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.”