No-show prison workers cost Mississippi taxpayers millions

Prisoners, guards face danger from chronic understaffing by MTC

By Joseph Neff and Alysia Santo, The Marshall Project | Dec. 9, 2020

This investigation was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system, The Clarion-Ledger and Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.  

When Darrell Adams showed up for an overnight shift at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in rural Mississippi, he was one of six officers guarding about 1,000 prisoners.

Adams said he thought that was normal; only half-a-dozen guards had been turning up each night during the three months he’d worked at the prison, which is run by Management & Training Corporation. He didn’t know the state’s contract with MTC required at least 19 officers.

On April 3, 2019, Adams escorted a nurse to deliver medicine in a unit where the most dangerous prisoners were held in solitary confinement. The contract required a sergeant and an officer to be there at all times. But that night, Adams and the nurse said, he was the sole guard working the unit, and was also covering for six absent officers in three other buildings.

As Adams was leaving the unit, a prisoner slipped out of his cell, sneaked up behind Adams and smashed his head into the steel door frame. As the nurse watched in horror, the prisoner dragged Adams inside the cell block, shut the door and beat him unconscious.

Prisons across the country, both public and private, are struggling with staff shortages. But the circumstances that led to the attack on Adams illustrate a perverse financial incentive unique to private prisons: While fewer workers means more danger for staff and incarcerated people, it can create more profit for companies like MTC.

This problem is acute in Mississippi, where state officials failed to enforce contractual penalties that punish short staffing. Instead, they continued to pay MTC the salaries of absent employees, aka ghost workers.

By contract, MTC must have a set number of guards on every shift at its three Mississippi prisons. When a mandatory position isn’t filled, the company is supposed to repay the state the wages plus a 25 percent penalty. At the prison where Adams was attacked, the company paid some refunds to the state for several years. But MTC invoices show those repayments dropped from more than $700,000 in 2017 to only $23,000 in 2018, even as the staff vacancy rate rose.

In the company’s two other Mississippi prisons, MTC didn’t repay a penny from 2013 to 2019, despite understaffing, allowing the company to pocket millions of taxpayers’ dollars for ghost workers’ pay, according to records analyzed by The Marshall Project.

Other states have forced MTC and other prison companies to pay back millions of dollars for vacant positions and other contractual violations. Some came to light after riots, escapes, murders and sexual assaults drew attention to the company’s staffing shortfalls.

Neither MTC nor state officials would discuss how much the company owes for unfilled shifts. To estimate that amount, The Marshall Project obtained the company’s monthly invoices through public records requests, as well as data on vacant positions MTC submitted to the state from 2013 to 2019. Our analysis showed that MTC should have repaid about $6 million at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, $950,000 at East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and $800,000 at Marshall.

MTC spokesman Issa Arnita declined to address our analysis. He attributed staff shortages to low pay resulting from a state law that requires private prisons to cost 10 percent less to operate than public facilities, as well as the small labor pools near the rural prisons.

“Attempting to make a connection between staff shortages and profit is reckless and wrong,” Arnita said. “Our goal is always to have all vacancies filled.”

After eight years of contracting with MTC, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said that in recent months it began withholding payments from the company for failing to meet staffing requirements. Commissioner of Corrections Burl Cain declined an interview request.
In a statement, he said his department has withheld $208,000 from MTC for unfilled positions since he took office in June.

Although MTC is the nation’s third-largest private prison company, it lacks the high public profile and notoriety of its larger publicly traded rivals, CoreCivic and GEO Group.

Based in Centerville, Utah, MTC is privately owned and run by a prominent Utah family, the Marquardts. Through the company spokesman, members of the family declined to comment.

Created to seek contracts to operate federal job training centers, MTC expanded into private prisons in 1987. The company now runs 20 prisons in the United States and two overseas, as well as five immigrant detention facilities. Dun & Bradstreet reports the company had annual revenues of $667 million.

MTC has a long history of failing to meet contractual obligations in its prisons, in some cases with violent consequences.

In 2006, the company built what was then the nation’s largest immigration detention facility north of Brownsville, Texas. It was understaffed, according to human rights groups, and there were complaints of poor medical care and nutrition, as well as allegations of physical and sexual abuse of detainees. MTC’s spokesman said those claims were “not true and were never substantiated.” The federal government closed the facility in 2015 after prisoners seized control for two days and set it on fire, leading the government to declare it “uninhabitable.”

A similar situation unfolded at the Kingman prison in Arizona, which MTC was hired to run in 2004. Two years later, prison officials said MTC’s understaffing violated its contract. But the dysfunction at Kingman wasn’t fully revealed until 2010, when a group of prisoners escaped and carjacked and murdered a retired couple. State investigators blamed a broken alarm system, unsecured doors, and untrained staff.

Arizona prison officials levied nearly $2 million in fines between 2006 and 2013 for understaffing. Still, the deficiencies remained. In 2015, a three-day riot broke out; 16 people were injured and the facility was badly damaged. State officials described “a culture of disorganization, disengagement, and disregard,” and soon after, the governor cancelled MTC’s contract. The company disputes the state’s findings.

In Mississippi, MTC understaffing was an issue at a 2018 trial after civil rights groups sued over bad prison conditions. The corrections commissioner at the time, Pelicia Hall, took the witness stand and was asked whether MTC had repaid the state for ghost workers.

“I am not aware of that,” Hall testified. She did not respond to messages from The Marshall Project.

Even after that court appearance, Hall and other prison officials failed to impose financial penalties on MTC as low staffing made its prisons increasingly dangerous.

Wilkinson, a high-security prison for 950 men, was so violent and understaffed that its then-warden admitted in a 2018 internal audit that he had ceded control to prison gangs. Yet MTC invoices show the company refunded nothing to the state for vacant positions at Wilkinson between 2013 and 2019. The state paid MTC $87 million to run the prison over this period.

In the internal audit, MTC noted that Wilkinson routinely failed to fill two or three mandatory positions every shift. The overnight shift was the worst: A dozen officers have told The Marshall Project that it was common for five or six guards to run the prison when the contract called for a minimum of 30 overnight.

Markus Chatman, 31, had been working at Wilkinson for two months when he was stabbed in May of 2019 in the prison’s most dangerous unit.

He and his coworkers were escorting men to and from the showers one afternoon when a prisoner pulled out a shank and demanded his keys. Chatman says the other two officers fled as he struggled with the prisoner, who stabbed him in the back and collarbone and sliced his arm. He estimated only a dozen guards had shown up to work the day he was attacked; the contract requires 43 officers on the day shift.

Chatman returned to work but quit a few weeks later. The prison is “very understaffed,” he said. People fail to show up for shifts so often, he said, “you wouldn’t believe they still had a job there,” he said.

MTC did not respond to questions about Chatman’s assertions.

It’s difficult to put an exact dollar amount on how much MTC owes the state for ghost workers. The Marshall Project’s estimate is conservative and based on MTC invoices and monthly vacancy reports. A former manager said Wilkinson undoubtedly owed the state more than The Marshall Project’s estimate of $6 million.

More precise numbers could have been found in shift rosters filed with the state, but Mississippi officials denied The Marshall Project’s public records request for those documents. Payroll data would be even more exact, but those records are not public because they are maintained by MTC. Employee pay is the single biggest cost of running a prison.

MTC went to court to try to redact staffing patterns from contracts that have been posted for years on the website transparency.mississippi.gov. The Marshall Project is suing to obtain weekly reports from state officials responsible for monitoring the prisons; the corrections department had agreed to provide these records until MTC intervened, citing security concerns.

“Private prison companies are always trying to minimize their operating costs, because that is how they increase their margins and revenue,” said Shahrzad Habibi, research and policy director of In the Public Interest, which opposes privatization of public services. Habibi has analyzed dozens of private prison contracts nationwide, and says understaffing and paying subpar wages are common ways to increase profits.

“That’s taxpayer money that could actually be reinvested in the system to make it better,” she said.

At the Marshall prison, short staffing eroded medical care, according to Dr. Amy Woods, who according to court records fought with prison officials when they refused to take injured prisoners to the hospital for appropriate medical care.

Woods worked for Centurion, a private health care provider hired by the corrections department. She declined to speak with The Marshall Project, but her story is detailed in the federal employment lawsuit she filed against MTC, Centurion, and the warden after she was pushed out last year. MTC declined to discuss the case.

Woods’ suit said that in April 2019, the warden delayed her order to take a prisoner who said he was raped to a hospital for evaluation, even though DNA evidence must be collected as soon as possible.

Two months later, a nurse told Woods that a prisoner bit off a big chunk of another man’s ear, according to Woods’ lawsuit. Fearing the victim could bleed to death, Woods ordered he be taken to the local hospital. The emergency doctor said the injury was too severe to be treated there, and urged Woods to transfer the man to a medical center in Jackson, the state capital.

Woods agreed, the lawsuit says. But a prison captain told Woods that there were not enough guards available and ordered the man returned to prison. Woods recalled her reply: “If his ear rots off and he sues someone, it’s going to be you and not me.” Prison officials eventually relented and sent the man to Jackson late that afternoon.

Two days after that incident, the warden accused Woods of disclosing the short staffing problems to a local legislator who chaired the House Corrections Committee, her lawsuit says. Woods denied it.

That legislator was state Rep. Bill Kinkade, who testified in a deposition in Woods’ case that a different prison employee had complained that the extreme short staffing made Marshall dangerous for staff and prisoners. Kinkade said he took his concerns to top state corrections officials, but the short staffing continued.

The warden revoked Woods’ security clearance, effectively firing her, even though she worked for Centurion. Kinkade, the warden, and MTC declined to comment on Woods’ case, which is scheduled for trial in January. Centurion did not respond to requests for comment.

For those who work at MTC prisons, the consequences of the short staffing can be permanent. Adams, the corrections officer beaten at Marshall last year, said he doesn’t remember being attacked. He slipped in and out of consciousness as he was put on a helicopter and flown to a trauma center in Memphis, where doctors diagnosed traumatic brain injury, he said. Surgeons used six slim metal strips to wire together his shattered eye socket, cheek and jaw.

Adams never returned to Marshall. He drives a tow truck now. He says that throbbing pain in his cheek reminds him daily of his three months as a correctional officer.

“I really want somebody to crack down on this prison, because this prison really dropped the ball,” he said. “I should have never been there by myself.”

The post No-show prison workers cost Mississippi taxpayers millions appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves asks a question during a meeting of the State Board of Election Commissioners, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

A spokeswoman for Gov. Tate Reeves says Christmas parties planned for the Governor’s Mansion will be “conducted safely” and follow Reeves’ COVID-19 executive orders restricting gatherings across much of the state.

Reeves is hosting several Christmas parties at the Governor’s Mansion, despite warnings from state health experts against such gatherings and the governor’s own orders limiting the number of people allowed at such events.

“The Governor and First Lady have cancelled or delayed many mansion events this year including the 1st Friday Christmas Candlelighters event and their daughter’s 16th birthday party, and have only continued with those events that can be conducted safely — following the governor’s executive orders,” spokeswoman Bailey Martin said in a written statement. “These events — that tend to be smaller and never allow more than 10 participants indoors at a time to see the museum/decorations — are conducted similar to the limited public tours that are offered to the general public.”

As COVID-19 statistics continue to set new records almost by the day, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs and the health department have warned Mississippians to avoid holiday gatherings beyond closest family and to avoid any groups beyond school, work or “essential gatherings.” Dobbs called the holidays a “perfect storm” for “explosive outbreaks” of COVID-19 and warned, “We will see deaths, absolutely, around holiday gatherings.” Health officials warn that Mississippi hospitals are overloaded with patients as pandemic cases spike to record levels.

Reeves has in recent weeks issued executive orders for 54 of Mississippi’s 82 counties that require wearing of masks in public and limiting gatherings to no more than 10 indoors and no more than 50 outdoors where social distancing is not possible.

An invitation, obtained by Mississippi Today, extended to “a small group of the governor’s friends and biggest supporters” for a party at the Governor’s Mansion.

Reeves has separate parties planned at the mansion for the 52-member Senate and 122-member state House, and for statewide and districtwide elected officials. He also has Christmas receptions planned for “a small group of the governor’s friends and biggest supporters,” Martin said.

This follows a fundraiser held by a hospital executive at his home on the Coast last week for Reeves for more than 20 people.

Reeves has caught some public criticism for planning such events and for being photographed at Republican events in Washington, D.C. and North Carolina while Mississippi was under mask-wearing and crowd limit mandates per his executive orders.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves plans Christmas parties despite his own orders and record COVID-19 numbers.

Reeves, along with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, is listed as a headliner for a fundraiser scheduled for Monday at the Westin hotel in Jackson for state Sen. Briggs Hopson of Vicksburg. But a spokeswoman for Hosemann said he is not planning to attend — Reeves might not, either — and Hopson said Tuesday that it might be cancelled.

Gov. Tate Reeves and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann are the listed headliners for a December fundraiser for state Sen. Briggs Hopson.

Hopson said he had “planned the event and sent invitations prior to any recommendations that may have affected gatherings.” He said he is “looking at options on what to do.”

Martin said that Reeves “’hosts’ or ‘headlines’ fundraising efforts for upstanding legislators, of which Senator Hopson certainly tops that list.”

“The Governor does not always or even routinely attend but his involvement on the invite is typically a sign that he supports the work of the person in question, rather than an RSVP to be there.”

The invitation for Hopson’s fundraiser says, “Please join Governor Tate Reeves and Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann for a reception honoring Senator Briggs Hopson,” with attendance costing from $200 to $2,500, depending on sponsorship levels.

READ MORE: CEO of major Mississippi hospital hosts in-person fundraiser for Gov. Tate Reeves.

The post Partying in the pandemic: Gov. Reeves says mansion parties will adhere to COVID-19 orders appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carey Wright

This school year there are 23,000 fewer students enrolled in public schools, and currently all but 1,156 are accounted for. The Mississippi Department of Education attributes this drop primarily to a decline in kindergarten enrollment and increase in homeschooling.

Public school enrollment in Mississippi has steadily declined in recent years, but the most recent school year (2020-21) showed 23,286 fewer students are enrolled in the public school system this year compared to 2019-20 — a 5% decrease from last school year. Statewide enrollment has dropped on average about 5,500 students a year over the past three years before this current year.

Mississippi Today previously reported that the department was working with school attendance officers to locate these 23,000 students. On Monday, a news release from the department said that 4,345 fewer kindergarten students enrolled compared to the same time last year, and homeschool enrollment increased by nearly 6,800 students – jumping from 18,758 to 25,489 students total.

Additionally, 1,603 students enrolled after Sept. 30. Other children have either moved out of state or transferred to private schools. School attendance officers have not validated, or confirmed with evidence, the status of 1,156 students, the release said.

Mississippi Today spoke with Carey Wright, state superintendent of education, on Monday afternoon about the process of finding students who did not re-enroll in public schools.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Mississippi Today: Initially when I looked at the 23,000 students who hadn’t re-enrolled in comparison to the (enrollment) numbers from previous years, it seemed like that was a huge gap. What steps did the department take to try to find the students?

Carey Wright: I asked (the school attendance officers) at the beginning of the year to make sure that we could account for every child that was enrolled in spring and was not here in the fall, and so they got lists from schools. They made home visits. They made calls. They sent letters. They’ve done just a number of things to try to make sure that children are accounted for.

And so even if … we know this child has moved to, let’s say Alabama, well, that’s the reason we use the term “validated the status.” …Even if you’ve known that the child has moved — if the school in Alabama has not requested their records, even though we know that that’s where the child is — we can’t quote unquote validate their status because it’s not an official transfer. If it’s an out of state, then we determine by evidence that other school districts have sent us requesting student records or things of that nature. So that’s a way to validate where children are.

So they’ve done a Herculean job. When you think when we started, north of 23,000 (students unaccounted for) and we’re down to 1,156, they’ve done an amazing job of trying to locate and they will continue to work on validating the status. The issue in Mississippi is that the compulsory age does not start until age six. If parents have enrolled their children in kindergarten, then they are under the official compulsory attendance law. If they have not enrolled their children in kindergarten, there’s really nothing that we can do about parents that decide to keep their kindergarten children at home because they don’t have to start attending schools in Mississippi until they’re age six.

Mississippi Today: Do you think what’s going on with the pandemic has contributed to how, if it has been challenging, to track down students?

Wright: I think it presents its challenges just as in people being fearful of their own health and safety. I think that is certainly added to it. But I think that’s a reason that they’ve also been trying to make calls and send letters and notify as best that they can.

Once children reach the age of 17, then they obviously don’t have to attend school, but between the ages of six and 17, we are responsible… for trying to ensure that everyone is being educated. And that was my biggest concern. If parents had decided because of COVID you keep your kids home and homeschool them, that’s certainly their prerogative. What I didn’t want to happen is just children weren’t getting educated at all. In other words, parents just decided to keep their kids home, but not necessarily enrolling them in homeschooling… That’s something that’s not allowed.

Mississippi Today: Was that a concern for you? And if it was a concern, have those concerns eased a little bit now that you for the most part know where a lot of those students are now?

Wright: Oh, absolutely. The immediate thing that we did was pull enrollment data back from another four to five years. And we’ve never dropped more than like 5,000, maybe 6,000 something anywhere bouncing between that, but to drop in enrollment by 23,000. Yeah, it was very alarming. Interestingly enough, the biggest reductions that we have are in our primary grades, which you know it’s not so surprising. With the fear about just the overall health, I think of young children.

The two largest numbers that we’ve got because they have not returned are kids that moved out of the state or kids that transferred to homeschooling cause that accounted for over 15,000 of the 23,000 right there.

Mississippi Today: I know the implications of declining enrollment for local school districts correlates to their school funding (schools receive funding based on average daily attendance). Are there any other potential challenges that school districts may face because of this?

Wright: Well, I think that’s probably their biggest fear I think is ‘cause they need the funds particularly now if ever because of all the money that they’ve had to expend due to COVID, whether it’s to personal protective equipment (PPE) or whether it’s cleaning school buses on a daily basis, or whether it’s cleaning schools more deeply on a daily basis. I think that those monies had to come out of their pockets already, as well as then trying to ensure that kids were being educated and whether some districts would try to buy devices early, they get them in their hands, et cetera, et cetera. I think that’s been, that’s on the top of everybody’s mind, quite honestly.

Mississippi Today: Is there just anything else that you feel like we didn’t cover or you feel like it’s very important?

Wright: I think it’s the school attendance officers and the districts and teachers that deserve so much credit for being on top of this. Just hats off to the school attendance officers and to the districts and teachers for being so diligent about this. It speaks volumes about our teachers in Mississippi.

The post Q&A: State Superintendent Carey Wright discusses where 23,000 students went this year appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Read: Legislative leaders say teacher pay hike, tax cut on table despite COVID-19 uncertainties 

The post Marshall Ramsey: Teacher Raise appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/Report For America

Jefferson County third grade teacher Yashica Suddeth is working with students this summer to help them pass a reading test.

Most teacher education preparation programs, including those in Mississippi, are overwhelmingly white. This exacerbates an existing teacher diversity gap which means many teachers do not look like the students they serve, a new study found.

On Tuesday, TNTP, formerly The New Teacher Project, published “A Broken Pipeline Teacher Preparation’s Diversity Problem.” The study used 2017-2018 data from the U.S Department of Education, the most recent available, to analyze the racial divide in teacher preparation programs.

Out of 50 states and Washington, D.C., Mississippi ranks second for the largest diversity gap. Mississippi is one of three states, including Washington, D.C., and Louisiana, that have a teacher prep diversity gap of 30 or more percentage points, according to the report. This gap represents the percentage difference of white students in public schools in comparison to white students enrolled in preparation programs. 

In Mississippi during the 2017-28 school year, 76% of those enrolled in teacher preparation programs were white. But only 44% of the public school student population was white.

Nationwide, the majority of 400,000 prospective teachers enrolled in 25,000 teacher preparation programs were white, the study found. When broken down by type of program, alternate route programs (for candidates pursuing a teaching license who have non-education degrees) were 47% more diverse than traditional programs, which were 70% white.

“Our national reckoning with racial injustice has sparked long-overdue conversations about how our education and other systems have historically failed people of color, along with urgent calls to improve them,” the report said. “Closing the teacher diversity gap is one of the most important steps we could take to make public education more equitable.”

The call to diversify the teacher candidate pool speaks to recent research showing the academic, social and emotional benefits for students of color.

But increasing teacher diversity is a complicated issue. Teacher candidates of color — traditionally underserved, with limited advance courses during K-12 education — struggle the most in becoming certified. 

A 2019 report by the National Council on Teacher Quality showed programs don’t always prepare teacher candidates to pass the Praxis —four to five certification exams — or require them to take the classes they need in order to teach the necessary content in the classroom.

READ MORE: Would-be teachers in Mississippi struggle to pass certification exams, advocates call for evaluation of prep programs.

“It’s a complex problem with many causes, from certification rules that prioritize test scores over teaching ability, to latent bias in district recruitment and hiring processes, to school cultures that too often fail to help teachers of color build long careers in the classroom,” the TNTP report stated. 

Mississippi’s public school teacher workforce is primarily composed of white women, which also reflects the makeup of enrollment in prep programs. Mississippi teachers are some of the lowest-paid in the country, even with a $1,500 pay increase last year. The average salary for a public school teacher in 2019 was $45,105, according to the Mississippi Department of Education, and Mississippi’s average salary is the lowest in the nation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

READ MORE: Who’s teaching Mississippi’s children? A deep dive into race, gender of state’s educators.

While the authors of the TNTP report don’t solely blame teacher preparation programs for creating or solving this issue, they create the teacher candidate pool, so those programs should make diversity a top priority, the report said. 

“State governments, school districts, and even individual schools all have important roles to play in bringing more teachers of color into the classroom and ensuring they stay,” the report stated. “But too often, higher education leaders seek to absolve themselves of responsibility for their programs’ lack of diversity instead of  acknowledging their power to change it.”

The TNTP report suggested that educational institutions should recruit more candidates of color, consider financial incentives, create “grow your own” programs, and implement policies to retain teachers of color, among other suggestions. 

A February 2019 news release from the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) outlined measures taken by public universities to better prepare the “next generation of educators.”

The measures include extensive clinical practice and high quality field experiences to allow candidates to have experience teaching in elementary schools, expanding partnerships with schools, working with digital age learners in traditional and nontraditional settings, along with other professional development opportunities.

The post Mississippi’s teacher prep pool is the second least diverse in the nation appeared first on Mississippi Today.

COVID-19 cases: Mississippi reports 1,732 new cases

By Alex Rozier and Erica Hensley | December 8, 2020

We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.

This page was last updated Tuesday, December 8:

New cases: 1,732| New Deaths: 56

Total Hospitalizations: 1,157

Total cases: 167,926| Total Deaths: 4,017

Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 54 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.

All data and information reported by the Mississippi State Department of Health as of 6 p.m. yesterday

Weekly update: Wednesday, December 2

After a record reporting of 2,457 new cases on Wednesday, the current seven-day average of 1,605 is now far past Mississippi’s summer peak. 

During a news conference yesterday, Gov. Tate Reeves denied that Mississippi had hit a new record for case spread, even though the rolling average had already surpassed the previous high of 1,381 in the summer. 

On Wednesday, the state health department issued new guidelines on distancing, recommending that people avoid all social gatherings with people outside of their home or nuclear family.

Mississippi also hit a new high for confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations on both Sunday and Monday, with the rolling average having increased 68% since the start of November. The rolling averages for ICU patients and people on ventilators are up 45% and 88%, respectively, in that time. Total hospitalizations, which includes suspected and confirmed cases, are still below the record set in August. 

Thirteen major hospitals are without ICU capacity, according to this week’s health department numbers. Currently, 86% of the state’s ICU beds are full — including 96% capacity among the highest level COVID-care centers — and COVID-19 patients are filling 30% of those spots.

On the county level, Choctaw (17% increase in the last week), Kemper (15%), Rankin (14%), Jefferson (12%) and Stone (12%) counties saw the sharpest rise in cases this last week. 

The Delta continues to accumulate the most cases per capita out of anywhere in the state. Of the 15 counties with the highest rates, 11 are in the Delta. 

The state health department reported 128,746 people have recovered. 

Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:

View our COVID-19 resource page for more information about coronavirus in Mississippi.

The post COVID-19 cases: Mississippi reports 1,732 new cases appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Southern Miss athletics

Will Hall addressed media and fans at a press conference at Reed Green Coliseum Monday.

Will Hall aced his introductory press conference at Southern Miss Monday morning, his first appearance as the 22nd head football coach in the school’s history.

Hall exuded enthusiasm and optimism, saying he wanted to make Southern Miss the premier Group of Five football school in the nation — and he did it with a decidedly Mississippi twang.

“We were Boise State before Boise State — we’re fixin’ to get it done,” the 40-year-old Hall said at one point.

He said a lot more, but perhaps just as importantly was something that wasn’t said. After the press conference, Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain confirmed that Hall’s contract calls for a salary of $800,000 and an assistants’ salary pool of $2.1 million. That represents an upgrade of nearly $1 million in football salaries and will put Southern Miss in the upper half of Conference USA.

Rick Cleveland

That’s a huge deal, especially when one considers the increased financial commitment comes during this COVID-19 period when universities across the country are cutting back athletic resources.

“There are no excuses,” Hall said. “We have the resources here to be special. We’ve got to band together because we’re a little frayed right now. I’ve got a vision. I’ve got a detailed plan. We’ve got to grab this rope and pull together.”

Southern Miss athletics

Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain presents Will Hall a personalized jersey

Presently, “frayed” is an understatement where Southern Miss football is concerned. The Golden Eagles limp into Thursday night’s season finale against Florida Atlantic with a 2-7 record. Incredibly, the team has been through three head coaches, three starting quarterbacks, several player defections, and umpteen schedule changes in three months time. Albert Einstein once said that adversity introduces a man to himself. This Southern Miss football team is ready to meet someone else.

Will Hall appears more than willing to fill that void. Of the many subjects Hall broached Monday morning, one of the most interesting was that he had had an extended conversation with former Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower the night before. Hall talked about getting back to the blueprint that led to the Golden Eagles’ success when Bower was dominating Conference USA and his teams were winning while playing, as the adage went, “anyone, anywhere, any time.”

He talked about meeting Bower at age 15 when he accompanied his father, high school coaching legend Bobby Hall, to dinner with Bower at Tico’s.

“I was in hog heaven, listening to Coach Bower and my dad talk football for hours. We shut the place down that night, it was unbelievable. I ate it up,” Will Hall said.

Bower’s USM blueprint for success included an emphasis on recruiting high school players from south Mississippi, southern Louisiana, lower Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Bower seldom got the five-star and four-star recruits, but he and his staff proved expert at projecting what lightly recruited 17-year-old boys might look like and play like as 20-year-old men after two or three years in the weight room and at the training table. Bower could look at a two-star running back like Michael Boley or a high school basketball star like Adalius Thomas and see future NFL linebacking stars.

Hall said he intends for Southern Miss to get back to that. “There are too many good football players right here,” he said. In recent seasons, Hall has poached many of those Mississippi boys for both Memphis and Tulane.

For his part, Bower Monday afternoon said he was mightily impressed with Hall from what he has seen from afar and from their in-person conversation Sunday night.

Jeff Bower

“I like his resume. I like what he’s done and that he’s won wherever he’s been,” Bower said. “I like his offensive and defensive philosophies. I like his pedigree. His dad was a helluva coach, a winner. I like that he’s a coach’s son. He’s been around the game all his life. He understands it, knows what it takes. I am really impressed with him. I’ve got to hand it to Jeremy. I think he did a helluva job with this hire.”

Again, all this comes at a most unusual time. Hall was speaking Monday, three days before the team he inherits plays its final game of the season. Yes, Hall said, he will be in Hattiesburg for practices and the game this week. He said he intends to stay out of the way, but does plan to watch and get a firsthand look at what he has coming back. Meanwhile, he’s hiring a staff, recruiting (on the phone), shaking hands, meeting folks, enlisting support. In these strange times, he even has to recruit the players he already has.

Indeed, Hall has his hands full, but it surely seemed Monday he would not have it any other way.

The post Will Hall, new head coach at Southern Miss: ‘We’re fixin’ to get it done’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Read the story behind this cartoon here.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Party on, Third Ghost appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves has planned several Christmas parties at the Governor’s Mansion, despite warnings from state health experts against such gatherings amid the pandemic, and the governor’s own orders limiting the number of people allowed at such events in Hinds County.

This follows a fundraiser held by a hospital executive on the Coast last week for Reeves for more than 20 people, despite Reeves’ orders limiting gatherings in Harrison County because of record COVID-19 outbreaks.

Statewide and districtwide elected officials received an invite for a governor’s Christmas party for Wednesday evening, several officials told Mississippi Today. The governor has also invited lawmakers to separate parties for the House and Senate next week, several lawmakers said.

As COVID-19 statistics continue to set new records almost by the day, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs and the health department have warned Mississippians to avoid holiday gatherings beyond closest family and to avoid any groups beyond school, work or “essential gatherings.” Dobbs called the holidays a “perfect storm” for “explosive outbreaks” of COVID-19 and warned, “We will see deaths, absolutely, around holiday gatherings.” Health officials warn that Mississippi hospitals are overloaded with patients as pandemic cases spike to record levels.

READ MORE: CEO of major Mississippi hospital hosts in-person fundraiser for Gov. Tate Reeves.

Reeves has in recent weeks issued executive orders for 54 of Mississippi’s 82 counties that require wearing of masks in public and limiting gatherings to no more than 10 indoors and no more than 50 outdoors where social distancing is not possible.

It is unclear how many people were invited to each party, but it would appear each would be more than 10 people. There are 122 members of the state House and 52 senators. It is also unclear whether the governor’s party plans at the Governor’s Mansion would allow for proper social distancing.

Reeves’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Christmas parties on Monday. If he plans to cancel them, several officials invited had not heard about cancellations.

On Monday afternoon, Reeves tweeted, “Christmas at the Governor’s Mansion is very different this year,” noting that large crowds would not be touring the mansion as is customary each year to see the first lady’s Christmas decorations.

House Speaker Philip Gunn on Monday said House members were invited to a Christmas party at the mansion next week, but he said he had a conflict and would not be attending. Other lawmakers declined comment on the parties.

At last week’s fundraiser, Memorial Hospital at Gulfport CEO Kent Nicaud, who hosted the event at his home, said that while there were more than 20 people there, his home is large and guests practiced social distancing and wore masks.

Reeves over the summer faced some criticism after he was photographed not wearing a mask in crowds at Republican events in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina while Mississippi was under mask-wearing and crowd limit mandates per his executive orders.

Mississippi Today reporter Bobby Harrison contributed to this report.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves plans Christmas parties despite his own orders and record COVID-19 numbers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Mississippi House speaker Philip Gunn, left, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann speak after Gov. Tate Reeves press conference in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 7, 2020.

Despite the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a teacher pay raise and a tax cut will be on the table during the 2021 legislative session that starts Jan. 5, the two presiding officers said Monday.

Neither the tax cut nor the teacher pay raise were reflected in the budget proposal House Speaker Philip Gunn, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and the other 12 members of the Legislative Budget Committee approved Monday. That recommendation is 3.1%, or $197.4 million less than the budget legislators approved for the current year.

But the proposal of the legislative leaders is only a starting point, and if revenue remains strong despite the pandemic through the first quarter of the calendar year, Hosemann said there is a possibility that the final budget, which is expected to be approved in late March, will include a teacher pay raise.

“I am going to propose a teacher pay raise,” said Hosemann, who presides over the Senate. Hosemann said he would propose the same plan that passed the Senate in the 2020 session.

That plan, about $1,000 per year, costing about $76 million, died in the House last session because of fears of how the coronavirus would impact the economy and thus state tax collections. But in recent months tax collections for the state have remained strong. But Gunn said part of that strength might be because of the massive stimulus package that the federal government provided last summer to combat the pandemic. There is currently an ongoing debate in Washington about whether to provide additional stimulus monies.

Both Hosemann and Gov. Tate Reeves promised significant teacher pay raises during their successful 2019 campaigns. The budget proposal released last month by Reeves did not list a teacher pay raise among his many priorities. When asked about a teacher pay raise later, a Reeves spokesperson said the governor still believes one can be accomplished during the 2021 session.

Reeves did list as a priority phasing out the state’s income tax over a multi-year period.

On Monday, Gunn said he has been a long-time supporter of eliminating the income tax and said that effort will be looked at during the 2021 session.

“We have been trying to find ways to develop a more solid, fairer tax structure,” he said.

Others question the wisdom of cutting taxes while the state still faces multiple needs in terms of health care, education and public safety. Some also point out that if the income tax is phased out the state will rely even more on its 7% sales tax on food and other retail items that many claim is a tax that unfairly burdens the poor.

“With no income tax, the state’s policymakers would face two unattractive options: sharply cut funding for schools and other services or raise other revenue significantly,” said Michael Leachman, vice president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

The income tax provides about one-third of the state’s general fund revenue or about $1.9 billion annually. Reeves maintains it can be phased out without raising other taxes or without large cuts to state services.

“Everything is on the table for us,” said Hosemann when asked about a possible tax cut.

The budget recommendation approved Monday by legislative leaders, like the budget proposed by Reeves, leaves local school districts about $250 million short of full funding. The budget also does not provide the state Department of Health its requested increase for COVID-19-related expenditures, such as money possibly needed to distribute a vaccine.

Overall, most agencies receive small cuts in the budget committee’s recommendation. The recommendation eliminates 4,119 vacant positions in state government.

The budget leaves $877 million in reserve funds.

“It is a solid budget,” Gunn said. “It is responsible…I think it provides a good starting point.”

The new budget year begins July 1.

The post Legislative leaders say teacher pay hike, tax cut remain on table despite COVID-19 uncertainties appeared first on Mississippi Today.