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Deep South Today convened reporters from its three newsrooms — Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current — for an online town hall meeting Dec. 4 to examine how hundreds of millions of opioid settlement dollars are being spent across the region.

The hour-long conversation, attended virtually by dozens of Deep South Today members, offered a behind-the-scenes look at how investigative journalists are tracking the opioid settlement spending and uncovering whether communities are benefiting from this once-in-a-generation influx of money.

The panel featured Katie Jane Fernelius of Verite News, Alena Maschke of The Current and Allen Siegler of Mississippi Today — all of whom have closely covered the settlement spending in their communities. The three journalists have shared notes and are planning collaborations, highlighting the benefit of Deep South Today’s multi-newsroom model.

The panel was moderated by Adam Ganucheau, executive editor at Deep South Today. Deep South Today CEO Warwick Sabin and Deep South Today Development Manager Elizabeth Hambuchen also gave remarks.

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation.

1. The opioid settlement money arrived with few rules.

Siegler opened by explaining how national opioid settlements left broad spending discretion to states and local governments — and very little oversight. That lack of structure is shaping everything that follows, underscoring the importance of investigative journalism.

2. Spending can look dramatically different depending on where you live.

Maschke and Fernelius described a patchwork of approaches across Louisiana, while Siegler outlined Mississippi’s early uneven rollout. Some communities are prioritizing treatment while others are diverting funds to needs unrelated to the opioid crisis.

3. Fault lines are emerging.

The journalists pointed to various officials’ deliberations about whether funds should support treatment, law enforcement, prevention programs or budget backfilling. Some uses — including a few “scandalous” examples in Louisiana and Mississippi — are raising accountability questions.

4. Lack of transparency is a major challenge.

All three journalists shared how difficult it’s been to follow the money. Siegler had to file 147 records requests across Mississippi for basic spending information, often facing long delays or incomplete data. Similar barriers exist in Louisiana, where public reporting remains inconsistent.

5. 2026 will be a decisive year.

All three reporters said the next year will determine whether settlement dollars meaningfully expand recovery services or quietly disappear into government budgets. The journalists said they expect more scrutiny and additional reporting, and they highlighted ways in which the public can get involved in the debate.

Michael Cormack, deputy superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, is leaving the district to lead a network of charter schools in Atlanta. 

Cormack was Superintendent Errick Greene’s first hire in 2019, according to an announcement the district released Monday. He led academics at JPS, brainstorming initiatives like Project 75, which focuses on reading, and working with school leaders to improve student achievement. 

Project 75 aims to boost the percentage of third graders in JPS who pass the state assessment on the first attempt from 55% to 75%. Cormack presented his plan for the initiative to the school board in August, but it kicked off in earnest in mid-November. Cormack told Mississippi Today he will continue working on Project 75 until his exit in March, and he’s confident the district will continue the initiative in his absence.

Under Cormack’s leadership, the district’s state accountability rating improved from an F to a C and graduation rates increased. The district’s announcement called the time of Cormack’s tenure one of the “most significant periods of sustained academic and organization improvement in its history.”

“Dr. Cormack’s impact on Jackson Public Schools has been profound,” Greene said in the announcement. “His relentless focus on instructional excellence, organizational effectiveness, and leadership development has strengthened our schools and improved outcomes for our scholars. We are grateful for his service to JPS, and proud to see him elevate and expand his impact even farther.” 

Cormack drew from his experience as a classroom teacher in the Delta for his work at JPS and his former position as CEO of the Barksdale Reading Institute, which closed in 2023. 

“I fundamentally believe that reading is freedom,” Cormack told Mississippi Today in a previous interview. “Part of my job is to make sure our scholars have the ability to be and do whatever their potential takes them.” 

He will assume his new position as CEO of KIPP Atlanta Schools on March 16. KIPP is a national charter school network with hubs across the country, including schools in Memphis, New Orleans and Houston. 

“Thank you, Jackson Public Schools, for the privilege of serving our scholars and community,” Cormack said in a statement on LinkedIn. “I carry that work and those lessons with me as I step into this new role.”

Mississippi Auditor Shad White is going on offense in 2026. 

That’s what he said when he unveiled his agenda for the upcoming legislative session. The aggressive posture is necessary because he said state senators tried last session to limit his ability to audit nonprofits and attempted to cut his budget, with the latter proposal spilling into public view in a tense standoff at a committee hearing.

The senators responsible for those proposals, both fellow Republicans, retired this year. But the chamber is still led by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is seen by many as a chief rival for the Republican nomination for governor in 2027. 

In addition to fending off potential efforts to limit his powers, White has called for lawmakers to adopt proposals from a legislative agenda built around three planks: immigration enforcement, government waste and ethics reform.

White spoke to Mississippi Today about how his proposals would work, his feuds with state senators, his potential run for governor (he’s still considering it) and whether he’d like to see lawmakers punish Lane Kiffin.   

This interview, conducted in early December, has been edited for clarity and length. 

Mississippi Today: As far as the bill that you mentioned last year that would have restricted some of your powers, Sen. David Parker obviously will not be back this session. Have you heard any rumblings about whether there’s still an appetite for that among others?

Shad White: I have not, but you know, I didn’t really hear any rumblings that that was going to happen last year, right up until the moment the bill dropped. We discovered that bill on a Friday night. So I would say that the politicians who don’t like me in the auditor’s office don’t make it a habit of warning me beforehand they’re going to do something like that

MT: Moving on to your legislative agenda, you propose making illegal immigration a state crime. Are there any specific gaps in federal enforcement that you’re trying to fill? Are there certain enforcement mechanisms that Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn’t using where you think the state could do better?

White: No, I think ICE is doing a great job, and I think you can see it in Operation Swamp Sweep, which is happening in New Orleans, Louisiana and parts of Mississippi. I think it’s very clear also that ICE is in need of manpower. So, if you just look on social media or see job postings, you see that ICE is actively trying to recruit law enforcement officers.

So, one thing that I think state and local authorities can do to help with ICE’s mission is to sign up to become a task force partner with ICE, which is what my office has done, and I believe several others around the state have done. But two, I think the other thing that state and local authorities can do is assist ICE in enforcing illegal immigration laws if it were illegal under state law. 

And so that’s really the point of that plank of the legislative agenda – to make this a violation of state law and therefore give all state and local law enforcement the chance to add to the manpower that ICE already has to make our country safer and to make sure that folks who are here illegally are held accountable.

MT: And do you know if this is being done in any other states right now?

White: I don’t know if it’s being done this session. Most of these ideas that we’ve gotten, we’ve taken from either other states or the federal government. So I believe that illegal immigration is a state crime in other states. 

(Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa have passed laws to create state-level crimes related to immigration or transporting undocumented immigrants.)

MT: As far as the fee on money sent abroad, you describe the fee that Mississippi should impose as a heavy one. Do you have a specific rate that you’re wanting to propose? And do you have a revenue estimate?

White:  I think that’s the sort of detail that you would hope would get worked out in the legislative process. I think the federal fee that was imposed in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill is a 1% fee. And then the Oklahoma fee changes based on the size of the remittance.

What I would do if I were a legislator, or as this bill gets down to a final negotiation, if it gets that far, I’d look and see what the federal government’s doing, what Oklahoma is doing, and then impose something based on those remittances.

I do think that the primary purpose of placing a fee on those remittances is actually deterrence rather than generating revenue, though generating revenue is a nice secondary benefit. So, whatever the fee is, it needs to be big enough to provide a deterrent against illegal immigration.

Folks need to know if they’re coming here to Mississippi illegally, and they’re going to send money back home, that money is going to be heavily, heavily taxed.

MT: Does the policy proposal have a way to ensure that legal immigrants are not bearing the brunt of those fees?

White: Yeah, I think that Florida had a proposal this past year that would have required some sort of immigration or legal status check when somebody goes there to submit the remittances.

In fact, I’d go maybe even a step further than Florida and say that if you’re a Western Union and someone comes in and they cannot provide documentation that they are here legally, you probably just shouldn’t serve them at all, period.

MT: On the government waste front, I think you say Mississippi spends more than Louisiana, Arkansas, and Iowa on vehicles and travel. What inefficiencies have those states solved that Mississippi hasn’t?

White: What we find in procurement is that states that are doing better than Mississippi have more centralized procurement and they’re benefiting from an economy of scale. So, for example, you’ll see some states that have consolidated lots of back-office functions and lots of back-office procurement processes under a single agency. That’s something that’s been debated here in Mississippi and I think that’s a good idea.

The way you might approach it here in Mississippi as it relates to vehicles is rather than having each individual agency go out and purchase vehicles, you could have agencies coordinate that through DFA (Department of Finance and Administration) and there might be a larger Enterprise solution for the entire state. So maybe it is DFA carrying into a large contract with a rental car company to save money on the maintenance of those vehicles.

Those are the kinds of things that I think are happening in other states and the kinds of things that we should be debating here in Mississippi. The bottom line really for me is that we know we’re inefficient relative to those other states and so we need to do something to make sure that we’re not spending this much.

MT: Not to goad you into picking on any particular agency, although I’ll certainly give you the opportunity if you want to, did your office identify any particular agencies that have the worst inefficiencies with this?

White: Well, what we did when we came up with those estimates is that we looked at the agencies that were highlighted in Project Momentum. And so those were the agencies that are listed there. Most of them are executive agencies with appointed heads, and then in addition to that, there’s the Mississippi Department of Education and DFA.

The reason we looked at those specifically is we wanted to look at agencies with a singular head who could make a decision quickly about whether or not they wanted to change a policy internally as opposed to agencies that were run by a board, where action is sometimes slower. 

Now, the one exception is the Department of Education and we threw them in simply because they spent so much money. It’s such a huge part of the state budget that we felt we couldn’t leave them out of Project Momentum. So, I won’t call out any individual agency, but I will say that the numbers we got show that we’re spending more than other similar states.

MT: Speaking of state revenues, now that some time has passed since Gov. Reeves signed into law a bill setting Mississippi on path to becoming the first state to eliminate an existing income tax, what do you think of the policy?

White: I think it’s going to make Mississippi more competitive.

I was on the phone this morning with a friend who owns a business up in North Mississippi near Corinth in Alcorn County, and they live with the tax disadvantage every single day because they’re losing workers to Tennessee. 

I think that we have to also simultaneously cut fat from government, as this income tax elimination is being phased in, because you don’t want to wake up and have to cut emergency management to the bone. We don’t want to have to wake up and cut law enforcement and get state troopers off the streets. What you want to do is you want to cut unnecessary spending.

And so that’s one of the reasons why we focused on necessary and wasteful spending in the auditor’s office over the last two years – to provide a road map for the Legislature if they want to act on our recommendations. 

MT: You’ve mentioned that you’ve received push back over the years from state agencies in Jackson. As you outline your legislative agenda, are you gearing up for a big fight with state agencies? 

White: I don’t think so, to be honest with you. I think often the conflict is actually with the Legislature and some of the politicians in the Legislature. You know, some of these ideas that we got for cost savings actually came from interviews with people who work at those agencies.

For whatever reason, sometimes when we translate audits into policies and legislative ideas, for some reason, there’s a group of legislators who don’t want to do anything to make Mississippi government more efficient and would rather spend their time fighting the auditor’s office. So I hope that doesn’t happen again this year.

MT: As far as conflicts with individual lawmakers, you said that a similar version of your Ethics and Whistleblower Reward Act bill was killed by lawmakers previously. Which lawmakers were you talking about?

White:  I don’t know which lawmakers killed it because most of the time these bills just die on the calendar. They die due to a deadline. So you have no idea who behind closed doors is opposing it. But I can tell you, I believe that starting two years ago, we proposed this whistleblower reward bill and I was told by Senate leadership that they supported it and, of course, it never passed.

MT: Is this proposal a direct offshoot of the Mississippi welfare/TANF scandal?

White: I would not say that the whistleblower reward statute is a direct offshoot of that. I think it’s an offshoot of all the cases that we’ve had over the course of the last few years, where we would have loved for more people to come forward.

So to give you an example, I had people asking me for years, why don’t you investigate and indict this or that mayor? Well, we don’t take information to a prosecutor unless we have something that is criminal. 

Usually, the thing that stands in the way of us building a good investigation is that we look at documents and documents tell apart the story, but we really need somebody to come forward and testify about what they saw. Whether it’s a kickback or an improper relationship or a bribe or something like that.

That is usually the hold-up that prevents us from taking a set of facts and turning it into a slam-dunk investigation.

MT: Maybe this will get worked out later, but how large would the prize be? 

White: The federal statute says it could be up to 15% of the amount that the government recovers. So if I were in the negotiating room and talking about what number needs to go in the bill, that’s probably where I would start.

MT: You recently said that you will always fight to make the state stronger and safer, whether serving as the auditor or in some other role. Is there any update on your potential run for governor in 2027? 

White: I’ve made no secret that I’m seriously considering running for governor and part of the reason is that I see common-sense ideas like this that need to get done in Mississippi. I can do a few things as auditor to help usher those ideas in, so we can do spending analyses and audits on how taxpayer money is wasted and better uses of those dollars. But ultimately, that’s all you can do as auditor.

You can audit, and you can try to persuade people to adopt your policy recommendations based on the strength of your ideas. We know that other positions, such as the governor’s office, have much greater control. roll over some of these state agencies, and you can make some of these changes directly. You also get a much bigger bully pulpit to argue for the policy solutions that you think are best for the state. And so that’s one of the reasons why I’m considering that.

But I think at this point, more than a year-and-a-half out from an election, my focus is going to be to continue doing my job as an auditor and highlighting these ideas all about how to make the state better, and telling people about them and seeing who is interested in getting on board.

MT: Will you be introducing a legislative proposal to penalize Lane Kiffin? 

White: It’s not off the table. You can quote me on that.

DEER ISLAND—Federal lawmakers are considering a bill that could reshape how seafood is farmed in the United States,and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, oyster growers are already showing what that future could look like.

The Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act would strengthen U.S. aquaculture by funding a large-scale demonstration fish farm and streamlining the federal permitting process. In a Dec. 2 letter, more than 150 seafood businesses, researchers and nonprofit leaders urged Congress to pass the bill, saying it is needed to help the industry grow and compete globally. 

“We must grow more of our own seafood here at home, using modern tools and technologies that protect ocean health and support coastal economies,” the letter said. “The United States imports the majority of our seafood, half of which is farmed overseas.”

Off the coast of Deer Island, Mark Havard is already part of that growing industry. Each week, he tends thousands of oysters growing in floating cages in the Mississippi Sound through his business, Two Crackers Oyster Co.  

Havard’s operation is part of Mississippi’s expanding marine aquaculture sector, which has grown in recent years as the state works to rebuild and protect its iconic oyster industry. 

Mississippi’s shift to oyster farming 

Mississippi oyster harvests once relied almost entirely on wild reefs. After decades of natural and manmade disasters, state officials turned to aquaculture as a way to ensure oysters remain available even after future setbacks. 

That shift led the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources to begin training coastal residents to farm oysters. 

“We’ve been training residents of the three coastal counties since 2018,” said Jason Rider, the department’s Shellfish Bureau director. “The goal of the program is to take individuals that are interested in oyster farming or permaculture and teaching them the basics.” 

The program includes classroom instruction and a year of hands-on field training. 

“The first phase is classroom (based), so we have five classroom meetings. We give individuals information on how to start a farm, the basics of oyster biology, the gear that’s needed, real world requirements of what’s involved with it,” Rider said. “After that first phase, the DMR has an area behind Deer Island that we provide growers or individuals the opportunity to borrow gear and space and then train and raise some oysters for about a year through that program. And we give them again the education that they need, and we help them throughout that process.” 

After completing the program, participants decide whether to continue into business. Of the roughly 100 students who have gone through the program, Rider said about 30 chose to move forward. 

Havard was one of those students in 2019. His company has since grown from 225,000 seed oysters to more than 400,000. 

“I grew up on a cattle farm,” he said. “I enjoy the husbandry side of things, and oysters are just a different animal compared to a cow.” 

For Havard, the work is demanding but rewarding. 

“It’s a dirty, nasty job. There are easier and cleaner ways to make money,” he said. “But I’m on a boat twice a week, and I absolutely love it.”  

A global industry with local impact

Researchers like Kelly Lucas, who is the vice president of research at The University of Southern Mississippi, said Mississippi’s shift toward aquaculture reflects a broader global shift in seafood production.  

“The growth in seafood is all coming from aquaculture. And everywhere else in the world does it better than we do,” Lucas said. “We can’t take any more out of the wild … we’re at maximum capacity — so, any gain in producing food right is going to come from aquaculture.” 

Lucas has worked on aquaculture research, policy and regulations for more than 17 years — and signed the December letter to Congress. She said the United States has the technology to expand aquaculture but lacks a clear federal path to do so. 

“There’s absolutely no reason that the United States should be 16th in production of aquaculture products, or that we should be exporting our technology to other places, so they can grow aquaculture products and so that we can import it,” Lucas said.  

According to Lucas, one of the biggest barriers is the slow and complex federal permitting process. 

“There’s a lot of different agencies involved, and every agency kind of points out the other agency as to who’s really the responsible party,” Lucas explained.  “There’s no specific thing saying (which agency is) responsible for aquaculture.” 

Lucas said some companies wait up to a decade for permits. 

“You can bankrupt a whole company; they get tired. And you know what they do? If they’re an American company, they go south. They go right across the border into Mexico or into Honduras or into Panama and they put their farms there, and then they ship their product back to the United States,” Lucas said. 

Lucas said the solution is creating a clear, accountable federal process so companies are not stalled for years before they can operate. 

“Having a path, having an entity that’s responsible for making sure that occurs in a timely, timely manner, so that these things aren’t just lingering out there for forever,” Lucas said.

The MARA Act remains in committee, but researchers and growers said it’s outcome could shape the future of aquaculture in Mississippi and across the country. 

It is only appropriate that in this – surely the strangest college football season ever – Indiana, the team that entered the 2025 season with the most defeats of any team in college history, finishes the season with a perfect 12-0 record and the No. 1 seeding in the college football playoffs. This is like the Washington Generals beating the Harlem Globetrotters, the Jamaicans winning the Olympic bobsled gold medal or Luxembourg winning World War III.

How crazy was this season? Let us count the ways:

• Notre Dame wins 10 straight games after losing its first two (to ranked teams by a total of four points). Yet, the Irish are snubbed and don’t make the playoffs. But that’s not all. Notre Dame, the school of Touchdown Jesus, Knute Rockne and George Gipp, takes its ball and goes home, refusing to play in a bowl game. As Tyler Cleveland said on our Crooked Letter podcast:  It’s almost as if the ghosts of Gipp and Rockne told the non-fighting Irish, “One day when the going gets tough, tell the boys to skip one for the Gipper.”
• Ole Miss wins 11 games for the first time in a regular season, makes the playoffs, but will play  in the post-season without the head coach who led them there. I mean, how crazy is that? To which Lane Kiffin, the Snidely Whiplash of college football, adjusts his visor, gazes off into the distance, and smirks.
• After losing seven of their final eight games Mississippi State’s Bulldogs will play in the Dukes Mayo Bowl against Wake Forest Jan. 2. What’s more, included in the State entourage to Charlotte will be newly hired defensive coordinator Zach Arnett, the former Bulldog head coach, whom State was still paying (for one more year) his nearly $5 million buyout from when he was fired as State’s head coach. I mean, how does that even work?
• Amory native Will Hall, fired at Southern Miss in October 2024, is named the new head coach at Tulane 14 months later. Ironically, Hall’s biggest win during his 14-30 tenure at USM, was over Cotton Bowl-bound Tulane, at Tulane, on Sept. 24, 2022. Amazingly, USM won that game with a true freshman quarterback Zach Wilcke, who has since played at Northwest Community College and at Charlotte and is back in the transfer portal with one year of eligibility remaining. In retrospect, should Tulane beat Ole Miss on Dec. 20 it would be no bigger upset than Southern Miss beating Tulane back in 2022.
• Leave it to Ed Orgeron to tell us the main way in which college football has changed in recent years. Speaking on the popular “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast, Orgeron said this: ”Back then, we used to walk through the back door with the cash. Now we just gotta walk through the front door with the cash!” In this case, Coach O speaks the truth. Money rules the sport.
• Here’s another way college football has changed: It used to be that playing in a bowl game was the pot at the end of the rainbow, a cherished reward for all the hard work. That’s not always the case these days. Notre Dame turning down a bowl game is one thing, but Kansas State and Iowa State of the Big 12 Conference are also skipping the post-season. Too good for a bowl? Iowa State? Kansas State? Come on…
• Two of the top candidates for the Heisman Trophy, which goes to the most outstanding player in college football, are Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, two practically un-recruited quarterbacks. Pavia is a sixth-year player who was un-rated as a junior college recruit. Mendoza is a former walk-on. Oh, yes, and one player who should be in New York for the Heisman presentation but won’t be is Ole Miss Rebel Trinidad Chambliss, who did not receive a Division I scholarship offer out of high school. So much for recruiting stars. You could put all three of those guys’ recruiting stars together and still not have more than you and me.
• You may remember that much ado was made when analyst and former coach Lee Corso was a perfect 6-0 in his final picks on “College Game Day.” Almost forgotten is the fact that Corso picked LSU and Penn State to play for the national championship. Both fired their coaches in October. Oops!
• Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry throws a hissy fit about LSU, the state’s flagship university, having to pay football coach Brian Kelly a $54 million buyout after firing him. Landry says such long-term, high dollar contracts are idiotic, something a lot of us would not argue. But then, Landry actively recruits Kiffin, whom LSU will pay $91 million over the next seven years if he stays that long. Kiffin’s buyout is substantially higher than Kelly’s.
• And you couldn’t make this up. Part of Kiffin’s new deal is that LSU would have to pay him $1 million if Ole Miss goes on to win the national championship. And so it goes. As they say, you could not make this stuff up…

No state has cut funding to its environmental regulatory body more over the last 15 years than Mississippi, a report released Wednesday said.

The new study, done by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, found the state slashed funding for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality by 71% from 2010 to 2024. Mississippi also had the largest decrease in total dollars from that time, with MDEQ’s inflation-adjusted budget dropping from $373 million t0 $107 million, the report said.

The EIP report also looked at staffing reductions over that timeframe. Mississippi ranked 10th in staffing cuts, going from 523 employees in 2010 to 433 in 2024, or a 17% decrease.

In total, 27 states cut funding to their environmental agencies over that period, including Mississippi’s neighbors Alabama (a 49% decrease) and Louisiana (26%). But its other neighbors, Arkansas and Tennessee, both saw opposite trends, with increases of 31% and 30%, respectively. South Dakota saw the second highest budget decrease with 61%.

In an interview earlier this year, MDEQ Executive Director Chris Wells described the agency as being understaffed.

“(MDEQ employees) in certain areas of the agency are stretched pretty thin,” Wells told Mississippi Today in April. “They’re working more than 40 hours a week, barely keeping their head above water, and in a lot of cases not necessarily meeting expectations from the outside in terms of how fast we get permits turned around.”

He estimated MDEQ had lost around 50 employees since he took over the agency in 2020.

MDEQ’s role is to conserve the state’s public, natural resources and to regulate pollution into the air, water and soil. Any business in the state that has such releases must first obtain a permit from the agency. MDEQ’s other roles include overseeing the state’s sewer systems, monitoring aquifers and managing dozens of projects funded from the BP oil spill settlement.

The EIP argued recent cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level will put more pressure on state agencies. The White House is looking to cut EPA’s budget by 55% next year, which would bring its funding to the lowest amount since the 1980s, Politico reported in May.

“The Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle EPA and roll back commonsense federal pollution rules, claiming that the states can pick up the slack and protect our communities – but that’s not the case,” Jen Duggan, EIP’s executive director, said. “The implementation of our environmental laws depend on both a strong EPA and state agencies that have the resources they need to do their jobs. But our research found that many states have already cut their pollution control agencies and so more cuts at the federal level will only put more Americans at risk.”

Legislative budget records show about a third of MDEQ’s funding comes from the federal government.

In response to Wednesday’s report, the agency said it couldn’t comment on the study, but added that funding from the state Legislature for MDEQ’s operational costs had increased nearly 14% since 2010.

Records available online show a slight uptick in funding from the Legislature since fiscal year 2011 when adjusted for inflation. But they also show a large drop-off during much of that period, as seen in the chart below.

Moreover, those funds, about $16 million a year, only make up a small portion of MDEQ’s total appropriations. Most of MDEQ’s funding comes from other sources, such as fees it collects and federal support. Overall, funding for the agency decreased by over a quarter between fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2025, the chart below shows.

The social media app Bluesky restored access to its platform this week to Mississippians over the age of 18, partially reversing an August decision to block access for all users in the state in response to a state age-verification law.

Applying a new policy update Bluesky also implemented in Australia, the decentralized social media platform said it would allow legal adults in Mississippi to access its app, while keeping the service unavailable for minors. Bluesky made the change after altering its “Age Assurance system,” despite its ongoing concerns over a 2024 Mississippi state law that requires users of websites and other digital services to verify their age.

“We continue to believe that Mississippi law limits free speech and disproportionately harms smaller platforms,” the company said in a statement. “As a result, we will not follow the law’s requirements to track children’s online conduct in detail, and we will not devote our limited resources to build the verification systems, parental consent workflows, and compliance infrastructure the law requires. However, because we have the technical means to offer a choice for older users, we want to let them decide for themselves if they are comfortable confirming that they are at least 18 years old.”

In August, Bluesky announced that it would go dark in Mississippi after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a Mississippi age-verification law, which the company said limits free expression, invades people’s privacy and unfairly targets smaller social media companies.

Bluesky grew after the 2024 presidential election. Many users of X, which is owned by Elon Musk, retreated from the platform in response to the billionaire’s strong support of President Donald Trump.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican whose office defended the law, told the justices that age verification could help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion and more,” activities that the First Amendment does not protect.

The age verification law added Mississippi to a list of Republican-led states where similar legal challenges are playing out.

NetChoice is challenging laws passed in Mississippi and other states that require social media users to verify their ages, and asked the Supreme Court to keep the measure on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

That came after a federal judge prevented the 2024 law from taking effect. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds.

On Aug. 14, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group representing major platforms such as Facebook, X and YouTube.

Bluesky made the policy update in Mississippi this week in conjunction with a similar change in Australia, where a new online age assurance law takes effect on Dec. 10.

Advocates and state agency directors pitched recommendations to lawmakers Tuesday on how to prioritize legislative funds for the health and well-being of women, children and families during the upcoming legislative session. 

The nine-member Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families, chaired by Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford, was formed in 2022 after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The group’s mission was designed to make the state safer for moms and babies. In Tuesday’s five-hour meeting at the state Capitol, stakeholders touched on health care, child care, youth court, foster care, food aid and addiction services. They suggested ways to improve the interrelated structures surrounding the Mississippi mothers who risk their lives giving birth and the children who grow up supported – or not – in a state with some of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality, poverty and hunger. 

“We saw legislation that we need to go back and change, which is important always to look at the things that were or were not effective, or something that needs to be tweaked,” said Boyd.  

One example is the Child Care Tax Credit, passed in 2023, which offers a 50% income tax credit to employers who either provide their employees with child care during work hours or provide at least $6,000 in a stipend to a licensed child care provider for their employees. 

The program has had next to no uptake, said Biz Harris, director of the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance. Harris attributes that to mid-size employers not having the bandwidth to take on the administrative burden the program currently has, and the $6,000 minimum being too high. 

Currently, employers have to complete a long list of requirements to take advantage of the program. These duties include verifying if employees are eligible and providers are licensed, keeping detailed records and reporting to the Department of Revenue. 

“While we know some of those responsibilities have to remain with employers, we really hope you’ll explore ways to lower that minimum amount per employee and streamline the requirements so the credit can be more accessible and practical as an employee benefit.”

That kind of public-private partnership is important since Mississippi child care is getting hit hard right now. Efforts to fix those issues are competing with  the needs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, serving over 350,000 residents, or about 1 in 8 Mississippians. 

“Those are the two things I think that I deal with that are going to have the most immediate impact on women, infants and children – particularly in the next year,” said Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson during the meeting. 

Looming federal changes will shift an estimated $140 million in SNAP costs to the state. Meanwhile, Covid-era funding that dried up has forced nearly 20,000 eligible families who rely on child care vouchers – essentially coupons making child care more affordable – onto a waitlist, Anderson said. That number is up nearly 4,000 from last month, according to state estimates provided this week. 

Anderson requested $15 million from the Legislature in September’s Legislative Budget Committee hearing to cover the immediate cost increases for SNAP, after the federal budget bill shifted states’ administrative cost burden from 50% to 75%. But in the next two years, Mississippi expects to pay an additional $125 million to cover a portion of the actual nutrition benefits, which used to be completely covered by the federal government.

National policy experts have also expressed concerns about the toll new SNAP work requirements will place on state agencies’ aging technology. 

“Replacing your state’s administrative systems is usually not high on any legislator’s list of priorities, but we do pay the price for that later,” Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute, told Mississippi Today. 

Vicki Lowery from the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts shares that concern. 

“Our system is based on technology from 1999,” she said. “Think about what you were using in terms of technology in 1999 – a flip phone.” 

Health and mental health

In his presentation to lawmakers, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney drilled down on obesity as a leading cause of preterm birth. In Mississippi, one in four children are battling obesity – the highest rate in the nation. Edney commended Mississippi Medicaid for covering GLP-1 drugs, which are used to treat type 2 diabetes and weight loss. 

“If we’re going to take fluoride out, can we put GLP1s in? Putting GLP1s in the water might help this,” Edney joked. 

But data suggest reliable access to nutritious food already poses an immediate need for many Mississippians. Seventy-seven percent of Mississippi’s counties are considered food deserts, leaving many of the state’s residents without access to fresh fruits and vegetables. People in these areas rely on high-calorie, low-nutrient foods from convenience stores and fast food chains, contributing to obesity and disease. 

Several communities in Mississippi have begun the process of discontinuing fluoride treatment of water. Decades of research has shown a link between fluoride and the reduction of dental health disparities, particularly fewer dental cavities in children. Edney said that if the state is determined to take fluoride out of the water, the Legislature should put money in the Medicaid budget to “pay for the rotten teeth of the kids that are coming.”

Christina Dent, founder and president of End It For Good, a nonprofit advocating for a shift away from a criminal justice approach and toward a health-centered approach in addressing drug use, added context to some of Mississippi’s health woes. 

“When we think of childhood trauma, we tend to think of a one-time experience,” Dent said. “But trauma doesn’t just impact us at the moment that it happens. It creates this toxic stress that lives in our bodies and often has this long-term, decades-long outcomes in our health.”

Studies show that trauma, instability and abuse as a child can influence the risk of later developing chronic illnesses and diseases, such as obesity, cancer and heart disease, as an adult. If a person has five adverse childhood experiences – experiences of abuse, neglect, household dysfunction and community violence that undermine a child’s sense of safety, stability and bonding – that person is seven to 10 times more likely to use illicit drugs, according to one estimate. 

When the term adverse childhood experiences was first coined, its definition was limited to family and household trauma and received scrutiny for not taking into account broader issues like systemic racism and neighborhood violence. The definition has since evolved. Some schools of thought have worried ACE screening locks individuals into outcomes rather than taking into account the resiliency of people. 

In order not to perpetuate the cycle of trauma and addiction, it’s important to make sure pregnant women struggling with substance use are not cut out of the health care system, Dent said. Those women are often afraid to seek care for fear of criminal justice and loss of custody. 

“When you look at the research on states that have punitive-first policies related to substance use on prenatal or parenting women, they are worse outcomes – not just for the mother but for the baby, as well,” said Dent. “And we end up with all those things we’re trying to move away from.”

Dent’s organization hopes to play a bigger role in being part of the solution for Mississippians who need help. It was one of 127 groups to apply for opioid settlement money in September. Her organization’s proposal, which would create family support groups in the state aimed at helping families develop evidence-based skills to support loved ones battling addiction, was scored in the second-highest tier. It will be up to lawmakers whether or not to grant the $209,000 she requested as they consider the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council’s recent recommendations about how to spend millions of dollars awarded that corporations have paid out for the role they played in contributing to the deaths of 10,000 Mississippians since 2000.

“When you hear from these programs, it really reiterates over and over how important prevention is,” Boyd said. “The quicker you can get at a problem or issue, the most effective and less expensive it’s going to be.”

Hundreds of border agents have arrived in New Orleans and Mississippi last week in what’s being referred to as “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” according to The Associated Press. Federal officials are said to be targeting people with criminal backgrounds, though data shows more than 70% of current immigration detainees nationally have no criminal records.

Law enforcement officers are expected to remain in the area for a two-month period and aim to arrest around 5,000 people. However, in other cities where similar actions have been taken, including Chicago and Washington, D.C, this presence has tapered off but remains in effect.

Advocates have told Mississippi Today about sightings of immigration officials across the state, including in the Jackson metro area, and our reporters are working to cover these stories. But we need your help.

If you have information or a news tip, please contact us:

Signal +1-601-281-8952
Email: tips@mississippitoday.org
Phone: 601-533-4860

For the first time since becoming governor in 2020, Tate Reeves has commuted a prison sentence. But the person, Marcus Taylor, was already set free by the state’s appeals court because he had been imprisoned five years longer than the maximum sentence. 

Taylor, now 43, was convicted of conspiracy to sell a controlled substance in 2015 in Choctaw County. At the time, the sentence carried a maximum penalty of five years, meaning he would have been released in 2020. But he received 15 years.

Reeves’ order directs the Mississippi Department of Corrections to release him within five days. 

Weeks earlier, the Mississippi Court of Appeals decided unanimously to reverse Taylor’s case and set him free, allowing him to return to his wife and children – teenagers who were young when he went away. 

Reeves called the man’s sentence illegal and noted how Taylor has already served more than a decade in prison. As governor, Reeves said it is his duty to ensure the state’s laws are executed “without passion or prejudice,” and commutation of Taylor’s sentence to time served fulfills that constitutional duty. 

“This is about justice, not mercy,” Reeves said Thursday. “ … Respect for the rule of law and protecting every Mississippian’s right to individual liberty and self-determination are the bedrock principles upon which our Constitutional Republic and state were founded. If justice is denied to one Mississippian, it is denied to us all.”

A decade earlier, Taylor pleaded guilty to selling opioid painkillers but the plea petition incorrectly listed the maximum sentence as 20 years. At the time, nobody in court, including his former attorney, caught the error. It was discovered in 2023 when Taylor claimed to be eligible for parole. 

Reeves has been asked to grant clemency in a number of cases, including for the four death row inmates executed while he has been governor. He has also been asked to look at clemency in a number of other cases. 
Several Mississippians have been granted clemency for federal crimes across several presidencies, including 11 people who had sentences commuted by President Barack Obama during his two terms. Drug possession was a common sentence.