A committee Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann created to study the needs of women, children and families in the wake of Roe v. Wade abortion rights being overturned has scheduled four hearings and wants written input from the public.
Hosemann said on Thursday the bipartisan, nine-member Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families will hold hearings at the Capitol on September 27 and 28, and on October 25 and 26. The hearings will be webcast, archived and open to the public.
The public is invited to email written testimony to [email protected]. The comments will be presented to the full committee.
House Speaker Philip Gunn last month also announced he was creating a similar committee — the Speaker’s Commission on the Sanctity of Life — to address post-Roe needs for services in Mississippi. He has not announced its membership or hearings, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for an update on Thursday. Gunn had said his commission will include lawmakers, experts and advocates making recommendations to the House for policies to help women’s and children’s wellbeing.
Republicans Hosemann, Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves have praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on a Mississippi case that overturned the decades-old Roe v. Wade decision providing women abortion rights. But the three said the decision also requires Mississippi leaders to provide more resources to help mothers, children and families.
Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, suffers from lack of prenatal, postnatal and all other forms of health care. It also has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation and one of the highest maternal death rates. It has for years faced federal court decrees to address its substandard foster care and children’s services system.
The Senate committee will be chaired by Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford.
“May people have personal stories about these topics and written testimony provides and opportunity to share them with study group members and the Senate,” Boyd said in a statement. “We are also encouraging legislators to reach out to their constituents and hold public hearings in their districts before the study group hearing dates in the fall.”
Hosemann said: “Testimony primarily from state agency heads and experts, and research following these hearings, will aid Stn. Boyd and the study group members in forming policy proposals going into the 2023 legislative session.”
Gunn has steadfastly opposed Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor, and earlier this year he torpedoed a Senate proposal backed by Hosemann to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for Mississippi mothers.
Hosemann is the only one of the state’s top three leaders who’s said he’s open to discussion about expanding Medicaid, which would provide the state about $1 billion a year in federal funds to provide health coverage for the working poor. But Gunn said recently when asked about Medicaid and postpartum expansion said, “All of those things you’re mentioning are things that will be on the table” with his new commission.
Topics set for the Senate hearings are:
Sept. 27: Statistical overview and maternal/child healthcare
Sept. 28: Adoption, foster care and child support
Oct. 25: Childcare availability
Oct. 26: Early intervention
Hosemann said additional hearing dates or topics may be added as necessary.
JACKSON, Miss. – Today State Auditor Shad White announced former Coffeeville School District Superintendent Vivian Robinson and co-conspirators Melissa Nance and Tammy Briggs have been arrested on charges of fraudulent statements/representations, conspiracy, and obtaining an object of value with intent to defraud.
The trio is accused of creating a business for educational consulting. Robinson authorized payments to the fraudulent business while minimal services were performed in order to appear as a legitimate company. The three are accused of working together to draw nearly $45,000 from the Coffeeville School District.
The scheme was discovered during an audit conducted by the Office of the State Auditor’s Compliance Audit Division.
“For the second time in a month, we’ve identified money that should have benefitted public school students that was misspent,” said Auditor Shad White. “We will work with prosecutors in this case to protect the interests of those students and the taxpayers.”
The Gulfport Police Department, Harrison County Sheriff’s Department, and Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department assisted with bringing these individuals into custody.
Upon their arrest, the defendants were served with demand letters showing they owe $84,171.06 back to taxpayers. The amount includes interest and investigative expenses.
All persons arrested by the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. These individuals will be prosecuted by the office of District Attorney John W. Champion.
A $100,000 surety bond covers the employment of Robinson as the Superintendent of Coffeeville School District. No surety bond covers Nance or Briggs. Surety bonds are similar to insurance designed to protect taxpayers in the event that public money is misspent. All three will remain liable for the full amounts of their demands in addition to individual criminal charges.
Suspected fraud can be reported to the Auditor’s office online at any time by clicking the red button at www.osa.ms.gov or via telephone during normal business hours at 1-(800)-321-1275.
After years of struggling with home wells running dry, Amanda Barkley and her neighbors near the Falkner community on the Benton-Tippah county line hope soon to have ample, clean water as Mississippi prepares to spend over $1 billion in federal money on water and sewerage statewide.
“We got a letter from (Public Service Commissioner) Brandon Presley,” Barkley said. “Three Forks Water Association is applying for the grant to hook us up … It sounds like the money is there, the water association is going to do it. We’re just very hopeful.”
The Mississippi Legislature earlier this year decided to spend up to $750 million of the $1.8 billion it received in American Rescue Plan Act federal pandemic relief money on two of the state’s major problems: In many urban areas, most notably Jackson, antiquated water and sewerage systems are collapsing. In rural areas, such as where Barkley lives, 13% of the state’s population does not have public water service.
The issue is a hindrance to the state’s growth and economic development, and it’s a major health concern. Drinking water contamination in rural wells and from crumbling urban systems is widespread, as is pollution from leaking sewer mains and rural septic tanks.
The Legislature earmarked $450 million to provide matching grants to cities and counties for water, sewerage and stormwater drainage projects. Cities and counties received about $900 million directly from ARPA that they can use for the matching grant program. For approved projects, the state will match counties’ and most cities’ ARPA money 1-to-1, but will provide a 2-to-1 match on projects for towns that received less than $1 million from ARPA.
The Legislature also set aside $300 million for grants of up to $2.5 million each for rural water associations, from which most Mississippians receive their water. This is for projects such as the one Barkley and her neighbors hope will provide them water.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and Mississippi Department of Health are running the city/county and rural water grant programs, respectively. They have in recent weeks promulgated rules and scoring and are taking applications, and plan to start awarding grants by the fall.
‘We invented the wheel on this’
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann led the push in the Legislature and lobbied local governments to focus ARPA spending on infrastructure projects that would be “transformational and generational.” Last year, he traveled the state urging local governments to hold onto the ARPA funds they had already received until the Legislature could work out a plan to match their money.
“I’ve been very pleased with the cities that have held their money for the matching grants,” Hosemann said. “… It appears most of them did, and I’m hopeful they saved at least between $300 million and $400 million that can be fully matched to give us a big infusion on water and sewer statewide.”
The money won’t be a cure-all for Mississippi’s water and sewer infrastructure. Needs in many areas, such as Jackson, are far beyond the money available. But it’s well beyond what Mississippi’s cities, counties and hamlets could do on their own, and is being called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by many leaders.
“We just appreciate this lift, this push,” said Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, who said his city hopes to have the state program match his city’s $6.2 million in direct ARPA funds to cover $12.4 million in water and wastewater system improvements. “… Our children and their children will see the positive benefits of infrastructure work.”
Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams, president of the Mississippi Municipal League, said cities are reading the new regulations and signing up for webinars with MDEQ and that MML and the secretary of state’s office are helping cities navigate the grant programs. She said Greenwood has $3.2 million it hopes to get matched to “re-line a lot of sewer pipes that are 70 to 75 years old,” and other work.
“We’re sitting on go — or at least on one or two of ‘one-two-three, ready go,’” McAdams said. “… We’re really appreciative of the additional funding from the state level. I really totally agreed with Lt. Gov. Hosemann. A lot of people could have taken that money and done other things that, while needed, might not be the best decision. When you narrow it down to water and wastewater, you’re doing things that are going to last many years.”
Robert Lee, interim city engineer for Jackson, said the city is finalizing plans for projects. The city plans to use $25 million of the $42 million it received from ARPA for the state water and sewer match program — the largest amount of any city in the state.
Lee said the city plans to focus these projects on sewerage, not because the city doesn’t have plenty of drinking water system needs, but because many of the water projects have much larger price tags and will have to be staged over years.
“On the sewer side, we have a (court) consent decree (to fix problems),” Lee said. “Right now, I’m looking at sewer overflowing and spilling as we talk.”
Derrick Surrette, director of the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, said most counties in Mississippi do not have water or sewerage operations, but some plan to apply for matching grants from the state for stormwater projects. He said these are mostly larger, more developed counties with major drainage issues. He said many other counties will be using their ARPA funds on road and bridge work and other issues, without getting a match from the state.
Surrette said some counties are looking to partner with rural water associations, and use county ARPA funds to help them leverage a state match and upgrade water systems and service. But he said there is still some confusion and concern about counties giving money to non-county entities.
“The rural water issue gets more complicated,” Surrette said. “Once the money goes off the county books to a private association, that’s where all sorts of red flags go up for counties. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, it’s just being very cautious. You can’t just give that money to a rural water association and hope they get it done.
“But this was a first for everybody, and the legislators had to invent the wheel on this, and we appreciate the work they’ve done,” Surrette said. “We invented the wheel on this, so there will probably need to be some more tweaking.”
Kirby Mayfield, CEO of the Mississippi Rural Water Association, said he believes many water associations will take advantage of the state’s $300 million grant program, although the money is not enough to cover all the needs of more than 900 associations. Most of the systems were created in the 1960s and ’70s when affordable USDA grants and loans were available and they have not been able to afford needed upgrades and replacements.
“I think we will never see a chance like this again,” Mayfield said. “This is really huge for our water industry.”
Mayfield said the grants will allow for repairs and expansion, and probably help some very small associations merge and consolidate.
Deadlines loom, inflation eats into projects
Mississippi is behind most other states in standing up programs and spending federal ARPA money. States have a deadline of December 2024 to allocate the money, and December 2026 to finish spending it. While those deadlines appear generous, Mississippi will see a flood of projects statewide, with a finite number of water, sewerage and drainage contractors available. Some local governments may be sweating deadlines on the larger projects.
Also, as the clock has ticked, inflation has risen to record levels and construction is particularly hit hard.
“We’re looking at construction costs up 40% from our original estimates from before the (legislative) session,” said George Flaggs, mayor of Vicksburg. “Asphalt has gone up 52% since the pandemic, and anything with iron in it has gone up more than that. We’ve had to re-bid two city projects. Plus, an issue now is the workforce — all the contractors are in need of workers. I think we can still make all the deadlines, but may have to cut back on some of the projects we do.”
McAdams and Simmons said they’ve seen the same skyrocketing inflation in construction costs.
“Pre-COVID, for 8-inch concrete pavement, it cost $72.22 per square yard,” Simmons said. “In May, it was running $119 for that same square yard.”
McAdams said Greenwood got estimates on projects when ARPA payments first went out, but those estimates are no longer near reality. She said with local governments across Mississippi — and neighboring states, too — doing projects at the same time, contractors and labor are liable to be in short supply.
Hosemann said inflation is one reason the Legislature held back on spending about $400 million in state ARPA funds early this year.
“First of all, we believed there was going to be high inflation and possibly a recession,” Hosemann said. “Second of all, we weren’t sure Mississippi would have the contractors to consume over $2 billion all at once — and then you also feed inflation itself when you do that … We’re looking longer out how these funds can help infuse the economy, not just in one year.”
Lee said that for water, sewerage and drainage projects there are also huge design, engineering and other professional service costs that come into play. He noted the state’s matching grant program caps what it will cover for those costs at 4% of a project’s total cost. But for water and sewerage and drainage projects, those costs can easily run 8% to 10%.
While the state matching program will cover only 4%, the federal ARPA regulations for money that went directly to local governments doesn’t have that cap. Lee said this could likely mean that for some projects, local governments will have to hold back some of their federal dollars that otherwise could have gotten a 1-to-1 or 2-to-1 match from the state.
“That just means we may not be able to get the full match,” Lee said. “Is it a deal killer? No, of course we can work with that, but I would think for smaller towns that could be an issue.”
Surrette said some county leaders have raised this issue, noting that for large projects, just hiring a consultant to make sure ARPA regs are being followed could run more than 4%. But he said in many cases, local governments have already done engineering and other work in drafting projects. And, he said, a 1-to-1 match on the projects makes such costs a small price to pay.
“A 100-percent grant is almost unheard of,” Surrette said. “We’re more used to 80-percent grants … There’s times to argue and fuss and complain, but maybe not when you’re doubling your money. Plus, (federal) Treasury gave them a lot of flexibility (on direct dollars). I think it’s going to be doable.”
First, ‘catch a rabbit‘
Surrette said perhaps a larger concern — especially for smaller local governments that don’t have large clerical staffs or consultants they regularly use — is making sure all T’s are crossed and I’s dotted on federal spending and project regulations.
Not doing so with federal money, Surrette said, could result in “clawbacks” — the feds wanting the money repaid.
Surrette said that for now, state lawmakers left that work up to the local governments, but he hopes the state might reconsider and perhaps hire staff or consultants that could help local governments. He said some cities and counties might be willing to pay a fee for such help.
Hosemann said such issues could still be addressed by lawmakers, and tweaks made if needed.
“Certainly if that’s an issue they want to bring to the Legislature, we will look at it,” Hosemann said. “Our goal for this money is for it to go into the ground, have an economic impact. We want it done correctly, but we wanted to get moving. The first thing you have to have for a recipe for rabbit stew is to catch a rabbit.”
Simmons said Greenville, like many other cities, has struggled to maintain and upgrade infrastructure and will continue after the ARPA money is used. But he said the program “is a good start for cities and towns to become more competitive,” and he thanked Congress and state’s legislative leaders. All Republican members of Congress voted against the $1.9 trillion ARPA measure.
“We want to thank Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn for keeping their word to towns and cities,” Simmons said. “… When you strengthen Mississippi’s cities and communities, you strengthen Mississippi. That’s how we grow and thrive as a state.”
The struggles of Black farm workers in the Mississippi Delta losing jobs and being paid lower wages than white guest workers were brought in front of a U.S. congressional committee on Wednesday.
Mississippi attorney Ty Pinkins traveled to the nation’s capital to testify in front of the House Education and Labor Committee, which is examining the H-2A and H-2B farm workers visa programs. The H-2A program was the focus of a recent Mississippi Today investigation that found several farmers misusing it to underpay and push out Black workers from their jobs in favor of workers from South Africa.
“Despite all the laws and regulations designed to protect American workers against unfair competition, local farm workers in the Delta have been displaced as area farmers each year import more and more foreign workers,” Pinkins testified.
Pinkins, a retired Army officer and son of a Delta farm worker, has worked closely with Black workers fighting discrimination in Delta. He has helped file two discrimination lawsuits against Mississippi farms with more in the pipeline.
“Absent major changes in the way the H-2A program is administered and its rules enforced, there won’t be another American generation of local Black farm workers in the Delta,” Pinkins told representatives.
Pinkins also referenced Mississippi Today’s extensive reporting during his five-minute testimony.
Near the hearing’s end, the focus came back to Mississippi after speakers covered the conditions from Georgia to the Carlonias and California.
Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat from California, seemed stunned at the testimony. He had heard of foreign workers being brought in and paid less money than local workers, he said, but not the opposite.
“You’re telling me that these H-2A employers are paying, specifically white South African workers, more than the local Black workforce? Help me understand because it’s obviously not economic reasons,” he said to Pinkins.
“This doesn’t make sense from a business perspective,” Pinkins said in his response. “So, the only common denominator here is race.”
Pinkins said following the 90-minute hearing, he was glad he was able to make that point at the end.
In addition to Pinkins, three other experts testified: Daniel Costa, an immigration attorney and researcher with the Economic Policy Institute; Teresa Romero the president of the United Farm Workers; and Leon Sequeira, an attorney who works closely with farm owners and served as an assistant secretary of labor under George W. Bush.
Wednesday’s hearing had a back-and-forth partisan rhythm, with a clear divide in perspectives on the programs’ issues and the issues facing the farming workforce at large. Republican representatives repeatedly emphasized their concerns over the number of undocumented workers entering the country.
“President Biden’s border crisis hangs over this hearing,” said Rep. Fred Keller, a Republican from Pennsylvania. “It’s a self-made disaster that is endangering millions and creating a humanitarian crisis. We cannot meaningfully discuss reforming the H-2 programs while our border is wide open and being overrun.”
The H-2A program is designed to fill gaps in the workforce when farmers cannot find enough U.S. workers to fill seasonal jobs.
Democrats on Wednesday were concerned about the findings in “Operation Blooming Onion,” which a Georgia U.S. district attorney called “modern-day slavery.” Investigators say a smuggling ring misused the H-2A program to traffic and abuse more than 200 workers from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to work on onion farms.
The problems facing local Delta workers may be different, but are stemming from the same visa program. Mississippi Today’s investigation farms often made no effort to bring back Black workers who had worked previous seasons, preferring the white H-2A workers from South Africa.
In the instances in the Delta, it was the local workers — who are typically Black — being affected negatively through misuse of the program.
More than 90% of H-2A workers come from Mexico. South Africans make up about 3% of the program, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
“These programs do not reflect their intended purpose,” said Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat from North Carolina, who chairs the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. “Instead, these programs are a relic of slavery. Together we must reform the H-2 visa programs to ensure that all workers are treated with dignity and respect.”
Sequeira, who handled policy on Bush’s team, spoke to the majority of farms following the program’s rules. He said many of his clients have gotten wrapped up in audits for minor offenses that over burden them.
Pinkins told Mississippi Today following the hearing that he felt Republican representatives weren’t taking the happenings in the Delta seriously.
Pinkins pointed to Sequeira’s written testimony, which stated that H-2A employees do not harm U.S. workers.
“They are basically just blind with regards to detrimental effects the H-2A program is having on Black farm workers in the Delta,” Pinkins told Mississippi Today. “They were basically saying, ‘Because a small percentage are misusing the H-2A program, it’s OK. A place like the Mississippi Delta? We don’t care about that small group of farmers.’”
He said much of the hearing felt like it was diverting away from the central issues. Still, he’s eager to see what the committee determines.
Rep. Adams ended the hearing by saying she looked forward to working with committee members on future legislation to address worker discrimination and strengthening labor standards.
Lee is well-known on campus for his involvement in the LGBTQ community. Credit: Courtesy Oxford Police Department
The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Oxford are now providing “additional resources and assistance where needed” in the search for Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a 20-year-old University of Mississippi Student who has been missing for 12 days.
That’s according to an update Tuesday afternoon from the Oxford Police Department, which is putting out statements on behalf of all the agencies involved in the investigation.
The department’s update does not say when, specifically, the FBI and the AG’s office became involved in the search for Lee. Police officials did not respond to Mississippi Today’s inquiry by press time, and a spokesperson for the AG said the office doesn’t comment on open investigations.
In the statement, Oxford police also said that officers have conducted more “physical area searches,” obtained and reviewed “additional video footage” and are reviewing data that has been returned from digital warrants.
It’s not unusual for local police to call on state and federal authorities to provide more resources in missing persons cases, but experts and law enforcement standards emphasize the importance of swiftness. This is for several reasons, including to preserve evidence and protect the missing person from imminent danger.
Lee, a Black student who is well-known in Oxford’s LGBTQ community, was last seen sitting in his car at Campus Walk Apartments, where he lived, on Friday, July 8, at 5:58 a.m. He was wearing a silver robe or housecoat, a gold cap, and gray slippers.
He was reported missing later that day at 8:28 p.m. to the University of Mississippi Police Department. An officer conducted a welfare check at Campus Walk Apartments, where Lee lived, but there was “negative contact,” according to UMPD’s incident report obtained by Mississippi Today.
Oxford police started working on the case two days later, according to the department’s incident report. The first page of OPD’s report, which was created on July 10 at 11:59 p.m., contains little information about the investigation and says only that “Detective MIke (sic) Burks, was assigned to investigate a missing person case handed over from the University Police Department.”
Mississippi’s public records law gives police departments broad discretion to redact or withhold any information “that would impede the public body’s enforcement, investigative or detection efforts.”
Shelby Hernandez, the records custodian for the Oxford Police department, said the first page of the incident report is the only part that is publicly available “considering everything that’s going on.”
The day after Oxford police started working on Lee’s case, officers found his car in the impound lot of a local towing company called Bandit Towing that services Molly Barr Trails, a student housing complex. Bandit Towing had taken Lee’s car from Molly Barr Trails in the afternoon of July 8.
At Molly Barr Trails, multiple residents told Mississippi Today that police visited the beige complex in northeast Oxford several times in the week after Lee went missing. Residents say officers have knocked on their doors or stopped them in the parking lot to ask if they’d seen Lee.
On Wednesday, July 13, Desoto County sheriff’s deputies walked K-9 dogs through the complex, multiple residents said. Officers also used what appeared to be a black light to search a unit.
Some residents told Mississippi Today they feel unsafe at Molly Barr Trails. Some residents told Mississippi Today they feel unsafe at Molly Barr Trails and that the investigation seems to be moving slowly. One resident said he feels “like more could be done.”
“Oxford is so small – everybody know everybody around here,” said a resident named Chuck Scott.
Crimestoppers, a nonprofit that supports law enforcement, has pledged a $1,000 reward for finding Lee. Lee’s family is offering a $5,000 reward.
Lee was spending the summer in Oxford finishing his bachelor’s degree in social work. He is already accepted into UM’s masters program in social work and is scheduled to start this fall.
The day he went missing, Lee was supposed to go to a donation drive for baby formula that he organized as part of a summer internship with the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services in Lafayette County.
A rally is planned for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Circle on University of Mississippi’s campus. There will be “group prayer, speeches, bubbles and lighting tea candles to illuminate Jay’s way home,” according to a flyer.
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After 121 summers in the Mississippi Delta, the state’s oldest and largest prison is getting air conditioning.
Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said 48 air conditioning units have been installed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman buildings so far, covering 40% of the prison population.
The process is expected to be complete in the spring, and then air conditioning will be installed at the state’s other prisons, Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and Southern Mississippi Correctional Institution.
“It feels good to get it done,” Cain said in an interview with Mississippi Today. “It’s just the time to do it.”
Cell blocks at Parchman, located in the scalding fields of the Delta, are made out of concrete. A U.S. Department of Justice report about poor conditions at Parchman said temperatures inside the prison sometimes reach up to 145 degrees. With air conditioning, Cain said, the goal is to get temperatures to a comfortable 78 degrees.
Multiple courts have ruled incarceration in extremely hot or cold temperatures is unconstitutional, said Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative. But despite court rulings, there isn’t a national standard for managing extreme temperatures in jails, she said.
A 2019 report by the Prison Policy Initiative found 13 southern states including Mississippi lacked central air in their prisons. Years later, most southern states still lack air conditioning in their prisons, Bertram said.
It’s often older prisons like Parchman that are least likely to have air conditioning throughout their facilities, she said, and that is often because infrastructure needs have piled up. However, there are some newer facilities that don’t have air conditioning.
“States are choosing not to provide this, often or not,” Bertram said.
Eastern Mississippi Correctional Facility, which is privately operated for MDOC, has a central air conditioning system, including in all housing units, contractor Management and Training Corporation said in a statement.
Cain said the Parchman air conditioning project is $650,000 from MDOC’s budget. He also expects to use American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The state prisons commissioner also sees adding air conditioning as a way to address issues raised by the federal government and attract people to work in the state’s prison system.
In an April 2022 investigation report, the Department of Justice listed high temperatures as one of many issues that exist at Parchman. The report talks about extreme heat in restrictive housing units,which is also known as solitary confinement.
One of the report’s examples about conditions in restrictive housing is about a man who had been on death row for about 20 years and had no indication of mental health issues. In February 2021, he began expressing suicidal ideation and the week before his death by suicide, he had been seeking relief from excessive heat in his unit.
An investigation report found temperatures that week reached 124.5 degrees, and temperature logs from MDOC for the same timeframe showed temperatures between 95 and 145.1 degrees, according to the report.
“Incarcerated persons in prolonged restrictive housing in egregious conditions at Parchman can and do suffer mental harm, and this harm is evidenced by self-injurious behavior,” the DOJ report states.
People with chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, mental illness, poor blood circulation and obesity are more vulnerable to extreme heat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Certain medications and old age can also affect a person’s ability to regulate their body temperature.
Heat-related illnesses are preventable, according to the CDC, but if untreated they can result in potentially fatal conditions such as heat stroke and dehydration.
One of the remedies the Justice Department recommended to fix constitutional violations is to ensure sanitary and safe conditions, including proper temperature regulation, in restrictive housing. Air conditioning isn’t specified as a specific remedy.
In addition to addressing extreme temperatures at Parchman, Cain said installing air conditioning can help recruit people to work in the prison system and promote a safer environment.
Adequate staffing is another recommendation by the Justice Department to allow for better supervision, safety and protection from harm.
The Department of Corrections is looking to hire 600 people, Cain said.
Correctional officers and case managers received a 10% pay increase earlier this month, with a starting pay of about $17 an hour or $35,500 with benefits. When he first became commissioner in 2020, starting pay was $14 an hour.
“We’re going to have to work to get there,” Cain said about completing air conditioning installation, staff recruitment and other ongoing projects through the corrections department.
In 2004, a hair braider from Tupelo named Melony Armstrong brought a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi over irrelevant and unnecessary licensing requirements. Nearly two decades, there are more than 6,700 braiders in Mississippi.
Why did Melony take this path?
At the time, Melony was working for other people and she decided she wanted to learn a skill that would enable her to open her own business. She loved the idea of natural hair care and took a short course in hair-braiding. She was hooked. She taught herself and practiced on people for free. As she gained skills, she began braiding out of her home. But she wanted a legal business, one that she could grow and develop.
So she reached out to the Mississippi Board of Cosmetology.
After a few months, the Board decided she would need a wigology license to braid hair. A wigology license requires only 300 hours of class and would allow her to braid, weave and use hair extensions (which are part of almost all braided styles).
After completing those steps, Melony opened Naturally Speaking, the only natural haircare establishment in Tupelo. Business was good, but remembering how difficult it was to get her license, she decided to teach braiding herself. She called the Board again and discovered yet another regulatory hurdle. Mississippi does not allow wigology schools. To learn wigology, students must go to a cosmetology school; to teach wigology, instructors must get a cosmetology instructor’s license. Mississippi does not offer a wigology instructor’s license.
To braid legally in Mississippi, Melony had to spend 300 hours in a wigology program that doesn’t teach braiding. Now, to teach braiding legally in Mississippi, Melony would have to spend 3,200 hours in a cosmetology program (1,200 hours) and a cosmetology instructor program (another 2,000 hours), neither of which teach braiding.
All told, Melony would have to spend three years of year life taking classes on how to give perms and apply makeup, while learning nothing about hair braiding.
None of this made sense.
So in 2004, Melony teamed up with the Institute for Justice and filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging the state’s cosmetology laws. In response, the state legislature exempted hair braiders from cosmetology regulations. And with that, you were free to legally braid hair by paying a $25 registration fee and completing a self-test on health and sanitation guidelines.
Because of this change, there are more than 6,700 hair braiders legally working in Mississippi. Lawmakers go out of the way to say they are creating jobs or creating the right atmosphere for job growth. They often have a lot of grand plans, but as we saw with hair braiders it is often one small change where the government steps back, lets entrepreneurs pursue their dreams, and the market follows.
How else do we know this works?
We can look to our southern neighbors. In Louisiana, which still licenses hair braiders, the state only had 19 registered braiders (as of 2019). Even though Louisiana has both a larger black population and African immigrant population than Mississippi.
Mississippi was keeping people from working because of unnecessary regulations. Louisiana still is.
And for the record, there have been zero complaints with the health department over the 17 years of unlicensed hair braiders in Mississippi.
Since the state freed hair braiders, they have also expanded worker freedom for the safe cosmetology practices of eyebrow threading, applying makeup, and applying eyelash extensions.
But with nearly 25 percent of occupations nationwide requiring an occupational license, we know more work is needed. We have the model of freeing entrepreneurs. We just need to follow it.
You can help reform regulations in Mississippi. Please sign the petition below.
OXFORD — Red and white posters pleading for help finding Jimmie “Jay” Lee – the University of Mississippi student who has been missing for 10 days – cover this small college town.
The posters, created by Lee’s family and local volunteers, are stapled to bulletins across the Square or taped inside bus stations on Jackson Avenue.
Jay Lee, who has been missing for 10 days, is well-known on campus for his involvement in Oxford’s LGBTQ community. Credit: Courtesy Oxford Police Department
Some are tucked beneath the windshield wipers of cars parked at Campus Walk, the beige student housing complex where Lee, a 20-year-old Black student who is well-known in Oxford’s LGBTQ community, was last seen at 5:58 a.m. on Friday, July 8. He was wearing a silver robe or housecoat, a gold cap, and gray slippers.
From there, police think Lee may have driven to Molly Barr Trails, another student apartment complex where his car was taken by a towing company that Friday afternoon. Police found his car three days later at Bandit Towing’s impound lot.
As gaps in the timeline remain and several days have passed since authorities have offered new details about their search, questions are swirling in Oxford. The most recent update in the case came on Friday, July 15, from the Oxford Police Department, which is working on a joint investigation with the University of Mississippi Police Department. It was a short statement saying OPD had gotten reports that Bandit Towing had received “on-going harassment and threats due to towing” Lee’s car.
On Thursday, July 14, OPD said officers had conducted “numerous” interviews and are waiting for information to be returned from “around a dozen” search warrants it has “executed on both physical and digital entities.”
Meanwhile, Lee’s family, who have posted a $5,000 reward, are searching for Lee. The family has canvassed Campus Walk, passed out fliers in Batesville and even gone out to Clear Creek Lake, a conservation area north of Oxford, to search for Lee. On Friday, Carey and Lee’s parents spent seven hours in the woods, walking on and off the paths and leaving posters at trail markers.
“We literally went on a full-on walk through the woods yelling, screaming his name,” Carey said.
Carey said her family is considering going to Molly Barr, where police walked dogs last week, to do their own search through the bushy, wooded area that surrounds the complex, because they know what to look for.
“I know what earrings he wears, what jewelry,” she said.
The last time the family heard from Lee was at 2 a.m. on July 8 when he texted his mom to wish her happy birthday. Carey said the family realized Lee was missing that Friday evening after he didn’t show up to a baby formula donation drive that he had organized as part of his internship with the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services in Lafayette County.
Lee was then reported missing to UMPD at 8:28 p.m., according to an incident report. The report, one sentence long, shows that officer John Boyd conducted a welfare check at Lee’s apartment that night but there was “negative contact.”
Sydney Hughes, a UM student who lives at Lee’s apartment complex, talked to a Mississippi Today reporter Sunday afternoon as she was letting her dog out. The weekend after Lee went missing, she said she was sitting on her balcony with her roommate when they saw four police cars drive through the parking lot in the span of 30 minutes. The next day, the university sent a campus-wide alert.
Hughes said she didn’t know Lee well but that she met him last fall in the Grove when he was campaigning to become homecoming king.
“He was just walking around campus handing out stickers and that’s when he introduced himself,” she said. “He was just cool, he was trying to get himself out there and get involved on campus.”
An open, confident person who often wore feminine clothes, Lee ran on a platform of promoting “self love and living your truth,” according to the Daily Mississippian. He wanted to push the university to be more diverse and inclusive – values he held deeply as a social work major. After he narrowly lost, Lee used his social media to call out the harassment he’d encountered on the campaign.
In an Instagram story titled “a message to UM,” Lee wrote, “black and especially queer people are often looked at to be the bigger person, ignore things, not speak out. ‘just ignore them(,)’ ‘be the biggest person(.)’ But it won’t be me. not Jay Lee.”
To members of the LGBTQ community in Oxford, even people who didn’t know Lee personally, his disappearance is terrifying. Lee, so bright and bubbly, seemed like the last person who could go missing.
“There was always a crowd when he was around, I’ve never seen him by himself,” said Cam Norwood, a bartender at the Blind Pig, a restaurant that has trivia hosted by a drag queen.
Carey said her family has received an outpouring of support from the Oxford community – several volunteers have passed out fliers and gone on searches with the family.
“That really means a lot to us, and that just – that shows us that it’s actually people out here that really care,” Carey said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a stranger or not, we all care about each other in some way, form or fashion. We all care about each other.”
As Lee’s family recuperated on Saturday from the search at Clear Creek Lake, his sister vowed to keep a positive attitude.
“I woke up and I told my mom, ‘Honestly this might all just be one big misunderstanding.’ I feel like Jay is gonna pop up out of nowhere and be like, I’m sorry,’” Carey said.
“I said, ‘Mama today, we are just going to do nothing but uplift Jay Lee and send out nothing but positive energy so he can come back home.’ And she said she really needed that.”
