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Laurel native Bobby Collins became head football coach at Southern Miss the same year I was promoted to sports editor of the Hattiesburg American. We were rookies together. That was 1975, seemingly a lifetime ago.

Collins, who died at the age of 88 Monday in Hattiesburg, remains, to this day, the best football coach I ever covered on a day-to-day basis. He could, in the words of Florida A&M coach and football philosopher Jake Gaither, “take his’n and beat your’n or take your’n and beat his’n.”

And yet Collins is best remembered nationally for being the head coach at then-powerhouse SMU when the Mustangs received the NCAA death penalty because of a pay-for-play scheme that preceded Collins’ arrival. That is a shame, and we will get to that.

At Southern Miss, his teams beat his alma mater, Mississippi State, five of seven. He beat Ole Miss three of the last four times he faced the Rebels (he was 3-3 against the Rebs overall). He tied the legendary Bear Bryant at Alabama. He annihilated Bobby Bowden at Florida State. He played nearly all those games on the road. 

In fact in 1975, Southern Miss played all its games on the road because its home stadium was being doubled in size. Collins’ Golden Eagles finished 7-4, trouncing No. 20 BYU in the last game of the season at Jackson.

Remember that splendid 1980 Mississippi State team, loaded with future NFL stars, that stunned Bryant and No. 1 Alabama 6-3? Southern Miss beat those same Bulldogs 42-7 on State’s homecoming. There was at least one happy State alum there that day: Collins, a former State quarterback, punter and assistant coach.

“We had a bunch of no-names, but Coach Collins made us feel like we were as good as anybody who ever stepped on the field,” said Sammy Winder, a walk-on running back who went on to start in three Super Bowls. “We didn’t have any brand-name guys, but we bought into what he was saying and what he was teaching and we won a bunch of games against brand name teams.”

Collins’ Southern Miss teams were not fancy. They ran the ball more than they threw it. They played ferocious defense. They were efficient. They blocked, they tackled. They hit hard. Really hard. They were fundamentally as sound as any teams you will ever see.

They had talent; they just found it where the powerhouse teams weren’t looking. While State and Ole Miss (and Alabama and Notre Dame and everybody else) were recruiting a high school All American quarterback named Eddie Hornback out of Ocean Springs, Southern Miss spent all its time just down the road recruiting a tall, skinny kid in D’Iberville named Reggie Collier, who had played only one full season of high school football.

Notre Dame got Hornback. Southern Miss beat Tulane for Collier, who was Lamar Jackson before Lamar Jackson, one of the most breath-taking talents in Mississippi football history. Collins and his staff beat Nicholls State on wide receiver Louis Lipps of Reserve, La., who would become the AFC Rookie of the Year for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Southern Miss found cornerback Hanford Dixon in Theodore, Ala., tight end Marvin Harvey in Marianna, Fla., and linebacker Cliff Lewis in Brewton, Ala. All were lightly recruited. All became pros, Dixon a three-time Pro Bowler.

“Bobby Collins understood people,” Reggie Collier said. “Some coaches have one style of coaching and they expect everybody to fall in line with that. Coach knew how to adjust to different people. He knew how to motivate, how to lift you up when you were down, how to make you feel better about yourself.

“I was an introvert coming in to Southern from a small school,” Collier continued. “I was shy, unsure of myself. Being an African American, playing the position I was playing, I needed somebody who understood where I was and what I was facing. Coach knew what to say and when to say it. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. He took Southern Miss to another level and I am still proud to have been a part of that.”

Collins had been a career assistant before Roland Dale hired him at Southern Miss. He had worked on both sides of the football — offense and defense — at Mississippi State, at Colorado State, and at George Washington. He had been the offensive coordinator at Virginia Tech and the defensive coordinator at North Carolina. He was ready.

Jeff Bower, another Hall of Fame football coach, was the quarterback on Collins’ first Southern Miss team, the one that didn’t play a true home game. “Bobby changed the culture at Southern Miss,” Bower said. ”He did what nobody thought was possible. He did it by out-working everybody and getting his guys to out-work everybody. He made us believe in ourselves. He hired good people and let them coach. He was demanding but he made you want to work.”

Bower gets steamed — and then some — when someone suggests that Collins won football games by buying players. Southern Miss went on probation after Collins left for SMU, but as we have previously discussed, he didn’t have to cheat to get his best talent in Hattiesburg. At SMU, he inherited a football program where the play-for-play system reached all the way to the Texas governor’s office. It’s true. You can look it up.

Said Bower, “Anybody who believes Bobby Collins won because of cheating doesn’t understand the culture in college football back then. Bobby won because he and his staff out-worked and out-coached people.”

You should also know Collins always handled himself as a gentleman in every dealing I ever had with him — and there were some tough times in a 2-9 season of 1976. That USM team lost its first nine games, kept playing hard, kept believing, and finally won its last two. The next year, Southern Miss beat Ole Miss, State and Auburn. And they only got better thereafter. That’s the way I’ll remember Bobby Collins.

Visitation for Thurman L. (Bobby) Collins will be Wednesday at 9 a.m., and funeral services will be at 11 a.m. at Hulett-Winstead Funeral Home in Hattiesburg. Interment will be at 1 p.m. at Hickory Grove Cemetery, Laurel.

The post Bobby Collins, who won big at Southern Miss, dies at 88 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

About one-third of Mississippi kindergarteners demonstrated they were kindergarten ready on a state literacy test this fall, a declining statistic State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said is “further proof” of the pandemic’s negative impact on students.

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment tests students exiting public pre-K programs and those entering public kindergarten. It measures early literacy skills and is used as an instructional baseline for teachers. It is also used to measure how well pre-kindergarten programs, both the state’s early learning collaboratives and other publicly funded pre-K, prepare four-year-olds for kindergarten.

Among the 33,265 kindergarteners tested, 31.8% scored a 530 or higher on the test. The percentage dropped from 36.6% in fall of 2019. Over half, or 54.74%, score in the bottom range, or “early emergent” reader category. That category encompasses students who are beginning to understand printed text has meaning and beginning to identify shapes, colors, letters and numbers, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.

The goal score of 530 indicates a student can identify most letters of the alphabet and their corresponding sounds. Students who attain this score can also begin to “read” picture books and are building their vocabulary, listening skills and understanding of print, according to the Mississippi Department of Education. The average statewide score for kindergarteners was 487.

Research also shows 85% of students who score a 530 or higher at the beginning of kindergarten are proficient in reading at the end of third grade.

Four-year-olds in the state’s early learning collaboratives also took the test, and 13.05% of those students met the end-of-year benchmark score of 498. In other pre-K programs, 10.10% of four-year-olds in other pre-K programs met the benchmark score.

Tenette Smith, director of elementary education and reading at the Mississippi Department of Education, said the results show the state is right to focus its efforts on pre-K students.

“This says to me we’re targeting the right students because the large majority of our kids are in need of additional supports and strategies,” Smith said when presenting the test results to the State Board of Education Friday.

Rachel Canter, executive director of Mississippi First, said pre-K was particularly impacted by the pandemic because virtual learning is more difficult in early education. The state’s early learning collaboratives that partnered with Head Start, the federally funded pre-K program, were entirely virtual during the 2020-21 school year, according to Canter and Smith.

“Other providers held in person classes but did so with a host of new COVID policies, like masking, a shortened school day, increased use of technology and an elimination of field trips,” said Canter, whose organization advocates for early education and is preparing to release a report on the pandemic’s impact on the state’s early learning collaboratives. “Parental engagement, a key piece of early childhood, was also more difficult as in-person parent-teacher conferences and events were suspended.”

Smith emphasized several next steps for the department and educators to combat the pandemic’s detrimental impact: leverage federal COVID-19 relief funds to expand pre-K services and supplemental services such as high dosage tutoring; implement pre-K to kindergarten transition plans; develop partnerships for Head Start; and train all teachers in the science of reading and ensure implementation of that in pre-K through 3rd grade, among other suggestions.

The Mississippi Department of Education has recently kicked off a series of eight regional literacy meetings for families of students in kindergarten through third grade. The goal is to help students by giving parents and other family members strategies to use at home to improve literacy.

READ MORE: How Mississippi schools teach kindergarteners to read

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment is a component of the Literacy Based Promotion Act passed in the 2013 legislative session. The law places an emphasis on grade-level reading skills, particularly in kindergarten through third grade, and also includes a third grade reading assessment students are required to pass to continue to fourth grade.

Wright, the state superintendent, remained positive.

“Mississippi’s kindergarten teachers are outstanding. Yearly, their hard work leads to significant gains for the state’s youngest students, and I anticipate seeing those gains when students are retested in spring 2022,” she said in a press release announcing the results.

The post Kindergarteners see pandemic-related learning decline appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan planned to visit Jackson on Monday to hear from residents, officials and students about the state capital’s longstanding water system malfunctions.

But during his visit, Regan unexpectedly got to witness the unreliability of the city’s water system for himself.

Prior to officials issuing a citywide boil water notice Monday night — resulting from what they believe was a “bad batch of chemicals” to clean the water — the EPA chief stopped by Wilkins Elementary School, which is south of I-20 and farther than most of the city from the main water treatment plant, O.B. Curtis.

Apart from a few students who stayed to talk to Regan, the building had emptied out that morning; after a 9-week water outage at the school earlier this year, students were again forced to relocate Monday morning because of low water pressure. And worse, some parts of the city on Monday were completely without water.

To address recurring failures at the city’s water utility, which shut down for over a month after a winter storm froze exposed equipment at the treatment plant, Jackson leadership has put the price tag at $1 billion. The funding shortfall exists for several reasons, such as a dwindling tax base, but a primary cause is the shrinking trend in federal support over the past forty years.

Regan’s visit, the first stop on a southern U.S. tour focused on environmental justice, gave the agency a chance to promote the recently signed federal infrastructure bill, which will send $459 million Mississippi’s way for fund water improvements.

That total amount given to Mississippi, which will be spread across Mississippi, is less than half of what Jackson alone needs.

READ MORE: Federal infrastructure bill won’t address Jackson water crisis without help of state leaders

During a media Q&A, Regan at first touted that the money from the bill, in addition to funds from the proposed Build Back Better plan, would give “adequate resources” to invest in reliable drinking water; yet he later said that these funds would just be a start to fixing the problem, and touched on another strategy for raising money.

“With all of those resources, in concert with stronger relationships with our state and local officials, we will be better able to leverage those resources to tackle the shortfalls,” he said. “This is a shot in the arm, it’s a down payment, but it’s a huge opportunity for public-private partnerships.

“We’re going to have to be creative in how we spend our precious resources, but we’ll also have to be entrepreneurial in how we partner with the private sector to be sure that our communities are thriving.”

Fifteen percent of Americans receive water from a private utility, and, as policy experts told Mississippi Today, they have shown mixed results; while private utilities can provide more resources and are less likely to violate federal health codes, they can also come at a higher cost to customers, which is part of why past Jackson leaders have opposed the idea.

In addition to seeing Wilkins Elementary, Regan held a roundtable talk with community representatives, visited the O.B. Curtis water plant, and toured different areas including West Jackson. The west and south parts of the city, which have a higher percent of Black residents and lower median incomes, are the farthest from the treatment plant, meaning it takes longer to restore water pressure for those homes.

Regan, the first Black man to lead the EPA, said that his agency will incorporate environmental justice into all of its policy decisions, hoping to take aim at the disproportionate impacts pollution has on marginalized communities.

“It’s a fact that communities of color have disproportionately borne the impact (of pollution),” he said. “EPA’s job is to provide protection under regulation and law for all Americans. Environmental justice is a guarantee that we will look at the past deficiencies there.”

As part of a new initiative, the White House committed to direct 40% of climate and clean energy benefits towards disadvantaged areas.

READ MORE: Why Jackson’s water system is broken

The post The EPA chief visited Jackson to talk water solutions. Then the water went out. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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A special Senate subcommittee on Monday began studying how best to spend $1.8 billion in federal pandemic stimulus funds Mississippi is receiving as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.

“Never before in the history of Mississippi have we had an opportunity like this is going to provide,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, told the committee. City and county governments are receiving about $900 million in ARPA money, and Hosemann has proposed using much of the state’s share to match the local spending and fund larger projects.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Mississippi Today coverage of state’s federal stimulus spending

A representative of the National Conference of State Legislatures on Monday told the new committee that at least six states have created ARPA matching funds for local governments for water, sewerage and other projects.

In a daylong hearing, the committee heard from officials from Louisiana and Tennessee — neighboring states that have already spent or earmarked much of the billions they received — and from state budget and audit officials on what the rules are for the spending the money.

“We spent about half of our $3 billion this year, and will spend half next year,” said Louisiana state Sen. Mack “Bodi” White. “We wanted to see how things go (before spending the rest).”

Louisiana has earmarked about $300 million for water and sewer infrastructure projects statewide, and has created a commission to work out details of the projects. It’s also spending millions on tourism, ports and health care, including extra pay to recruit and retain nurses. Although ARPA money can’t go directly to road and bridge projects, it can be used to replace lost revenue, and White said Louisiana is using $600 million to replace pandemic losses in its roadbuilding fund.

READ MORE: Should safe drinking water be a priority for Mississippi’s federal stimulus spending?

Tony Niknejad, policy director for Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, joined the Mississippi subcommittee via videoconference on Monday. He said Lee, working with lawmakers, created a Financial Stimulus Accountability Group to help guide spending Tennessee’s $3.9 billion in ARPA money coming to the state and $2.28 billion to local governments.

Tennessee has earmarked more than $1.3 billion for water and sewer infrastructure projects, including $1 billion to match projects local governments are funding with ARPA. Tennessee is also spending about $500 million on broadband expansion and millions to help tourism and agriculture.

Mississippi State Auditor Shad White told the new Senate committee his office will provide any help it can in keeping state and local governments within the rules on spending.

“I’ve been telling (local officials) at the end of the day, we’re not the bad guys you need to worry about,” White said. “The bad guys will be from the (federal) Office of Inspector General.”

Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, is chairing the Senate Appropriations ARPA Subcommittee. He said he plans to have multiple meetings before the end of the year, and present its findings and recommendations to the Senate before the state’s legislative session begins in January.

The post Special Senate committee begins work on federal stimulus spending appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After Gov. Tate Reeves spent portions of a Monday news conference criticizing federal policies that he said are holding back the state, he still announced his proposal to spend $1.2 billion in federal funds in the budget plan he hopes the Legislature will consider during the upcoming 2022 session.

Ahead of the 2022 legislative session, Reeves announced on Monday his proposal on how to spend state funds and his partial recommendation on spending $1.8 billion in federal funds the state is receiving to deal with COVID-19 and its aftermath.

The governor said he would announce additional plans later how to spend the rest of the federal funds, which must be appropriated by the end of 2024.

READ MORE: Our full “Follow the Money” coverage of Mississippi’s federal spending.

As far as the spending of state funds, the governor said because of the strong growth in state revenue he has retooled his plan to eliminate the state income tax to say it could be done in five years opposed to the longer time period he had recommended in the past.

In addition, Reeves included in his budget the commitment he made this summer at the Neshoba County Fair to provide a $1,300 pay raise for teachers during the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1, followed by two years of $1,000 pay bumps.

“We seek to eliminate tax burdens and make a bold move: to attract high-paying jobs to the state of Mississippi,” Reeves said of his plan.

Reeves proposes spending $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion in federal American Rescue Plan funds the state is receiving to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic on a litany of items, ranging from:

• $130 million administered by the newly created Office of Workforce Development, commonly known as Accelerate Mississippi, to provide grants to community colleges and senior colleges for training “for the higher-income jobs and careers of the future.”
• $200 million for the further expansion of high-speed internet. This would be in addition to recent broadband expansion efforts the state has made thanks, in part, to past federal COVID-19 relief legislation.
• $300 million to improve 911 access in Mississippi, calling the state’s current system “an embarrassment.”
• $200 million to restore some of the losses the health insurance plan for state workers and teachers absorbed because of COVID-19.
• $5 million presumably for bonuses to recruit to Mississippi law enforcement personnel who Reeves said has been “mistreated” in “blue” or Democratic jurisdictions.
• $200 million to further replenish the state’s unemployment trust fund. During 2020 when the state shutdown during the start of the pandemic, a record number of Mississippi workers were able to draw unemployment compensation, reducing the size of the trust fund. Under federal law, Reeves has said a tax will be imposed on Mississippi businesses to replenish the fund if other sources of revenue are not used for that effort.
• $50 million for downtown Jackson revitalizing efforts.
• $100 million for water and sewer grant projects in local municipalities. This would presumably be used to match local efforts to improve water and sewer with the separate American Rescue Plan funds they received.

When it was pointed out to the governor that officials for the city of Jackson have said repairs for their antiquated water and sewer system could cost as much as $2 billion, Reeves did not seem to rule out the possibility of using some of the additional American Rescue Plan funds for such an effort in Jackson and other cities. But he said the city of Jackson and the county of Hinds, which is where the capital city is located, have about $85 million in American Rescue Plan funds that also could be used for water and sewer issues.

The governor did not mention or commit any American Rescue Plan funds for salary supplements to help retain and recruit health care providers, particularly nurses, who have been retiring and leaving the state for better paying jobs in the midst of combatting the coronavirus. Both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, and House Speaker Philip Gunn have endorsed such a proposal.

Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, who is the House minority leader, has said some of the American Rescue Plan funds should be used to provide salary supplements for “essential” workers, both those in the public and private sector, including for such jobs as grocery store employees.

“These are people on the front lines whose jobs are becoming increasingly more high pressure involved,” Johnson said.

Reeves called the economic growth and strong revenue collections as the best in state history. He said that growth came despite “to a certain extent some of the policies in Washington.” He later reluctantly acknowledged some of the massive federal spending might have helped spur the state economy as numerous economists have said.

Reeves’ traditional budget plan, excluding the American Rescue Plan, is $6.49 billion or 1.7% less than what the Legislature spent in the 2021 session for education, law enforcement, health care and other areas.

Part of that reduction would be to start the process of eliminating the personal income tax.

“Eliminating the individual income tax will further help us fuel Mississippi’s economic engine for the next 100 years,” Reeves wrote in his budget narrative.

The income tax accounts for about one-third of state general fund revenue.

The governor proposes using a large portion of the revenue growth the state has experienced to speed up the elimination of the state income tax. An analysis by Mississippi Today indicates state revenue growth that could be available during the 2022 session could be as much as $2 billion.

Reeves did not miss the chance to incorporate many of his conservative principles and Republican talking points into his budget. He proposes withholding state funding to school districts that teach critical race theory, which is an effort to explain the impact of racism on the country. He could not cite an example of any school in Mississippi teaching critical race theory.

He also proposed $3 million for the teaching of positive or patriotic American history.

And the governor endorsed a plan that died during the 2020 session to require removing from election voter rolls people who do not respond to a mail-out or have not voted once in the past four years.

The governor did propose more spending in some other areas, such as for math and computer science and for the Department of Corrections.

RULES: How can Mississippi, local governments spend billions in COVID-19 stimulus?

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As elected officials at every level of Mississippi government decide how to spend more than $10 billion (and counting) in federal funds, Mississippi Today has launched “Follow the Money,” a newsroom-wide project that will closely track that spending and hold leaders accountable.

This historic influx of cash, most of it from coronavirus stimulus packages and the new infrastructure package, will provide Mississippi leaders a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address generational problems like:

• The absence of employment opportunities across much of our state, which leaves so many Mississippians stuck in a cycle of poverty and lacking the resources to get out.

• Public schools that have been starved for resources and dependent upon an inequitable funding formula that’s gone underfunded by billions of dollars since its inception.

• No access to high-speed internet, keeping many Mississippians disconnected from the rest of the world and even the next town over.

• Crumbling roads and water systems that pose critical health and safety risks to every single Mississippian.

• A health care system that was never been built to care for every Mississippian regardless of their locality, race, or socioeconomic background.

The whole idea of this project is to ensure elected officials are publicly held accountable. Too often in Mississippi, a lack of transparency in government spending allows contractors, lobbyists and interest groups to reap the benefits of large pots of money intended to make our state better. Meanwhile, the Mississippians who need help most miss out. And all too often, the public isn’t even aware that it’s happening.

We cannot let that happen now. In the poorest state in the nation, where so many of our neighbors are struggling, the need is just too great and the moment too important. We’re devoting a newsroom of focus and energy to asking the tough questions of the decision-makers and tracking every dollar.

We hope our project page will serve as a hub for Mississippians, a place where basic information about the money is easily accessible and easy to understand. The page is a living, breathing thing, and we will add more resources, databases and coverage to it.

While our team of state government reporters is uniquely positioned to cover the state-level spending, so much of this money will be spent at the local level. That’s where you, the readers, come in.

City councils, boards of aldermen, boards of supervisors and school boards will have plenty of discretionary spending authority, and we need you to be our eyes and ears in those hundreds of halls. If you have questions, concerns or tips about how the federal money is being spent in your community, please reach out to us at adam@mississippitoday.org or kayleigh@mississippitoday.org. Check back soon for an interactive form that will allow us to more quickly respond to your comments regarding the federal spending.

As you follow this coverage, please don’t hesitate to reach out and tell us what we’re missing. We want you to help us provide this needed accountability.

READ MORE: Our full “Follow the Money” coverage of Mississippi’s federal spending.

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Mississippi state, county and city governments are pondering how best to spend more than $2.7 billion in American Rescue Plan Act money.

Here’s what some state, local and national leaders and experts say about the ARPA funds.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: “We are gearing up in the Senate, and we are looking at what other states are doing … This year and the next couple of years and how we expend these funds made available to us will be, I think the longest legacy that the Legislature has. Obviously the state flag (change) was monumental, but when you’re talking about being able to replace water and sewer systems and making our image much better with tourism, and addressing health and infrastructure … This is an opportunity for us that we will probably never have again … All politics is local, and individual municipalities and counties will make their decisions — they are closest to the ground on what they need. But what we are offering them is to perhaps double their money … Right now, we are more interested in long-term, generational matters.”

Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley: “How we use this money isn’t about party or ideology. The federal government pretty much settled it by the way the law is written. You can’t buy popcorn with it. You can’t buy cotton candy. There may be many things politicians want to do with it to put a feather in their caps. But we can’t expect a community in our state to be successful if they don’t have access to safe water, sanitary sewer and broadband. It doesn’t take a Harvard scholar to figure that out. Don’t you know, when the national documentaries were made about Sugar Ditch in Tunica in the 1980s, this would have been wonderful to have this funding to fix it. Guess what — today we’ve got it, and we need to find the Sugar Ditches of 2021.”

Kathryn White, National Association of State Budget Officers: “While a number of states are further along, Mississippi is not alone in taking a slower approach. Some of this just comes down to a state’s budget process and legislative calendar. We’ve seen both — special sessions or special committees formed. Sometimes committees formed by the governor, sometimes formed by the legislature … It’s definitely a huge, heavy lift, deciding how to budget for these funds in a sustainable way, and this is not the only new source of federal funding, too. We are hearing that most states are adding additional staff to tackle this … (In a NASBO survey of state budge officers) 44% of respondents noted their state or territory has set up a separate office or unit to manage federal COVID-19 funds … 63% also indicated they have added staff to handle the increased federal funding … 49% indicated that they plan to use contractors to help ….”

Shari Veazey, director of Mississippi Municipal League: “A state matching grant program would be very helpful. Some of our cities, their water and sewer needs are so great that their ARPA funds wouldn’t cover them … Some of our cities have more needs with road repairs … We have encouraged our cities to take it slow and not in haste. Treasury is issuing rolling guidances. We are asking them to move cautiously. I think some of the larger cities that have more staff, engineers and other staff, feel confident in moving forward, but most are moving slow and waiting to see where things go with the state after conversations with the lieutenant governor … I think that needs to be part of the discussion, maybe the state’s money being used to hire the right accountants, consultants engineering studies and whatever else to help the local governments.”

Eryn Hurley, deputy director of government affairs, National Association of Counties: “We have been able to identify areas of investments counties are making (across the country) and a lot is going into the public health response … It’s going into their county health departments, maybe hiring additional staff to run county hospitals or other county-run health facilities … We’ve also seen counties investing in services or programs to respond to more of the social safety net areas — nutrition, housing and rental assistance, child care, early learning — across the board. Then we’re seeing investment in water and sewer and broadband, a lot of that from smaller counties in particular, and another big area is workforce development … We do plan to share publicly soon examples that other counties can look at and use to implement more programs … There are 3,069 counties in the United States.”

Derrick Surrette, director of Mississippi Association of Supervisors: “A lot of counties are kind of hesitant to move until there is a final rule (from Treasury) … We are in constant contact with the state auditor’s office and helping our counties. Some counties are interviewing and even hiring accountants and CPAs … Calculating lost revenue is a process they’re having to go through … I think most counties are looking at the lost revenue factor and saying that’s our opportunity to spend it on roads and bridges … Rural water and broadband are a huge issue, however, counties are not in the rural water and broadband business. That’s not what we do. We do roads and bridges and that’s what’s needed now as much as anything else.”

Mississippi House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez: “I don’t know why we need to say matching money (from the state) for local governments. If a local government can establish and verify they have a need, then take the money that we have at the state level and give it to the local governments who have the most need. The state should just help. Some cities and counties can’t come up with enough of a match to cover their needs. They’re all part of the fabric and lifeblood of this state … I appreciate the fact that (the lieutenant governor) is at least thinking we need to help local governments.”

Josh Goodman, researcher with the Pew Charitable Trusts: “The challenge states face right now, as they did in the Great Recession, is that there’s a lot of money, but that money won’t last forever. The question is, what’s sustainable after the temporary federal aid is no longer available? With the Great Recession, just as states were making a comeback, the federal aid ran out and they had to cut budgets again in many cases. It was a lost decade for state governments … We are urging states to avoid that budget cliff — it doesn’t make sense for states to hire workers now only to have to lay them off in a few years … This is an historic opportunity for states, and they have a lot of important needs to address, but they also have to think about their long term budget position and make sure they’re not setting themselves up for challenges in a few years.”

Tippah County Supervisor Jimmy Gunn: “As we understand, we are going to have to wait until the Legislature meets and get a local and private bill passed before we could give money to a nonprofit water association … It’s a priority with us, to help anybody that’s not on community water. We have one project with 20-something homes on it, and another with 10 or 12 … I do think it would be a good idea for the state to provide some sort of match to the locals — I have spoken with the lieutenant governor about that … We are just waiting for the Legislature to convene. We had thought there might be a special session that could address this. We’re just waiting to see.”

Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill: “We are spending this money wisely in a way that will impact the most people with transformative projects. While water and sewer and broadband are allowed, a municipality that is already taking care of that doesn’t really fit that profile. Police, tourism, parks and activities in parks in Qualified Census Tracts, which six of our seven parks are in, I think meet those goals.”

State Auditor Shad White: “There’s a tightrope to walk here. On the one hand, they’ve given us flexibility, more time to spend this money than under the CARES Act, and you want to use that time to make sure the money is not misspent or stolen, and that it has a real impact. Still at the same time, this is for recovery, and we do have a lot of pressing needs, this requires a lot of planning and we don’t want to wait too long. I think we’re still within the bounds of what’s reasonable.”

The post What they’re saying: Experts, government officials on Mississippi’s federal stimulus billions appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act signed into law in March directs about $6 billion to Mississippi — an amount roughly equal to the state’s annual general fund budget.

The bulk of the money is going to individuals, including $1,400 stimulus checks and child tax credits, or directly to education, other agencies and programs. Mississippi state government is receiving $1.8 billion and city and county governments $900 million. State and local governments have through December 2024 to allocate the money and December 2026 to have it all spent.

The U.S. Department of Treasury sets the rules on the spending, an ongoing process with final rules expected by the end of the year. In May, Treasury issued its “Interim Final Rule” on the spending, including lists of eligible and prohibited expenditures.

How governments can spend the money:

• To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic or its economic impact

• To help workers providing essential services during the pandemic by providing premium pay or grants to their employers.

• For providing government services subject to a reduction in revenue due to the pandemic, relative to revenue collected in the fiscal year prior to the emergency.

• To make necessary improvements in water, sewer or broadband infrastructure.

More specifically, spending is allowed for:

• Public health: This includes programs to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, services to address behavioral health needs and payroll and benefits expenses for public health, healthcare, human services, public safety and others who work on the pandemic response

• Negative economic impact: This can include assistance for workers and families, including aid to those unemployed and job training, and survivor benefits for families of COVID-19 victims. This also can include support for small businesses including grants and loans, and help speeding the recovery of tourism, travel and hospitality sectors. Also this can include rebuilding public sector capacity and rehiring public sector staff.

• Services to communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic: If an area is a Qualified Census Tract, meeting certain low-income or poverty levels, the money can be used to fund a broad array of services, including help for homelessness, funding community health workers, housing vouchers, affordable housing development childcare, education and other support.

• Premium pay: Premium pay for essential workers can be given directly to the workers or with grants to employers, and Treasury said it should be prioritized for lower income workers. Any pay above 150% of the area’s average annual wage requires specific justification. Pay can be retroactive, and a broad range of workers are covered, including those at nursing homes, hospitals, farms, food facilities, grocery stores, restaurants, janitors, sanitation workers, educators and human service workers.

• Infrastructure: Treasury specifies water, sewer and broadband infrastructure, not general infrastructure (see details below). This includes projects that address the impact of climate change, flood resilience and green infrastructure. Investments in broadband should be made in areas unserved or underserved, with a priority on projects that achieve “last mile” connections to homes and businesses.

• Revenue replacement: State and local governments can compare actual revenue to what could have been expected without the pandemic. The governments can recalculate lost revenue in periods up to Dec. 31, 2023. The calculations begin with the last full fiscal year prior to the pandemic and can be calculated by the average annual revenue growth in three previous fiscal years prior to the pandemic, or using 4.1% — the national average growth from 2015-2018 — whichever is highest.

• Administrative costs: The money can be used to pay consultants or for payroll for staff to assist with ARPA projects, including legal work.

How the funds cannot be spent:

• To fund pension programs

• To offset, directly or indirectly, a tax cut made since March 3, 2021. But more than a dozen states — including Mississippi — are challenging this rule in court, and at least two federal district courts have ruled in favor of the states. Texas recently earmarked $3 billion of its funds for property tax relief, in hopes the rule is eventually overturned. The prohibition on tax decreases applies only to state governments. The local government section of the bill has no such limitation.

• For general infrastructure, such as highways, roads and bridges, other than water, sewerage and broadband. However, state and local governments can use the money for such projects if they can show the projects or infrastructure funds lost revenue due to the pandemic. Some state and local governments are using lost revenue calculations to restore money to general or infrastructure funds. Also, legislation pending in Congress would more broadly allow the ARPA funds to be used for general infrastructure projects. A separate $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure bill has just passed Congress.

• To pay debt service.

• To fill rainy day funds or other financial reserves.

• To further restrictions from state governments. In other words, states cannot restrict city and county spending of the funds beyond the federal regulations.

READ MORE: The latest Treasury guidelines for how state and local governments can spend COVID-19 relief funds

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