19 is winning. People are dying. ICU units are filled. Emergency rooms can’t handle the numbers of really sick folks. We have more deathly ill people than we have medical staffing to care for them. Doctors and nurses must feel like quarterbacks facing an all-out blitz with no offensive line. Schools are shutting down classes before they can even open.
Yes, and on a much less important note, the upcoming football season is threatened. Already some high school teams have stopped practicing because too many players have COVID. The Oak Grove football team, the defending Mississippi Class 6A champions, has suspended preseason practices because of a COVID outbreak. The way this pandemic is raging, the colleges might not be that far behind.
In a one-on-one interview last week, I asked Dobbs about all this. Where is all this headed?
“It’s really up to us,” Dobbs answered. “We have the tools to beat this, but we just are not using them. In some ways, we are worse off than we were this time last year.”
Listen to him: We have the tools. We just aren’t using them. Nearly two-thirds of our people have not been vaccinated. My guess is that a lower percentage are wearing masks in public.
The sports analogies are endless. Would you play football without a helmet and face mask? Would you play shortstop without a glove? Would you play golf with wooden-shafted clubs against a field playing with modern technology?
Dobbs, a high school tennis All American and a centerfielder for his Emory University baseball team, must feel a coach giving a pep talk to a team that won’t listen.
“We need to get people vaccinated, especially with school starting,” he said. “These shots are extremely safe. They do not cause problems. They are spectacularly effective for teens with strong immune systems.”
Yes, there are vaccinated people who do get COVID. But Dobbs quickly will tell you those cases are relatively infrequent and that vaccinated folks who do come down with the virus do not become nearly as sick as those who are not vaccinated.
I asked Dobbs what he would do if he were a football coach preparing his team for the upcoming season.
“I would strongly urge everyone associated with the team — players, managers, coaches, everybody — to get vaccinated,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to see tons of outbreaks, even with people wearing masks. This delta variant scares me. It spreads so much faster… It is spreading across Mississippi like a tsunami.”
Dobbs said that large crowds attending games in open air stadiums are far from his biggest concern.
“I am not nearly as worried about gatherings in outdoor spaces with good air circulation,” he said. “I am much more concerned with the teams and bands traveling to the games in a bus that doesn’t have good air circulation. I am worried about classrooms. I know we have to educate our kids, but until we get this under control, we just can’t do it like we did it before.”
Bottom line: Much more than the upcoming football season is at stake here. We are in a life and death situation with this delta variant, and people are dying every day.
We have the tools to win this fight. Why in the world would we not use them?
There are success stories. Ole Miss reportedly has reached 100% vaccination rate within its football program. Sources tell me Mississippi State and Southern Miss are not far behind. That’s what it’s going to take — for football, and our lives, to return to normal.
Four days after Gov. Tate Reeves authorized a state takeover of the Holmes County Consolidated School District and removed the current superintendent and school board, the new state-appointed superintendent is not yet in the district.
Students returned to school for the first time in over a year on Thursday, the day the emergency was declared by the governor and the school district was abolished per the recommendation of the State Board of Education, which now serves as the local school board.
Since then, there has effectively been no one running the day-to-day operations of the district.
Washington Cole, the deputy state superintendent and chief of staff, came to the district Monday afternoon to deliver communications to former officials and brief current staff.
“There’s a process to abolish the district,” Cook said when asked why a Mississippi Department of Education official only arrived Monday afternoon.
Jennifer Wilson, the new interim superintendent and former leader of Greenwood schools, will be in the district Tuesday, said Cook.
A COVID-19 outbreak occurred at the district middle school and several high school students got in a fight Monday morning, but administrators have received no communication from the state education department or the newly appointed interim superintendent Jennifer Wilson on how to proceed, according to former board president Louise Winters.
Winters questioned why no state officials were immediately present — particularly at the start of a new school year during the COVID-19 pandemic — if such an emergency existed in the district.
Holmes County Sheriff Willie March confirmed that a fight broke out Monday morning at the high school between around seven students. He said more deputies from his office will be at the school this afternoon out of precaution.
Clarence Webster, an attorney for the former superintendent and school board members, said his clients were instructed not to intervene during the problems that arose on Monday.
“Today, counsel received notice that Dr. (Debra) Powell (the former superintendent) is to take no further action vis-a-vis HCCSD,” Webster told Mississippi Today. “According to the State Board of Education’s counsel, the interim superintendent will be in the district for the first time in her official capacity Tuesday.”
The takeover of the district came following a nearly 400-page audit from the Mississippi Department of Education that found the district in violation of 81% of accreditation standards. The allegations include a dysfunctional school board and administration, improper spending, inaccurate record keeping and unlicensed teachers in the classroom.
Two hearings took place last week in front of the Commission on School Accreditation and the State Board of Education. Both bodies voted unanimously to recommend the governor pave the way for the state to take over the district as a result of allegations of violations of state and federal law in addition to state accreditation standards and rampant financial problems.
The district’s own auditor in 2019 essentially declared the district unable to be audited because of missing and inaccurate record keeping. The state auditor’s office in 2020 released its own report revealing widespread problems in the district under its former superintendent James Henderson. Henderson resigned shortly before the report was released.
The school board hired Debra Powell to lead the district around the same time. Powell, Winters and other district officials at the hearings last week protested against a state takeover and maintained they were already working to fix the district’s many problems.
The governor’s declaration marks the 21st time the state has taken over a school district since 1997.
On Aug. 4 of last year, Gov. Tate Reeves issued a statewide mandate calling for mask-wearing in all school buildings. The executive order called masks “important not only to protect oneself, but also to avoid unknowingly harming our fellow Mississippians through asymptomatic community transmission of COVID-19” and “the key to reducing transmission of the virus.”
But this year, as mask-wearing in schools has become a hot-button political issue, the governor has changed his tune dramatically. He has described guidance from the Centers for Disease Control calling for everyone to wear masks amid the surge of the delta variant, particularly in under-vaccinated states like Mississippi, “foolish and harmful” and “not rational science.”
And despite calls for masks in schools from the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Mississippi State Medical Association, and the Mississippi Association of Educators, Reeves has passed the buck this year, leaving the decision up to school districts.
Mississippi hospitals, in one of the least vaccinated states in the nation, are being pushed to the brink dealing with patients who have COVID-19. Emergency rooms and intensive care units are full across the state as the delta variant targets people of all ages, and especially those who are unvaccinated. Many hospital administrators face staff shortages due to fatigue, frustration and fear.
Perhaps most concerning as schools go back into session is that as of Aug. 6, there were 20 children hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health — a trend not seen during earlier spikes of the virus. Three of the 15 at Children’s of Mississippi in Jackson were in the intensive care unit.
Reeves, the only official with the power to enact a statewide mask mandate, has repeatedly stated he will not be issuing another one for schools this year. So as children across the state return to the classroom this month, school districts are developing their own policies as cases skyrocket higher than this time last year.
Pascagoula-Gautier School District Superintendent Wayne Rodolfich said his district became the first on the Gulf Coast to require all students and staff to wear masks in schools when the new year began on Aug. 5.
Rodolfich said while there might have been a lot of noise from community members and parents against a mask requirement, he did not let that affect his decision making.
“With my school board and leadership team and school level administrators, I look at what the safest option for all people will be and base it off that,” he said. He said he looked at numbers from last year and the local COVID-19 infection data, in addition to consulting with medical professionals from Singing River Health System.
In the days following Pascagoula-Gautier’s decision, Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Biloxi, Hancock County and Long Beach schools all announced a mask mandate, the Sun Herald reported.
However, Harrison County and Jackson County school districts are still making masks optional as of Aug. 6.
Jackson County’s website says unless mandated by law, students and staff members won’t be required to wear masks. It also described receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as a “personal/family choice.”
No school district in Mississippi is requiring vaccines, though a member of the board for the Natchez-Adams School District said the board is considering the possibility of requiring eligible employees to be vaccinated.
Rodolfich, however, said he made a personal visit to all 19 schools in his district before the year began to meet with faculty and staff to encourage anyone who can to get a vaccine. The district will also be holding vaccination drives over the next month.
In the metro area, Jackson Public Schools has said it will require masks in schools since developing its back-to-school plan at the beginning of the summer, and Clinton Public School District recently reversed course and said it will be changing its mask guidance from recommended to required.
The district cited the CDC, state health department and the American Academy of Pediatricians in its decision. It will reassess the requirement by Sept. 10 to determine next steps, a press release stated.
“There is no doubt that our students learn best when inside our classrooms,” said Clinton Superintendent Andy Schoggin, noting that quarantine was a huge challenge last year.
The most recent guidance, however, states that as long as everyone is masked, potentially exposed children or teachers do not have to quarantine and will be able to stay in the classroom.
“Eliminating the need for quarantines in the classroom setting provides a great opportunity to continue to provide the academic and social opportunities our students need and deserve,” Schoggin said.
Rankin and Madison County schools are both still making masks optional, according to their return-to-learning plans.
Three parents in the Rankin County School District told Mississippi Today they have never received any communication from the district encouraging their students or teachers to get vaccinated. Multiple requests for comment from the Rankin County School District spokesperson and superintendent were not returned by Monday.
Madison County School District Superintendent Charlotte Seals wrote in a letter to families that she encouraged parents and children to take advantage of the vaccine if eligible.
In the northern part of the state, Oxford School District Superintendent Bradley Roberson said masks will be required in schools until Aug. 20.
“Unfortunately, in recent days we have learned from some of our district friends from around the state who have already started school that a normal return may not provide us with the best opportunity to keep kids in school,” he said in a video on the district’s website. “Our friends in Lamar County have been forced to transition Oak Grove High School as well as Purvis High School to virtual learning due to school outbreaks after less than 10 days of instruction. Bands from across the state have already been shut down due to outbreaks from band camps.”
Last year, Reeves cited keeping kids in school as the chief reason to implement the mask mandate.
“Here’s the bottom line: We have to balance the very real risk of the virus and the lifelong damage of school closures. To do that, we have to safely provide education for the greatest possible number of children,” Reeves said on Aug. 4, 2020.
Already this month, several public schools have gone back to the classroom and had to quickly halt in-person learning because of COVID outbreaks. The governor reiterated last week that masks are a choice that should be left up to the districts themselves.
"I believe that local school boards, the parents ought to be heard," Reeves told Tupelo-based WTVA last week. "They (school boards) ought to open the floor and give the parents a chance to talk to their school board members because they are the elected officials."
The lack of leadership from Reeves is leaving local politicians in a quandary and increasing the chances that COVID-19 will continue to overload the state’s hospital system.
Take what happened last week in Harrison County — one of Reeves’ political strongholds — where the county school board, overseeing the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s largest school district, was in an impossible situation.
Many Harrison County parents seemed to want the school board to issue a district-wide mask mandate, and others seemed vehemently opposed. Uncertain about what to do, the Harrison County school board opened the floor of their meeting to parents on Aug. 4 — just as Reeves suggested they do.
Tempers flared. Emotions ran high. Conspiracy theories and misinformation were shared in a public forum. By the end of the meeting, the board voted 3-2 to not enact a mask mandate, leaving some attendees cheering and others weeping.
This time last year, Reeves' statewide order gave political cover to local school leaders — and, according to health care professionals, lessened the transmission of the coronavirus.
But with no statewide mandate this year, scenes like in Harrison County are playing out across the state, increasing the likelihood of quicker COVID-19 spread and terrifying many teachers, physicians and parents.
"You literally have our children’s lives in the palm of your hand," Harrison County parent Kristin Stachura Allen said at last week's board meeting. "The variant is affecting our children, and you are failing to protect every single one of them if you don’t put a mandate in place."
Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau contributed to this report.
Billions of federal dollars are flowing to state and local governments and agencies through the American Rescue Plan Act, providing unprecedented opportunity for a poor state such as Mississippi to enact projects and programs that would otherwise be impossible.
But (properly) spending and riding herd over billions of federal dollars is a monumental undertaking — something Mississippi learned the hard way after Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil disaster and from various scandals such as the welfare fraud case.
It raises the question: Is Mississippi up to the task?
“That’s the question I’m asking every night as I go to bed,” state Auditor Shad White said. “… Do they have the bandwidth to spend the money properly? I think the answer is: the jury is still out.”
It also raises questions of whether the state’s top leadership can get on the same page —something they have struggled to do even though they’re all Republicans — and work together on what many are calling a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Mississippi will receive over $6 billion from the $1.9 trillion ARPA. The money has to be obligated by 2024 and spent by 2026. About $1.8 billion will be controlled by the state Legislature. Another $932 million will go to county and city governments. Around $166 million is earmarked for capital projects, primarily for broadband expansion.
Millions more will go directly to K-21 schools, colleges and universities, mental health and human services and other agencies, and billions of dollars is going or has gone directly to Mississippians through stimulus payments, child tax credits, enhanced unemployment benefits and other areas.
To date, there has been little planning or coordination among state leaders, or solicitation of input from communities, about how to spend the money, and no one appears to be on the same page about even the fundamentals of the task.
“What are we waiting on?” said House Democratic Leader Robert Johnson III. “We have needs. Why are we sitting on our hands? This will take time to do it right. We at least need a special session for planning, or we at least need to be having some meetings … Why not crank the (legislative) committees up to be working on this? … I talk to the leadership, and they’re like, ‘Well, it’s not going anywhere. We’ll get to it when we’re back here in January.’”
Mississippi appears to be behind many other states that have already begun spending the money or earnestly developing plans. Gov. Tate Reeves, who would have to sign off on much of the spending, has not presented any proposal. Legislative leaders have not held any joint hearings or major committee meetings on ARPA. Much of lawmakers’ focus this summer has been on medical marijuana.
Only Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has appeared to focus on ARPA, traveling the state meeting with local leaders to discuss how the money could be spent on projects “that have an impact not for one or two years, but one or two generations.” But no one else in upper state leadership appears sold on Hosemann’s proposal to allocate much of the state-controlled money to cities and counties to augment the direct funds they are receiving from the act.
With an earlier round of federal pandemic money, legislative leaders and Gov. Reeves spent much time, despite a tight spending deadline, fighting over who controlled the bulk of the money — the governor, through his emergency powers, or the Legislature, which constitutionally holds the purse strings. The Legislature mostly won out. Other states saw similar battles, and in most it appears legislatures will control the spending.
The verdict is still out on the state’s spending and management of the $1.2 billion it got from Congress’ first round of state pandemic relief, but much of the money lawmakers earmarked for small businesses went unspent as business owners complained of excessive red tape for the funds, and a rental assistance plan has been something of a disaster. Other states saw similar problems, with much of the blame being put on Congress’ short deadline to spend the money.
While the Legislature is used to spending the state’s money, it is not equipped to manage that spending, and is constitutionally prohibited from many of those functions. A coordinated effort with the executive branch and myriad state agencies will be required.
The lack of communication, and at times disfunction between the state’s top leaders, has some worried about how planning and implementation of ARPA will go in Mississippi. While legislative leaders appear in no hurry to get moving on such plans because of the relatively lenient deadline of 2024, the state is burning daylight on what will be a huge undertaking with many moving parts.
With every state in the Union and region potentially ramping up similar projects, there could be shortages of engineers, planners and contractors, potentially causing delays.
Also, for the Legislature’s regular 90-day session starting in January, there are numerous major issues and chores stacked up — including decennial redistricting, a proposed elimination of income taxes and restoring the ballot initiative process.
“I’m glad to see the lieutenant governor is out there doing that, but that’s part of the problem — the lieutenant governor says, ‘I’m out here doing this, I’m going to do that.’” Johnson said. “… I thought one of the advantages of having this unilateral leadership, one party controlling both houses and the executive branch, was they would all be on the same page and talking. They don’t talk. That’s frustrating … disheartening.”
Johnson said he likes Hosemann’s idea of the state supplementing local governments’ direct payments for larger projects, but he also wants to see money directed to essential workers — law enforcement, first responders, nurses, even grocery workers. Other states are providing such direct payments to workers with ARPA, but there has been little talk of that from Mississippi leaders. And if there’s a need for such payments to workers, it would be clear and present, during a fourth wave of the pandemic, not down the road after lawmakers haggle it out.
The U.S. Treasury is still tweaking some of the rules for the money, but generally the funds can be used for:
Revenue replacement for providing government services “to the extent of the reduction in revenue due to the (pandemic) …” compared to revenue the year prior to the pandemic.
Assistance to small businesses, households, hard-hit industries and economic recovery
Premium pay for essential workers
Water, sewer and broadband infrastructure projects
Hurricane Katrina is Mississippi’s nearest point of reference to the ARPA spending. After the 2005 storm’s destruction, nearly $25 billion in federal dollars flowed to the state over the next decade.
The state got high marks for some of the spending, including an unprecedented more than $5 billion program to make uninsured or underinsured homeowners whole. But it also made headlines for fraud, waste and abuse.
Local governments, in particular, struggled to manage the money, come up with plans to use it for transformative changes, and at times to even spend it in a timely fashion. At one point, five years out from the storm, Congress noted Gulf states still had $20 billion unspent, and pulled back some of the funds. In other cases, local governments faced “clawbacks” and had to either repay the feds or beg for waivers for failure to follow myriad rules and regulations on the spending.
Auditor White is tasked with accounting for Mississippi’s pandemic relief spending, although he is prohibited from helping actually run the projects and programs. He said Mississippi’s Katrina experience is an advantage, and his office has numerous veterans of that time “who still have the playbook from back then.”
White said his office was allocated about $3 million from the first round of pandemic money, and for now that is sufficient for extra work tracking the ARPA funds. He said he may need to hire some extra data expertise he doesn’t have in house. He also said he has floated the idea of having a joint investigator between his office and the Ethics Commission, and that “maybe now is the time for that seeing all this money flow.”
“Somebody could follow all the purchasing procedures, and it still be illegal if you give a project to your sister or something like that,” White said. “That’s Ethics Commission jurisdiction, but I think we could have someone who straddles both agencies.”
White said his office is already providing training and guidance to local governments.
“You have this situation where an unprecedented amount of money will be flying around the state and there are a lot of questions about whether or not local governments can spend it properly, or spend it at all,” White said. “One question is whether they are getting the guidance they need, and if they are, are there enough legal things to spend it on. The jury is still out on both of those questions.
“We are encouraging boards of supervisors, council members and mayors, if they are confused about how to spend it, they really do need to make sure their attorneys are up to speed, or hire an attorney or consultant who understands — or to be on the phone with us all the time.”
“If you don’t get this right, the person who is going to come calling is a federal Office of the Inspector General employee, and those folks don’t take excuses,” White said. “It’s important to get this right, look at the rules first, then figure out how to spend it, not the other way around.”
White said he’s concerned some local leaders are already planning for things not allowed with ARPA.
“I hear some talk as if they’re set on a plan and will not be dissuaded,” White said. “That’s when it gets dangerous. ‘Hey, I want to use this stimulus money to build a soccer field in the county.’ When we tell them, no you can’t, I’m at least comforted they asked, but concerned that others are out there already planning for such things.”
With Katrina, most of the relief money spending was controlled by the governor, the feds, and local governments — very little by the Legislature. There is still debate whether that was best, but most agree the governor’s control streamlined things.
“(Former Gov.) Haley Barbour did a great job with Katrina,” Johnson said. “If you look back some of it might have been laden with friends or partisan politics … that his buddies made money — but we got a lot done quickly when it needed to be done … If Haley Barbour were governor now, half that $1.8 billion would already be spent.”
Neither Gov. Reeves nor Barbour responded to requests for interviews.
But Barbour recently opined, when the first round of federal money came in, that Reeves, not the Legislature, should be in charge of the spending, saying, “In an emergency, someone has to be in charge, and in our system of government, that is the governor.”
White said it’s not his place to comment on or promote specific policies with ARPA spending. But he does agree the state’s leaders need to be on the same page and that it will require coordination from all branches of government and from top to bottom. He said small cities and counties, in particular, need all the help and guidance they can get.
“Our local governments vary wildly in their back-office capacity to spend this amount of money,” White said. “But the rules don’t change.”
Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes III, who leads the state’s second-largest city, is a former longtime state senator who served during Katrina and helped lead Coast recovery. Asked if state and local governments are up to the task of managing ARPA, Hewes said: “That’s above my pay grade. That’s like asking do you have a plan for COVID.”
He said local governments are still trying to get their bearings, figure out what’s allowed or not allowed with ARPA money, and lobbying for changes, such as allowing road and bridge work, not just water and sewerage. Hewes, whose city will receive $19.4 million directly, said there appears to be time to get things right, but the clock is ticking.
“The projects we would want spend it on take time to plan, do the engineering, planning, bidding, design process,” Hewes said. “There are so many moving parts … sometimes these things take years. There are probably very few cities that have anything that would qualify as shovel-ready.
“And as we learned in Katrina, you have to keep in the back of your mind that unprecedented money coming in will probably mean unprecedented audits later on,” Hewes said.
Hewes said he like the idea of the state providing supplements or matching funds for local projects.
“That opens the door to consideration of really impactful projects, such as wastewater treatment plants, that can run into the tens of millions of dollars, and most cities don’t have that much money available to them,” Hewes said. “That’s actually a good consideration. Otherwise, we don’t want to look up years later and say, what did we spend that money on? Why didn’t it have more lasting impact?”
House Speaker Philip Gunn said his team has been working on ARPA plans, and “the good news here is we do have until 2024 to make those decisions.”
“We have a little more breathing room, a little more time to think through it,” Gunn said. “We are still in the process of determining what they can and cannot be used for. We have a lot of lawyers, a lot of people trying to figure that out … We are still in the process of trying to figure out what to do with these dollars.”
Gunn said there is not consensus on the Legislature providing the bulk of state-controlled funds to local governments.
“Again, more than $800 million is going to the cities already,” Gunn said. “Obviously there are needs there, water and sewer needs all around. There will have to be an ongoing analysis of how those cities have used their money, what needs remain after that and what needs to counties have … My understanding is you can’t do roads and bridges, so that presents a new challenge … We do have the luxury of time. We’ve got at least two more (legislative sessions), maybe three. I think we just need to be very methodical about how we do this.”
Hosemann said that he’s been “driving pretty much all over the state, from Corinth to Pass Christian, meeting with supervisors and cities.”
“We’ve been asking them to put the money into an account, and go about planning things not for one or two years, but one or two generations,” Hosemann said. “This will really dictate how their communities grow, which direction they’re going. All of those decisions need to be made at the city and county level.”
Hosemann said he foresees local governments working with their legislative delegations, and coming to the Legislature with specific projects and plans.
“It may end up being all the way to a match, up to $900 million of the (state) money, if they come with viable, reasonable projects,” Hosemann said.
After Katrina and the BP oil disaster, the state stood up numerous task forces, committees and agency partnerships to plan and oversee much of the federal spending. Hosemann and Gunn said that’s a possibility with ARPA.
“We have been talking with our leadership team, working through how we would go through our normal process, and I anticipate we will go through and see if special processes or groups are needed,” Hosemann said.
Gunn said: “At this point, we are just communicating among legislators, talking with the Senate, to decide how these dollars are best spent and we will analyze that as we move along. Again, we have a little more breathing room here than with Katrina or BP or other dollars.”
But both agree that managing the ARPA funds is a monumental task.
“A lot of people don’t understand the perspective of this amount of money,” Gunn said. “Six billion dollars total is significant when you consider that’s roughly our total state budget each year.”
Hosemann said: “I’ve got seven (staff) here, and the senators are allegedly supposed to be part time. We’re trying to go through hundreds of pages of regulations with seven people. The best way to do this is involve other state agencies … make sure there is a massive coordination.
“We have to realize the scope and enormity of this, and that it will likely never happen again.”
