The Southern Poverty Law Center is again arguing that state agencies in Mississippi are unfairly withholding money from Jackson’s long under-funded water and sewer infrastructure.

SPLC, an Alabama-based legal nonprofit that specializes in racial justice cases, argues in the Aug. 21 lawsuit that the state discriminated against the majority-Black city in violation of the 14th Amendment.

In 2022, the state awarded the capital city $35.6 million in matching funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. A little over $23 million was for Jackson’s drinking water, with the remainder for wastewater needs. Both of the city’s systems are now under a federal receivership, headed by JXN Water, after struggling for years.

But since the state awarded those funds, SPLC argues, the Office of the State Treasurer has withheld Jackson’s allotted amount without explanation. A bill that year — written by Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent in Jackson, and signed by Gov. Tate Reeves — stipulated that matching dollars for the capital city would go into a “special fund” with the state treasurer. For Jackson to access the funds, the law says, the city must submit a plan to the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Despite Mississippi making hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water and sewer funds available to cities and counties across the state, lawmakers only added the extra obstacle for Jackson. Moreover, a SPLC lawyer contends, Jackson had a plan for its ARPA money even before the funds were awarded.

“The city of Jackson had a plan, it had it for decades,” said Crystal McElrath, a senior attorney with the nonprofit. “(The state hasn’t) given them the so-called matching funds, and we don’t know that they have a good reason at this point.”

So far, the suit alleges, JXN Water has only received $3.8 million of the awarded ARPA funds. The 2022 bill also says that any of the $35.6 million unspent by 2027 will go into the state’s general fund.

The defendants in the suit are the state treasurer, DFA, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. The state treasurer did not respond to Mississippi Today for this story, while DFA and MDEQ declined to comment on a pending legal matter.

SPLC first raised the issue in 2023 in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Treasury, alleging the state racially discriminated against Jackson in its distribution of ARPA funds. The department decided to not investigate the complaint because it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the state’s funding decisions, McElrath said.

Mississippi Today also reached out to Jackson and JXN Water, and neither responded by publication. JXN Water is in the middle of a months-long effort to raise water bill rates because it lacks funding for daily operations and management.

The plaintiffs in the case are Jackson residents Doris Glasper and Nsombi Lambright, as well as the Jackson branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples.