Rain chances going down and temperatures going up this weekend. Right now, it looks like these middle to upper 90s will last well into next week. The heat index will be near 110 Friday!
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 95. Heat index values as high as 110! A 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Light wind becoming north northwest 5 to 10 mph.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear, with a low around 74.
SATURDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Heat index values as high as 103! A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy, with a low around 74.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming west around 5 mph in the morning. A 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear, with a low around 73. A 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms.
Mississippi Department of Education headquarters in Jackson.
Gov. Tate Reeves in a press conference Wednesday said it was “very likely” he would veto the budget bill for the Mississippi Department of Education, a state agency that oversees almost 900 public schools and more than 465,000 students.
If he does — the deadline to sign it is midnight Wednesday — the Legislature will be dealing with the veto in the midst of chaos caused by the fact that both presiding officers, Speaker Philip Gunn in the House and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in the Senate, have tested positive for COVID-19. State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said Wednesday 36 cases of coronavirus came from an outbreak at the Capitol, and 26 of those were lawmakers.
Under the rules suspension in place it is likely that legislators could come back to address any veto without having to be called into special session by the governor. But Reeves surmised that because of the coronavirus outbreak in the Capitol, “It would be at least 14 days from today before the Legislature could meet remotely safe … and that’s only remotely.”
The education budget, about $2.2 billion in state funds, was one of the last approved by legislators before they adjourned with the intent to come back in the coming days to deal with one final budget for the Department of Marine Resources. Last week the Legislature approved a budget in the midst of declining state revenues caused by the coronavirus. Under the roughly $6 billion budget approved, most agencies will absorb cuts of between 3 percent and 5 percent for the current fiscal year.
The possible veto comes from the governor posting on social media Tuesday that “the education bill has a major problem,” saying the Legislature cut teacher pay by more than $26 million. He was referencing the school recognition program, which provides monetary rewards to schools that improve letter grades.
By moving the funding for this program into the main school funding program instead of earmarking it for the recognition program, the governor said, “over 20,000 teachers will get less pay than they earned if we allow this budget to become law.”
The Legislature created the program in 2014. It is a merit-based pay system to incentivize teachers and staff in high performing schools and those who are improving letter grades. Teachers in A-rated schools or improve from a ‘F’ to ‘D,’ or ‘D’ to ‘C’ receive $100 per student, and ‘B’ rated schools receive $75 per student. Since 2017, the Legislature has funneled about $71 million into the recognition program.
For the current budget year, information provided by the Department of Education indicates it would take $28 million to fully fund the program for about 21,000 teachers who qualify for the funds based on their schools’ grades. Reeves maintained Wednesday, more than 23,000 teachers would lose the bonuses. For fiscal year 2020, nearly 21,000 teachers in 510 public schools collectively received $25 million, according to Mississippi Today’s analysis of program records.
While Gov. Tate Reeves cited that teachers “will see pay cuts of a couple thousand dollars,” Mississippi Today’s analysis of the data found no teacher received thousands of dollars.
Last year, the Legislature created new guidelines clarifying that the money should only be awarded to current and certified staff of the eligible school and the award must be distributed evenly. For the first two years of the program, it has been difficult to solidify the accurate number of teachers receiving rewards because the Mississippi Department of Education has not kept record of this information.
House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, on Wednesday said legislative leaders had contacted the governor’s office, and assured him the program can continue without him vetoing or lawmakers having to redo the budget.
“As chairman of Education, the loss of the School Recognition program deeply troubles me. Regardless of budgetary movements, it was and continues to be our intent for MDE to fund this program,” Bennett said. “We informed the governor’s staff that legislative clarification will easily fix this matter, and that a veto was unnecessary. The Legislature can provide a deficit appropriation into the future to fund expenses for MDE to continue this program.”
Schools would qualify in the current fiscal year beginning July 1 for their educators to receive the funds based on their rating for the 2018-19 school year, according to information from the Department of Education.
The program was part of a pay increase provided to teachers in 2014. Then-Lt. Gov. Reeves and then-Senate Education Chair Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, were the primary proponents of the program. Some education advocates argued against the program, saying it would result in teachers trying to work in top performing or improving districts where they were more apt to receive the extra pay.
“The first couple of years the guidance sent out, based on what the Legislature wanted, was for individual schools to form a teacher committee to make a decision based on how the money would be dispersed. I don’t think the forms asked how many teachers would receive the money. It was more or less … we just needed something on record to determine how they were going to disperse that money,” Pete Smith, Mississippi Department of Education chief of communications and government relations said in February in an interview with Mississippi Today.
Though it was mandatory for districts to submit response forms that show how the money was dispersed and the number of certified staff who received money, a number of districts did not submit a form or state the number of certified staff to receive the award.
If Reeves vetoes the education budget as he said he is likely to do, he said under a 2010 Attorney General’s opinion funding to for the public schools can continue because education is identified as a constitutional mandate of the state.
Aallyah will moderate the ‘How I Did the Story’ session, where reporters give the backstory on projects and discuss what they learned along the way. The panel will feature three EWA award finalists, who will discuss their work on race and educational equity.
Aallyah joined the EWA’s advisory board, a select group of journalists from a mix of regional and national media organizations, in April. The group of accomplished journalists helps EWA carry out its mission to strengthen community of education writers and improve the quality of education coverage to help better inform the public.
Tommy Tuberville, who spent four years as Ole Miss football coach, hopes to spend the next six years in the U.S. Senate.
So I am trying to wrap my arms around the fact former Ole Miss football coach Tommy Tuberville, who hails from Arkansas and recently has lived on the beach in Florida, might well be the next U.S. Senator from Alabama.
Turns out, my arms are not nearly long enough.
Polls show Tuberville leading Jeff Sessions, whom he faces in a July 14 Republican primary runoff. The winner will be favored to defeat incumbent Doug Jones. Nothing – in football or politics – is certain, but Tuberville, who won 25 games and lost 20 at Ole Miss in his four seasons from 1995-98, is the clear favorite to become Senator Tuberville.
Rick Cleveland
The guess here is that the average Mississippi football fan could not have told you Tuberville’s Ole Miss record before reading that last sentence. But the average fan could certainly tell you the circumstances of Tuberville’s departure from Oxford.
For weeks during the fall of 1998, rumors had circulated that Tuberville was headed to Auburn. For weeks, Tuberville denied the rumors. He looked directly into the eyes of sports writers, one of whom was me, and said this: “They’ll have to carry me out of here in a pine box.”
Two days later, he stepped onto a private jet, sent from Auburn, and took the job after all. Turns out, no pine box was required, although many Ole Miss fans would have gladly provided.
“I’m a Rebel at heart,” he had told us. “I want to be where people want you, where you have a chance to win, where your players are giving all they can and where it’s a great place to live. That’s exactly what we have here in Oxford.”
As former Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone says, “Tommy always did have the gift of gab.”
Often, politicians talk out of both sides of their mouth. Tuberville has that part down pat. And he has for a long time. As one of his best Ole Miss players told me recently, “Tubs was always a politician.”
Long after he left Ole Miss, long after he was fired by Auburn, Tuberville was the head coach at Texas Tech. In December of 2012, Tuberville was at a dinner with several recruits, talking up the Red Raiders program. Shortly before dinner was served, Tuberville got up and left the table. “We thought he was going to the bathroom,” a recruit later said.
Tuberville never returned. The next day, he became the head coach at Cincinnati, proving once and for all that the grass is not always greener. Tuberville was 85-40 in 10 years at Auburn, 20-17 in three years at Texas Tech, and 29-22 in four years at Cincinnati.
This is not to say Tuberville could not coach. He most certainly could. You could argue – and I would – that Tuberville’s best coaching was done at Ole Miss, where he became known as The Riverboat Gambler for his propensity to buck traditional football odds. He inherited a program decimated by severe NCAA sanctions and somehow won six games his first season. His 1997 Rebels finished 8-4 and he was voted SEC Coach of the Year and deserved the honor.
Ole Miss athletics
Tuberville lifted the Golden Egg high after the 1995 Egg Bowl. victory in Starkville.
He used it, too. After that 1997 season, rumors were rampant that Tuberville was headed to Arkansas to replace Danny Ford as the head coach there. Tuberville got a huge raise and announced he was staying at Ole Miss. And then Frank Broyles, the Arkansas athletic director and legendary former coach, said Tuberville was never offered the job. Broyles, you may remember, hired Houston Nutt.
Tuberville resigned from his last coaching job at Cincinnati in 2016 when his final Bearcats team finished 4-8. He moved to Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., and voted there, as a Floridian, in 2018 – as Jeff Sessions gleefully reminds everyone in his campaign ads, one of which shows an interview with Tuberville talking about moving to the “white sands and blue water of Santa Rosa – what a great place to live.”
The Sessions campaign lately also has zeroed in on Tuberville’s involvement in an investment fraud case from back in his coaching days. Former Lehman Brothers broker John David Stroud, with whom Tuberville founded a hedge fund, was sentenced to 10 years for bilking investors out of millions. Tuberville, who says he was an innocent victim, was sued for millions and settled out of court in 2013. Make of it what you like, but know this: The investment firms in question were TS Capital Management and TS Capital Partners. The T stood for Tuberville, the S for Stroud.
T also stands for Trump, and Tuberville famously has the president’s endorsement, which is like gold in Alabama and which he flouts in his campaign ads. In fact, Tuberville’s campaign can be summarized thusly: God, guns and Trump. That’s not all together different from Sessions, who also touts his own experience while Coach Tuberville touts his leadership qualities. The self-promotion is winding down, and this last week of the primary campaign will likely get down and dirty – entertaining to watch from one state over.
One factor I wonder about: When push comes to shove, how will Alabama Crimson Tide fans vote? Would Ole Miss fans vote for Jackie Sherrill? Would Mississippi State fans vote for Hugh Freeze?
Keep in mind, when Tuberville was the coach at Auburn, he won 7 of 10 against Bama and once beat the Crimson Tide six straight years.
Again, like him or not or trust him or not, nobody ever said Tuberville couldn’t coach.
Mostly cloudy skies will prevail this morning with a 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms. We will have a mix of sun and clouds this afternoon with highs in the upper 80s. Winds becoming southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. Tonight we have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Otherwise, it will be mostly clear with lows in the mid 70s.
Doctor’s offices, restaurants and car dealers were the top businesses in Mississippi to receive loans from the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package signed into law this spring.
The U.S. Treasury Department released the names of 650,000 businesses that received loans of $150,000 or more on Monday as part of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) designed to help small businesses, including nearly 4,000 in Mississippi. The program is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act President Donald Trump signed.
The released data also include information about smaller loan recipients, but excluded their names. In total, Mississippi businesses received between $2.5 billion and $4.4 billion in loans, spread across 45,000 recipients — loans of $150,000 or larger are only disclosed in ranges. There is not an exact figure because many of these loans are disclosed in ranges.
Below is a chart of the types of businesses receiving the most money in Mississippi:
Some Mississippi borrowers receiving between $5-$10 million in those categories include GI Associates, a gastroenterology group in Flowood, Ridgeland-based law firm Butler Snow, and two restaurant companies, Mid River Restaurants in Natchez and The Retzer Group in Greenville.
Religious groups in the state received between $53 and $80 million, spread across 80 different organizations.
According to the data set, these loans will allow the businesses to retain a total of 412,492 jobs.
The data also included the demographics of borrowers, although two-thirds of the state’s borrowers declined to provide a gender and three-quarters declined to provide a race or ethnicity. Of the Mississippi businesses that did answer, 75 percent were male, and 83 percent were white.
In Mississippi, 17 businesses received loans between $5-$10 million, the highest range of funding. For a full breakdown of which businesses received loans of $150,000 or more, see the tables below:
Disclosure: Mississippi Today sought a Paycheck Protection Program loan, which has been approved and disbursed.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, left, and House speaker Philip Gunn speak to media concerning the legislative session and the coronavirus Tuesday, March 17, 2020.
The Legislature’s two presiding officers, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, 73, in the Senate and House Speaker Philip Gunn, 57, are at home quarantining after testing positive for COVID-19.
They are among a growing number of legislators, particularly in the House, and legislative staff who have tested positive in recent days.
Throughout that time period, recommended safety precautions to combat COVID-19, like wearing masks and social distancing, were to a large extent ignored by most legislators, though some did wear masks.
“It is the way we have been doing things in our country,” said Jarvis Dortch, who served Jackson as a Democrat in the House until this past Thursday when he stepped down to become executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi. “We get tired of the safety precautions and it becomes business as usual.”
While not all of the members who contracted the virus have been made public, Dortch said he could count as many as 12 House members whom he had heard tested positive for the virus. Others said the numbers are higher. On Tuesday afternoon, state Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said eight legislators had tested positive, though, many others were waiting on test results.
When the session resumed in May after taking a recess in March because of concerns over the coronavirus, multiple safety precautions were put in place. The number of people allowed in the House and Senate chambers where the members’ desks are only a few feet apart, were limited. Most everyone, though not all, were wearing masks.
In late March, a Capitol Police officer reportedly tested positive for coronavirus while the Legislature was on hiatus, and in June legislative leaders also confirmed that an employee who occasionally works at the state Capitol tested positive as well.
Throughout the process, everyone has had to undergo a temperature check when entering the Capitol, though that was about the only safety precaution that was not eschewed.
As the historic debate to change the flag intensified, unusual focus was placed on the House Rules Committee since that is the committee where the flag legislation originated. Often, Rules Committee meetings, held in a small room, were crowded, near elbow to elbow. Gunn serves on this committee as do other members who reports indicate have tested positive.
Ironically, though, the first member to announce he was positive for COVID-19 was Rep. Bo Brown, D-Jackson, who was never seen not wearing a mask and often was wearing gloves.
“He even left his mask on to ask questions,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens. “He might have gotten it away from the Capitol.”
Dortch said he was glad Brown was wearing a mask. He said the people sitting near Brown in the House chamber have all been tested and none of them thus far have tested positive. Dortch said research indicates a mask worn by a person with the virus can provide a certain amount of protection for people the person with the illness comes in contact.
Senate Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said Tuesday he was awaiting his test results. Should the Legislature be forced to come back into session before Hosemann recovers, Kirby would preside. If he was sick, Kirby said any senator could preside, though, it might fall to the Senate Rules Committee Vice Chair Walter Michel, a Madison County Republican. Kirby is Rules chair.
In the House, Pro-Tem Jason White, R-West, confirmed he had symptoms and was expecting to receive a positive test.
He said Gunn, who said Sunday he was not exhibiting many symptoms, remained in charge, but it is not clear who would preside if both he and the speaker were quarantined. Perhaps that would fall to Rules Chair Rep. Jerry Turner, R-Baldwyn.
The Legislature had planned to come back late this week to try to pass a budget for the Department of Marine Resources for the new fiscal year that began on July 1. Since the new budget year began, the Gulf Coast agency had been performing only basic services.
DMR was the only agency left unfunded when the Legislature adjourned last week.
On Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves, who was with both Gunn and Hosemann last week when he signed into law a bill retiring the state flag, announced, he had tested negatively.
Education reporter 
