Economic development committee members listen as Jackie Turner, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, speaks during an economic development committee meeting at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., May 7, 2020.
Lawmakers are in Jackson working out how to appropriate coronavirus stimulus funds, but there are many questions about how those funds can be used and whether any concrete plans are currently in place to help Mississippians and their businesses.
Mississippi Today broke down a few commonly asked questions:
What is the CARES Act?
In March, Congress passed the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. It contains $2 trillion to be distributed for relief efforts, and Mississippi as a state received $1.25 billion. The state received a separate $800 million in funds for various state agencies that are responding to the coronavirus, such as the Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and education entities. The Mississippi Legislature will not try to re-appropriate those funds. The $1.25 billion the Legislature is appropriating is a separate pot of money sent to the state with wide latitude in how it can be spent to combat the coronavirus. But the money cannot be used to offset revenue shortfalls caused by the ongoing economic slowdown.
Who decides how to spend these federal funds?
Initially Gov. Tate Reeves insisted he had sole spending authority of stimulus funds, but the Mississippi Legislature recently returned to the Capitol to pass legislation that gives them control of how to spend these funds. The governor will be involved in decision-making, but ultimately it’s lawmakers who will allocate the money.
What is the Legislature going to do with this $1.25 billion?
Legislative leaders are still working out how exactly to dole out these funds, but have said priorities include helping small businesses, expanding broadband access and distance learning for schools. Other key focus areas are helping hospitals recover from the financial pressure that comes with coronavirus costs and lost revenue, and helping to offset costs cities and counties have incurred because of the pandemic.
Is that $1.25 billion different from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds that Congress appropriated?
Yes. The CARES Act contains various programs created to address problems caused by COVID-19. Businesses, presumably small businesses, can apply for loans through the federal PPP to continue to pay their employees and to pay other obligations, such as rent and utilities. If the loans are used as intended, they are supposed to be forgiven. The small business program the state Legislature is working on is intended first to provide grants to small businesses that for various reasons did not receive aid through the federal PPP. Many smaller businesses were not able to get help through the PPP. Mississippi companies that did get help through the PPP also can receive a grant through the state program, but the first priority will be the companies that did not receive PPP funding.
Can Mississippi small businesses expect financial assistance from the Legislature?
Yes. The Legislature is in session this week to create a grant program for small businesses in Mississippi. Details are not finalized yet, but they are expected to put $100 million of those federal funds into a bill that will allow small businesses in the state to receive relief monies.
Will what the Mississippi Legislature does affect other programs in the CARES Act?
No. As stated, the CARES Act includes various programs. For instance, the enhanced unemployment benefits ($600 per week) provided through CARES Act will not be impacted by action of the Mississippi Legislature, other than perhaps trying to pass legislation to make the Employment Security Agency more efficient in responding to unemployment claims.
What, if anything, is the Legislature doing to address the problems that Mississippians are experiencing getting through to the state unemployment office?
Last week the Senate Economic and Workforce Development Committee held a hearing for Jackie Turner, executive director of the state Department of Employment Security to testify about her agency’s work concerning unemployment benefits. Senators acknowledged the department’s problem with phone line blockages and failure to deliver benefits in a timely fashion. Lawmakers say they are studying the issue to see if legislative action needs to be made, but no action has been taken so far.
Will the Legislature before it adjourns finish its work other than that related to the coronavirus?
Yes. Under the original calendar, the 2020 legislative session is supposed to be finished — sine die as it is called. But when the Legislature recessed on March 18 because of safety concerns related to the coronavirus, all deadlines were pushed back so that the process essentially would resume when lawmakers returned where it was left off. The new deadlines are still being worked out, but essentially the budget will be completed sometimes in June before the new budget year begins on July 1. The Legislature also plans to take up some bills in the coming weeks that were under consideration before the coronavirus hit. But it is safe to assume that they will take up less bills that they would have if the coronavirus had not hit.
WARMER WEDNESDAY: Good morning everyone! It is a bit warmer this morning at around 60 under cloudy skies across the area. Southerly winds around 5-10 mph will return today which will help to increase moisture. We will stay mostly cloudy today with a high near 80! A stray shower or two is possible in the late afternoon and early evening. A slight chance of a shower will be possible tonight as well with a low around 62. Enjoy your morning cup of coffee ☕and have a pleasant day, friends!
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media about his shelter-in-place order for Lauderdale County, as Executive Director of MEMA Col. Gregory S. Michel listens during a press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, March 31, 2020.
Last week, Gov. Tate Reeves threatened to veto a bill that stripped him of sole spending authority over $1.25 billion in federal coronavirus aid. This week, lawmakers are expected to incorporate a small business assistance program into the same bill and send it to Reeves for his signature.
The bill, which Reeves had opposed, ensures $1.25 billion in federal relief funds to address the coronavirus pandemic is appropriated by the Legislature rather than solely by the governor. But this week, the bill will likely be expanded to take a portion of the federal funds – around $100 million – to create a program to help small businesses that have been closed or negatively impacted by COVID-19.
Last week Reeves threatened to veto the bill, which blocked him from having sole spending authority of the federal funds, but gave up that effort after it became likely legislators would override his veto. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn both later pledged to work with Reeves in appropriating the federal funds, but stressed the money could not be spent until appropriated by the Legislature.
Lawmakers could vote on the proposal as early as Thursday as they work this week to deal with issues related to COVID-19. Besides addressing small businesses, Hosemann said other legislative priorities in spending the federal funds are:
• Helping with the costs incurred by cities and counties in dealing with the coronavirus.
• Aiding hospitals that have been hit with the double whammy of coronavirus costs and lost revenue because other medical procedures have been put on hold during the pandemic.
• Improving distance learning for the schools by looking at ways to expand broadband services in rural areas of the state.
State agencies have received an additional about $800 million in federal funds outside of the $1.25 billion to deal with the coronavirus. Those funds have gone to various agencies, ranging from the Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and education entities and will not be appropriated by the Legislature.
The Legislature will not want to reimburse the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency for the costs of personal protection equipment, such as masks and gowns, if the agency has directly received federal funds to pay for those costs.
Still, Gunn said that the $1.25 billion could be spent quickly if legislators are not careful. He warned that “$1.25 billion seems like a lot of money, but if you have 11 hands in the pot, it goes quickly.”
The money cannot be used to offset lost tax collections that are occurring on both the local and state level because of the economic slowdown that has resulted from the pandemic.
Representatives of both the Mississippi Municipal League and the Mississippi Association of Supervisors told legislators they are working to determine the amount of money they have spent on COVID-19 expenses. Costs vary from overtime pay for law enforcement to funds for disinfectants and personal protection equipment. They also have spent money on technology to ensure that public hearings could be on the internet during the time of social distancing.
“We will try to come up with a figure, but it is going to be difficult,” said Shari Veazey, executive director of the Municipal League. “We know what we spent in March and April,” but determining what will happen going forward could be difficult.
Forrest County Supervisor Chris Bowen, president of the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, said there is a possibility that the coronavirus could re-intensify as the economy is reopened, resulting in local governments having to expend more funds. He said it is difficult to plan for such a possibility.
In the House, Mississippi Department of Corrections Interim Commissioner Tommy Taylor outlined his agency’s current and projected coronavirus expenses through June 2021 for things like hand sanitizer, gloves, masks, hazard pay and reimbursement to county jails. The department has incurred expenses of $2.1 million to date and expects to spend $12.2 million over the next year, according to documents provided to lawmakers in the meeting. As of Tuesday, the state had 10 inmates test positive for the coronavirus and one death, Taylor said.
If an inmate does test positive, Taylor said the person is removed from the general population and quarantined, and the inmates housed in the same population as the person who tested positive are also quarantined.
Legislators most likely will return to the business of the regular 2020 session on May 18.
Anna Wolfe, Mississippi Today’s investigative reporter focusing on poverty and economic justice, was recently featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.
In the interview with host Mary Louise Kelly, Anna discusses her recent story about Shalondra Rollins, who tested positive for COVID-19 in April and died three days later. Anna points to how Rollins’ story might tell us everything about why black Mississippians are hit so much harder by the pandemic.
Carl Boatner suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery disease, two liver diseases, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorder.
The administrative law judge handling his appeal of the denial for disability payments determined those medical conditions “could reasonably be expected to cause” disabling symptoms.
And then he denied Boatner’s appeal.
Waid Prather/MCIR
Carl Boatner’s multiple health issues ended his two-decade truck driving career, but he was repeatedly denied benefits by Disability Determination Services and an administrative law judge before finally getting relief through a federal lawsuit.
He concluded the Carthage man’s severe medical conditions failed to “meet or medically equal the criteria for any listed impairment,” despite the fact they had once landed him in hospice, a care facility designed to give supportive care to people in the final phase of a terminal illness.
Boatner didn’t die before getting his benefits, but that wasn’t the case for Phillip E. Herring of Tupelo.
Vonda Peters of Tupelo received her brother’s third denial letter in the mail the day after his funeral in July 2019. “I don’t normally cuss, but I thought, what the f—?” Peters said.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, in a ruling that eventually awarded Boatner disability benefits, pointed to a pervasive attitude among many administrative law judges to view applicants with skepticism, adding Boatner’s judge issued denials at a rate 25 percent higher than the national average.
“The injustices of the disability payment system are both many and deep,” Reeves ruled. “Research suggests the majority of denials may be incorrect, and applicants struggling to manage their disabilities say such denials can amount to a ‘death sentence.’”
In a statement to MCIR, Mississippi Disability Determination Services said it “makes determinations in strict accordance with (Social Security Administration) Policies and Procedures” and that SSA would have to address those policies and procedures. SSA did not respond to a request for comment.
“Examiners are required to look at many different things in determining eligibility, not just the disability itself,” according to the DDS statement. “Determinations are based on a combination of medical and vocational evidence. Vocational evidence includes Age, Education and Past work experience. All of the evidence is factored together utilizing a process established by SSA to make a final determination. Our DDS office has consistently maintained an average accuracy rate of 95% or higher.”
‘I felt plumb stupid’
After the administrative law judge rejected Boatner’s appeal, Rick Clark, his attorney, took the case to the Appeals Council in Falls Church, Virginia, as a final step before suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “I really believed in Carl’s case,” Clark said.
The Appeals Council hearing usually takes a year to hear a case, and such was the case with Boatner, Clark said.
Boatner, who is now 55, said he got so tired of all the appeals that he told his lawyer, “You just tell me when I’ve got to show up and where.”
Success was doubtful. Clark said only 10 percent of cases are sent back to the administrative law judge and 1 percent are overturned.
After being turned down by the Appeals Council, Boatner sued the federal Social Security Administration.
In a May 11, 2018, ruling, Reeves posed the question: Did the administrative law judge review the evidence properly?
Reeves’ response: No.
In his blistering opinion, he detailed where each component of the disability process had failed Boatner before he then awarded the veteran truck driver his long-denied benefits.
Reeves turned his focus on the state agency acting on the Social, Security Administration’s behalf — Disability Determination Services.
DDS, which is under the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services, processes cases of people filing for disability benefits from the Social Security Administration.
In his ruling, Reeves described the “waiting” Boatner had to do, saying, “Boatner has spent nearly a decade seeking disability payments from the Social Security Administration, filing his last application in 2014. Despite acknowledging the severity of Boatner’s medical conditions and his trips to death’s doorstep, the Administration has denied each of his four applications. These denials have been painful. One caused Boatner to walk out of his house, put a gun to his head, and threaten to kill himself.”
Boatner told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that throughout his two-decade career as a truck driver, he had always made sure his Social Security taxes were paid up, saying that as he understood it, you paid in and Social Security took care of you if you got old.
When his claims were denied over and over, Boatner said, “I felt plumb stupid.”
In his ruling, Reeves took aim at the disability examiners and the administrative law judge that handled Boatner’s case, noting the ALJ had resolved more than 600 cases in 2016. Reeves also said examiners are not prepared to handle as many cases as SSA asks them to handle.
Mississippi DDS’ 111 examiners processed approximately 64,000 cases last fiscal year, according to Patti Patterson, regional communications director for the Atlanta regional office of the Social Security Administration. Caseloads per examiner range from 65-125 cases, said Chris Howard, head of the Department of Rehabilitation Services.
In Mississippi, examiners must have a four-year degree from an accredited college and are paid anywhere from $27,000 to $47,000 a year, starting off around $14 an hour, according to state Personnel Board guidelines for hiring examiners.
‘Fear of the disability con’
There’s a human cost of so much time processing cases and waiting to be approved, says Doron Dorfmann, associate professor at Syracuse University College of Law. He studied the effect of the disability determination process on the claimants, how it affected their perception of themselves as disabled citizens. In a paper cited by Judge Reeves, Dorfmann noted that disability is a fluid concept rather than the rigid definition adopted by the Social Security Administration.
“There’s not a lot of people who look at the procedure from the point of view of the person going through it,” Dorfmann told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.
Dorfmann told MCIR that he has studied what he calls the “fear of the disability con” which is the idea that “the way disability law generally is implemented in the U.S. is that everybody is faking disability. I show in my research that this fear is a driving force in disability law.”
Dorfmann’s studies showed that disability is often a pride issue, with people not wanting to portray themselves as disabled when that is precisely what the Social Security disability process is asking them to do. Such a display plays into how people feel about themselves and their vision of what disability means, Dorfmann noted.
“Do we as a country ask that not all people can ‘overcome’ their impairment?” Dorfmann said.
Boatner said his condition has stabilized in the years since he finally was awarded benefits, but not after more medical interventions, including a defibrillator/pacemaker implantation and four months of dialysis for kidney failure.
According to Vonda Peters, her brother was restricted to using a wheelchair and bed-bound under her care in their parents’ home in Tupelo when he died at age 64. He had Type I diabetes and nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver when he died. “He never took a drink that I know of in his life,” Peters said.
Photo courtesy of Vonda Peters
Phillip E. Herring of Tupelo had died by the time a third letter denying him benefits had arrived.
Herring first applied for disability in 2002 after suffering from three pulmonary emboli. That was the end of his career as an engineer, installing and maintaining x-ray equipment, Peters said. He was denied and did not appeal, Peters said, “He wouldn’t confront people.”
He filed gain after August 2017, spending 209 days in the hospital for amputations, one on his forefoot, due to diabetes, another on the same leg six inches below the knee and again above the knee on the same leg in quick succession. He was never fitted for a prosthetic because of wound infection. Towards the end of his life, his other leg was threatened as well.
“He couldn’t sit up long—his other leg would swell; he was about to lose the other leg,” Peters said, He was denied at that point again by DDS.
His final application was in early 2019—he was on the list to be evaluated for a liver transplant when he went into North Mississippi Medical Center, the last time at the end of June after speeding nine days in a nursing home.
Peters says Disability Determination Services called her at that point about his condition. “They asked when he would be discharged, and I said upon his death and they asked when that would be,” Peters said, adding that her brother was on the hospice floor at that point.
He had just been informed that he was also in kidney failure. “He was offered dialysis, but it would only have delayed his death for a little while,” Peters said.
“We did our best to comply with everything they asked,” Peters said.
Reeves noted that many of the decisions made by examiners on whether a person was disabled involved interpreting complicated medical exams and lab results, far beyond the scope of an examiner’s training.
Howard of the Department of Rehabilitation Services said Mississippi DDS examiners receive three months of classroom training before receiving their own caseloads and that ongoing training needs are constantly provided by unit supervisors throughout an examiner’s career.
Reeves also noted that examiners worked in concert with medical case consultants, doctors who worked part time for DDS in evaluating findings beyond the scope of an examiner’s training. And to fill in gaps in the claimant’s medical records, DDS and administrative law judges rely on consultative exams to provide current medical information where none may be available.
In Boatner’s case, the administration hired a psychologist to evaluate his mental conditions. The psychologist’s report concluded that Boatner’s “mood, anxiety and personality difficulties” were “likely to persist for the next twelve months” and “have a significant negative impact on his ability to function in a normal work setting.”
“One would assume the Administration would give reports it paid for great deference,” Reeves wrote in his opinion. ‘However, the Administration gives ALJs wide latitude to disregard such reports. Boatner’s ALJ rejected the psychologist’s report as ‘vague,’ despite it being nearly 2,000 words in length.”
Reeves noted in his ruling that justice delayed is often justice denied: “Doing justice means finding truth,” he said. “Finding truth takes empathy, expertise, and time. Without those resources, people who decide disability cases are doomed to do injustice.”
This story was produced by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that seeks to inform, educate and empower Mississippians in their communities through the use of investigative journalism. Sign up for our newsletter.
Good Tuesday morning everyone! It is a chilly start with temperatures in the upper 40s to low 50s across the area. We will warm up into the low to mid 70s today, under a mix of sun and clouds with winds becoming southeast in the afternoon at 5-10 mph. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low around 46. As high pressure moves to our east, winds will shift to the south bringing up the humidity & temps after today. Look for highs in the mid to upper 80s by the end of the week!
Economic development committee members listen to a presentation during an economic development committee meeting at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., May 7, 2020.
The decision to extend Mississippians’ tax deadline until July 15 will likely force Gov. Tate Reeves and the Legislature to dip into the rainy day fund to balance the budget for the current fiscal year that ends on June 30.
It is likely too late to make budget cuts in the current fiscal year to offset the revenue shortfall that is beginning to amass as a result of the economic slowdown related to the COVID-19 pandemic – leaving the rainy day fund as the best option to offset drops in tax collections.
Reeves recently said the state’s Working Cash Stabilization Fund, commonly called rainy day fund, contains $550 million. Under current law, the governor can spend $50 million in the fund without legislative approval.
“If that becomes necessary, we will work with the Legislature to make that happen,” Reeves said of dipping into the rainy day fund. “It is certainly a possibility.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said earlier that he was hopeful leaders could make it through the current fiscal year without dipping into the fund and have it on standby for the next fiscal year when sluggish tax collections also are expected. While revenue was expected to plummet during the final months of the current fiscal year because of the coronavirus-induced economic slowdown, officials hoped there was enough of a financial cushion to avoid the use of the rainy day fund. Before the pandemic hit, state revenue collections had been moderately strong.
But when officials decided earlier this month to move the income tax filing deadline to July 15, it meant that money the state normally collected in the current fiscal year – because of the April 15 deadline to file tax returns – would not be collected until the next fiscal year as people delayed filing their tax returns. The state opted to move its filing deadline to July 15 to coincide with the delay granted on the federal level to give those struggling with the fallout of COVID-19 more time to file their taxes.
The delay should boost revenue collections for the next fiscal year, but with many businesses closed in March and April and with record unemployment, revenue collections still are expected to be dismal at least early in the upcoming fiscal year, making budget cuts in areas like education, health care and law enforcement a possibility.
For April, revenue collections – thanks in large part to postponing the tax filing deadline to July 15 – were $244 million short or 29.5 percent short of the official projection, according to the report released on Monday by the Legislative Budget Committee.
April’s dismal report means the financial cushion that the state had going into the month of April has evaporated. The state has now collected $26.3 million or .57 percent less in revenue than the amount that was appropriated during the 2019 session to fund state agencies and education entities, making it likely that the rainy day fund will be needed to plug budget holes.
The big drain on revenue was, of course, because of the personal income tax collections – related at least in part to the postponement of the filing deadline. Personal income tax collections were $125.8 million or 43.5 percent below the estimate. But most other sources of revenue also were down. The sales tax collections were down $17.6 million or 8.9 percent while the corporate tax collections, which also were impacted by the delay until July 15 to file, were down 50.8 percent or $89.9 million.
One of the only bright spots was the use tax collections, which is a 7 percent tax collected primarily on internet sales. They were up 6.3 percent, or $1.7 million, in April.
The Legislature’s work in May and June to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year will be impacted by the drop in tax collections, making budgets cuts a possibility. Legislators are hoping to pass a teacher pay raise for the upcoming fiscal year of about $1,000 annually, costing $78 million. The revenue situation will make that effort more difficult.
Anna Wolfe
