Many of Mississippi’s more than 25,000 state employees will get a 3% pay raise under an agreement reached between House and Senate leaders as they work to finalize a budget this week and conclude the 2021 legislative session.
Under the same agreement, faculty and staff at the eight public universities and 15 community colleges could receive at least a 1% raise.
Many of the details of the roughly $6.2 billion state support budget have not yet been worked out, and legislative leaders were still meeting late Sunday to finalize next year’s budget.
The pay raise agreements reached by legislative leaders — made possible after higher-than-expected state revenue collections last year and an influx of cash from federal stimulus packages — must be approved by both chambers of the Legislature.
Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, explained that money was set aside — about $13.9 million in general fund revenue — to begin the salary increase for state employees at the start of the new calendar year on Jan. 1 rather than the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Delaying the pay raise by half a fiscal year will reduce the cost of the pay raise for the first year of its enactment.
The leaders also reached an agreement to set aside enough funds to provide faculty and staff at the state’s eight public universities and 15 community colleges at least a 1% raise starting with the new fiscal year on July 1.
The higher ed raises, though, will be awarded at the discretion of the leadership of the universities and community colleges. The institutions’ leaders can use the funds to provide across the board 1% pay raises or target the funds to provide a salary increase of up to 5% for specified employees.
Hopson said the flexibility would allow institution leaders to reward employees who they want to make an extra effort to keep on staff. It is possible that not every higher ed employee will receive a raise.
House Appropriations Chair John Read, R-Gautier, told members Sunday afternoon that there was not yet an agreement on the entire budget “at this point in time, although I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. I just do not know how long that tunnel is right now.”
But Read and Hopson both told their colleagues that there was agreement on the pay raise for state employees and higher ed employees in addition to the $1,000 per year pay raise for public school teachers agreed to earlier this session.
Even though Mississippi’s K-12 teachers and most state employees received salary increases in 2019, the state still lags the nation the contiguous states in pay for public school teachers and for state employees.
According to the Mississippi Personnel Board, for instance, the average pay for state employees is $39,896 per year compared to the average for the four adjoining states of $49,392. Additionally, Mississippi’s average pay for K-12 teachers is the lowest of any state in the nation.
“I am glad to see we are addressing some of the deficiencies we have had for some of the agencies that have been working with underfunded budgets the last couple of years,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader. “In addition, I am glad we are giving at least a nominal pay raise for state employees.”
On Sunday, the Legislature voted to expand Medicaid for some inmates so that the federal government instead of the state would pay the cost of their health care, but the Republican legislative leadership continues to refuse to consider an overall expansion of the federal-state health care program.
“I do not understand it,” Johnson said. “We are expanding it for prisoners, but not for working people. I am for doing it for both.”
Don’t call state Sen. Juan Barnett “a bleeding heart liberal” just because he believes state laws should be changed to expand the opportunity for earlier release for many in Mississippi prisons.
Barnett, a 51-year-old Democrat from Heidelberg and chair of the Senate Corrections Committee, knows the despair that can be experienced by victims of crime. After all, Barnett and his family in Jasper County are crime victims — victims of violent crime.
But now Barnett is working in the Mississippi Senate to shorten the sentences for many state inmates.
This could be considered an unusual priority for a legislator who, as a 20-year-old Army soldier deployed to Iraq in the early 1990s in the first Gulf War, received word his father had been shot to death in his hometown of Heidelberg. The death occurred during a confrontation where to this day Barnett said the exact details of what occurred are not known.
What Barnett does know is that the incident, after which a person was sent away to prison for a short period of time, left Barnett feeling both heartbroken and vengeful. Those feelings, he said, lingered for years while he went away to college at Livingston University in Alabama.
He later worked in Indonesia for a period in the telecommunications industry before returning to his hometown and to his mother’s house without much direction on what the next phase of his life would entail.
“I was sitting around at my mother’s house one day, not feeling good, by myself, talking to myself about what had happened, when I realized that I could not move forward until I was able to forgive like the Bible teaches,” he recalled. “I truly believe being able to do that put me in the position I am in today, working on the things I am working on.”
Barnett, who represents all of rural Jasper County and portions of Jones and Forrest, is one of the Senate leaders on bipartisan efforts to expand the opportunities for early release from prison. A wide range of advocacy groups, such as the American Conservative Union and the American Civil Liberties Union, support the concept of expanded early release opportunities.
David Safavian, general counsel for the American Conservative Union, recently wrote to legislative leaders: “If long sentences and high incarceration rates were correlated with greater public safety, Mississippi, which has the third highest incarceration rate in the country, should be one of the safest jurisdictions in the United States. Unfortunately, that is not the case” based on FBI crime data.
The efforts to change laws surrounding parole and early release and other laws related to the state’s prison system continue to be considered during the final days of the 2021 legislative session. Last session, Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed those efforts after many in law enforcement expressed opposition. Barnett expressed optimism that a compromise could be reached this year.
Barnett said he and other advocates for criminal justice reform are not talking about people not being punished — especially for violent crimes. But he said there are instances in Mississippi where people are being locked up for much longer periods of time than they are in other states for the same crime, resulting in state revenue that could go to education and other services being diverted to the prison system.
In addition, Barnett said he believes it will make a difference for some inmates if they know there are politicians who are fighting for them to have a second chance.
“Being able to help some people change their lives is a lot better than helping no one,” Barnett said.
Barnett said he understands the hurt of crime victims, but also understands the circumstances that can lead to criminal activity. He referenced going into a convenience store and seeing a group of young boys “with $1.50 to buy a bag of potato chips. That won’t go far. One of those boys might, because of circumstances, commit a crime one day.”
He said he is not making excuses, but believes many people turn to crime because of mistakes and circumstances in their lives. “Most people don’t choose to commit a crime when they have other choices,” he said.
Before being elected to the Senate in 2015, Barnett served four terms as mayor of Heidelberg, a predominantly African American town of less than 1,000 between Meridian and Laurel.
He said he recently ran into the mother of the man convicted of shooting his father in 1991 at a cancer survivors meeting.
“We stopped and talked,” he said. Barnett said what he tries to practice in his everyday life is a willingness to forgive and to move on. That, he believes, is also good public policy, in some instances, for the state of Mississippi.
“At some point we need to stop building fences and build bridges,” he said.
The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus on Saturday said state coffers are full and called for the state to spend $436 million on healthcare, education and other proposals to help improve quality of life for the poor, elderly, youth and minorities to help move the state from the bottom of most socioeconomic lists.
“When you didn’t have, we understood,” Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, said at a press conference Saturday outlining the caucus’ request to state GOP budget leaders. “But we have been blessed. And we have, now … Now is the time to address these needs.”
The Black Caucus — 52 of the Legislature’s 174 members — request comes on “conference weekend” as legislative leaders get down to brass tacks on setting a nearly $6 billion state-support budget (the total budget will be more than $20 billion counting federal and other funds). They’re also working to reach final agreements on other legislation and end the 2021 legislative session, likely sometime next week. House and Senate negotiators haggled over budget bills into Saturday night, hoping to begin voting on final spending proposals on Sunday.
Sen. Angela Turner Ford listens during a committee meeting at the Capitol. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Legislative Black Caucus Chairwoman Sen. Angela Turner Ford, D-West Point, itemized the spending requests on Saturday. She said the caucus’ budget committee did its research and numbers crunching on how much each initiative would cost and is not proposing anything “reckless or random” or that the state cannot afford. She said many of these requests were in bills introduced earlier this session that have since died. Some are in measures still alive and others are new requests, given recent updates on the state’s financial status.
“Any strategic plan that is going to address Mississippi’s needs should include and consider the plight of Black Mississippians as well as the white working poor,” Ford said.
House and Senate budget leaders last week said Mississippi’s tax collections are more than $500 million above the estimate used to set the current year’s budget and the state economy appears to be chugging along. They estimate the state will have $5.93 billion —about $173 million, or 3%, more in state dollars than lawmakers had estimated in November to spend for fiscal 2022 that begins July 1.
The Black Caucus request includes:
Expanding Medicaid to cover up to 300,000 people. Ford said the caucus’ budget document lists this cost at $159 million — which would be matched by $1.2 billion in federal money — but that the state didn’t have updated, accurate figures. Hospitals and numerous healthcare advocates have for years pushed for Mississippi to join 39 other states that have expanded Medicaid per the federal Affordable Care Act, but the state’s Republican leaders have refused.
$17 million for perinatal high risk management/infant services. This would help improve access to care for Medicaid-eligible pregnant or postpartum women and to infants, with a goal of reducing infant mortality and low birth weight. Senate GOP leaders also are pushing for more postpartum care and spending in the Medicaid program.
$104 million to expand chemical dependency programs in Mississippi. Scott said Saturday that the state has only 123 chemical dependency facility beds. The proposal would expand this to 500.
$3 million to expand dental health services for children and poor people.
$10 million for summer youth employment programs. This would match young people with entry level summer jobs.
$5 million for a housing initiative to assist low- and moderate-income people in accessing affordable rental and ownership housing and help revitalize distressed neighborhoods.
$2 million for after-school remediation program. Remedial instruction, Ford said, is extremely important now with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting normal school attendance, classes and schedules.
$60 million for capital improvements to historically black colleges and universities. This would help HBCUs upgrade, repair and renovate campus buildings and infrastructure.
$41 million to expand the Home and Community Based Waiver program. This would help thousands of elderly and disabled people with assisted and independent living receive services at home instead of being institutionalized or going without care.
Lawmakers faced a Saturday night deadline to reach agreement on spending bills and were also haggling over a “bond bill,” or borrowing for projects statewide, always of keen interest to lawmakers wanting projects for their districts. If they fail to reach agreements by the deadline, lawmakers often file “dummy bills” full of zeroes to technically meet deadlines and buy more time for negotiation. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other legislative leaders said late Saturday that negotiations were going well and they did not expect to file too many blank budget bills.
Lawmakers return Sunday afternoon for the full House and Senate chambers to begin passing final versions of bills. Legislative leaders said they hope to end this year’s session by the middle of next week.
Besides the budget, lawmakers are still negotiating on Medicaid rules and spending, criminal justice reform and numerous other measures.
Gov. Tate Reeves, in a live interview on national television on Friday, revisited an old strategy he employs when he’s backed into a corner, struggling to defend his actions or inactions: He questioned scientific data, challenged experts and blamed the press.
On Friday morning, a CNBC anchor asked Reeves about two troubling statistics: Mississippi has fully vaccinated just 14% of the state’s residents and ranks 47th in the nation in administering the COVID-19 vaccines that the state has received.
Reeves disputed the data, saying, “Actually, I don’t think those numbers are accurate.” The CNBC host rebutted with, “I didn’t pull that number out of thin air. That’s from a publication in your own state, governor. It’s called Mississippi Today, I’m sure you’re familiar with it.”
“Well Mississippi Today is certainly a very liberal rag that’s a website, it’s not even a real news source,” the governor said.
Reeves never backed up his claim that the vaccine numbers were inaccurate, and he didn’t acknowledge the data he questioned definitively shows that Mississippi lags behind most other states in putting shots in arms.
The playbook for many politicians is simple: If data show that things are bad, question the data. If experts say things are bad, challenge the experts. If reporters ask why things are bad, blame the reporters. Reeves, who has taken this approach for years, isn’t the first to do it and won’t be the last.
But Reeves has relied on this playbook since the pandemic began — a troubling trend for the first-term governor responsible for leading the state’s pandemic response and recovery. Here are a few of several examples:
In March 2021, shortly after he rescinded the state’s COVID-19 orders like mask mandates and capacity limits, Reeves was asked by a reporter to respond to a warning from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky that states not reopen too soon. In response, Reeves said, “Many of the folks that are in charge, including even the CDC, tend to take a more political approach than a scientific approach when trying to address this virus.”
In November 2020, many of the state’s top medical experts penned a letter to Reeves asking him to re-implement a statewide mask mandate. They argued that the growing number of cases were overloading the state’s hospital system and that the governor’s county-by-county mask mandate strategy wasn’t working. In a press conference, Reeves blasted who he called “so-called experts” who challenged his decisions.
In August 2020, during a significant surge in COVID-19 cases, CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan asked Reeves about data showing 11 Mississippi hospitals had zero ICU beds available. After downplaying the severity of the virus spread in the state, Reeves told Brennan: “I think the data you’re looking at is two or three weeks old.” Brennan was citing up-to-date data from State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.
In July 2020, Reeves took to Facebook Live and blamed the “hypocrisy of the media” for covering Black Lives Matter protests rather than the coronavirus, saying that gap in coverage led many Mississippians to believe COVID was a hoax and to stop wearing masks. But most Mississippi news outlets had posted daily updates about the virus since the first case reached the state. After backlash, he said he was referring to the “national media,” not local press.
Today, he seldom talks to the media — just at them or about them. His staff takes days to answer basic questions, or sometimes doesn’t answer them or even acknowledge them. As the pandemic worsened in 2020, Reeves held fewer public appearances and press conferences.
Reeves, who has long been careful to calculate decisions and messaging based on future political ambitions, may believe such attacks on the press poll well in pockets of Mississippi. But the attacks are rarely defensible or based in fact, and they most often come when he’s clearly uncomfortable.
As for the governor’s comments about Mississippi Today not being a “real news outlet”: he’s wrong and he knows it, considering he has shared many of our articles from his own social media accounts. Our COVID-19 coverage, in particular, provided context and data to his own staff, who used it as they navigated difficult policy decisions, a former Reeves senior staffer told us last year.
Our journalism, regularly published by dozens of others news outlets across the state, has reached tens of millions of readers. We closely adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, and we’re proud members of the Mississippi Press Association.
Journalists don’t like being the story. We’re taught to avoid it at all costs. Unfortunately, the governor made us the story by criticizing our work on a national platform, deflecting attention from the real one: the state’s struggles to administer vaccines.
Last week was our newsroom’s fifth anniversary, and in reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re headed, I wrote about how we’ve been perceived through the lens of politics. Readers on the right have sometimes criticized us for being too left-leaning. Readers on the left have sometimes criticized us for not doing more to directly bring about political change.
But there’s common ground I know we can all stand on: Unchecked power is harmful to every Mississippian. That’s why we launched this newsroom five years ago. We tell stories and share perspectives we believe to be true, and we work to hold elected officials — Republicans and Democrats — accountable. All the while, we focus our reporting on the experiences of Mississippians most marginalized by the decisions those powerful officials make. Truth, not politics, is our guiding principle.
The trauma and loss so many have experienced during the pandemic will continue to be difficult to manage. Seeing the signs of normalcy is so encouraging. Dwelling on problems can be difficult, but we believe a better future for Mississippi cannot come unless we’re honest about our past and present.
While Mississippi’s current cases and hospitalization have improved, our health leaders are telling us to stay vigilant — to wear masks and get vaccinated — because the virus is not gone, though Reeves’ executive orders are. We’ll keep boosting their voices and the data they’re collecting because they know better than anyone that Mississippians have suffered. We, after all, have the fifth-highest number of deaths per 100,000 of any state in the nation.
More than ever, Mississippians need leaders to be honest about our challenges and do everything they can to get more people vaccinated so fewer families will have to suffer and we can all get back to normal. Questioning data, challenging experts and blaming the press does nothing to get us there. Nothing.
Mississippians deserve truth, from our governor and from all our elected officials. Too many lives remain on the line for anything less.
Gov. Tate Reeves, on national television on Friday, was confronted with two troubling statistics: Mississippi has fully vaccinated just 14% of the state’s residents and ranks 47th in the nation in administering the COVID-19 vaccines that the state has received.
That data — widely reported by Mississippi Today and other state and national outlets — comes from the Mississippi State Department of Health, which Reeves has heavily relied on the past year, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Pressed during the live CNBC interview on why those numbers are so low, Reeves pushed back, saying, “Actually, I don’t think those numbers are accurate.” The governor said federal agencies like the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs are administering vaccines and not reporting the data to the state.
“I think the difference in being 20th or 40th (in the nation) is just a couple percentage points, and once we get accurate data in the system… what you’ll find is we’re going to be middle of the pack in terms of total vaccines distributed,” Reeves said.
Health care experts, including State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, have discussed that many providers in Mississippi who have administered vaccines — particularly small clinics in rural parts of the state — have not been quick to update the vaccine database. That delay may result, officials say, in lower-than-actual percentages of vaccines administered showing in the database.
Reeves on Monday said those lags could mean the state’s public reporting of vaccine data is as far as 10% behind actual shots administered. But that statement is speculation without the numbers to back it up.
According to the most recent data data from the CDC and MSDH, Mississippi has administered 1,134,883 of the 1,594,445 doses of COVID-19 vaccine that have been delivered to the state. That moves the state up one place in the national rankings reported earlier this week — now 46th in the percentage of doses administered.
Across Mississippi, 733,010 people — 24% of the state’s total population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than 426,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
Whit Hughes, Mississippi State’s dependable sixth man, celebrates during the net-cutting ceremony 25 years ago, when the Bulldogs defeated both Connecticut and Cincinnati at Lexington, Ky., to advance to the NCAA Final Four. (Photo courtesy MSU Athletics.)
Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Mississippians by the thousands traveled to Lexington, Ky. Most wore maroon. They were there for a basketball tournament that turned into a wild celebration.
Darryl Wilson, left, and Richard Williams discuss strategy during State’s victory over Cincinnati. (MSU Athletics)
The Mississippi State Bulldogs, coached by Richard Williams, were decided underdogs against first UConn and then Cincinnati in the NCAA Tournaments Sweet 16. The ‘Dogs needed to beat both in order to become the first Mississippi men’s basketball team in history to reach the NCAA Final Four. A quarter century later, they remain the only Mississippi team that has.
Today’s column will consist of memories of that special weekend in Magnolia State sports history. There are so many, beginning with this one: Williams went head to head, clipboard to clipboard with college coaching superstars Jim Calhoun and Bob Huggins — and out-coached them both.
The specifics: State first defeated UConn and Ray Allen, their All-American guard, 60-55 behind a spectacular shooting performance by Darryl Wilson. Then, State out-fought Cincinnati 73-63 in the South Regional final.
The memories:
The Bulldogs were 8.5-point underdogs to UConn, which had won 32 of 34 games and had lived in the top five of national polls all season long. Allen, who would go on to score 24,000 points in the NBA, was a leading candidate for National Player of the Year. The Huskies scarcely knew what hit them. Both Allen and State’s Wilson made nine field goals. But Allen needed 25 shots to make his nine. Wilson took only 14 shots. At halftime, after Wilson had swished five 3-pointers, one New York writer made his way down to where we Mississippians were sitting at the press table. “Who is this guy Wilson?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of him. Where’d he come from? Does he ever miss?”
So many of Wilson’s open shots came off bruising screens set by Russell “Big Country” Walters, who surely made ice packs a popular item in the Huskies’ locker room. Asked about all those picks in the locker room afterward, Walters said this: “That’s my job to get Darryl open. I did my job tonight. When he hits that open jumper, that’s when I get my satisfaction. That’s my role, and I realize that.”
Wilson was a great shooter; I mean, a great shooter. He was not a great interview. He avoided microphones like wasps. And when cornered by reporters, he never used 10 words when one would do. In contrast, Wilson’s teammate, Dontae’ Jones, loved microphones and cameras almost as much as he loved to play basketball. Jones overheard my post-game interview with Wilson and took over for his buddy. “Man, when Darryl had the ball tonight the basket was as big as a hula hoop,” Jones said. “When he shot it, man, that ball was going down.”
Williams, the Pearl native and former volunteer junior high coach in Natchez, was irritated and prickly much of that weekend in Lexington. That was mostly because he felt his team, a No. 5 seed even after defeating No. 1 Kentucky for the SEC Tournament championship, had been under-valued on a national scale. Someone asked him at the post-game press conference if he was surprised that his team dominated UConn early and never once trailed in the game. Williams glared at the reporter for what seemed like several seconds. “No,” he finally answered.
The UConn game was on a Friday. The Cincinnati game was on a Sunday. In between, there was Saturday, when both State players coaches and Cincinnati players and coaches were available in back-to-back press conferences. Cincinnati went first and much of the talk was about how physically strong and imposing the Bearcats players were and how so many of their players could bench-press 300 pounds and more. (They did look like an assortment of NFL tight ends.) Even Cincinnati point guard Keith LeGree looked like a bodybuilder. He talked that way, too. When asked about all the screening Mississippi State did to beat UConn, LeGree said, “At Cincinnati, we’re not allowed to be screened. You gotta be tough, you gotta fight through them. We will.”
State was up next. As you might suspect, State players were asked at length about what Cincinnati players had said about how strong and how tough they were. Walters, specifically, was told what LeGree said about screening. “Well, maybe he can fight through them,” Walters said in his decidedly Jones County drawl. “We’ll see.”
Erick Dampier, State’s center who would bat away so many Cincinnati shots the next day, was asked about how strong and physical the Bearcats were. Dampier, who like Wilson is a man of few words, leaned down into the microphone and answered, “We lift weights, too.”
Few words do I remember typing more than these in the final paragraph of the column about the State-Cincinnati matchup: “There is, however, one wild card. His name is Dontae’ Jones. If he goes off, State goes to the Final Four. Remember, you read it here first.” And, boy, did Basketball Jones go off the next day.
State’s victory over Cincinnati now seems a blur, mostly with Jones running around and shooting over the muscular Bearcats. He scored 23 points. He grabbed 13 rebounds. He also blocked two shots and led the cheers, shaking his fist throughout at the State cheering sections. He played almost as hard on defense as he did on offense, which is what Williams had been trying to get him to do all season long. Said Jones when asked about his defensive effort, “I knew if I didn’t guard I’d be sitting over there on the bench by Coach.”
There was one moment late in the game when Cincinnati was fighting back and making it close that Williams says he will never forget. One of those Cincinnati brutes came barreling down the court in the middle of a three-on-one fast break. The “one” was State’s Whit Hughes, a former basketball walk-on from Jackson Prep. Hughes stepped right in front of the Bearcat, took the charge, and was slammed to the floor banging the back of his head. Before he could get up, here came Darryl Wilson, diving on him, on the floor. They were face to face, hugging, laughing, yelling at each other and celebrating the moment. Said Williams in a conversation years later, “That moment to me epitomized that team, that season. You had two players, barely recruited, one from Jackson Prep and one from a small, Black school in rural Alabama, hugging each other and celebrating an effort play that helped win the game. That’s what that team was all about.”
Rick Cleveland
The Cincinnati victory was State’s eighth straight. In a span of two weeks, the Bulldogs had defeated the nation’s No. 1, 3 and 7th ranked teams. And we know what happened next. The Bulldogs played poorly and lost to Syracuse in the national semifinals at The Meadowlands, before Kentucky beat the Orangemen in the national championship. In retrospect, the Bulldogs were due a sub-par game. They played one.
But the NCAA Tournament, as CBS reminds us every year, is all about shining moments. Twenty-five years ago this weekend, those Bulldogs certainly had theirs.
Bart Hyche (22) and Russell Walters embrace during final moments of State’s victory in the Sweet 16. (MSU Athletics)
Last year, 23-year-old Phoenicia Ratliff of Canton was kidnapped and shot by her ex-boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself. Just a week earlier, he had been arrested on domestic violence and stalking charges.
Ratliff was one semester short of graduating from Jackson State University. She left behind a two-year-old little girl.
“To know her was to love her,” her mother Suzanne Ratliff said. “She was always smiling — you never knew what was really going on with her because she smiled through everything.”
Her tragic case illustrates the reality of a startling statistic: that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And one national study on intimate partner homicides showed women are more likely to be murdered with a gun than all other means combined.
In Mississippi, where gun laws don’t mirror the prohibitions placed on domestic violence offenders in federal law, the statistic sounds a loud alarm bell.
Under federal law, anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime, whether a misdemeanor or felony, is not allowed to purchase or possess a firearm. The same goes for anyone with a domestic abuse protection order (a specific type of restraining order) against them. The law is commonly referred to as the Lautenberg Amendment.
Thirty states and the District of Columbia have their own laws mirroring these federal prohibitions, but Mississippi does not.
Across the state, officials are hesitant to take away offenders’ guns, and in some cases even charge abusers with other crimes, such as simple assault, to avoid the task, a top law enforcement official told Mississippi Today.
In Forest Municipal Court, for example, Judge Norman Brown has ordered guns returned to domestic violence offenders, according to four sources, including current and former employees of the police department.
“He has literally handed the suspects their guns back in court … and that’s with us showing there’s a history of a conviction, not just being charged,” said one former Forest police officer who now works with another agency.
The officer remembers one particularly violent individual who had multiple run-ins with the law, including assault on a law enforcement officer and at least one misdemeanor domestic violence conviction.
“He still said that’s (his) right to own a gun,” the officer said.
Brown declined to answer questions from Mississippi Today, saying he does not discuss cases.
In Grenada, guns are never seized from individuals convicted of domestic violence or who are the subject of domestic abuse protections, according to an individual who works in the county court system.
These crimes aren’t being prosecuted at the federal level, either. Since 2013, the U.S. Southern District of Mississippi’s office prosecuted only three cases dealing with the unlawful possession of a gun by someone who had previously been convicted of a domestic violence crime. There were no cases prosecuted for the illegal possession of a firearm for someone under a domestic violence protection order in that same time period.
“We do train both law enforcement and prosecutors on due process requirements associated with the Lautenberg Amendment,” said Colby Jordan, director of communications for the Attorney General’s office.
The office declined to answer any other questions about the issue, including whether Attorney General Lynn Fitch would or would not push lawmakers to develop an accompanying state law or what the office is doing aside from training on this issue.
Efforts to align state and federal laws have proved futile in recent years. Last year, the National Rifle Association and global pandemic stomped out even the earliest conversations, according to Luke Thompson, former president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police and the former chief of police in Byram.
The idea was to modify the existing state statute prohibiting possession of a weapon by a convicted felon by adding “or otherwise prohibited by” the relevant federal law.
“Any type of gun legislation in Mississippi is met with a great amount of resistance, and the (National Rifle Association) got a hint on that and bashed it real quick before we had a chance to have discussions with people and say, ‘This is what we’re trying to do,’” said Thompson.
The National Rifle Association did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment on the issue.
After being painted as “pro-gun control” and supportive of “far-left” gun laws, Thompson penned a letter in February 2020 to Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and all House Republicans explaining his position.
He described a situation that captured the problems that arise because of the lack of a state law. Officers in his department responded to an incident in which a man fired a round from his gun through the ceiling of his home during an argument with his estranged wife. During the investigation, his officers discovered he had a domestic violence conviction and seized his weapons.
“Due to domestic offense being a state misdemeanor, federal authorities would not prosecute the possession case,” Thompson explained, going on to describe how he did not return the weapons to the offender, even when the offender and his lawyer began repeatedly contacting him over a five-year period and accusing him of illegally seizing the guns.
So Thompson set out to add the federal law language to the state law detailing which people cannot legally own or buy a gun.
“The intent was to give police chiefs an option when federal authorities would not assist and to keep local law enforcement officers safe,” he continued in his letter.
Although he never heard back from Gunn or other lawmakers, House Judiciary B Chairman Nick Bain said he’s aware of the issue Thompson was trying to address.
“I’m aware of an inconsistency there. I’m not opposed to talking about it, but I don’t want to go into a situation where we’re having more gun control than what is needed,” said Bain, a Republican from Corinth. “But I’m not opposed to having a discussion about it with our federal prosecutors, federal authorities and local state authorities.”
Bain’s counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Brice Wiggins responded similarly, saying he was open to a debate about possible legislation.
Advocates have kept their distance from the issue in recent years, though they see firsthand the failure to remove guns from the hands of abusers.
Wendy Mahoney, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she remembers having some talks years ago.
There was always pushback, she said. She remembers one person questioning where law enforcement would put the seized guns. Then last year, she saw what happened to Thompson when he brought the issue to lawmakers.
“I don’t think we have the support to even have an open conversation right now, even though we know … in most domestic violence situations, when a gun is involved, the correlation is very high with imminent danger and death,” Mahoney said. “That should be enough to have that conversation.”
The gap in federal and state law led former U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst to launch an initiative last year to combat what he said is a “lack of knowledge” among law enforcement and courts about federal restrictions on firearm ownership. The initiative, named “Operation Phoenicia” for Ratliff, continues today under the current U.S. attorney.
“Operation Phoenicia” involves educating and training law enforcement and judges about federal domestic violence laws in addition to other efforts to crack down on domestic violence offenders with guns.
Hurst, along with his then counterpart in the northern district of the state, vowed to prioritize prosecution of these crimes, and the efforts continue under his successor, acting U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca. The plan is to begin by identifying individuals in the city of Jackson who currently have a domestic violence protective order or a domestic violence misdemeanor and calling them into the office to put them on notice.
“We tell them it is a federal crime for them to possess a firearm and we tell them, ‘If we catch you, we will prosecute you federally,’” Hurst said.
They are also issuing what is referred to as “call-outs,” or working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to put domestic violence victims on notice if their abuser is attempting to buy a gun.
But as of March, no such cases have been prosecuted yet, nor have any call-ins taken place due to the pandemic, according to LaMarca. Call-outs have been ongoing through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The office is also working to ensure local state and local officials understand certain standards must be met in a domestic violence crime in order for federal prosecution to occur. For example, one deals with whether there was use or attempted use of force, while another deals with the type of relationship the victim has with the perpetrator.
LaMarca said he is collaborating with state and local officials to more fully identify certain specifics of domestic violence offenses, the relationship between the two involved individuals and the amount and type of involvement the offender has with the legal system. By doing that, officials can better understand whether the offense in question falls under the Lautenberg Amendment.
Mahoney, whose organization works with domestic violence shelters and victims, said the mixed messages and lack of enforcement around domestic abusers with guns creates fear and distrust in victims.
“If you’re not taking away their firearm, you’re invoking more fear” in an already fearful victim, she said. “It makes the victim question, ‘Is the system really on my side to help me?’”
Two South African immigrants are suing a Mississippi farmer over an alleged bait-and-switch scheme where they were recruited for falsely advertised agricultural jobs and then paid less than the federal minimum wage for their work.
Plaintiffs Dennis Appel and Christopher Boshoff were recruited in South Africa to migrate to Mississippi for jobs operating farm machinery on Kyle Mills’ farm in Winona. The pair allege that when they arrived in 2019, Mills instead made them work an average of 95 hours a week driving tractor-trailer trucks, delivering grain and fertilizer to farms across the Southeast.
Mills told the federal government that his business needed temporary foreign farm workers because he could not find U.S. workers to take the job. The suit alleges that he had no intention of hiring U.S. workers, but instead wanted foreign workers to drive for his trucking company so he could pay them significantly lower wages.
Mills paid the two plaintiffs $11.33 an hour — the hourly wage rate set by the federal government under the H-2A visa program for agricultural work — and not the $18.25 paid to local truck drivers.
Boshoff and Appel collectively spent thousands of dollars on transportation and H-2A visa costs to take the job. The lawsuit alleges that Mills refused to reimburse their pre-employment costs, a requirement under the H-2A program, after they arrived. Without the means to return home, they felt they had no choice but to work for Mills even though the job was not what they signed up for.
“When properly used, the foreign worker program protects companies, U.S. workers and foreign workers,” said Amal Bouhabib, a lawyer from Southern Migrant Legal Services who is representing the plaintiffs. “But when employers lie about the work, U.S. workers miss out on good job opportunities, foreign workers are exploited, and law-abiding employers are at a competitive disadvantage.”
The lawsuit, filed today in U.S. District Court in Greenville, alleges that Mills obtained Appel’s and Boshoff’s visas under false pretenses and violated federal minimum wage laws by paying them 40% less than the minimum wage for truck driving. The Mississippi Center for Justice and Tennessee-based Southern Migrant Legal Services filed the suit on behalf of the two immigrants.
“Our clients deserve to earn a fair wage for the work they did,” said Rob McDuff, an attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice representing the plaintiffs. “When employers are allowed to hire and then underpay foreign workers, it creates a cycle that favors the use of the H-2 program and depresses wages for all Mississippians. We hope this lawsuit will help ensure the system is working fairly for all workers.”
Beginning in the 2024 school year, all Mississippi elementary, middle and high schools will be required to offer computer science courses.
This week, Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law “The Mississippi Computer Science and Cyber Education Equality Act,” which sets out a timeline for schools to incorporate the curriculum.
The law, which the authors say will likely designate $1 million of new state funding for the curriculum, garnered bipartisan support in the Legislature and was backed by C Spire, which committed another $1 million to help schools with teacher training and implementation of the curriculum.
“Getting computer science in all Mississippi classrooms represents a tremendous opportunity to give our young people exposure to the fundamentals necessary for their future success in the workforce,” said C Spire CEO Hu Meena.
Currently, more than half of high schools in Mississippi do not offer computer science courses, yet there are 1,519 open computing jobs in the state with an average salary of around $72,000, according to code.org.
Mississippi adopted standards for a computer science curriculum in 2018, but there was previously no requirement for schools to offer computer science courses.
“We look forward to continued collaboration with educators and other partners in the expansion of computer science offerings to prepare our students for postsecondary study and for careers in this rapidly-changing career field,” said Nathan Oakley, chief academic officer for the Mississippi Department of Education.
The legislation also includes scholarships for teachers to be trained and receive computer science endorsements through Mississippi State University’s Research and Curriculum Unit.
Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, authored the Senate version of the bill and worked with his House counterpart Rep. Kevin Felsher, also a Republican from Biloxi, to ensure its passage. DeLano said he heard from businesses coming to Mississippi that are in need of workers trained in these skills.
“We know jobs for the future are going to demand more and more computer science, so we want to make sure that all students have at least the basic fundamentals required to be able to take advanced courses or help assist with training in the future as they move through their career path,” DeLano said.
He and others are also in talks with other businesses in hopes of shoring up more support.
Mississippi’s relatively small number of families receiving federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Family benefits will receive a monthly increase in payments of $90 under legislation Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law this week.
“Listening to some of the parents and grandparents talk about how the extra benefits are going to help their children, I think it is good,” said Sen. Sollie Norwood, D-Jackson. “It has been a long time coming.”
The increase is the first since 1999 for families in Mississippi receiving the welfare benefits.
The bill, authored by Sen. Joey Fillingane, increases the benefits from $170 per month to $260 per month for a family of four. The TANF benefits are paid solely through federal funds.
Norwood praised Mississippi Department of Human Services Executive Director Bob Anderson for advocating to the Legislature for increasing the benefits.
Anderson’s actions came on the heels of the scandal that occurred during the administration of former Gov. Phil Bryant, where former DHS Director John Davis and others were indicted on charges related to siphoning off the TANF money designed to help “the poorest of the poor” for personal use. State Auditor Shad White alleges that millions in TANF funds were being directed to nonprofits that were supposed to provide services for the needy, but instead the funds being diverted for personal use.
The state receives a federal grant each year of $86.5 million for TANF. Of that amount, $30 million is diverted to Child Protections Services that oversees the state’s foster child program.
While Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation, only between 2,500-3,000 families are normally in the TANF program, Anderson said earlier this session. In addition to increasing the benefits, Anderson has said he wants to re-evaluate the criteria for determining eligibility.
“We are in the midst of this pandemic,” Anderson said earlier this session. “We think this is an opportune time to provide this assistance for our TANF families… for the poorest of the poor in our state.”
The $260 per month for a family of three is higher than the benefits for all of the surrounding states except Tennessee, which provides $277 per month. Arkansas is the lowest at $204. In Mississippi, a family would receive an additional $24 per month for each child increasing the size of the family by more than three.
“There are so many people in need of additional assistance. So many are doing without,” said Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson. “Any little thing we can do to help is a blessing.”
