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The Mississippi Legislature is a gubernatorial signature away from doing what it has not been able to accomplish since the early 1990s: pass a plan to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts.

The Mississippi Senate, by a 33-18 vote Wednesday, approved the congressional redistricting proposal that was passed earlier this session by the House. The plan now goes to Gov. Tate Reeves, who can choose to sign it into law or veto it.

(Editor’s note: The new congressional map can be found at the bottom of this story.)

After both the 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses, the state’s congressional districts were redrawn by the federal courts after the Legislature could not agree on a plan because of partisan bickering.

There also were partisan differences this year, but the Republicans’ grasp on the legislative process is firm enough to stifle any Democratic objections.

In the Senate, as was the case in the House last week, Democrats opposed the Republican plan to expand the African American majority District 2 almost the length of the state from Tunica County in northwest Mississippi all the way to the Louisiana border in southwest Mississippi. District 2, if the plan is signed into law, will encompass 40% of the landmass of the state.

Senate Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, who presented the Republican plan, said the proposed District 2 maintained “communities of interest” since the district would run along the Mississippi River on the western side of the state.

“We were trying go with what the courts drew (in the past) as much as possible,” Kirby said, adding the plan is fair and that no incumbent congressmen gets everything he wanted in the proposal.

READ MORE: Groups allege Redistricting Committee violated public meetings law

The state’s longest serving U.S. representative, Bennie Thompson, who also is African American and the sole Democrat in the delegation, had proposed that all of Hinds County be included in his District 2. But the Republicans rejected that proposal.

Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, said Thompson, who is from Hinds County, should be able to represent all of his home county like the three white, Republican incumbents are able to do.

Of the Republican plan, Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said, “it makes a person like me (an African American) wonder.”

Sen. Angela Turner Ford, D-West Point, offered a plan that was rejected by the Republican majority that would have included a portion of fast growing DeSoto County and all of Hinds in Thompson’s District 2.

All of the proposals strived to maintain a District 2 with a Black population around 60%. Turner Ford’s proposal also increased the Black voting-age population of District 3, located primarily in east Mississippi, from the low 30 percent level to 37%.

“It represents an opportunity for those individuals who are part of the Black voting-age population to have more influence and a greater voice in Congressional District 3,” said Turner-Ford, who is Black.

All of the chamber’s 16 Democrats opposed the plan offered by the Republican majority. Two Republicans — Melanie Sojourner of Natchez and Chris McDaniel of Ellisville — voted against the Republican plan. Sojourner represents portions of southwest Mississippi that are being moved from District 3 to District 2 under the Republican plan.

The post Republican lawmakers send redrawn congressional districts to governor for final signature appeared first on Mississippi Today.

LAUREL — Driving down his curving, wooded street on the edges of Laurel, Marlan Baucum points to each house where a neighbor had cancer.

He knows of 10 people on his street who have been diagnosed, four of whom have already died. Most have had leukemia, but one neighbor had esophageal cancer — the same type as his wife.

First diagnosed in January 2016, Deidra Baucum underwent chemotherapy and radiation, then lost a large portion of her esophagus in the process of removing the tumor. Though she is currently in remission and has continued to work, she must sleep sitting up, takes medicine at least eight times a day, and regularly struggles with aspiration pneumonia.

“Over at UAB, the doctor was staging the cancer and told me that something else was causing her cancer. He couldn’t check a single box for the normal causes of this type of tumor,” Marlan said. “And when he did the second (procedure), he told me, ‘I’m going to give you my card. Your wife needs a lawyer.’”

The doctor didn’t know that nearly two years earlier, the Baucums had already filed suit against multiple oil companies for property contamination from a disposal well less than a quarter of a mile from their house.

That lawsuit has been in limbo for years as the parties have fought over the appropriate jurisdiction of the case: the courts, or the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board.

The crux of the Baucums’ legal fight is simple: The Baucums believe that the government agency tasked with protecting Mississippians has failed to do so. And the oil companies who own the well have relied heavily on the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board, which the Baucums believe are overly friendly to the companies.

“I feel helpless sometimes (watching Deidra get sick), sitting there thinking, ‘What the hell else can I do?’ And my satisfaction is doing this,” Marlan said. “Making sure that people know what has happened to her, what has happened to our property, and what the test results show.”

Drilling for oil is a highly regulated process — or at least it’s supposed to be.

When oil is drilled, up to 20,000 feet underground, other harmful fluids are brought to the earth’s surface that must be disposed of — usually by collecting them and injecting them into the ground at a disposal well nearby. Disposal wells are constructed of multiple layers of casing and concrete that extend hundreds of feet down into the ground, which are protected by limiting the pressure at which an oil company can inject fluids.  It’s a process that has been regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, but most states have a local governmental agency that manages the wells on the EPA’s behalf. 

The Mississippi Oil and Gas Board had held this responsibility since the early 1990s, but Baucum alleges the board hasn’t properly held oil companies accountable. He laid out his concerns in a memo sent to the EPA, Mississippi Department of Health, and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

The Baucums have made two main claims:

Claim #1: Oil companies can apply for exemptions to inject into aquifers if regulatory agencies determine that those aquifers are unlikely to be a practical source of drinking water, but the Oil and Gas Board has never required a company to seek one for any of the 400 active injection wells in Mississippi.

When asked for a response, Jess New, executive director of the Oil and Gas Board, explained that no injection zones in Mississippi require this type of exemption. The EPA did tell Mississippi Today that aquifer exemptions are frequently not necessary, but the Baucums doubt that all injection zones have been sufficiently tested before being declared unusable for drinking water. 

In the case of the well next to the Baucum’s property, records show that the Oil and Gas Board accepted testimony from a single oil company engineer as sufficient evidence that the aquifer was already not suitable for drinking water and conducted no other testing. 

While investigating this claim, lawyers for the Baucums found records — which were reviewed by Mississippi Today — that show the aquifer in question is a current source of drinking water for Mississippians who live in the city of Waynesboro and parts of Clarke County.

Claim #2: The Oil and Gas Board allowed oil companies to inject the toxic oil byproduct at a higher pressure than the limit they agreed to in their original permit to build the well near the Baucum’s home. This could have a number of other environmental consequences, including widespread water contamination closer to the surface, that the Baucums and their attorneys are still in the process of testing. 

Throughout the 20 years that the well near the Baucums’ home was being used to dispose of oil byproducts, 86% of the monthly reported injection pressures were either above the maximum limit or recorded as zero while the company was still injecting thousands of barrels of byproduct into the well, according to records from the Oil and Gas Board. The Baucums believe this is a likely indicator of faulty reporting.

When asked about this, New replied that “the board is aware of the monitored injection pressures.”

The Oil and Gas Board, established in 1948, is a five-member body that is tasked with permitting all oil and gas activity in the state and protecting the public from improper usage. Board members are appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. 

Marlan has repeatedly shared concerns about the qualifications of board members, including the political appointment process. Jim Herring, a Canton attorney on the board, previously served as the chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. Lew Yoder, a Laurel attorney on the board, served as a local GOP chairman in both Jones County and Oxford.

The Oil and Gas Board has 32 full-time employees, managed by New. New was formerly an attorney with Brunini, the Mississippi law firm that represents Petro Harvester, the current owner of the well in question. New is also the son of Nancy New, the subject of a massive ongoing welfare and private school funding fraud case, and served as the attorney of record on multiple of her business enterprises. 

“I think too many people look the other way. It’s the good ol’ boy system that has been alive and well in Mississippi for way too long,” Marlan said.

Marlan first noticed that something seemed amiss in 2013 when he went to inspect a part of their property north of the well site. He saw rusted tanks, drilling fluids stored in open, unlined pits, drilling debris strewn around, and patches of ground soaked with oil — all extending onto their property.

He reported his concerns to the Oil and Gas Board and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, but felt that the regulatory agencies weren’t taking his concerns seriously. After his neighbors told him they saw workers burying oilfield waste in the ground nearby, he decided to file suit in April 2014.

The well site in question no longer has this visible evidence of contamination that Marlan documented. Barrels were removed, pits filed, and tanks repainted a few months after the lawsuit was filed. Marlan refers to this as a “cosmetic clean-up,” since he believes it did not fully remediate the property and remove the effects of the contamination.

When Marlan walks around the property these days, some trees fall over at his touch. He says a toxicologist told him they shouldn’t be used for lumber and need to be destroyed since many of the harmful chemicals they’ve identified will be trapped in the wood. Several trees are turning black around the roots, which he says scientists at Mississippi State told him were dying from exposure to brackish water. 

“I’ll never forget telling him, ‘Dr. Jones, we don’t have brackish water in Jones County,’ and he said, ‘You do now.’”

Recent testing of the groundwater — via a monitoring well drilled by the Baucums — showed dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals, including radium-228, benzene, mercury, beryllium, barium, and a highly acidic pH. The levels of radium-228 and mercury were both nearly 13 times the EPA’s maximum level for drinking water. 

John Ryan, the geologist who oversaw the drilling of this monitoring well, listed in his affidavit several known health impacts from the chemicals identified in the water. Those included lymphoma, bone cancer, leukemia, aplastic anemia, as well as permanent damage to the brain and kidneys. 

“I believe unequivocally that these chemicals of concern were sourced from the well site itself,” Ryan said in testimony. 

Sue Brantley, a professor of geosciences at Penn State University who was contacted by Mississippi Today to review the results, said it seemed likely these chemicals came from surface contamination and called the results “very worrisome.” Since Mississippi sources approximately 75% of its drinking water from groundwater, Brantley reasons these chemicals could endanger people who use the drinking water supply.

Deidra’s health issues began to surface in late 2015. She struggled to swallow, which led to the discovery of the tumor in January 2016. Over the next five months, Deidra underwent radiation and chemotherapy to shrink the tumor. 

“I found out on Jan. 7, and I had surgery on June 7. It went so quick, that looking back now I can get more clarity on what we went through, but it went just so fast,” Deidra said. “You know, ‘You need to go here and do this, you’re going over to this appointment, going to that test.’ … But I’ve not been bitter, I’ve accepted it for what it is, and we’ve learned to reshape our lifestyle.”

While Deidra’s health deteriorated, Marlan and his attorneys worked to collect evidence linking her cancer to the environmental contamination. 

“He has worked so many hours,” Deidra said. “He has been a very big advocate for me, and by way of helping me, it will lead to helping others. But he is relentless, and a very strong support for me for what I’ve been through. I call him my cheerleader.” 

They believe — and argue in their lawsuit — that Deidra’s cancer resulted from the contamination at the surface. Runoff water and particles picked up by the wind will often settle in the soil and release vapor which can be easily inhaled.

“She used to (garden) years ago, before she got sick,” Marlan said. “We were always out there. You go out there now, you won’t see the flower beds. You won’t see anything. Outside of cutting the grass, I don’t let them do anything else. The flower beds have died and the grass has grown over. I don’t do anything like that anymore, I don’t take the chance.”

Deidra and Marlan, both from Laurel, have been together since they were 19. They live in the house that Marlan was raised in, which is also where they raised their son Bryant. They are very involved in the community through their church, and faith has played a crucial role in their lives as they endured Deidra’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.

“I just took it that there was a greater purpose (for my illness), and one day I’ll find out what that purpose is,” Deidra said.

Two months after doctors removed the tumor and Deidra entered remission, the Baucums amended their suit in August of 2016 to include a personal injury claim. Two months later, Petro Harvester — the current owner of the well — stopped injecting at the site.

After they filed the lawsuit, the oil companies (the Baucums sued all of the previous owners of the well and the current one) fought for an administrative remedy that would let the Oil and Gas Board decide the case first before a judge and jury. 

After years of back and forth about whether the case should be heard administratively or before the courts, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously ruled in August 2021 that both claims should proceed in circuit court because the Baucums had never consented to the presence of the oil companies in any way, and the Oil and Gas Board did not have the authority to award monetary damages.

While awaiting the jury trial that is likely to occur this year, one of Marlan’s major concerns — that the oil companies rely on friendly rulings from the board — played itself out when the Oil and Gas Board held a hearing on the integrity of the well. 

Attorneys for the oil companies filed a petition with the Oil and Gas Board to increase the injection pressure for the well in question. Attorneys for the Baucums tried unsuccessfully to have the petition dismissed, arguing to the Supreme Court that the oil companies were attempting to “enlist the aid of the Mississippi State Oil and Gas Board to circumvent” the court’s previous ruling.

The Supreme Court never responded. After three hours of testimony from geologists and engineers for both sides on Dec. 15, the Oil and Gas Board granted the petition to modify the well’s permit.

“Despite an admission from the operator that it routinely violated the permit … and despite the fact that the well has not been used for five years, the (Oil and Gas Board) granted the petition,” said David Baria, one of the lead attorneys for the Baucums. “(It) levied no fines, provided no admonishment, and made no changes in the operator’s permit … If this is how a watchdog charged with protecting our water supply operates, Mississippians should be concerned.”

When contacted for comment on this story, David Kaufman, an attorney for Petro Harvester, provided the following statement:

“Unlike the Baucums’ attorneys, Petro Harvester will present the facts of this case in court and before the regulatory authorities,” Kaufman wrote. “We will prove that the lawsuit claims lack any merit at all. The disposal well operations in question are heavily regulated and monitored and have never been found by the Mississippi Oil & Gas Board, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have harmed human health or the environment, despite the Baucums’ claims over the years to the contrary.”

This has been a long fight for the Baucums, one that has taken almost eight years and over $200,000 in legal fees. They are eager for justice, though a court date has not been set.

“The government has drug their feet, if they’ve acted, they’ve not acted as quickly as they should — I have been very disappointed in the government,” Deidra said. “Marlan has had to pull and fight to get any type of government help.”

Marlan does believe that his family deserves to be properly compensated, but his goals for this case are much broader. He wants to see the well site and surrounding land/groundwater properly remediated, and to see the Oil and Gas Board fully realize its mission as an independent regulatory body. 

“I think the system needs to change. I think there need to be more checks on these companies,” Marlan said. “There needs to be a full investigation into all of this, it needs to be thoroughly looked at from all angles so that these kinds of things don’t happen again.”

He and Deidra hope this case empowers other people to come forward and will provide them with a road map to take action.

“People have come to me and thanked me for pursuing this,” he said. “These oil companies think that if they delay, delay, delay, you’ll just get tired and fed up … But that’s not the case here. I think they miscalculated because ‘quit’ is not in my vocabulary.”

The post ‘Quit is not in my vocabulary’: After his wife got cancer, this Mississippi man took oil companies to court appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: The Couple at Odds appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A day after the state Senate proposed the largest Mississippi teacher pay raise in decades, the House topped it with its own proposal that would increase all teachers by $4,000 to $6,000 a year and boost starting pay above both the Southeastern and national averages.

“This is a long-term solution, not just a one-time raise where you throw $1,000 at teachers,” said House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, author of the bill called the “START Act of 2022.”

The bill, which passed the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, will soon be considered by the entire House.

“We’ve worked on this for two years, worked with the (Southern Region Education Board), worked with teachers, looked at other states … This is an historic moment for our students and for our teachers,” Bennett said. “This will make us more competitive with other states and help address our teacher shortage.”

The House plan would increase starting teacher pay from $37,000 a year to $43,125. This would put Mississippi above both the Southeastern average of $39,754 and the national average of $41,163. The Senate’s plan would increase starting pay to $40,000, but would provide substantial increases at five-year intervals throughout a teacher’s career.

“Notably, Alabama and Louisiana, where many Mississippi teachers have moved for higher paying jobs, pay starting salaries of $41,845 and $42,547, respectively,” Bennett said.

READ MORE: Senate leaders unveil historic plan to significantly increase teacher pay

The House plan would cost taxpayers $219 million a year starting next fiscal year, compared to the Senate plan, which would cost $210 million a year after a two-year phase-in. The Senate’s plan includes a year-two, $44 million across-the-board increase of $1,000 per teacher. The House plan includes a $2,000 increase for teachers assistants, who are not included in the Senate plan.

Both plans would “restructure” the teacher salary ladder or “steps” that determine pay for teachers at various levels of experience and training. The House plan would provide more immediate increases ranging from $4,000 to $6,000. The Senate plan after two years would provide an average increase of $4,700, but would provide for larger bumps in pay at each five-year interval in a teacher’s career.

Mississippi’s teacher pay by several metrics are the lowest in the nation. Mississippi public education advocates who watched the unveiling of the dueling teacher pay raise proposals this week said they’ve been pleasantly surprised as they began parsing the plans.

“This sounds like a great start,” said Nancy Loome, director of The Parents’ Campaign. “I would think there could be some sort of compromise, taking the best aspects of both plans — but it is great that there’s a movement to do something substantial … It looks like the House plan is more front-loaded, and the Senate more long-term.”

Kelly Riley, director of the Mississippi Professional Educators, said increasing starting and continuing pay “would make us more competitive, not just for recruiting teachers, but in the classrooms and as a state.”

Bennett said he has not seen all the details of the Senate plan — the bill has not yet been published — but he believes “ours is better.”

“The Senate plan is spread over two years, while the House plan invests roughly the same amount in just one year,” Bennett said. “Under the Senate plan, some experienced teachers with advanced degrees will see an increase of as little as $5 in year one, and as little as $1,005 over the full two-year phase in … The House plan provides a minimum of $4,000 in one year for all teachers.”

He also said that over 10 years, a new teacher would see thousands less in pay from the Senate plan, and noted that plan does not address teacher assistants’ pay.

Teacher pay is a top issue for this legislative session, with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves all voicing support for “significant” teacher salary increase this year.

When Bennett presented the plan to the House Appropriations Committee, some members questioned the cost — whether the state could afford such a recurring expense. He said the raise would be paid for with recurring revenue, not “one-time” money will not strain the relatively flush state budget.

Rep. Dan Eubanks, R-Walls, said he’s heard that Mississippi’s state retirement and other benefits are as good or better than surrounding states and questioned why the starting teacher pay should be increased to above the regional and national averages.

“The reason is we are not competitive with other states right now and we’re losing teachers,” Bennett said. “They’re kicking our butts.”

READ MORE: Inside Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s relationship

The post House unveils their own massive teacher pay raise, tops Senate proposal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Speaker Philip Gunn’s latest proposal to phase out the state income tax and to reduce the sales tax on groceries was quickly passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.

The bill — a variation of which Gunn introduced last session and touted as the most important legislation of his political career — would also raise the general sales tax from 7% to 8.5% and decrease the tax on car tags by 35%.

While there are several differences in this year’s proposal and Gunn’s plan that passed the House last year and died in the Senate, the key distinction is that there are no longer increases on the sales tax on large items such as farming equipment, automobiles, manufacturing equipment and other items. These items are taxed at less than the 7% general sales tax rate. Last year’s plan offered by Gunn increased the tax on those items by 2.5% on each $1 as it did on the items taxed at 7%.

Rep. Trey Lamar, the House Ways & Means chairman and close Gunn ally, acknowledged the opposition from farmers, manufacturers and others to those increases in last year’s proposal. The only increase in this year’s bill is on the 7% sales tax that is levied on most retail items, and it goes up 1.5%.

The entire package will result in a tax cut of about $1.5 billion in today’s dollars when the income tax is totally eliminated in an estimated 10-12 years.

“It is a simpler bill than what we dealt with last year,” Lamar said, pointing out the bill would result in the largest tax cut in state history. He also indicated he might ask the full House to vote on the proposal as early as Wednesday.

READ MORE: Hosemann doesn’t like Gunn’s tax proposal. Is Capitol gridlock looming?

In the committee meeting on Tuesday, Lamar spent about five minutes explaining the bill. No questions were asked. It passed on a voice vote with no debate.

Republicans hold more than the three-fifths supermajority needed to pass tax proposals without Democratic support. But there is the possibility some Democrats might vote for it.

“I am going to read it and see what it is about,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, who did not rule out voting for the package.

Last week on the opening day of the 2022 session, Gunn pledged that his proposal to eliminate the income tax would be his top priority. But Lamar pointed out as the Ways and Means Committee was meeting Tuesday that the House Appropriations Committee was meeting across the hall to pass an “historic” teacher pay raise.

Lamar said there is money to do both because of last year’s unprecedented 15.9% revenue growth and anticipated double-digit growth for the current fiscal year.

The tax cut proposal would eliminate the taxes on the first $40,000 of income for an individual, and $80,000 for a married couple in January 2023. The initial cut would save a married couple $2,600 and about half that amount for an individual.

Then the remaining income tax would be phased out during the coming years based on several factors, such as the size of state spending and inflation. It is estimated the phase out could be completed in as little as 10 years.

In addition, the 7% sales tax on groceries, the highest state-imposed tax on food in the nation, would cut to 5.5% in July and eventually cut to 4%.

“The end result will be a tax structure that rewards work and is fairer to everybody,” Lamar said.

READ MORE: Gunn struggles to garner support for income tax-sales tax swap

Both Gov. Tate Reeves and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, have voiced support for tax cuts during the 2022 session. Reeves has proposed eliminating the state income tax, which accounts for about one-third of state general fund revenue, in as quickly as five years. The governor has said he would oppose any plan that raises the rate on other taxes, like Gunn’s plan would do.

Hosemann has not been specific other than to say there would be a Senate proposal. He did indicate last week that he is not as interested in phasing out the income tax as Gunn and Reeves are.

“I think you find our plan to be multi-dimensional,” Hosemann said. “We are not hung up one specific thing that says we eliminated something.”

The plan offered last year by Gunn placed a larger increase on sales taxes to offset the cut in the income tax and on groceries. Because of state revenue growth, Lamar said it was determined that as large of offsets were not needed.

In addition the 35% cut on the car tag was added because of complaints about the high costs of license plates. That tax is imposed by the counties. Lamar said the counties would be reimbursed by the state for the revenue they lose from the reduction in the car tag tax.

The post Speaker Gunn’s hallmark plan to eliminate income tax, reduce food tax passes committee appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The omicron variant is pushing already strapped Mississippi hospitals across the state to their limits, as health care workers attempt to treat a growing volume of patients despite having record low numbers of nurses on staff.

Most, if not all, hospitals across the state were at or near their capacities as of Tuesday morning, according to a University of Mississippi Medical Center administrator. 

On Monday night, a Pascagoula hospital accepted a patient from more than 200 miles away in Yazoo City. The patient had to be flown in by helicopter because of a hole in the wall of his stomach.

“They called 27 other hospitals,” said Lee Bond, CEO of the Gulf Coast’s Singing River Health System.

Mississippi hospitals have about 3,000 total nursing vacancies, according to a recent survey by the Mississippi Hospital Association. As a result of shortage and new complications from the latest COVID-19 variant, hospitals have been forced to cut capacities by closing beds and are now triaging patients across the state to get the care they need — omicron-related or not. 

“The game has changed since the delta wave,” Dr. Alan Jones, chancellor of affairs at UMMC said during a Tuesday press conference. “The challenges we are facing are really around staffing. Compounding that is that this is a much more infectious variant, taking more staff out that we have in the workforce.” 

While patients are, in general, experiencing less severe symptoms, there are a higher number of patients coming into hospital than during the last surge in the fall. 

The state’s hospital workforce scraped by during the influx of patients brought on by the delta variant, largely because of hundreds of federally-funded nurses that came in to supplement care. 

“Resources are tight throughout the country, especially in nursing,” Jim Craig, the director of the Mississippi Department of Health, said last week. “I don’t know that we are going to be able to draw in the type of staffing levels we saw during delta right now.” 

Even if hospitals could get that help again, Jones said it likely wouldn’t arrive fast enough, given how quickly the new variant will peak. 

That leaves the state’s already diminished number of hospital workers on their own. The state health department has activated a “Mississippi COVID System of Care Plan” until Jan. 23 that requires every hospital to participate in transferring patients so no one center is overburdened.

The system is being used not just to transfer patients with COVID-19 on ventilators, but those in need of life-saving care following car accidents, heart attacks, strokes and organ transplants.

Mississippi hospitals have been hemorrhaging health care workers, especially nurses, throughout the pandemic to better paying jobs with temp companies or out-of-state hospitals. Many burnt out nurses have also opted for retirement. 

The state hospital association’s survey, which was taken in December, shows that about one-fifth of the state’s nursing workforce is missing from inside hospitals.  

“That’s not even factoring in those who are out sick,” said Kim Hoover, a registered nurse with the hospital association. “You have nursing supervisors who come into work Monday morning and find out six ICU nurses are exposed and literally, as of that morning, can’t take patients now. It’s so fluid it changes from shift to shift.” 

At the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state’s biggest hospital, about 90 health care workers have been out each day because they have contracted the virus. Each day, an average of 175 ask to be tested because they’re worried they could be infected — that’s triple the number who asked to be tested during the worst of the delta wave, Jones said. 

UMMC is trying to fill 360 registered nurse positions. As of Tuesday, just under 60 beds at the hospital were closed because of staffing shortages. About 25 patients who should have been admitted into the hospital were waiting in the emergency room for a staffed bed to open. 

Singing River Health System’s three Gulf Coast hospitals were nearing 100% of their limited capacity at the start of the week. They have had to cut back their bed capacity by nearly one-third because of staffing shortages caused both by vacancies and sick workers. 

The hospital has been desperately trying to fill more than 200 nursing jobs for months.

“No one is applying,” said Sarah Duffey, a Singing River spokeswoman. 

The nursing shortage was an issue before the pandemic, but has been exasperated by the virus’s pressure on the American health care system.

Nurses have been leaving Mississippi hospital jobs to take on lucrative temporary positions, commonly called travel nurse jobs. Travel nurses are often paid three to four times as much as what local healthcare workers are paid for the same jobs in Mississippi hospitals. 

Hospitals nationwide use the temp companies as a short-term fix to filling holes in care, meaning the demand for them is at all-time highs. 

READ MORE: Nurses beg Gov. Tate Reeves to act as they face statewide hospital staffing crisis

During the delta wave, 900 temporary nurses from travel companies came to Mississippi hospitals. Those contracts totaled $144 million, paid by federal money through the state emergency management agency. 

Bond, the Singing River CEO, has been vocal about using federal funds to create a nurse retention program. He said he would like to see that kind of money committed to such a program to keep nurses from leaving Mississippi.

Ideally, he says, the state Legislature would use $400 million of the $1.8 billion of American Rescue Plan funds received by Mississippi to create a retention program for the most in-demand health care workers. It would result in $20,000 bonuses per person that would pay out over two-year commitments. The bonuses would make Mississippi hospitals more competitive while the labor market for health care workers is tight. 

Sen. John Polk, a Republican from Hattiesburg who chairs the committee tasked with allocating these ARP funds, said the group has nothing “set in stone” and hopes to complete spending recommendations soon. 

In the fall, state leaders discussed creating a plan that would cost $56 million and give bonuses up to $5,000 for the most in-demand health care workers that agreed to stay for a period of five months. Gov. Tate Reeves never called the special session needed to act, so the plan never materialized. 

Bond says that amount is not enough to actually change course for Mississippi’s staffing emergency. 

“Omicron is not our primary problem,” Bond said. “Our primary problem is that going into it, we were already short for heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and the many other maladies that Mississippi needs nurses to be able to take of.” 

Before the virus ever spread, Mississippi already projected it would need 2,100 new nurses each year. 

“The fact is there are significantly less nurses in Mississippi now than before the pandemic, there are less enrolled in nursing school and there are few reasons for that to change,” Bond said. “We expect this will lead to a more dire situation over the next year and a half regardless of any viruses.”

READ MORE: A new hospital crisis: Mississippi loses hundreds of nurses

The post ‘No one is applying’: Omicron pushes understaffed hospital system into crisis mode appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On Monday, the Mississippi State Senate revealed its plan to increase teacher pay this legislative session.

The proposal makes changes to the state’s existing salary schedule, which increases teacher pay by years of experience and level of certification. It would raise pay an average of $4,700 over two years and restructure the way teachers are paid to provide them higher salaries in the long-term.

With this proposal, teachers receive a $500 increase each year and larger increases every fifth year depending on one’s certification level. Those bumps would be $1,325 for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree, $1,425 for a master’s, $1,525 for a specialist and $1,624 for a doctorate. The teachers would automatically get the larger step increase every five years and those increases would become part of their regular pay.

In addition, the salary ladder would begin after year one for teachers. The current ladder starts after the third year of teaching. And the starting pay for teachers would increase from $37,000 annually to $40,000.

See how your salary would change using our calculator below:

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Human resources sent its first announcement of the spring semester the Monday before classes started at Delta State University: In one day, seven faculty and staff members tested positive for COVID-19. 

By Friday, Jan. 8, that number grew to 25 — a significant figure for the small university in Cleveland. 

The sudden increase in cases, one faculty member said, was “chilling.”

Across Mississippi, students and faculty are returning to campus for a spring semester they’d hoped would be close to normal. Officials at the Mississippi State Department of Health are warning they will bring high case numbers with them. 

“We do anticipate there will be numerous cases and transmission when college students return based on the current level of transmission we are seeing,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said last week in a statement to Mississippi Today. 

Some schools are taking more precautions than others. Jackson State University is moving classes online for the next two weeks, and requiring students to get a negative COVID test before moving into the dorms. 

Delta State, despite its higher case numbers, is moving ahead with in-person classes. Still, the feeling on campus is far from normal, said faculty member, who asked to remain anonymous because he does not have tenure. On Monday morning, campus buildings, which are closed to the public, seemed “pretty abandoned.” The grassy quadrangle, the usual student hangout, was empty. 

For students and faculty, this wave of COVID has brought more frustration and uncertainty to a situation that was already confusing to navigate. Conflicting guidance from officials hasn’t helped: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shortened the quarantine time, but health officials in Mississippi are warning that omicron will overwhelm hospitals. Many students don’t want to return to online learning, which they found arduous and fruitless, but omicron has also led them to wonder if their schools could be doing more. 

“I appreciate that I can still go to school and be in person but it’s like, I don’t know what the risk is,” said Izzie McAllister, a senior at Millsaps College who moved back into her dorm over the weekend. “Everybody is getting it. It might just be safer to stay at home even if we all want to go be with our friends.” 

Other students feel more indifferent. At Mississippi State University, Hannah Blankenship, a senior who edits the campus newspaper, said her peers want as close to a normal semester as possible. 

“I feel like everyone is pretty tired of the whole COVID thing,” she said. “For a lot of students it’s not even on their radar.” 

For the most part, Mississippi colleges and universities have held classes in-person since summer 2021. Toward the end of the fall semester, some schools, like MSU, even lessened their mask requirements for vaccinated students and employees. Over the weekend, MSU announced it will require masks inside all university buildings through Feb. 1. 

Ellie Herndon, a sophomore at MSU, is moving back into her dorm this coming weekend. She said omicron has caused her the kind of fear and anxiety she felt during the very first wave of the virus, when campus shut down. She wants a normal college semester, but she understands that won’t happen if her peers don’t do their part. 

“As much as all of us in college would love to do away with all of this — the masks, quarantining, all that stuff — I just don’t think that until we take it seriously that it will ever go away, that we’ll get a chance at normal,” she said. 

At the University of Mississippi, a graduate student said he wished students and faculty had more leeway to respond to omicron in a way they felt safest. If students are permitted to go to parties without masks, he said that his professors should have the choice to teach virtually. But the university has not given many faculty that option. 

“I don’t expect the school to say, ‘we’re gonna all be online,’ because there’s a profit incentive to have students on campus,” he said. “I just expected some wiggle room for the professors and students to complete their courses however they think is best.” 

This student, who asked to remain anonymous because he’s applying to doctoral programs, told Mississippi Today that, “at this point in the pandemic, I don’t know if it’s apathy or just acceptance, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m going to get COVID at some point,” he said. 

Another thing this student knows for certain? After this semester, “I’m moving somewhere where hopefully they take COVID a bit more seriously,” he said. “Or at least do more to protect their students or citizens.” 

The post “Everybody is getting it”: Anxiety high as colleges start spring semester appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Senate leaders on Monday unveiled a proposal to give Mississippi teachers an average raise of $4,700 over two years and restructure the way teachers are paid to provide them higher salaries in the long-term.

The proposal — which, if passed, would represent the largest teacher pay increase since at least the early 2000s — was announced on Monday by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar of Leakesville.

The aim, Senate leaders said, is to structurally address Mississippi’s teacher salaries, which by several metrics are the lowest in the nation.

“This pay plan will make us more competitive with our neighbors,” DeBar said. “Hopefully, this will entice or provide some incentive, some motivation for teachers to stay in the profession as well as stay in Mississippi.”

The Senate’s proposed restructuring of annual changes to teacher pay is aimed at retaining mid- and early career teachers, who often leave the state or the teaching profession altogether because of low pay.

The Senate plan would cost $210 million per year starting the second year. That figure includes a $166 million cost in the first year to restructure step increases and provide a large raise for most teachers, and $44 million starting in the second year for a $1,000 across-the-board raise for all teachers.

The plan was unveiled Monday during a Capitol press corps luncheon meeting of the Mississippi State University Stennis Institute of Government where Hosemann, the presiding officer of the Senate, was scheduled to speak.

Unannounced, Hosemann asked DeBar, who was in the audience, to join him at the podium where they outlined the plan.

Teacher pay is expected to be one of the priority issues during the 2022 legislative session, which began last week. Hosemann, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves have all voiced support for “significant” teacher salary increases this year.

Reeves has proposed a $3,300 increase over two years. The House has yet to announce its plan. DeBar said Monday if the House wanted a larger raise that would be OK with him.

Reeves’ office on Monday issued a brief written statement on the Senate plan: “We’re grateful for the Senate’s work on this, and optimistic at this further momentum for a meaningful teacher pay raise this year. Teachers deserve it.”

The significance of the Senate plan, Hosemann and DeBar said, is that it attempts to correct some of the structural deficiencies in the so-called salary ladder.

The ladder, which is written in state law, determines the state compensation each year for teachers based on their years of experience and education level. Each year, with no action from the Legislature, teachers get a small increase as they garner another year of experience. Teachers also receive more pay based on their academic degrees.

Normally, that step increase is around $200-$250 annually. The Senate plan unveiled Monday would make the yearly increase uniform at $500.

The plan also would provide significantly larger raises for each five-year increment —  $1,325 for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree, $1,425 for a master’s, $1,525 for a specialist and $1,624 for a doctorate. The teachers would automatically get the larger step increase every five years and, importantly, those increases would become part of their regular pay.

In addition, the salary ladder would begin after year one for teachers. The current ladder starts after the third year of teaching. And the starting pay for teachers would increase from $37,000 annually to $40,000.

“I think it (Senate plan) will make a difference,” said Kelly Riley, executive director of the Mississippi Professional Educators. “Is it all that we want it to be? No.

“It is significant. It is going in the right direction. It will make us more competitive. We are appreciative of (DeBar’s) commitment to this.”

Nancy Loome, director of The Parents’ Campaign, said: “I think it’s a very good effort, and it does a very good job of addressing specific concerns teachers raised during listening sessions. They actually rewrote the entire salary schedule — including adding steps after years one and two, and it compounds, so that raises everybody. The bigger bumps at five year intervals. We are very pleased about that.

“As we heard from (Southern Regional Education Board), our teachers at the top end of the scale actually compare pretty well to other states. They did not leave those teachers out of this plan – everybody gets something – but it’s those teachers in that mid-career range that will see some increases that will help, hopefully allow them to stop those second or third jobs unless they want to work them.”

Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, said she attended several listening sessions the Senate leaders held and, “I believe they were listening to what teachers were saying.”

“I saw it did include the increases for teachers 0-3 years, and we heard that mentioned to them several times,” Jones said. “And we are really pleased to see the year five larger increases. I know this can change as it goes through the legislative process, but we are very pleased with this proposal … One concern I did have was that it didn’t include all school staff — custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers.”

The proposal comes on the heels of s roughly $1,000 raise teachers received during the 2021 legislative session. For the past several legislative terms, lawmakers have opted to offer pay raises in small increments rather than addressing the pay scale itself, like in this new Senate plan.

DeBar said he had planned for a smaller pay raise proposal before holding town hall-style meetings with teachers across the state the last few weeks of 2021.

“They were enthusiastic,” DeBar joked.

He and Hosemann said the current unprecedented growth in state collections — 15.9% for last year — gave them the opportunity to propose a larger pay hike.

“If we did not go forward with a significant pay plan this year with the times we have, with the revenue we have… I don’t know if we could do it another year,” DeBar said. “This is the year to do it… It is important to do it now.”

Loome said: “It sounds like we are in a really good place… when the executive and both branches of the Legislature say they are committed to a significant pay raise. I think they are realizing that our teachers are doing an amazing job, but they are being paid near poverty level and it’s not reasonable to expect professional people do to continue to do such a job for such low pay.”

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