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Exactly one year ago today, Mississippi confirmed its first case of COVID-19. In that time the virus has infected 299,124 people across the state and killed 6,864. 

COVID-19 has killed more Mississippians than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic liver disease, influenza, accidents, suicide and homicide killed — combined — in 2019.

And the virus is not done with us yet. In January, Mississippi set new single-day records for new COVID-19 cases and deaths and a monthly record of 1,240 deaths. 

But as many reflect on the year filled with loss and fear, some say there is room for optimism. The number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and COVID-related hospital admissions in Mississippi have been trending sharply downward since the January spike. The caseload for the first week of March was more than 83% lower than the January peak, and nearly 75% lower for hospitalizations.

“We’re not done with the COVID pandemic. COVID is real. And we’re really winning,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a Monday press conference. 

Still, MSDH officials acknowledge that any ground Mississippi has gained in combating the virus is fragile and at the mercy of how the public behaves going forward. 

January’s peak was attributed to holiday travel and gatherings, and the upcoming Spring Break is a prime candidate for causing another such spike.

That vulnerability will also be tested in the coming weeks as we see the impact of Gov. Tate Reeves’ removal of all state-imposed mask mandates and most COVID-related restrictions on business operations. Dobbs has warned people against responding to decreasing infection numbers by abandoning the preventative measures that limit virus spread.

“If you’re up a run or two in the sixth or seventh inning, you don’t just lay down and let the other team just go at it on offense,” Dobbs said. 

Dobbs said that he’s seen most people wearing masks in public, but that is not an experience shared by many Mississippians. One of them is Carol Lang, a 33-year-old grocery store employee in DeSoto County. Though she’s had to deal with plenty of unmasked customers over the past year, that number ballooned as soon as the mask mandate was removed.

“It felt like we were opening the floodgates a little bit,” Lang said. “Believe me, I understand the COVID-fatigue, but it’s not much to ask of someone.”

Though federal guidelines classify certain retail employees like Lang as essential workers, she is still not eligible for a COVID-19 in vaccine in Mississippi. Now she’s just waiting for her turn and praying she doesn’t bring the virus home in the meantime. 

While reflecting on the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this week, Dobbs held up a keepsake, the vial that once contained the first vaccine doses given in Mississippi. On Dec. 14, he and other health officials received their shots on camera to show its safety as the state’s first shipment was distributed.

Since those first shots were given, a total of 517,156 Mississippians — just over 17% of the state population — have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. More than half of Mississippians over the age of 75 and about half of those over the age of 65 are vaccinated.

MAP: Where Mississippians can get the COVID-19 vaccine

More than 1,000,000 vaccine doses have been distributed statewide, and they’re being administered as fast as the state can get them. For the most part, MSDH’s drive-thru vaccination sites run like clockwork thanks to local health departments and the Mississippi National Guard. 

Over 132,000 shots were given last week, several thousand more than the state received in the same period. This is due in part to eligibility requirements that are broader than most states and currently include a massive chunk of the population.

Mississippi joined most other states in abandoning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines regarding which groups to include in phases of the vaccine rollout following healthcare workers and residents of long-term-care facilities. Last week, Mississippi also became the first state to open up vaccine eligibility to people ages 50 and up. 

Currently, people 16 to 49 years old are also eligible for a vaccine if they have one of 12 chronic health conditions. Mississippi is one of at least 16 states that doesn’t require proof of a qualifying health condition, meaning anyone in that age group who wants a vaccine can get one if they’re willing to lie about it.

Getting shots in arms isn’t a problem, but making that process equitable has been difficult for MSDH. 

“We are always trying to fine tune availability with eligibility,” Dobbs said. 

Barriers to vaccine access are varied in who they affect and how difficult they are to remedy. Older, more vulnerable populations might be less tech savvy than younger people typically are, unable to book an appointment for themselves online without help. MSDH reserves a percentage of its drive-thru appointments for scheduling through their phone line for this reason. 

Rural counties receive fewer doses and have fewer vaccine providers in their area, necessitating lengthy commutes for those lucky enough to secure appointments. MSDH has tried to mitigate this challenge by placing several of its 23 drive-thru locations in each of the state’s nine public health districts.

Addressing the racial inequities of the state’s immunization efforts has been especially difficult. The access problem is also combined with a trust problem for many Black Mississippians due the racism and abuse Black people have been subjugated to by U.S. governments and healthcare systems. While accounting for 38% of the state’s population, Black Mississippians were accounting for only 15% of the vaccines given in the state early in the distribution effort. That share has grown to 26%, and the gap is closing.

Dobbs credited this improvement to the work of Black community leaders in churches and healthcare settings, who continue advocating for vaccination. 

“I’m proud of Mississippi. I’m proud of what we’re doing,” Dobbs said. “Let’s keep our foot on the accelerator, pushing COVID down so that we can get back to full normal before too long.”

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Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba has made his case to legislative leaders for state funding to help solve the city’s water crisis. They now have about three weeks to decide whether to step up and how.

A historic winter storm in mid-February froze water plant equipment and burst many pipes in the capital city, and at least 40,000 residents — mostly Black — were without water for nearly three weeks. Today, city officials say “most” residents have had water service restored. City leaders, who have neglected funding the system for decades, say they need major investment from the state to repair system, which is estimated to cost at least $1 billion.

Lawmakers are in the final three weeks of the 2021 legislative session, which is scheduled to end on April 4 — though leaders are suggesting they could finish business sooner.

With the clock ticking, Lumumba met with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning. He made two main asks that mirrored a March 5 meeting with Speaker of the House Philip Gunn:

• Support a bill that would allow Jackson to raise its sales tax by 1 cent. If lawmakers and Jackson voters sign off on that proposal, the city would use that new revenue — an estimated $14 million per year — to back large bonds for water and sewer system repairs.

• Send the city $47 million in emergency funding for immediate necessary repairs on water treatment facilities following the 2021 winter storm.

Hosemann, a Jackson resident who told Mississippi Today on Monday “all options are on the table” regarding funding for the Jackson water crisis, took notes as the mayor and others in the meeting spoke, several of the meeting’s attendees told Mississippi Today. Hosemann asked several questions of Charles Williams, the city’s public works director, who gave a detailed accounting of the city’s funding needs — including both the $47 million emergency ask and long-term system replacement.

State Rep. Chris Bell, a Democrat from Jackson, explained a bill he filed Monday that seeks legislative sign-off on the 1-cent sales tax increase. Hosemann said that if the House passes Bell’s bill, the Senate would consider moving it through their chamber.

The city officials left Hosemann’s office after about 50 minutes with no promises, but Lumumba told Thao Ta at WJTV after the meeting that he was encouraged by the conversation. Sources close to Hosemann said he will meet with every state senator representing the city of Jackson on Wednesday or Thursday to discuss the crisis and funding options.

Here are the options and variables being considered at the Capitol moving forward, according to several legislative sources in both the House and Senate:

1) The 1-cent sales tax increase

Rep. Bell’s bill, which is modeled after a bill lawmakers passed for the city of Tupelo in 1988, would acquire legislative approval for Jackson to raise its sales tax on certain retail items within city limits. If lawmakers pass the bill, the city’s residents would have to approve the tax hike in a summer vote.

Lumumba believes the increase in the sales tax is critical to securing large-scale funding in the short term. But by Tuesday, House leaders were privately and publicly questioning whether they should sign off. “It creates a precedent, if you will, that may be a dangerous area to go to as far as other cities around the state wanting to do the same thing,” Gunn told Scott Simmons at WAPT on Tuesday. “And we may get in a situation where the tax burden is just too great.”

In the Tuesday meeting with the mayor, Hosemann said the Senate would consider Bell’s bill if it passes the House. One consideration is how Jackson’s Senate delegation feels about the proposal. Last week, state Sen. John Horhn, a Democrat from Jackson who is close with Hosemann and ran unsuccessfully against Lumumba in the 2017 mayor’s race, told Mississippi Today he did not support the new 1-cent sales tax increase, saying it could drive businesses and people out of Jackson.

2) $47 million in state bonds

There is appetite on both sides of the Capitol to come up with the $47 million the city has requested. In the grand scheme of the Legislature’s annual bond process, $47 million is not too heavy a lift. City leaders have thoroughly and specifically explained to legislative leaders what they would use that money for, appeasing a general concern among lawmakers — Republican and Democrat — that the city has not always spent its money productively in years past.

But Gunn’s comments to WAPT on Tuesday and recent comments from Hosemann suggest that lawmakers representing the entire state will want to request their share of funds for aging infrastructure in other parts of the state. Jackson leaders will argue, however, that no other water systems in the state are failing to the point of leaving 40,000 residents without water for three weeks.

3) Appropriating federal stimulus package funding to the city

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he personally spent hours the past week reading the $1.9 trillion stimulus package Congress passed on Wednesday. The Legislature will receive a substantial amount of federal money — early estimates suggest more than $1.5 billion — to appropriate.

But Congress just passed the package on Wednesday, and states won’t receive most of the federal funds for around 60 days. After they finish the session on April 4, state lawmakers are not scheduled to meet in Jackson again until January 2022. Because of the timing of the new stimulus package, however, many inside the building expect the Legislature will pass rules to allow them to convene in Jackson any time in 2021 to determine how to spend the stimulus funds. The bottom line: The timing of federal funding might not work well with the city’s needs for immediate funding, depending on what else lawmakers can come up between now and April 4.

READ MORE: As Jackson residents suffer during historic water crisis, state leaders keep their distance

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After bitter debate — and accusations of lawmakers lying and profiteering — the state House killed a Senate bill aimed at creating a legislative alternative to the Mississippi medical marijuana program voters overwhelmingly added to the state Constitution in November.

But the Senate on Wednesday evening tried a hail Mary on the marijuana bill. Lawmakers inserted the Senate measure’s language into a House bill dealing with research on cannabidiol, or CBD oil, for patients with seizures or other illness, known as “Harper Grace’s Law.” The amended bill — which could revive the Senate’s medical marijuana proposal — passed 29-19, with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann overruling objections that the amendment improperly altered an unrelated bill.

Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, author of the medical marijuana bill, offered the amendment as a chance to “give (the House) a second bite at the apple.”

If the House doesn’t go for the last-ditch effort, the question of whether Mississippi will have a medical marijuana program anytime soon rests with the Supreme Court, which is set to hear next month a challenge to the voter-passed Initiative 65 marijuana program.

After multiple parliamentary challenges to Senate Bill 2765 ground business to a halt in the House on Wednesday — the deadline for its passage by that chamber — Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, motioned the bill to be “laid on the table.” With the House later adjourning for the day, this killed the measure. Many lawmakers applauded when Lamar made the motion. The bill had brought hours of heated debate in the Senate, and its passage in the House, facing bipartisan opposition, was in doubt even after House amendments.

Before the bill was killed, Rep. Joel Bomgar, R-Madison, an ardent supporter and financial backer of Initiative 65, accused Lamar of running “a ruse” and said the bill was aimed at “screwing over everybody who voted for Initiative 65.” Bomgar in committee last week had successfully gutted the Senate bill with an amendment to substitute the language voters passed with Initiative 65. But he claimed this week that his amendment was improperly altered before the bill came to the floor and on Wednesday claimed Lamar planned to revert back to the Senate version all along after Lamar tried to offer a new amendment.

“The people have spoken on this,” Bomgar said. “… The Supreme Court will rule in a month. There’s no reason for this (bill) … Nobody believes this will turn into anything approaching Initiative 65.”

Lamar responded: “The gentleman just lied to everybody in this body.” He said he was trying to match the bill’s language as close as possible to Initiative 65 and keep the measure alive to have further negotiations with the Senate.

“This baby has fallen in my lap, and I’m just rocking it,” Lamar said. After multiple parliamentary challenges on the bill and amendments, Lamar made the motion that killed the measure.

Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, a vocal opponent of Initiative 65, during floor debate called for an Ethics Committee investigation into whether any House members have improper financial interests in the potential medical marijuana industry. She was told she would have to file such a request in writing, which she later did, citing legislative rules and a provision in the state Constitution that elected officials cannot personally benefit from their official actions. Ford would not say at whom her claims were aimed.

“I’d rather not say,” Ford said after the House action. “There are possibly people in here who could financially benefit, and I was to make sure we as a body are following the rules and law when we’re voting on bills and amendments.”

Bomgar declined comment or interview this week, as he has done for about a year.

READ MORE: Mississippi’s medical marijuana mess

Senate Bill 2765 was originally a legislative alternative to the medical marijuana program voters overwhelmingly approved in November with Ballot Initiative 65, which is now being challenged in the state Supreme Court. The bill passed the Senate only after much wrangling and a “do-over” vote in the wee hours of the morning in mid-February. It was initially drafted to create its own medical marijuana program, regardless of whether the court upholds the voter-passed program. But it was amended during heated Senate debate to take effect only if the courts strike down the voter-passed program.

The legislative move had many Initiative 65 supporters crying foul, claiming the Legislature was trying to usurp the will of the voters. After lawmakers failed for years to approve use of medical marijuana despite a groundswell of public support, voters took matters in hand in November with Initiative 65.

A key difference between Initiative 65 and the Senate’s proposal is that under the voter-passed initiative, the Legislature cannot tax marijuana sales, nor spend any money the program generates. The Senate proposal would levy taxes and fees on cultivators, dispensaries and patients that some lawmakers estimated could bring hundreds of millions of dollars into state coffers.

Hosemann on Wednesday evening said he doesn’t understand why many proponents of Initiative 65 are opposing the Senate efforts. He said if the high court strikes down Initiative 65, and the Senate backup is not passed, there will not be a state medical marijuana program in the short run. He vowed “100 percent” that the Senate plans to keep the “trigger” language in the bill, that the legislative marijuana program would be enacted only if the court strikes down the voter-approved one.

“Our senators believe that the people in Mississippi voted on medical marijuana and they deserve to have that … a backup plan,” Hosemann said. He called opposition saying lawmakers are trying to usurp the will of the voters or greatly alter what they passed, “subterfuge.”

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Mississippi lawmakers passed a bill that allows residents to buy medicines like Sudafed and Claritin-D that contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine without a prescription. 

If signed by Gov. Tate Reeves, the law would go into effect on January 1, 2022.

Mississippi is currently one of only two states still requiring a prescription for medicines containing pseudoephedrine. The Legislature passed a bill adding the prescription requirement in 2010.

One of the main factors in federal and state-level restrictions on the sale of both ephedrine and pseudoephedrine is their use for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Their use is less prevalent in that process now than they were when restrictions like this were introduced, as alternatives have become cheaper and more widely available. 

Ephedrine is also banned by the NCAA, MLB, NFL, and PGA as a performance enhancing drug. 

Though the bill would somewhat open up the sale of these substances in Mississippi, it still comes with substantive regulations. A person purchasing a medication containing these substances without a prescription has to be at least eighteen years old, sign a record for each purchase and provide a copy of their Mississippi ID.

Pharmacies selling products authorized under the bill also have to use the National Precursor Log Exchange (NPLEX) system, which tracks the sale of both substances in the United States, for each purchase.

The bill also prevents “pharmacy hopping” to stockpile these stimulants by limiting an individual’s purchase of medications containing them to 3.6 grams in one day and 7.2 grams per month.

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Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey talks with Jackson native and nationally known comedian Rita Brent about success, meditation, creativity, talent and what it’s like when your career is sideswiped by a pandemic. Brent discusses her journey from National Guard drummer to stand-up comedian — and beyond. A great episode for anyone who has a dream.

This is Episode 5 of Mississippi Stories.

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A few of us were tramping up and down the overgrown, sometimes prickly fairways of the former Colonial Country Club golf course in northeast Jackson near dusk recently. Renowned golf course designer Rob Collins was explaining the routing of a proposed par-4 hole when Luke Guarisco, who owns the property, pointed in another direction.

“Well, would you look at that,” Guarisco interjected. So we did. More than a hundred yards away, a herd of at least 20 deer, in no apparent hurry, pranced through dappled sunlight in another abandoned fairway right there in the middle of the city.

If Collins and Guarisco have their ways, those deer will soon have the company of golfers for the first time since Colonial shut down operations in 2014. Their vision: Brazen Head, a 12-hole public golf course in a city that badly needs quality public golf.

You read right: 12 holes, a nod to the past and possibly the future of golf. The Old Course at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, once consisted of 12 holes. Prestwick Golf Club, another historic Scottish links course, hosted the first 12 Open Championships on its original 12-hole layout. No lesser a golf authority than Jack Nicklaus has touted 12-hole rounds as the future of golf because of the time constraints of modern lifestyles.

And there’s this: 12 holes is what the available 100 acres of gently rolling land at old Colonial will best accommodate. (A 200-unit luxury apartment complex already occupies part of the old Colonial property.)

Will it happen? It is not a certainty, but Guarisco, a Baton Rouge-based investor, has hired the renowned King-Collins golf design group of Chattanooga to design and then operate the course. Guarisco, who says he is putting up “a huge hunk of my own change,” is looking for additional investors. He may not have to look far because King-Collins has an impressive track record.

This Brazen Head project seems less a long shot than was Sweetens Cove, a nine-hole course a half-hour west of Chattanooga in South Pittsburg, Tenn., one of golf architecture’s darlings of the 21st century. Sweetens, opened in 2014, has been chosen Tennessee’s top golf course and No. 50 in the U.S. by Golfweek. In 2017, the New York Times called it “The Little Course that Could.” Every available tee time (Thursday-through-Sunday) has been booked April 1 through Oct. 15 on the golf course’s website.

Pro Football Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, an avid golfer, is among the chief investors in Sweetens Cove.

Said Collins, who has a landscape architecture degree from Mississippi State, “During the entire design and construction process we thought Sweetens was really special, but, honestly, it has been successful beyond our wildest dreams.”

Now, he and partner Tad King have golf course projects in the works all over: New York, Nebraska, Georgia, Texas, and in Memphis (a re-design of the historic nine hole Overton Park municipal golf course).

Collins says he is “especially pumped” about the Jackson project because of the site itself. “Sweetens Cove was designed on a dead-flat piece of ground, no elevation change at all,” Collins says. “We had to move a whole lot of dirt to get the effect we wanted. Here, we’ve got land that reminds me of Texas hill country, a gently rolling terrain with all those great, old oak trees. The possibilities are really endless. We’d move some dirt around, but nothing like what we had to do at Sweetens Cove.”

King-Collins has designed 12 holes that would offer a nine-hole course with an additional three-hole loop.

Says Guarisco, an avid golfer himself: “A golfer will be able to play all day or just play the three-hole loop on the way home from work or even on a lunch break. When Rob suggested a 12-hole layout, I loved the idea, especially the way those guys (King-Collins) design their courses. There are only nine holes at Sweetens Cove, but you hit every club in the bag. It’s challenging, but it’s a whole lot of fun, too. And they design in a way that requires minimum maintenance, which if you are an investor, you like to hear.”

Other than golf, Guarisco is taking a no-frills approach. There will be no swimming pool, no tennis courts and no lavish clubhouse. At Sweetens, the golf course operates out of a humble building known as The Shed. 

“The emphasis is all on golf. We will have a first-class, affordable public golf course,” Guarisco said.

As for additional investors, Guarisco remains positive to the point he believes construction could begin this autumn.

Said Guarisco, “We’re very confident we will will have a successful capital raise driven by the King-Collins vision and the success of Sweetens Cove.”

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A Senate bill, opposed by many of the state’s historians, that would give the governor and lieutenant governor authority to appoint members of the Mississippi Archives and History board of trustees was overwhelmingly defeated Tuesday in the House.

Just 18 House members voted for the proposal and 104 opposed it, and it appeared likely that other members who voted for the bill would change their vote before the end of the day. It is historically unusual for a bill that has passed out of committee to suffer such a resounding defeat before the full House.

The bill, the subject of broad public scrutiny this session, would have made the nine-member board that governs the Department of Archives and History subject to appointment by the governor and lieutenant governor and to confirmation by the Senate. Currently, board members appoint their own successors, who are subject to Senate confirmation.

About 50 Mississippi historians wrote a letter in opposition to the bill, asking lawmakers to “not interfere with the independence of an entity that has done so much good work for our state.”

Historians and others noted the agency had received national accolades and has been praised for the opening and operation of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Mississippi Museum of History. Many feared that giving appointments to the governor and lieutenant governor would introduce politics into the governance of the agency that preserves and documents the state’s history and maintains various historical sites.

Early in debate of the legislation on the House floor Tuesday, it became obvious that Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Chair Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, was not confident of the bill’s passage.

He told members, “We just want to look at the agency to see if there is a need for some minor changes.”

Boyd amended the Senate bill to ensure it could not go to the governor, but instead to a conference committee of House and Senate leaders to see if the “minor changes” were needed.

But Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, said if members opposed changing the governance of the agency, they should vote against the bill now. They did.

Though efforts could be made to force another vote on the bill later this week, it would be highly unlikely for such an endeavor to succeed considering the margin by which the proposal was rejected.

Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, asked Boyd, “if you make the best biscuits in town, why would you change the recipe?” Boyd countered that his wife does make the best biscuits, but she always is trying new things with her recipe.

Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Long Beach, the author of the legislation, said the proposal would change the Archives and History Board so that its members would be selected like the governing boards of many other state agencies.

Sen. John Polk, chairman of the Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee, said having the governor and lieutenant governor make appointments would bring new thought and ideas to the board and prevent myopic thinking.

Some feared the bill was an effort to remove the focus or at least lessen the focus on aspects of Mississippi history that might place the state in a bad light, such as the state’s struggles involving slavery and racial issues.

READ MORE: House advances bill that would entangle Mississippi Archives and History board in politics

Before the 2021 session began, Gov. Tate Reeves proposed spending $3 million for a Patriotic Education Fund to combat “indoctrination in the far-left socialist teachings that emphasize America’s shortcomings over the exceptional achievements of this country.”

He added in his budget proposal “revisionist history has aimed to tear down American institutions, and it is poisoning a generation. Capitalism, democracy, and other uniquely American values have been the victims of a targeted campaign from foreign and domestic influence—aiming to destroy the pillars of our society. The United States is the greatest country in the history of the world. No other nation has done more for its citizens or to advance freedom and prosperity across the globe. We need to combat the dramatic shift in education.”

Various sources, though, said Reeves was not pushing the proposal to change the governance of Archives and History, and thus far his “Patriotic Education Fund” has not gained traction in the 2021 legislative process.

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Mississippi Department of Transportation Director Melinda McGrath, who has led the agency for a decade, announced her resignation Tuesday under political fire from lawmakers.

Lawmakers, particularly in the Senate, have been critical of MDOT for cost overruns, delays on projects and other issues and have proposed a bevy of legislation this session aimed at stripping the agency of money and authority.

McGrath, an engineer who worked for MDOT for more than 30 years, announced her resignation to the three-member elected Transportation Commission in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. She will be leaving March 31, Transportation Commission Chairman Tom King said after the executive session.

McGrath, through an MDOT spokesman, declined comment.

McGrath was up for re-confirmation by the state Senate, which would typically be pro-forma. But Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann had “double-referred” her confirmation to two committees instead of the usual one. Neither has taken up her confirmation, even as the legislative session enters its final weeks. Political observers have raised doubts whether McGrath had enough votes in either the Transportation or Accountability committees to be confirmed.

King on Tuesday praised McGrath’s work, and declined to say whether the resignation was driven by legislative politics, saying: “In all frankness, I just don’t know.” But he noted what he called “anti-transportation” measures pending at the Capitol.

“We have a lot of legislation, what I call anti-transportation, and I’m very surprised and shocked, especially that it’s coming from the Senate,” said King, a longtime former state senator — as is his fellow Commissioner Willie Simmons. “I don’t know the reason for it. It’s very disappointing. We need their help, not opposition.”

King said, “(McGrath) will be truly missed … her vast knowledge and experience and professionalism … She was one of the first females in the whole country to become an executive director of transportation. She’s done a remarkable job.”

In their criticism of MDOT, lawmakers have focused on cost overruns and long delays on finishing major projects such as U.S. 49 widening and improvements, which have dragged on for years and seen overruns well over $100 million.

Pending legislation would strip MDOT in millions a year in funding and redirect it to local governments for city and county road projects, and strip MDOT of its law enforcement branch and put it under the Department of Public Safety.

Hosemann said recently his double referral of McGrath’s confirmation was not a shot at her or effort to oust her, but that many senators have expressed concerns with MDOT and he wanted to give them ample opportunity to address issues with her. He said he questions MDOT’s structure and operations.

MDOT leaders have for years said they need hundreds of millions of dollars a year more to maintain state highways, while lawmakers have balked at finding such increased funding and questioned whether the agency was misspending money or working inefficiently. MDOT leaders’ backing of proposed increases in state gasoline taxes for road work have strained political relationships with some of the GOP legislative leadership.

“(McGrath) has worked tirelessly for over 30 years to provide a safe, efficient and effective transportation system,” the Transportation Commission said in a written statement on Tuesday. “She set a high standard for excellence in engineering, integrity and transparency, not only at MDOT but also nationally … She has also been a pioneer for women in the transportation industry … her contributions and legacy will be felt for years to come.” She served as an engineer-in training, project engineer and chief engineer among many positions in her decades with MDOT.

King said Tuesday that Jeff Altman, currently deputy executive director, will run the agency in the interim until a new director is chosen by the commission, which would be subject to Senate confirmation.

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