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The settlement that capped off a landmark case in the fight to desegregate higher education in Mississippi is about to run out. 

Come July, the Legislature will have fulfilled its obligations in the $503 million payout that effectively ended the class-action lawsuit known as Ayers v. Fordice. And advocates for the historically Black public universities in Mississippi will start to look at whether it made up for more than a century of segregation. 

How did we get here? 

In 1975, Jake Ayers, a civil rights activist from Glen Allan, sued the state of Mississippi on behalf of his son, a student at Jackson State University. Ayers alleged that lawmakers, the IHL board, and the predominantly white universities used nearly a dozen policies and practices to prop up a dual system of higher education: One for Black students and one for white students. 

After years of negotiations, the suit went to trial in 1982. A federal district judge in Oxford ruled that Mississippi universities had done enough to desegregate simply by adopting some “race-neutral policies.” 

Undeterred, the plaintiffs fought the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and, in 1992, the justices ruled in their favor. Mississippi had to eliminate any policy or practice that was a vestige of segregation — and contributed to the “racial identifiability” of each school. That meant the predominantly white universities had to edit their admissions policies so that Black students could gain entry. But the HBCUs also had to do more to attract white students. 

It would take 10 more years for the state of Mississippi and the plaintiffs to agree on how to address the issues the Supreme Court raised. Over the objections of the Ayers family, the case was finally settled in 2002. The agreement focused on four areas where funding could help root out “remnants of a dual, segregated system of higher education” in Mississippi: Academic programs, capital improvements, university endowments, and financial grants to students. 

Together, these four areas totalled approximately $417 million in promised funds over 17 years. Another $2.5 million in attorneys fees and $83 million that the Legislature had already appropriated brought the total payout to $503 million.

By the time the settlement is said and done next year, the HBCUs will actually have received about $530 million. In fact, $503 million is just the floor — if it wanted, the Legislature could allocate more money to the HBCUs under the auspices of the Ayers agreement. 

“The settlement agreement represents the minimum requirements,” Caron Blanton, the IHL spokesperson, told Mississippi Today. “The Legislature has the authority to exceed those amounts at its discretion.” 

Funding pre-college summer programs to help more Black students go to white colleges

The Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to find more pathways for Black students to gain access to the predominantly white institutions, or PWIs. One way the state accomplished that was by directing all eight public universities to start using the same admissions standards. 

Another was through the creation of “summer development programs.” These were nine-week remedial courses for students who did not meet the new admission criteria but still wanted to go to college. The settlement set aside $6.25 million in financial aid for any student, regardless of race, who qualified. The Legislature ultimately appropriated $6.5 million. These grants ended in 2015 but the summer programs continue. 

These programs were subject to some criticism. Some say it’s problematic that students who received the money set aside for these programs went to students, not directly to the HBCUs. Others have questioned whether these programs were effective. In a 2016 dissertation for University of Southern Mississippi, Amanda Susanne King found that the summer programs were “not increasing educational opportunities for Blacks at four-year public institutions in Mississippi.” 

Bigger and better — and more — academic programs 

As part of the settlement agreement, Mississippi’s three HBCUs proposed establishing new academic and professional programs. This was thought to be another way the HBCUs could meet the court’s order to diversify and attract more non-Black students. 

The three HBCUs (Jackson State, Alcorn State University, and Mississippi Valley State University)  were to split $245.8 million over 17 years for 31 new academic programs and 11 enhanced academic programs. As of this year, the Legislature has allocated $249.1 million. 

Valley State and Alcorn State both received $53.7 million. Valley State used the funds to strengthen its education programs by establishing a graduate program in special education, as well as several programs in biology, chemistry, history and math. Alcorn State focused on building up its nursing and business programs by enhancing library and academic technology, and creating a masters of biotechnology. 

Jackson State used its $141.8 million to open an engineering school, a public health school, a college of public service, and to establish the “Provost’s Library and Scholarship Pool.” 

A full list of programs established by the universities can be found here. 

New buildings but little money for deferred maintenance 

The settlement set aside $75 million for capital improvements on HBCUs’ campuses. As of this fiscal year, all $75 million has been obtained by the universities. 

Some of the completed projects were undertaken to support the new and expanded academic programs at the schools. At Alcorn State, five projects were proposed in the settlement agreement. These included new equipment for the MBA program at its Natchez campus and repairs and renovations of Dumas Hall on the Lorman campus — both part of the effort to get an accredited business program — a biotechnology building, a new fine arts center in Natchez and property to “improve security and access” to the Lorman campus. 

According to the IHL’s annual update in the case, Alcorn spent $12.4 million to construct the biotechnology building, $4.7 million on renovations at Dumas Hall, and about $243,000 to obtain furniture for the MBA program (the third phase of that project was not completed). Alcorn did not build a fine arts center in Natchez but spent $7.7 million on a fine arts facility in Lorman. 

Alcorn did not request or spend any bond funds to purchase property to “improve security and access” on the Lorman campus, according to IHL. This is an issue many students still have with Alcorn’s campus. 

Jackson State proposed two projects in the original settlement agreement. Those were purchasing the former AllState Building at 1230 Raymond Road for $3 million and constructing an engineering building on campus for $20 million. Jackson State ultimately spent $3.3 million on the AllState Building, now called the Mississippi e-Center, and $19.9 million on the engineering building. 

Mississippi Valley State proposed four projects: $5 million worth of library enhancements, a science and technology building, $3 million for landscaping and drainage, and $1.9 million for repairs and renovations. Valley State obtained and expended funds in every category except repairs and renovations, for which the university did not request any funds. 

Despite this money, the HBCUs still contend with issues related to poor facilities and deferred maintenance. Where the PWIs can lean on their large endowments to pay for maintenance, Mississippi’s HBCUs are more reliant on state funding. The Legislature has cut the budget for higher education in recent years, making it harder for the HBCUs to pay for regular upkeep. 

Larger and better funded endowments 

When it came to endowments — a sign of a university’s wealth — the gap between the HBCUs and the PWIs was particularly stark. By the mid-1990s, the endowments of Mississippi’s PWIs were worth a combined $115 million. The three HBCUs had just $5 million in endowments. 

The settlement sought to remedy this gap by paying out $105 million to create public and private endowments. But there was a catch: In order to access the funds, the HBCUs were required to have graduating classes 10% of which were “other-race” (read: white) students. At that point, the universities could use the endowments for other goals like raising faculty salaries. Until then, any interest generated was to be used to attract non-Black students.

The public endowment, which totalled $70 million, was fully funded by legislative appropriations in fiscal year 2019. 

The private endowment is a different story. The IHL board was supposed to raise $35 million in donations. While the settlement agreement specified the board was to use “its best efforts” to raise the money, it also specified that “the inability to do so shall not be cause for setting aside this agreement.” Today, the IHL board has raised just $1,036,600. 

The under-funded private endowment is one reason why some argue the Ayers settlement is not, and was never, enough to truly desegregate higher education in Mississippi. Many also point to the Legislature, which has slashed the budget for higher education in Mississippi. HBCUs have turned to the Ayers money to make up for the gap – not to catch up to the PWIs as intended. 

The post The settlement that aimed to desegregate higher education in Mississippi, explained appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The presidents of Mississippi’s three predominately white research institutions have seen their salaries balloon since 2008.

The presidents at University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University are now paid more than three times their peers at Delta State University, Mississippi University for Women, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University.

This gap is mainly due to the foundations at UM and MSU increasing the amount they provide in salary supplements to the presidents. In 2008, UM’s foundation paid Robert Khayat, the president at the time, a salary supplement of $205,800. This year, Glenn Boyce received a supplement of $500,000 from the foundation.

Through a public records request, Mississippi Today received salary data for the presidents at all eight public universities going back to 2008. The data includes the amount each president received in a supplement from the university’s private, non-profit foundation, figures previously unavailable to the public in a comprehensive fashion.

As of 2021, all but one president – Jerryl Briggs at MVSU — now receive a salary supplement from their university’s foundation, according to the data. Briggs received a $10,000 supplement from MVSU’s foundation until 2019. When the supplement was discontinued, Briggs’s state salary was raised by the same amount to compensate.

Alex Rozier contributed to this story.

The post Here are the salaries of every IHL college president since 2008 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

You might not have known Bill Hetrick, but I can guarantee this — if you had met him, you’d have loved him. And he would be your friend. He was Mississippi’s own George Bailey. He made this a better place just by being in this place. Bill died right before Christmas and while he wasn’t a President or nobility, his life was truly worthy of remembering and honoring. Bill, thank you for being you. Your passing is a huge loss to our community.

P.S. I’m off this week but will return after the first of the year. Happy New Year.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Bill Hetrick appeared first on Mississippi Today.

There are so many of these bowl games this holiday season it’s hard to keep up. They are played nearly every day and at all times of the day. They have names so esoteric and ever-changing, it borders on comedy.

For instance, we have the Radiance Technology Independence Bowl – once the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl – which some of us used to call the Poulan Weed-Eater Mississippi Bowl, because either Ole Miss, Mississippi State or Southern Miss – one of them – seemed to play in it every year. I mentioned this to my son on our podcast the other day, and he replied, “Well, Dad, somebody has to finish six and six.”

We also have the roofclaim.com Boca Raton Bowl, the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl, the TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, just to name a few.

Almost makes you yearn for the good old days when you had the Rose, the Orange, the Sugar and the Cotton Bowls – all on New Year’s Day, and that was pretty much that.

Let’s be honest, precious few of these pre-New Year’s bowls have much to offer in the way of compelling football. That’s because there are few compelling storylines, other than whether or not the games will be played because of Covid outbreaks.

There is one huge exception. It is Tuesday’s AutoZone Liberty Bowl, which ought to just cut to the chase and call itself the Mike Leach Bowl this year. 

And I’ve got just the drinking game for those watching at home. Every time the ESPN cameras pan to Leach on the Mississippi State sidelines, you down a shot of whiskey. Go ahead and try it. You’ll be stumbling drunk midway through the first quarter.

The Mike Leach Bowl features:

• The Texas Tech Red Raiders, once coached by Leach, who remains the school’s all-time winning-est coach. Leach coached Texas Tech to 10 bowl games in 10 seasons. His Tech teams won 84 games and lost only 43. They were 47-33 in the Big 12 Conference. In 2008, Tech finished 11-2 after rising to No. 2 in the nation. That’s heady stuff in Lubbock, Texas, where many fans fondly remember the Leach days. This year’s Red Raiders are 6-6.
• The Mississippi State Bulldogs, the team Leach coaches now. Leach’s second State team has smashed school offensive records and takes a 7-5 record to Memphis. State is an 8.5-point favorite, which is not surprising since the Bulldogs are one of four teams in the country with three victories against teams ranked in Top 25. The Bulldogs are the only college football team that faced six Top 25 teams this season.

Leach was fired for cause at Texas Tech on Dec. 30, 2009. If he had remained the Red Raiders coach for one more day he would have received a bonus of $800,000. Leach still feels he is owed that money – and then some. He has a lawsuit against the school for $2.5 million, which he and his lawyer are still pursuing.

When the bowl matchup was announced, Leach quipped: “They still owe me for 2009, the last time they won nine games, so maybe they’ll deliver the check … we’ll see what happens there.”

Believe this: Leach is not holding his breath.

Leach was fired over a well-publicized-and-then-some incident involving a tight end named Adam James, son of then-ESPN announcer Craig James. It’s all complicated but Leach was fired for refusing to apologize for the alleged mistreatment of Adam James. If don’t know or don’t remember it, just google “Mike Leach and Adam James.” You’ll learn that Craig James played a prominent role in Leach’s firing.

Regardless of what happens, if anything, to the lawsuit, we can all surmise that Leach has won by a knockout in the long run. After all, Craig James’ lucrative TV career has ended. His short-lived political career – he ran for the U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz and got 4% of the vote – crashed and burned. He reportedly has entered the ministry. Adam James played out his Tech career, catching three touchdowns over four seasons.

Meanwhile, Mike Leach makes $5 million a year to coach football at Mississippi State. That’s whether or not he wins the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.

The post Just cut to the chase and call it: The AutoZone Mike Leach Bowl appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today editor at large Marshall Ramsey joins Adam Ganucheau to recount some of his most memorable stories during his 25-year career as a Mississippi editorial cartoonist.

Listen to more episodes of The Other Side here.

The post Podcast: Marshall Ramsey celebrates 25th anniversary in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor At Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with internationally respected conductor and Jackson native William Garfield Walker. Described by Klassik begeisert as a “master of intense sound waves with a pioneering spirit” William Garfield Walker is an emerging young American conductor quickly establishing himself on the international stage.

Hailed as a “Modern Day Maestro”, Walker is currently the Chief Conductor of the Nova Orchester Wien(NOW!)- Vienna’s newest professional orchestra. Within their first performances together Walker and NOW! have performed Mahler at the legendary Wiener Musikverein as well as for the 2020 G20 economic forum.

He also serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the “Master Camerata Orchestra”- the professional orchestra of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s International summer music festival, “Premier Orchestral Institute”. Previously he served as Principal Conductor of the Moonlight Symphony Orchestra, the Royal College of Music Oratorio Society, and at the age of 20, founded the Virtuoso Philharmonic of Chicago.

The post Mississippi Stories: William Walker appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Legislature waits on no holiday. It meets on Marin Luther King Jr. Day, on Valentine’s Day, Fat Tuesday and Good Friday. On occasion it has been in session on Easter Sunday.

The start of the Mississippi legislative session often begins during the 12 Days of Christmas, or the period on the Christian calendar between the birth of Christ and the visit of the Magi to see the infant.

There often isn’t much time between the holiday celebration of Christmas and New Year’s and the start of the legislative session. For legislative staffers and many others who work in and around the Capitol, they often must plan their holiday celebration around the consuming task of preparing for the start of the session. It is a safe bet that there will be legislative staffers working during the holiday to draft the literally thousands of bills filed each year by the 174 House and Senate members.

This year the Mississippi legislative session begins on Jan. 4. According to information compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, only seven state legislatures will begin as early or earlier than does the Mississippi Legislature in 2022.

The Mississippi Legislature will meet earlier than the legislatures in the four contiguous states. The Alabama and Tennessee legislatures convene on Jan. 11, while the Arkansas regular session starts on another holiday — Valentine’s Day — because all Arkansans love their legislators. Louisianans, perhaps thinking of their holidays, do not begin their regular session until March 14 — after the completion of the Mardi Gras season.

The Mississippi Constitution mandates that the Legislature convene each year on the Tuesday after the first Monday of the new year. That means the session can start as early as Jan. 2 and as late as Jan. 8.

The Legislature used to meet every other year. But during the 1968 regular session, legislators, perhaps thinking they could not get too much of a good thing, approved by a two-thirds vote in each chamber a constitutional resolution that established the current process of convening in regular session every year. That resolution establishing the annual session of the Mississippi Legislature was approved by voters in the summer of 1968.

The first session of each new four-year term can be as long as 125 days. The other three are set for no more than 90 days, though legislators could theoretically remain in session for the entire year via two-thirds vote of both chambers.

The longer session during the first year of a four-year term was included presumably to give newly elected legislators and governors time to acclimate and to organize. But since the leadership of the Legislature often does not change and since governors can now serve two consecutive terms (via a 1986 amendment to the Constitution approved by voters), often the additional legislative time is not needed. In many instances, legislators meet less than their 125-day allotment during that first year of the new term.

The 2022 session, which will be the third year of the four-year term, is slated for only 90 days.

And even though the session will begin so soon after the New Year’s celebration, legislators can ill afford to get off to a slow start.

There are a litany of major issues facing legislators in 2022 ranging from the potential of historic tax cuts to the decision on how to spend a staggering $1.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds to legislative redistricting, which occurs only once every 10 years after the U.S. Census.

Any one of those issues could consume much of a legislative session. There are multiple others that could do the same, such as teacher pay and medical marijuana. Plus there will be controversial and time-consuming issues that no one was expecting.

During a recent interview, House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, in answering a question confirmed that it is likely that the Legislature most likely would take up the issue of redrawing the four U.S. House seats during the first week of the session. He then smiled and added, “But I heard of about 10 things (to be taken up) in the first week of the session.”

In other words, legislators cannot afford any holiday hangover when the session begins at noon on Jan. 4.

The post Mississippi legislative session throws cold water on holiday season appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A new wave of COVID-19 cases is spreading across the Magnolia State, and top medical experts are urging Mississippians to stay safe as they gather with family and friends for the holidays.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen across the state in December. The seven-day average for new cases reached as low as 241 per day on Nov. 29, and was below 400 for nearly all of November. Since then, the average has more than doubled, reaching 667 on Dec. 22.

Hospitalizations have also gone up, with the seven-day average increasing at least 31% since the start of the month.

“Rapid increase in COVID ER visits,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs warned on Dec. 23.

Only 48% of Mississippians are vaccinated against the virus, the fourth-lowest rate of any state. The number of people getting vaccinated dropped off significantly after the summer and hasn’t picked back up since.

How to protect yourself

Dobbs said Mississippians could do four things to protect themselves: receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, wear masks indoors, stay home when feeling ill, and limit indoor gatherings to small groups and try to gather outside when possible.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers, in a recent interview with Mississippi Today, discussed how Mississippians could protect themselves.

A lot of it’s gonna depend on what activities you do. Outdoor gatherings are safer than indoors, especially with groups that don’t normally gather together. If you go out to a big event, make sure that you’re wearing a mask in that indoor setting. Think about whether or not you need to attend that big event. In family groups, especially if there are folks in your family who are vulnerable, if you haven’t gotten vaccinated, go ahead and start that process. Rethink whether or not you need to be around those vulnerable family members if you may put them at risk. I think that we can do things safely. We just need to think about all we’ve all been through. The recommendations really haven’t changed that much from where we started. 

Dr. Paul Byers, Mississippi state epidemiologist

READ MORE: Holiday plans, masks, vaccine efficacy: State epidemiologist discusses COVID-19 omicron variant

The post COVID is spreading in Mississippi. Here’s how to stay safe during the holidays. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

At Mississippi Today, we believe nonprofit journalism has the power to create a more informed Mississippi.

This year, our staff worked together to create resources to address the information needs of Mississippians. Our COVID-19 in Mississippi Vaccine Guide, MT Speaks video series, weekly Data Dives and COVID Town Hall virtual event were all created to provide vital news and data to help Mississippians lead safer and more informed lives.

Enterprising. Evolving. Resilient. Thorough. Diligent. Fierce. Consistent.

These are just a few of the words our staff offered up to describe Mississippi Today in 2021. We couldn’t agree more.

Throughout 2021, we have doubled down on our commitment to centering the lived experiences of Mississippians in our reporting, offering you, our readers, more ways to connect with our journalists and inform our coverage.

Using the power of data, first-person reporting and subject matter expertise, Mississippi Today has become the flagship for journalism that has real impact in our state. Our ongoing investigation into the state’s misspending of $77 million in public assistance dollars has unlocked larger conversations on welfare spending, including a change in policy that pays families first.

Our continued education coverage has given you clarity on what educators and students face in the wake of the pandemic and how school boards and lawmakers are prioritizing these issues. For the first time in years, the Mississippi Today newsroom has provided our state with a higher education reporter, whose coverage of colleges, universities and the Institute for Higher Learning has given voice to students most impacted by financial aid policy.

Mississippi Today has built its brand on watchdog reporting of the state Capitol, relentlessly covering how politics and special interests shape Mississippi. In November we launched our Follow the Money series to closely monitor spending of an unprecedented influx of billions in federal dollars.

We hope you’ll take some time to look back at the coverage you made possible throughout 2021 through our recap.

A Look Back: Mississippi Today in 2021 — the Year in News

The funding we raise during NewsMatch, our year-end fundraising campaign, will set us up for 2022 — sustaining the kind of journalism that you’ve come to expect from us and making possible some new ventures.

We have big plans for next year, including:

• A comprehensive legislative guide, text line and newsletter dedicated to our statehouse coverage
• Continuing to follow how Mississippi is spending $6 billion in federal stimulus funds
• Doubling down on our health coverage including expanding our health reporting team
• Planning more events like our COVID Community Town Hall
• And much, much more …

Without you, this list is just a list. We need support from readers like you who believe nonprofit news puts the power where it belongs, with the people.

You can be assured that our team, the state’s first and most trusted nonprofit newsroom, is here to help make sense of what is happening in Mississippi, and to give you a bit of levity, too. Here’s hoping for more laughs from Marshall Ramsey in 2022, and more SWAC and CWS wins with Rick Cleveland, both of whom you can catch weekly on their respective Mississippi Today podcasts: Mississippi Stories and Crooked Letter Sports.

We know that this work matters to you and Mississippi.

We are so grateful to share we have reached our year-end fundraising goal of $50,000 thanks to our loyal readers. Let’s keep it going during this final week of the year! If you give before December 31, your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Maddox Foundation.

Subscribe to our daily newsletter to be the first to know about news, events and products that keep you informed:

The post The power of local news in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Nearly two years after officers from the Mississippi state auditor’s office made arrests in a sprawling welfare fraud scheme and turned their investigative files over to federal agents, four people still await trial and the FBI has made no arrests.

A Hinds County grand jury indicted six people, including former welfare director John Davis and prominent nonprofit founder Nancy New, in February of 2020. Two of the six, a nonprofit accountant and retired WWE wrestler Brett DiBiase, have pleaded guilty. Prosecutors alleged they conspired to steal a total of more than $4 million from a federal program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

But as soon as agents made the arrests, it was apparent the scheme was much more sprawling. A forensic audit conducted by independent accountants and released in October found nearly $70 million improperly spent.

Most of the wasted money ran through two nonprofits who were supposed to be running a now-defunct initiative called Families First for Mississippi, which was supposed to help poor families move off government assistance.

On Dec. 16, Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe visited with former U.S. Congressman Ronnie Shows on his radio program to discuss the case, what led Mississippi here and what questions should be answered next.

Below is their conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Shows: This is Anna Wolfe, investigative reporter from Mississippi Today. And before we get started, I’d like for you to give the people just a little background about how you got on this story.

Wolfe: Sure. Just to recap what’s happened so far in the case: The state auditor’s investigation into the Department of Human Services began in mid-2019, and in February of 2020, agents from the office arrested six people for allegedly defrauding the government, stealing a total of over $4 million federal funds. Back up several years before this.

Back in 2017, I was working for the Clarion Ledger when my colleague Jimmie Gates, who I’m sure you know, wrote a story about the state rejecting up to 99% of people who were applying for cash welfare assistance.

I was just starting to take over the health beat at the paper, and I knew that I wanted to find out why that was. And if they had been approving so few applicants for welfare, what were they spending the rest of the money on? So I knew I wanted to keep a close eye on the welfare agency. Over the next two or three years, I filed dozens of public records requests, kind of fought the agency while they put up big walls, big barriers to getting information — lots of secrecy.

And it’s really funny to think back, you know, you think about the little ironies and coincidences that happen along the way. But I can remember in the summer of 2017, I had just been taking over this new beat and I was fresh on the story. And I remember I attended the Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and I met for the first time there the spokesperson for the Department of Human Services at the time that I would be working with on this story.

And I remember telling him, you know, “I’m really interested in what your agency is doing. It’s been in the news lately, so I’ll be looking forward to working with you.”

And Marcus Dupree was actually one of the athletes who was getting inducted at that time. I wouldn’t know for another three years that Marcus Dupree was actually one of the biggest recipients of welfare funding because he was actually employed by the Family’s First agency through which most of this misspending occurred. So it’s really funny to think back.

Shows: Would you explain the Mississippi Families First and how that kind of plays into this? And, folks, again, this is the department of welfare in the state of Mississippi to serve the underserved. Go ahead.

Wolfe: So, actually, can I back up a little bit before that to the legislation that prompted all of this? So, one thing I really want followers of this story to know — and there was up to $70 million in welfare money that was misspent in this sprawling scheme, so the criminal charges only account for a small amount of the money that we’re talking about.

And one thing I really want people to know about this story is that this misspending didn’t happen in a vacuum. Mississippi is probably not the only state where something like this has happened, because the TANF program — that’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, that’s the federal fund that we’re talking about, which is supposed to help poor families — is essentially a slush fund in any state that wants to use it that way.

And it has to do with welfare reform — which, actually, Ronnie, you should remember because you came into Congress just a couple of years after that legislation passed, right?

Shows: Mhm. Yeah.

Wolfe: Do you remember that?

Shows: That was during Clinton’s administration, I believe, correct?

Wolfe: It was. Yeah. 1996.

Shows: I came in the last two of Clinton and first two years of Bush.

Wolfe: So, before the mid-90s, cash welfare used to be an entitlement, which means that if you applied for it and you qualified for it under federal law, then you got it. But welfare reform, which you remember passed in ‘96 under Clinton, did away with that program and replaced it with a block grant, which gave states almost free rein to spend the money how they wanted, however they saw fit to help poor people.

And the main idea behind this legislation is that giving people direct assistance makes people dependent on the government, traps and in poverty. So instead, we should help people out of poverty, help them get jobs and become self-sufficient, which is a noble goal, right? I mean, no one I’ve ever talked to has wanted to be dependent on the government, and that other type of assistance, like job placement, etcetera, should be there for folks who have barriers to economic mobility.

But what welfare reform did, instead of actually investing in workforce training and other studied, proven ways to interrupt generational poverty, it just gave the states the money to do whatever they wanted with it. The federal government never required states to show how what they were doing with the money was actually reducing poverty. Not once did they require any kind of outcome measurements, outcome reporting, things like that.

So, what Mississippi did was it started imposing these harsh rules on getting cash assistance so that fewer people are qualified for it. And the welfare rolls just began to drop dramatically. Like, in 1996, there were 33,000 adults on the program. And in 10 years, that number dropped to around 8,500.

Can you guess how many adults are on the program today? Or at least the last time I checked?

208.

Shows: 208.

Wolfe: 208 adults. So, the state had to find some way to spend the money. Right? And it started spending the money on things like fatherhood or two parent family formation, these kinds of family-stabilizing programs.

And, actually, when I analyze the federal data, the best that I can tell, during the years of this scandal, DHS labeled nearly all of the money that it was spending through Families First, the money that was misspent, as “fatherhood” programs.

So that’s how someone like Marcus Dupree, the football star, was getting paid — to demonstrate fatherhood. And I say this because any time he did anything for Families First, which is this initiative I’ll get to, he would post about it on Facebook with the hashtag “#fatherhood.”

And they were also paying religious organizations, like the ministry started by the former WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase. And his son was actually one of the folks indicted in the scheme. And he (Ted) actually did an interview in 2018 where he said that Mississippi’s governor actually selected him to be the “face of his faith-based initiative.”

And Ronnie, I wanted to ask you too, if you remembered, in your time in Congress, I think TANF, the federal legislation, was being altered in the years that you were there in the late nineties. Do you remember this about fatherhood and—?

Shows: Yeah. And it’s been over 20 years now. But I got there in 1999 and 2000, and then I served until 2003. So, I remember that coming up — fatherhood. It might have been in ’98. It could have. I would have to go back and look. Because I was there from 1999 to 2003.

Editor’s note: Shows voted in 1999 to amend the TANF legislation to establish programs to “promote more responsible fatherhood” and “give grants to state agencies and nonprofit groups, including faith-based institutions.”

Wolfe: I mean, I think you probably would have supported giving money to these kinds of programs, you know, promoting fatherhood, promoting families. But I’m wondering if you could have ever imagined that this is what would come of that?

Shows: Tell some of the people what this money was given to that shouldn’t have been. Give them some examples of where they were spending this money.

Wolfe: So, in the fatherhood program, they hired Marcus Dupree, for example, that’s one of the characters in this story, and paid him a six-figure salary to essentially promote the program. So, he would go around to different schools and talk about, you know, why you should do right in school and why you should make good decisions as a teenager or a kid. And then, they also purchased a horse ranch for him, which is, by all measurements, his private residence, where the program purported to provide quote “equestrian services for children.” So he would teach children how to ride horses, but there’s really no evidence that those programs took place, or if they did, they weren’t very robust, they didn’t serve a lot of kids.

So things like that where the Families First initiative could kind of get away with giving money to people it wanted to have money, but they didn’t really perform any robust or measurable programs. Another example is $1 million that the entity paid Brett Favre to essentially promote the Families First program, or multimillion dollar contracts for professional development, things like that.

Shows: Who ran the Mississippi First for Families. Was it Nancy?

Wolfe: Families First was a state-sanctioned initiative. It was a program of the Department of Human Services. But to run it, the department contracted with two nonprofits, who would then spend the money and give the money to other subgrantees. And those nonprofits were Mississippi Community Education Center, which is primarily the nonprofit at the center of the scheme that we’re talking about, and the Family Resource Center of North Mississippi. So, Nancy New is the founder of Mississippi Community Education Center. She was one of the people indicted in the scheme.

Shows: So how much money do you evaluate, or you estimate was wasted with the welfare dollars that were supposed to go to the needy?

Wolfe: I can only really go on what the numbers show in the independent audits that have been conducted. So, I think it’s safe to say that $70 million was spent in a way that we can’t tell what happened to it, or was spent outside of what federal law would have allowed it to be spent on. And that number is coming from the forensic audit that was just released last October and conducted by independent third-party auditors.

Shows: So, I want to make sure everybody’s following. I want all of the listeners out there listening. And just think about what’s happening. You have a state agency that gets approximately $86 million a year — probably goes up and down — to this fund. And then approximately $70 million was spent in helping get somebody a job. It’s not like they needed the money or the help. It just that, they were taking care of their friends, is what it looks like to me. You know, I don’t know, I don’t like to accuse somebody unless I have all the facts. But all I can tell you is, if you only got 208 people that qualify for this assistance, and it came down from 10,000, is that correct?

Wolfe: It was 33,000 adults in 1996 when it started.

Shows: Now there’s 208.

Wolfe: Yeah.

Shows: Well, you know what scares me about that? You probably have the same thing in Medicaid, too. You know, it just infuriates me.

Wolfe: Yeah, I think where our attention has to be is in the funds that have very little accountability in them. Right? Like this isn’t a federal entitlement, like some of the other federal programs that we have, like food stamps or the SNAP program. And so, if states have the ability to do what they want with it, I feel like those are the pots of money that we need to keep a really close eye on.

And, you know, this Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is most commonly known for providing the welfare check to very poor families.

But it hasn’t done that; that hasn’t been in the primary function of the program, for a long, long time — a lot more historical than just this most recent scandal.

So, I think a lot of people would say that you’d find similarly weird purchases or purchases that don’t seem to help people, dating back to ‘96, you know, not just in these most recent years. And of course, Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation so it’s kind of especially tragic that this is occurring here.

Shows: Well, you know, I just hope that people are listening and start asking their state legislators about this, because this is not right. It’s just not right for people who need this. Who was the director of the welfare department at the time this happened? Was it Davis you said?

Wolfe: Yeah, it’s John Davis. He was the former director. He was the director from 2016 when he was appointed by Governor Bryant to 2019 when he was pushed out of office because of the investigation.

And I think it’s also important to think about the people who right now have the power to go after the major players in this scheme, because certainly there are people involved with the spending of these funds who have not been held accountable. And there are people who have the power — the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office — who have the power to potentially, you know, topple these statewide systems and the secrecy that perpetuates this kind of corruption, but the likeliness that the people who have this power are actually going to expose this — the likeliness is not that great. I mean, these people were arrested two years ago by state officers. And there hasn’t been any public federal charges against anyone in this scheme.

I just think listeners should be asking themselves not just about what state leaders are going to do to correct this, but also are the people who have the power to go after everybody: Are they doing that? Are they following up on every piece of information that could lead to a revelation of someone else’s involvement and someone else needing to be held accountable?

Shows: What you’re saying when this thing was first operating, first got started, you’re talking about going back to Governor Bryant and his administration? The present administration? Cause are we still doing this same practice now?

Wolfe: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I realize that there are two different things we’re talking about, which, one is just: Good government or bad government, right? Is the money being spent in a way that actually works? And just because the state is spending its money on stupid stuff doesn’t mean that that’s criminal. But as far as the alleged criminal activity that took place during the 2018, 2019 timeframe, there were a lot more people involved in setting up that structure of Families First, where the money would flow through, and essentially once it got to Families First, it wasn’t labeled as TANF money anymore. So no one knew which kind of dollar they were getting. You know, it was a lot more than six people who were involved with that. And I think you gotta go up as high as you can.

Shows: You know, there used to be accountability for elected officials and state agency heads. And it seems like prior administrations … they just don’t seem to have any accountability. How hard was it for you to get a hold of records from these agencies? How long did it take you? I think you mentioned a while ago, but I’d like for people to understand, you know, we have a sunshine — open meetings law, we got that. But they did stall you for how long?

Wolfe: It’s hard to say because the first request that I did for TANF records was in 2017, almost three years before any arrests were made. And I requested documents showing how the money was spent, like expenditure reports, etcetera. And there was a lot that the agency had that I just didn’t know what it looked like, but they would send me these very meager, vague reports that they sent to the federal government about how they were spending the money. And it didn’t show which entities were actually receiving funds or what they were doing with the money. And so, it was just a constant fight for years of just trying to get better records than I had. But you know, it takes, even now, it takes weeks to get even something simple.

Shows: Let me ask you this. The state auditor, he did issue a demand letter for repayment against Brett Favre but is there somebody else, I thought you said Marcus Dupree. Who is the state auditor investigating?

Wolfe: Okay. So, the state auditor’s office arrested six people back in February of 2020. That was John Davis, Nancy New, Nancy’s son Zach New, a couple employees of the agency and nonprofit and the wrestler, Brett DiBiase. But as far as the other people who got money, like Brett Favre or Marcus Dupree or other people, even who received demand letters, these people have not been charged with anything.

There’s been no civil suit filed yet. The Department of Human Services is the one planning to do that. But these folks haven’t faced any kind of charges, like criminal charges or anything like that.

Shows: Do you think they were not knowledgeable about where the money was actually coming from?

Wolfe: Well, they were promoting the Families First program, Families First being totally connected to DHS. I mean, it’s just hard for me to say that they didn’t know that the money was supposed to be for the purpose that they were advertising it for. Right? Like, they were getting paid to advertise to poor people to come to Families First. So where did they think the money was coming from? But, besides that, it’s a nonprofit, so how do you get a million dollars from a nonprofit? I mean, nonprofits are charities. So whether they knew it was improper, there’s kind of a difference between whether it was improper and whether it was just a reasonable thing to do to take money from a charity like that.

Shows: Well, most of the time when we hear people do that, they end up being indicted. Nonprofits are a very good way of getting in trouble if you’re not doing it right. So, do you know how many other states are doing what Mississippi is doing?

Wolfe: I think that there would have to be a person like Shad White or a reporter in each state to really know what was going on with the funds. The reports to the federal government of how they spend the money, besides what they spend on cash assistance, and only about 20%, about 20 or 25%, I’m not looking at the number right now, of welfare money nationally goes to cash assistance for poor families. And the reporting that the federal government requires for the other money is very vague. They don’t have to send in receipts or expenditure reports that are detailed to the federal government.

They do report vague spending categories, so you can tell if they spent a lot of money on quote-unquote “fatherhood.” Right? And there are a lot of states that spend the money very similarly, where that’s concerned, to Mississippi. So, who knows what they’re doing with it?

Shows: Do you know if Shad White is going to go after these other individuals?

Wolfe: He sent out those demand letters to people that improperly received funds. And it’s the Department of Human Services that has actually hired an attorney to file civil litigation to claw that money back. So, it won’t be Shad’s office doing that. He just sent out the demand letters. But I know that they’re all working together to file civil litigation, hopefully sometime soon. I know they were hoping to get it filed a couple of months ago, but it’s just taking a while. But at that time, there will be depositions. People will be forced to come to court and explain themselves.

Shows: Well, I tell you, I was in politics a long time. I ran for highway commissioner and my two predecessors went to jail, and we had a couple of public service commissioners who went to jail for misusing public funds. So a vendor, or whoever it is, the executive director of the welfare department, those people ought to be held accountable, because I can assure you, if it had been me, they would have come after me. It’s not fair to the people. They’re taking money from people.

And we all know that everybody who gets welfare probably doesn’t need it, but the majority of them do, and you don’t punish everyone for a few bad apples. You just don’t do away with it. And that’s always been my concept about how it: Not everybody’s going to do right. But you don’t need to take the program away from people who are doing right. You just got to have accountability.

Wolfe: Right. And it’s kind of mind boggling to me, too, that the folks who rail against these social safety net programs so much are often the same people who are making their careers at the government trough, privatizing these programs and getting cushy jobs for their family members.

Shows: Well, they’re taking care of their contributors. I can tell you what they’re doing. They want some more campaign contributions. How do you think a guy raises $8 million in Mississippi to run for governor or something like that? Why are the franchisees or out-of-state companies costing the state treasury about $200 million a year, going out of the state to these companies that don’t even have a store here, or they may have a store, but they don’t have any workers here. I’m also concerned about Medicaid. Is it being run right? Because they’ve got private contracts all over the place at Medicaid.

Wolfe: And if you didn’t know any better, you would think that our social safety net programs, of all things, would be protected from that kind of political influence. But, in this case, it’s ripe for it.

Shows: You know what they say, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say,” and that seems to be what’s going on right now. And I think the people deserve to know about this. Because you don’t get anything over the — I mean, you might hear something about the indictments, but that’s all you hear. And what I’m interested in is going back to the last administration who you said allowed this to happen.

Wolfe: Right.

Shows: You can’t understand why they’re not questioning the former governor and everybody else.

Wolfe: Exactly.

Shows: Like they say, follow the money. Follow the money and you’ll find out.

Well, Anna, what’s your next step in your story? Are you going to keep staying on top of it or what?

Wolfe: Oh yeah. I think the big questions that I have now that I’m trying to answer are the big questions that everyone has about how far up the chain this is going to go. And if the people that are investigating this and have the power to do something about it, if they’re really going to go after everyone that they should, and everyone who should be held accountable, namely the former governor Phil Bryant.

Shows: Well, I try not to be too one-sided on the politics on this show, but it’s hard for me not to. But all these guys like to talk about family values, family values. I don’t see many family values on this concept they’ve got today.

Wolfe: Yeah, if “family values” means getting cushy government jobs for your family, then I guess that makes sense.

Shows: That seems to be the trend. That seems to be the trend. Under the current leadership.

So, what’s your next story coming out?

Wolfe: I don’t think I’m quite ready to share what that is quite yet, but I urge you all to stay tuned. I think that, as far as the updates in the case, there’s going to be civil litigation filed soon. The feds are obviously poking around, so they move very slowly and quietly. So, who knows when that might come, if it is going to come. But again, I think my stories that I’m most focused on right now are getting to the bottom of the former governor’s involvement.

Shows: Well, I think you ought to get a reward for this and bringing it to people’s attention. It’s a good thing to do and that’s what good reporters do.

Wolfe: Well, thank you. Thank you for shining a light on it and calling attention to it too. It’s an important story.

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