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Incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo faces challenger Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell in Tuesday’s runoff for the GOP primary for the 4th District House seat, serving South Mississippi.

Palazzo, facing a crowded field of Republican challengers in the midterm primary, received about 32% of the vote; Ezell about 25%, forcing a runoff.

The two candidates spoke with Mississippi Today ahead of the runoff and a scheduled Friday debate on Coast television station WLOX.

Here is some background on the candidates, what they believe the top issues are and what differentiates them from one another.

The candidates

Ezell, who grew up in Pascagoula, is a 42-year veteran law enforcement officer in South Mississippi.

He started his career with the Pascagoula Police Department, working his way from jailer to chief of detectives, then served as chief of police for the city of Ocean Springs. He was elected sheriff of Jackson County, a post he has held since 2014.

Ezell has a degree in criminal justice from the University of Southern Mississippi and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

Palazzo, a Coast native, is a certified public accountant who ran his own business before taking his current office. He is a former state legislator, and has held the 4th District U.S. House seat since 2011.

Palazzo is a Marine Corps veteran and serves in the Mississippi National Guard.

Voters’ issues

Both candidates said inflation — particularly soaring gasoline prices — is the top issue they hear from 4th District residents as they campaign.

“The cost of energy is off the charts,” Palazzo said. “It was to be expected — President Biden when he was on his campaign said we would end our reliance on fossil fuels. Well, guess what? Now we have $5 a gallon gas. He cancelled Keystone pipeline on day one, killing hundreds of thousands of jobs, and many of those were in Mississippi, where we have pipe manufacturers.”

Ezell said he hears from constituents: “Gas prices, grocery prices, not having groceries in some stores. I’ve talked with some of our trucker friends and they said the fuel prices are killing us, making it hard to get our goods to the stores. People are very upset about this.”

Palazzo said illegal immigration, with attendant human trafficking and drug smuggling is another major issue for South Mississippi.

Ezell said high taxes and overregulation are also major issues.

Policies and proposals

Both candidates said they would push for deregulation, particularly on the energy sector.

Ezell said he would work to get fertilizer and other costs down for Mississippi farmers “so they can make a profit.”

“There are so many regulations out there right now,” Ezell said. “… We need to work with like-minded conservative people in Congress to get some policies in place to make life better for people, like getting grocery prices down … We need to see about cutting the gas tax, for the truckers who get the goods to the stores … We’ve just got to remove some of these regulations so that we can help people earn a living.”

Palazzo said: “As someone who’s worked offshore, I know the importance of American energy — drill here, drill now. We need to unleash American energy resources and get America back to being energy independent, and I think we can do that.”

Palazzo said he would also push to re-start plans to build a U.S. southern border wall and increase military spending, and protect tax cuts and jobs legislation passed in 2017.

Candidates list accomplishments

Palazzo said his accomplishments as a congressman include, “I was able to secure $1.4 billion for the border as the homeland security negotiator on the Appropriations Committee in 2019, and we were building the wall two years ago and securing America.”

“With the ships we build at Ingalls (shipyard) we’ve been able to secure $26 billion for 26 different ships in 10 years, and that is so vital to our national security, but also to our quality of life here, because of the dependence we have on those jobs created locally,” Palazzo said. He said he has also worked to keep federal flood insurance affordable for homeowners on the Gulf Coast and worked to support the state’s military installations, including for upgrades at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg to expand training.

“The number one driver of the economy in South Mississippi is federal spending,” Palazzo said. “We have to admit that to ourselves, but it’s good federal spending — national security, NASA programs, NOAA to help predict storms — and every bit of that goes through my committee where I sit on Appropriations.”

Ezell said: “Some of my greatest accomplishments are being a husband and a father and a grandfather … I started working in the jail, and worked my way all the way up to chief of detectives at Pascagoula. During that time, I was a competitive shooter, and got to travel all around the southeastern part of the country to compete and shoot and learned a lot of techniques from other officers. I also graduated from the FBI’s national academy, where I excelled in all fields of training and received an award for physical fitness and attention to duty. I am also proud of that. During my time at the Pascagoula Police Department, I went to night school at USM and got a degree in criminal justice. That was a big thing for me. I was only the third person in my family to get a college degree.”

Ezell said that as sheriff, Jackson County was the first in the state to open its own crime lab, to avoid backlog problems faced by the state lab and “to save taxpayers money and help all the surrounding agencies in our county have a crime lab.” Ezell said under his tenure his agency has also recently opened its own shooting range and training facility.

“When I first took over as sheriff, the former sheriff had been indicted and removed, and all the police chiefs came to me and said, ‘Mike, help us rehabilitate and get this (narcotics) task force back together,’ which we have done and now have a highly respected organization,” Ezell said. “We have our own budget, and don’t have to depend on seizures or anything like that for funding.”

What differentiates them?

Ezell said one thing that differentiates him from Palazzo is, “I will be available. You won’t have to look for me.”

Palazzo has for years faced criticism for not being very visible or accessible in his district.

“What I’ve heard so many times around this district is we don’t know where (Palazzo) is at,” Ezell said. “Where is our representative? We don’t know where he’s at, we can’t talk with him, he won’t call us back. I will be available. I will be in the district and I will return your phone calls … General rule 101 with the sheriff’s office is if you call, somebody better call you back and if not, I’m going to be asking you why did you not call that person back. That’s just a common courtesy, be it a sheriff or police officer or state representative or congressman.”

Palazzo said his experience and seniority in Congress, and relationships he’s built over years are needed for the 4th District.

“Most importantly, I have a proven, conservative voting record,” Palazzo said. “My opponent has no record where he has ever cast a vote on issues that matter most for South Mississippians, whether it’s pro-life, whether it’s pro gun, pro military or pro business. For 12 years I’ve been serving South Mississippi and I have a proven record of delivering for them on all those issues.

“… Seniority is important in the military and it’s important in Congress,” Palazzo said. “That’s how you get on the key committees and get key assignments.”

He said that should Republicans retake the House this midterm, he would be in line to be the chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee of Appropriations where he can push for building a border wall.

Recently, all other Republican challengers in the first primary vote threw their support behind Ezell. U.S. House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana in a trip to South Mississippi endorsed Palazzo.

The two candidates have agreed to a televised debate, scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday on WLOX-TV on the Coast.

“I’ve been to multiple debates, Steven Palazzo has not been to any of them,” Ezell said of this election cycle.

Palazzo said: “I think it’s important for voters in South Mississippi to see the contrast.”

The winner of the June 28 GOP runoff will face Democratic former longtime Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree and Libertarian Alden Patrick Johnson in the Nov. 8 general election.

The post Videos: Where do Ezell, Palazzo stand on the issues? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi again leads the nation in teen births despite declining rates both in the state and across the country. 

Mississippi’s rate dropped significantly over the past two decades but still lags behind the rest of the country. In 2020, the most recent year for which data was available, teenagers in Mississippi gave birth at a rate of almost double the national average, according to th4e Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Advocates and a former state senator point to Mississippi’s unchanging – and in their view, lackluster – sex education law. 

Though the curricula for core subjects like math and science are reviewed and updated every five years, the Mississippi Department of Education has not approved any new sex-ed curricula in over a decade. 

Josh McCawley, deputy director of Teen Health Mississippi, a policy and advocacy group focused on the sexual and reproductive health of teenagers, said this inaction means Mississippi’s sex ed content is wildly out of date, with issues like consent and relationship violence largely absent.

“It’s really difficult to do really good sex education in 2022 when you're working with curricula that was written in the 1990s,” McCawley said. 

Even if more curricula were approved by the state education department, there’s no guarantee schools would switch to a new one.

“Once a school picks a curriculum, they tend to stick with it,” said Scott Clements, state director of MDE’s School Health Programs.

Many of Mississippi’s teen mothers are 18 or 19 years old and out of reach of the primary school system. The birth rate among that age group is three times higher than that of 15- to 17-year-olds. 

While reforming Mississippi's sex education policy is an important piece of the puzzle, McCawley said the need to address major issues like intergenerational poverty means it’s not the end-all, be-all for addressing the state’s high teen birth rate.

“It’d be great if there was one solution, but unfortunately, there's many contributing factors that create an environment in which Mississippi has the highest teen birth rate in the country,”  McCawley said. “It’s going to take a lot of people from a lot of different sectors: education, health, social services, housing. It will take a lot of factors to address what we're seeing.”

The national teen birth rate has declined 75% from its 1991 peak, a trend attributable to lower rates of sexual activity among young people and the increased use of contraception. 

The birth rate for teenagers ages 15–19 dropped in 31 states but increased in Mississippi in 2020. Rates among the states ranged from a low of 6.1 per 1,000 births in Massachusetts to a high of 27.9 in Mississippi. 

Mississippians, however, are less likely to use highly effective forms of contraception like intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants. As of 2018, the number of patients at publicly funded Title X clinics who used such contraception was just 7%, compared to 18% nationally. In recent years, people have sometimes struggled to reach the clinics over the phone and have waited months for an appointment or been told that it’s up to the doctor on staff to determine what kind of birth control they receive.

Lawmakers passed the state's sex education law in 2011, which required each school district to choose between  “abstinence-only” or “abstinence-plus” curricula. All must stress that abstaining from sex is the only method that offers foolproof protection from out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. 

Attempts to change the law to require the curricula be medically accurate or evidence-based have failed. One of those attempts was by former Sen. Sally Doty, a Republican from Brookhaven and one of the few Republicans who supported changing the law.

Doty introduced the “Personal Responsibility Act” in 2016 which passed through the Senate Education Committee but was never brought up for a vote. The bill would have required sex ed curricula be evidence-based and would have also required that sex ed be taught twice in primary school, once in middle school and once in high school. The 2011 law did not set specific age requirements.

Doty, who is now the executive director of the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff, still supports those changes being made. She also advocates for changing to an opt-out rather than opt-in policy, ending the segregation by gender for sex ed instruction and removing the curricula requirements in state law that prevent evidence-based curricula used in other states from being used in Mississippi.

“I don't think sex among teenagers is different in Mississippi than in any other state,” Doty said. 

Doty said that the absence of comprehensive sex ed in schools, or parents providing it at home, is detrimental to a teenager’s development, and means that many young people are only getting their sex education from pornography on the internet. Doty said that inaction by the Legislature isn’t helping either. 

“There's some real problems with the law as it stands … it's a difficult situation to talk about. But I don't think anyone can look at the numbers in the state, and say that we don't need to talk about it,” Doty said. 

Some of the restrictions in the state law also place an undue burden on school districts, according to McCawley. Mississippi's law requires parents to opt-in their child to sex ed, which creates a logistical barrier that keeps kids with parents who support sex ed out of the classroom.

“If a student isn't opting in, it's mostly not because of parental disagreement, but because of the lack of efficiency of getting permission slips home and back,” McCawley said. 

Keeping boys and girls separate during sex ed instruction places another burden on schools that especially harms rural, short-staffed school districts, according to McCawley. 

The law also bans the demonstration of condoms and other methods of contraception. Teachers can tell students how to use them, but not show them. This has led to creative workarounds by advocates like Sanford Johnson, who went viral in 2012 for a video where he teaches students “how to put on a sock.” 

While Johnson, now the executive director of Teach Plus Mississippi, a nonprofit that trains teachers in understanding education policy, believes that more comprehensive, sex-positive services and resources are available to young people now than there were a decade ago, there’s a lot of work to be done. According to the sate health department’s 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 54% of Mississippi high school students have had sexual intercourse, and 39% did not use a condom the last time they had sex. 

Johnson says policy that treats young people like they’re not worthy of the truth contributes to these risky behaviors. 

“We know what works,” Johnson said. “When you present kids with all the information, they are going to make better decisions.” 

Eleven sex ed curricula were approved by the state education department in 2011. Of 142 public school districts in the state, 80 have chosen abstinence-only instruction and 62 have chosen abstinence-plus, according to current data from MDE. 

The approved curricula vary in substance and tone. The Game Plan curriculum, currently in use by Wilkinson County School District, was co-developed with former professional basketball player A.C. Green and is sports-themed. 

The REAL Essentials WAIT curriculum is currently used by 12 school districts and describes the proper use of a male condom as an “at risk” behavior for contracting HIV/AIDS. The curriculum includes activities like an STD crossword puzzle and prompts for classroom discussions like: “When it comes to sex, men are like microwaves and women are like crockpots!”

Ninety school districts teach Choosing The Best curriculum. Of those, 61 are using an abstinence-only version and 26 are using an abstinence-plus version. Abstinence-plus curricula teaches students about the risks and failure rates of contraceptive methods that aren’t abstinence.

The second most popular curriculum is Draw The Line/Respect The Line, an evidence-based, abstinence-plus curriculum currently in use by 26 school districts across the state. 

The contents and quality of sex ed instruction vary by district. While two districts might be using the same curriculum, there’s no guarantee that they teach the same lessons. The state sex ed law lists six components of abstinence-only instruction but does not require each be covered. 

While organizations like Teen Health Mississippi and Mississippi First have lobbied for legislators to update the state’s sex ed law for years, no action has been taken. The law was re-authorized as written in 2016 and 2021.

“The state Legislature really doesn't want to touch something like sex education until they have to,” McCawley said. 

Another concern among advocates is that Mississippi’s sex ed law, as imperfect as it is, isn’t being followed. McCawley said that the sense of urgency and level of oversight that existed after the law was passed isn’t present anymore, and it’s likely many districts are no longer in compliance with the law.

“As time has gone on, the oversight has decreased, and districts have really caught on to that,” McCawley said. “They kind of realized that they can do whatever they want, if anything, and there's going to be no repercussions for that.”

Clements, whose office oversees sex ed compliance, said that monitoring is done every three years but hasn’t occurred since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Monitoring will resume next year and includes reviewing which curriculum is being used and which teachers are providing the instruction. 

With all the challenges schools have faced due to COVID-19, sex ed hasn’t been a top priority, he said. 

“Unfortunately, like a lot of things with COVID, the focus has been making sure kids can get to school.” Clements said. 

Mississippi Today reporter Isabelle Taft contributed to this story.

The post Despite a downward trend in teen births, Mississippi tops nation in 2020 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

OMAHA — Here we go: It’s Ole Miss vs. Arkansas. Loser goes home. Winner moves on to play for the National Championship.

The two Southeastern Conference Western Division rivals will play Thursday at 3 p.m., thanks to the Razorbacks’ nerve-wracking 3-2 victory over the Rebels Wednesday night.

After five days and 11 games of mostly blowouts in the 2022 College World Series, Arkansas and Ole Miss, two familiar combatants, played a nail-biter that went down to the final pitch with more than 25,000 fans nervously watching.

It was, as Mike Bianco said, “a tough one to lose.” It was, as Bianco also said, “a great college baseball game.”

So now Ole Miss find itself where it has been for weeks — that is, playing a game the Rebels have to win.

Said Peyton Chatagnier, the Rebs’ second baseman: “We’ve been in this situation for a while now … I can’t promise you the outcome of tomorrow’s game, but I can guarantee you we’re not scared. We’re not going to back down. This is nothing new to us.”

The Rebels got the pitching they needed Tuesday night. Hitting was a different story. Three Arkansas left-handers — Hagen Smith, Evan Taylor and Zack Morris — limited the Rebels to just five hits and the two runs, negating outstanding pitching from the Rebels’ John Gaddis, Jack Washburn and Jack Dougherty.

Problems with left-handers are nothing new for the Rebels, who came into the game hitting .241 against lefties, compared to .294 against right-handers.

But on that front, there may be some good news following this tough night for the Rebels: Arkansas ace Connor Noland, who will start Thursday, is right-handed. Ole Miss beat him 6-4 at Fayetteville back in late April, although Noland pitched well allowing four runs over eight innings. Noland went 7.2 innings in the Razorbacks’ 17-2 victory over 3-seed Stanford on Saturday.

The Rebels will counter with an ace of their own, right-hander Dylan DeLucia, who beat Noland in that game back in April and who has been lights out for the Rebels in the postseason.

Said Bianco, “If you had asked four or five months ago in February, would you like this opportunity to have your ace on the mound in a winner-take-all game to get you in the Championship Series, everybody would have said, ‘Yes.’”

No doubt.

Bianco, again: “So rather than look at what happened tonight, I think the thing is to flush this and to look forward to tomorrow with an opportunity to win and be one of the last two teams competing for the National Championship. So rather than woe is us, how about looking at what a great opportunity we have tomorrow?”

Duty dictates we take at least a brief look at what did happen Wednesday night, which was a largely unexpected pitchers’ duel. 

Arkansas took the lead with Chris Lanzilli’s second inning solo homer, which barely got out of the park. Ole Miss countered in the bottom of the second with Kemp Alderman’s no-doubt homer. If Alderman clobbered his, then Arkansas’ Bradly Slavens slobber-knocked his fifth inning home run that traveled 436 feet over the center field wall and was hit in to a slight breeze.

Those two Arkansas home runs were all Ole Miss starter John Gaddis allowed in five innings,

Arkansas got what proved to be the winning run in the eighth inning amid some controversy. Cayden Wallace smashed a drive that almost took the glove off Ole Miss third baseman Garrett Wood. Wallace never checked up at first. Meanwhile, Wood retrieved the ball in shallow left field and threw a strike to Chatagnier, who swipe-tagged Wallace, who slid head-first into second.

The call on the field was safe. Ole Miss asked for a review. After a two-minute stoppage, the call on the field was upheld. It could have gone either way. Wallace then scored on catcher Michael Turner’s single.

Asked about the call after the game, Bianco said, “That’s why they have replay. … We thought that Peyton tagged possibly the finger, but again, they got, I think, 22 cameras, and they’ve got people, and they see different views than we do on the board. I don’t think it’s fair for me to comment on a call. They do a great job out there. This is about as smooth as you can do it with instant replay.”

The Hogs led 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth when the Rebels loaded the bases with nobody out on Alderman’s single (his third hit of the night) and then two hit batters.

But Morris then struck out pinch hitter Hayden Leatherwood and got TJ McCants on a shallow fly ball to left field. With two outs, dependable Justin Bench hit a run-scoring, infield single to make it 3-2.

Jacob Gonzalez then flew out to left field to end the game. The Rebels have thrived on timely hitting in the postseason, but not this night.

“Again, it’s disappointing, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, we have a chance to win it,” Bianco said. “That will take a little time to get over tonight. 

“But I would think that everybody, besides what you’ve been through, this is what you play for,” Bianco continued. “Their backs are against the wall, too. They have to win, too. So this is really cool, and you should appreciate the opportunity and the moment and try and be at your best at that moment.”

The post Arkansas ends Ole Miss’ run of perfection, now it’s one game for all the marbles appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The individual income tax, which House Speaker Philip Gunn, Gov. Tate Reeves and others want to eliminate in Mississippi, is the largest source of revenue in 33 states.

Mississippi is among 14 states where sales tax is the largest source of revenue, according to a recent report by the Pew Charitable Trust, which researches and offers assistance to governmental entities on various policy issues.

Recent reports by Pew reveal that most states, including Mississippi, are experiencing significant increases in revenue collections and those increases are fueled by strong collections of most general taxes, including the income tax and the sales tax.

“Tax revenue is one factor that helps explain recent widespread state budget surpluses,” according to a report from Pew.

Currently, according to data compiled by Pew, tax collections are robust both in states that rely primarily on the sales tax and those that are dependent on the income tax.

Mississippi is no exception. With one month of data still to collect before the fiscal year ends on June 30, tax collections in Mississippi are nearly $1.3 billion above the official estimate. The official estimate represents the amount of money legislative leaders projected would be available during the session to build a budget for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1. Money above the official estimate goes into reserve funds.

During the 2022 session, the Legislature appropriated $951.1 million in reserve funds. The bulk of that funding went for a litany of one-time projects – such as on government buildings repair, renovation and construction, and on tourism projects across the state.

Based on revenue collections through May, the Legislature also will have a substantial amount of reserve funds for the 2023 session.

In addition to being almost $1.3 billion above the official estimate, tax collections also are $615 million or 10.25% above the amount collected during the first 11 month of the previous fiscal year. Through 11 months of the fiscal year, the personal income tax collections are up $276.7 million or 13.8% while the general sales tax collections are up $291.4 million or 14.4%. Other elements of the sales tax, such as the tax levied on out of state purchases, also are up.

In the coming years, Mississippi will be even more reliant on the sales tax. During the 2022 session the Legislature reduced the state income tax – beginning in the 2023 calendar year – by eliminating the state’s 4% tax bracket on people’s first $5,000 of taxable income. The 5% tax on remaining income will drop to 4.7% for 2023, then 4.4% for 2025 and 4% starting in 2026. The changes will reduce state income tax revenue by $525 million when fully enacted in 2026.

Both Gunn and Reeves have expressed support for fully eliminating the income tax in the coming years.

“We have talked a lot about moving toward a full elimination of the income tax. I believe that is still the goal. We want to make sure we continue that fight,” Gunn said during the 2022 session earlier this year.

Such action would further position Mississippi among the minority of states more dependent on the sales tax for revenue than the income tax. The sales tax is viewed as a regressive tax that places a larger tax burden on low-income residents than does the income tax.

According to research by Pew, Mississippi currently garners 45.2% of its revenue from its general sales tax, which is 7% on most retail items. This would also include the excise tax levied on out-of-state purchases, primarily those made via the internet. The personal income tax accounts for 26.9% of the state’s revenue, according to Pew.

But that number will decline in the coming years as the income tax is reduced, with the hope by some, of eventually eliminating the tax.

The post Study: Mississippi among minority of states most dependent on sales tax appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In the days and weeks leading up to their arrests in early 2020, Nancy New and her son Zach New sought help from Mississippi’s highest officials to stop what they described as their persecution.

Private text messages obtained by Mississippi Today show the News reacting with a combination of hubris, a sense of betrayal and even confusion over their plight. 

The News had been in charge of spending tens of millions of federal welfare dollars in Mississippi, but the state didn’t hire their nonprofit to provide tangible resources to the poor. Instead, it was to run a private referral center, while the state would use the nonprofit as its piggy bank for projects it couldn’t find funding for elsewhere. 

In many cases, these programs occurred out in the open. The welfare agency’s partnership with a Christian ministry run by WWE wrestlers was written into plans shared with the federal government. A $5 million lease agreement that paid for construction of a new volleyball stadium under the guise that people in poverty would attend courses at the facility was included in board meeting minutes and approved by the Institutes of Higher Learning and the attorney general’s office. And Nancy New’s financing of a private pharmaceutical firm was explained in text messages that retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre sent to the state’s highest official, then-Gov. Phil Bryant.

That could help explain why the News seemed surprised to find themselves the subject of a probe that officials eventually called the largest public embezzlement bust in state history. In Nancy New’s many roles, she was often carrying out the vision of Gov. Bryant and his wife, Deborah Bryant. 

In her panic to shut down the investigation, Nancy New secured a meeting with then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, according to the text messages and a source with knowledge of the meeting. She seemed to hope that the federal prosecutor could provide her information about the probe. 

“It has passed [sic] time to turn the other cheek,” Nancy New wrote to her two sons the evening of Jan. 25, 2020. “First, though, we have [to] make it through this and get this stopped, get cleared of their harassment, etc. then we will go after them all. It will obviously take a lot of money and time but we may need to go on and file once we find out what Mike Hurst says.”

These never-before-published text messages shed light on the incredulous attitudes of the defendants and their last attempts to save themselves before the scandal broke. After Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” series published in April, the News pleaded guilty to several counts including bribery, fraud, wire fraud and racketeering under a favorable plea deal that allows them to avoid any time in state prison as long as they cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

Still, the pleas were a massive fall for a family that had been so politically connected. 

Nancy New was such a close friend to Deborah Bryant that on the same day she plotted with her sons to “go after” her detractors, she lent some of her clothes to the First Lady to try on. Nancy New arranged delivery of the items to the house of the governor’s daughter, Katie Bryant Snell, in text messages with her son Zach New days before their arrests. In explaining the messages, Bryant’s public relations consultant told Mississippi Today that Deborah Bryant had told Nancy New she was getting ready for a trip and had nothing to wear. Close enough to share clothes, it’s unclear what the Bryant family may have discussed with the News about the ongoing investigation. Zach New and Bryant’s son-in-law Stephen Snell were also included in a friendly group message where the men mostly discussed sports.

At that time, the News were aware they were being investigated. They knew their nonprofit’s finances were in disarray. But they didn’t know they were about to be accused of embezzling more than $4 million in federal welfare dollars to use for their private school company and to make investments in Favre’s pharmaceutical venture called Prevacus.

Then-U.S. Attorney Hurst didn’t know it either, because even though the scandal involved federal funds and eventual charges of racketeering – which usually signals the kind of organized crime that the FBI investigates – the Office of the State Auditor made the initial arrests before involving the federal authorities. The auditor’s office carried out the preceding eight-month investigation on its own and turned to a local district attorney to indict.

The auditor who initially investigated the welfare case, Shad White, is a Bryant appointee and former campaign manager with higher political aspirations.

While the auditor was closing in on the News, Bryant was preparing to accept shares in Prevacus, according to text messages Mississippi Today first reported, the company to which Nancy New had illegally funneled welfare funds.

Hours after leaving office in mid-January 2020, Bryant promised to “get on it hard” in making connections for Prevacus. Within weeks, Bryant officially joined the consulting firm his daughter and former chief of staff Joey Songy recently formed.

Right up until the arrests, Bryant was consulting Prevacus and helping it secure an important investor who was one of the new firm’s clients.

The texts also show Favre had told Bryant that Prevacus was working with welfare officials and receiving funds from Mississippi. Bryant backed out of the deal after the New arrests.  

Prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing, but three years after it began, they have yet to publicly scrutinize the former governor’s deal with Prevacus. 

Though dozens of people received money they shouldn’t have, and dozens more played some role in funneling the money away from the poor, the auditor’s office and Hinds County District Attorney’s Office selected six people to charge criminally. Neither state nor federal authorities have arrested anyone else related to the scheme.

“Doug, Families First and we, are truly being railroaded,” Nancy New sent in a message in late January to Doug Davis, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s chief of staff.

In 2016, Mississippi Department of Human Services selected Nancy New’s nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, and another nonprofit called Family Resource Center of North Mississippi to head up the rapid expansion of an anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi. With that came a cash flow of tens of millions of dollars in grant funds that they would use to carry out official state plans under then-welfare director John Davis, appointed by Phil Bryant. 

This included funding religious initiatives and rallies featuring famous athletes who were earning millions of dollars from the welfare department. Despite being included in official state plans shared with the federal government, these programs are now considered central to the biggest welfare spending scandal in state history. The money came from a ‘90s-era federal welfare program with lax oversight and a reputation for being a slush fund. Soon, the spending spun out of control.

In mid-2019, John Davis’ deputy Jacob Black and other employees gathered information about how John Davis was paying retired WWE wrestler Brett DiBiase for work he didn’t conduct and possibly double dipping the welfare department for a program run by Teddy DiBiase Jr. 

Black himself was instrumental in creating many of the questionable grants and the auditor recently served him a civil demand to repay the state $3 million. But Black was also the original source of the tip that Shad White has credited with toppling the scheme. Black took the tip to Bryant, who took the information to Shad White, according to MDHS officials, Bryant staffers and other sources. 

Shad White has maintained that Bryant was the whistleblower of the scandal, crediting the former governor for toppling the scheme.

Within a few months, the auditor’s examination of John Davis’ welfare spending led them to the New nonprofit. The auditor raided Mississippi Community Education Center’s offices in October 2019 and the Mississippi Department of Human Services restricted funding to the nonprofit, jeopardizing vendors who were relying on their reimbursement.

“Our lives and office have been turned upside down for over 3 months now and we deserve answers,” Nancy New’s other son, Jess New, local attorney and director of the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board, said in a text.

While he was never included in criminal charges, Jess New had his hand in business operations at the nonprofit and other MDHS offshoots John Davis was attempting to create, according to a recently filed lawsuit. The civil lawsuit, filed by MDHS, seeks $2.6 million in damages from Jess New, which is included as part of the $19.4 million the suit is asking from his mother. 

In early January 2020, the owner of Prevacus received a subpoena from the auditor’s office for documents related to the stock he offered the News in exchange for their grant funding, according to text messages and documents Mississippi Today obtained. On Jan. 15, 2020, Gov. Tate Reeves took office. 

In the next few weeks, the News scrambled to get information about the investigation and why they weren’t receiving payment from MDHS. They thought Phil Bryant and his newly appointed welfare director, Christopher Freeze, made the call to freeze their nonprofit’s funding before he left office. 

“PB and CF made the decision to freeze the money. Definitely looks like the organization and lord knows who else will be charged for something…..no idea what,” Jess New wrote on Jan. 25, 2020.

“Geez all the hard work just to be thrown under the bus,” Zach New responded.

Jess New told his brother that Christie Webb, the operator of the Family Resource Center, the other nonprofit that was spending welfare money wildly, had reached out to ask Congressman Trent Kelly to release their funding from MDHS.

Kelly’s representative Susan Parker told Mississippi Today in a statement that his office has “no knowledge of what happened between the Mississippi Department of Human Services and the Family Resource Center beyond published reports.”

“After discovering there was an ongoing investigation into the Family Resource center, our office refrained from getting involved in this issue,” she wrote.

The north Mississippi nonprofit has since lost its MDHS funding altogether.

The News had also reached out to Brad White, who was heading up Reeves’ transition as his chief of staff. Zach asked his brother, “BW against us?”

“No he’s just in the middle,” Jess New responded. “They know it’s a f’ed up situation and PB’s the issue.”

Brad White told Mississippi Today that, to the best of his recollection, two groups reached out to the Reeves transition team, including people on behalf of judges who were using some of the funds to help children in the court system. The two nonprofits who ran Families First, Nancy New and Webb’s nonprofits, had been at odds with each other in the last year. The two nonprofits were also responsible for the programmatic side of a judicial initiative called Family First, which aimed to revamp the state’s foster care system by providing more preventative services. The initiative, headed up by Deborah Bryant, crumbled during the investigation.

“I know enough about things from my time at the auditor’s office that you don’t get involved in anything remotely involved with an investigation,” Brad White said. “I think it was like, ‘I wish you the best, and there’s nothing I can do.’”

Brad White said both the New contingent and the judges wanted help in unfreezing their funds, but that he told them the transition team could not help with that and that the new administration would follow any recommendations or guidance from the state auditor’s office on the case.

The News were left speculating what exactly they were in trouble for, who was against them and why their funding was cut off.

“Because we’re being investigated is why. We need someone to investigate the investigators and this BS investigation,” Jess New texted his mother on Jan. 26, 2020. “It’s a witch hunt and blatant harassment.”

In the following days, Nancy New took her associate David Kelly, a consultant for Oxford-based low-income real estate developer Chartre Consulting, to meet with Hurst. 

New’s organization had promised to provide classes and resource referrals to the residents of Chartre’s properties. The partnership allowed New’s nonprofit to increase the headcount of people served through Families First, but the program struggled to persuade residents to truly participate, Chartre Consulting owner Clarence Chapman told Mississippi Today. The services amounted to Families First hosting events where they gave away free hot dogs.

“It didn’t penetrate as much as we would have liked, but that’s just the nature of our residents and that income level. But they (Nancy New’s nonprofit) worked hard to get participation and I wish they’d still have this underway where it could benefit our residents,” Chapman said.

He sees the News as victims of Bryant and Davis’ vague plan to turn the state’s welfare system into a resource referral network instead of providing direct aid.

“It’s a shame the way the regulations are written to let the governor use the money like that and then poor Nancy, who was a very respectable person, has been abused by the system,” he continued. “She got way over her head and didn’t realize what she was dealing with and is the whipping child for a bunch of different reasons here and it’s destroyed her health and her finances. And it’s sad, because she’s a good person … She appears to be used as a conduit to spread money and do what others wanted done with it who had the authority to do that.”

Someone with knowledge of the meeting said that Hurst, two assistant U.S. attorneys and an FBI agent met with Nancy New and David Kelly, and New’s attorney attended by phone. David Kelly initially agreed to an interview with Mississippi Today and then stopped responding to calls and messages.

If Nancy New chose to meet with Hurst in an attempt to avoid prosecution, it didn’t work. Instead, it tipped off federal authorities to White’s investigation and caused them to reach out to the auditor for more information. 

Then, Jess New got some new information.

“Don’t think PB suspended our funds….I’ll explain later,” he texted on Feb. 3, 2020, the day before a Hinds County grand jury handed down the indictments, referring to Phil Bryant. “Still may not hurt to reach out to him for any help.”

The post ‘Whipping child’: Nancy New asked highest officials for help before arrests in welfare scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jasmine Cleark-Gibson left teaching last month after seven and a half years in the classroom. It was time for a change. The lack of autonomy in her job made her feel like “she couldn’t fix things anymore,” and the myriad of responsibilities placed on her as an educator also left her with no bandwidth to care for her own children. 

“I found myself with nothing left to give to the people who are supposed to matter the most to me,” Cleark-Gibson said. “I was looking for a work-life balance that all people are trying to grasp, but nobody is respecting teachers enough to give them.” 

Mississippi has suffered from a critical teacher shortage for years, one that has only recently been measured. The Department of Education announced in December 2021 that there were over 3,000 certified teacher vacancies, a staggering figure considering that there are about 32,000 teachers across the state. 

Teachers and policymakers have long emphasized the need for competitive salaries to attract more teachers to Mississippi, a goal that saw progress this year when the Legislature passed the largest teacher pay raise in Mississippi history, putting Mississippi teachers above the Southeastern average.  

Despite these improvements, teachers in Mississippi are still leaving the classroom to teach in other states or take jobs in other fields. Data from the Mississippi Department of Education shows 5,800 teachers left their district at the end of the 2020-21 school year, or 17% of all teachers. These teachers may have moved between districts or left the profession entirely — this distinction is not captured in the MDE data.

Cleark-Gibson found her way to teaching through an alternate route program at Mississippi Valley State University, and taught English in the Leflore County School District, Midtown Public Charter School, and the Hinds County School District. 

She said she loved helping students reach the “lightbulb moment” and building relationships with students, since “they don’t care about the content until they know you care about them.”

But the pressures that are put on teachers — like countless meetings that take time away from lesson planning and the responsibility to be in tune with each student’s social and emotional well-being — left Cleark-Gibson overwhelmed. 

For Chevonne Dixon, a fifteen-year veteran of the Mississippi public education system, the time constraints were still a real concern, but the biggest factor was money. Dixon is a resident of DeSoto county but drives across the border to teach in Memphis, where she makes more and gets paid twice a month. 

“During the pandemic, I started filling out applications and I saw that I could actually live off of what I would be making in Memphis … so it was an easy choice for me,” she said. 

Dixon also highlighted the pressure that student loans put on teachers to seek higher-paying opportunities, something that Mississippi First K-12 Policy Director Toren Ballard has also been researching. Mississippi First published a report in January that found over half of Mississippi teachers were considering leaving the classroom within the next year. 

They surveyed 6,500 Mississippi teachers, data Ballard has continued digging into and has noticed some stark disparities. Teachers with student debt are twice as likely to be SNAP recipients and over twice as likely to not have $400 in case of an emergency. 

But that student debt also isn’t distributed evenly across the state. Ballard found that one in four teachers in F-rated districts owe over $100,000 in student debt, while only 4-5% of teachers in A and B-rated districts do. Poorly rated districts are also more likely to have teachers not return year-over-year, according to the data from MDE. 

“Teaching in Mississippi, obviously everyone’s salaries are low, but it’s a very inequitable profession even given that,” Ballard said. “People are experiencing wildly different financial realities.” 

The Mississippi First report found that over 90% of teachers thinking about leaving the classroom cited salaries as their reason, but respect from administrators came close behind. Amelia Watson, who taught for two and half years in the Petal and Pearl Public School Districts, said she was stretching herself thin to be the teacher she, and school leaders, wanted her to be. 

“I was meeting the expectations of my administrators, but it was nearly impossible to do so during contract hours,” Watson said.  “I wasn’t willing anymore to sacrifice my free time and my mental well-being, unpaid, for a job that doesn’t celebrate our achievements.” 

Watson said her husband and co-workers noticed her mental health declining during her third year, which led to her resignation. She has considered going back, but has found a great deal of stability in the boundaries of her current job as a recruitment coordinator, and said she wasn’t sure teaching would ever be able to give that to her. 

As for Dixon, the teacher in Memphis, she’s not planning to leave the profession any time soon. When asked if the most recent pay raise made Dixon reconsider taking a job out of state, she said no. She said that the salaries still aren’t where they should be, and that getting paid once a month necessitates being a strong budgeter — but if Mississippi were to fix those things, she would return. 

“My (plan) was to teach and retire in Mississippi, but I can’t afford to,” she said.

The post ‘It was an easy choice for me’: 17% of teachers left their district in the 2020-21 school year appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Coral Gables, Hattiesburg, Omaha. The site seems to make no difference to the red-hot Ole Miss Rebels, who have now won seven NCAA Tournament games, mostly by lopsided scores. The Clevelands caught up with Mike Bianco, Tim Elko and Hunter Elliot to talk about the Rebels’ latest and most important conquest, the Monday night victory over Arkansas, which kept Ole Miss in the winners’ bracket and sent the Razorbacks to the losers’ bracket. Ole Miss is now three victories away from a national championship.

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OMAHA – Today’s column, a synopsis: Another game, another Ole Miss victory, and another chapter in the Legend of Tim Elko.

Just when you think the Elko story can’t get any better and any more Bunyan-esque, something happens like happened in the second inning of Ole Miss’s 13-5 conquest of Arkansas in the College World Series Monday night.

To set the stage: Ole Miss, playing perhaps its most important baseball game in school history, led 2-1 with two outs in the second. The unseasonably hot and relentless Nebraska wind was howling in from centerfield. With Justin Bench on second base, Elko came to bat. The count went to two balls, two strikes, and Arkansas pitcher Evan Taylor was just one strike away from getting out of the inning.

Arkansas catcher Michael Turner signaled for the slider, and held his mitt low and inside. Taylor delivered a slider that never slid – high and outside – several inches off the plate.

Most batters would have taken the pitch for ball three. Instead, Elko took a mighty swing, reaching all the way across the plate and almost into the opposite batter’s box. Against that wind, Elko somehow launched a towering home run that landed far beyond the Arkansas bullpen and high up into the left field stands, 416 feet away from home plate. For what it’s worth, we are told the ball left Elko’s bat at 109 mph. It traveled 416 feet in a hurry – the longest home run of this College World Series.

Tuesday morning, prior to an off-day practice session, Elko smiled when asked about the clout.

“I didn’t really realize how far outside it was until I saw it on the video last night,” Elko said. “At first, I think partly because of the location of the pitch, I didn’t realize I got it that good. But then I saw it flying and knew I got it good enough.”

And then some…

Said Mike Bianco, “I haven’t seen many balls hit that far in this stadium, especially with that wind. It wasn’t a line drive that got under the wind. It was high, into the teeth of it. It just shows how strong and powerful Tim is.”

Elko’s shot had freshman pitcher Hunter Elliott, chief beneficiary, gushing a day later.

“It was awesome, that’s man strength right there,” Elliott said. “Crazy strength, crazy talent, crazy everything. The dude is a freak with a bat in his hand.”

The freakish dude with Superman shoulders and Popeye forearms has now hit 23 home runs this season and 45 in his storied career. Elko says he finds himself almost needing to pinch himself these days to realize the last three weeks aren’t a dream.

“I don’t know if it’s even sunk in yet and maybe that’s good, because we remain relaxed just going out there and playing ball,” Elko said. “We’ve had some really good teams here at Ole Miss. We’ve had some hot streaks before, but this is some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen. This is about as good as it gets.”

It’s not just Elko, mind you, although he is the captain and the unquestioned team leader. During this postseason run, the Rebels have hit well up and down the lineup. Monday night, Garrett Wood, the eight-hole hitter, was on base four of five times, while nine-hole hitter Calvin Harris slammed two doubles and a home run, scored twice and knocked in four runs.

In NCAA competition, against top-shelf teams, Ole Miss is 7-0 and has outscored the opposition 64-18, which looks like a misprint but isn’t.

Elko takes none of it for granted.

“There’s no place better to end your college career than Omaha,” Elko said. “There would be no better way to end it than by winning the national championship.”

Bianco says that one of the “neatest” aspects of the Legend of Elko is that Elko didn’t have to come back for this season. He could have taken them money and gone pro. He had already come back from a torn ACL – actually played with the ACL still torn – to lift the 2021 Rebels to a regional championship and to within one game of the College World Series.

Said Bianco, “He came back for one reason, which was to play in the College World Series, and here he is doing this.”

What more could Elko possibly do?

Bianco smiled, looked down and shook his head. “I don’t know,” Bianco. “He can invite us to his statue ceremony, I guess.”

The post The Legend of Tim Elko grows: ‘The dude is a freak with a bat in his hands’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees has decided that Delta State University president William LaForge’s last day will be at the end of this month, marking a sudden end to a nine-year tenure that oversaw budget instability, some progressive initiatives at the university, and sharp declines in enrollment due to the pandemic. 

Though the trustees made the decision at the board meeting last week, LaForge wrote in a lengthy campus-wide email that IHL did not tell him until “just prior” to sending out a press release Monday night. 

“I am very disappointed in the decision, but I accept the outcome and am fully prepared to move on,” he wrote. 

Through a university spokesperson, LaForge declined to talk with Mississippi Today, but he wrote in his email to the campus that the reason IHL gave for his departure was primarily financial. 

“The very basic explanation I was provided was that the IHL Board thinks a leadership change is warranted because the comparative state of the university from the time when I began my service in 2013 until now is not favorable — especially with respect to enrollment metrics and financial sustainability,” LaForge wrote. 

IHL did not provide its own reason for the move, and the trustees did not discuss the decision publicly at the board meeting last week. In IHL’s press release, Tom Duff, the board president, noted that “these are challenging times for higher education.” 

The board also announced that it had named E.E. “Butch” Caston as an interim replacement. Caston has held multiple administrative positions at Delta State University and Mississippi University for Women. 

“I appreciate Dr. Caston’s willingness to take on the role of interim president and feel certain that he will be able to address many of the issues facing Delta State at this time, including declining enrollment, fiscal challenges, and infrastructure,” Duff said. 

LaForge will be the first university president to depart after IHL made its presidential search process more confidential through a series of policy changes earlier this year. In April, the board voted to make it so search committee members are anonymous, even to each other, and to decrease the role that campus advisory groups play in selecting the president. 

Faculty are concerned these changes will make university presidents less accountable to students, faculty and staff. 

LaForge came to the university in 2013 with no experience in higher education. He had primarily worked in politics as chief of staff for Sen. Thad Cochran and as a lobbyist, but he had also served as president Delta State’s alumni association. 

“This is a career direction change for me,” LaForge said in 2013. “I have not been in higher education administration and I hope to be able to translate the skill sets I have.”

LaForge’s tenure has been marked by cyclical budget cuts. The first round came about a year after he took office. In fall 2014, the university announced about $1 million in cuts, eliminating a slew of academic programs and shuttering the campus newspaper. Twenty-four positions were terminated. Students and faculty held a mock funeral in protest, the Clarion Ledger reported.

The announcement came just a few months after the university announced a higher-than-anticipated fundraising haul.  

Delta State has seen several progressive endeavors under LaForge. In 2014, the university won a national social justice award for its first “Winning the Race” conference which brought former Gov. William Winter and Rep. Bennie Thompson to campus. More recently, students and faculty held an on-campus screening of a documentary about the 1969 sit-in that led to police arresting dozens on Black students. More than 500 people attended. 

Faculty led much of those initiatives, though, and the administration has been slow in other efforts. In late 2016, Delta State was the last public university in Mississippi to stop flying the state flag that contained the Confederate emblem. 

“I wish to make it clear that this university is making an institutional decision on this issue because the state government has declined to change the flag,” LaForge said at the time. “This is a painful decision in many respects because this is a highly charged emotional issue for many people.” 

More recently, many students, faculty and alumni have signed a petition calling on LaForge’s administration to rename the Walter Sillers Coliseum – the basketball arena named for the white supremacist founder of the Delta Council. The petition asked for the arena to be renamed in honor of Luisa “Lucy” Harris, the first Black woman on Delta State’s women’s basketball team who died earlier this year. 

LaForge has not publicly commented on the petition. His wife, Nancy, spoke at Harris’ funeral, which was held in the Coliseum. 

The university has struggled to weather the pandemic. Enrollment has dropped by 27% since fall 2019 – the largest drop of any school. In fall 2020, Delta State was the only university to raise tuition rates. 

Earlier this year, LaForge’s administration was still concerned about the budget. Minutes from a February 2022 cabinet meeting show the executive committee “has been reviewing all potential budget savings and cuts; discussing ways to reimage (sic) core programs and growth areas; and, talking about ways to realign the budget to highlight the university’s priorities.”

At IHL’s meeting last week, the trustees were briefed on each university’s budget and finances. One of the budget documents that trustees reviewed showed that Delta State has just 40 days cash on hand, the lowest reserve in the system. Delta State is also the only university facing a negative return on total assets, which means it is losing money on investments.  

In his campus-wide email, LaForge wrote that his family plans to return to northern Virginia. The appointment as university president was a homecoming for LaForge, who grew up in Cleveland, Miss., and attended Delta State as an undergrad. His father, a history professor at Delta State, is honored with a library on campus. 

“I will be forever grateful to Delta State University for all it has given me in life,” LaForge wrote. 

The post ‘I am very disappointed’: Bill LaForge abruptly out as Delta State president appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today presents a members-only exclusive event via Zoom on July 1 at 1 p.m. featuring Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey in conversation with Ben and Erin Napier of HGTV’s Home Town. Join them as they discuss balancing family and work, Erin’s new children’s book and more.

Ben and Erin have found success in renovating and revitalizing homes in Laurel, Mississippi on Home Town. Ben is a woodworker, founder of Scotsman Co., and co-owner of Laurel Mercantile Co. Erin Napier is a designer who started her career in corporate graphic design before founding her own international stationery company, Lucky Luxe, and is a founding co-owner of Laurel Mercantile Co. Recently, Erin published a children’s book titled The Lantern House, illustrated by Laurel-based artist Adam Trest that reached the New York Times best-sellers list. Ben and Erin are based in Laurel with their two daughters. Learn more about the duo.

The post Mississippi Today hosting conversation with Ben and Erin Napier appeared first on Mississippi Today.