Industrial wood pellet manufacturer, Enviva, announced plans Tuesday to open a new production plant in Bond as the company’s fourth Mississippi location. 

The company says it will have about 100 local workers in the Stone County plant and is investing $250 million in the project. 

Enviva makes wood pellets that are shipped all over the world and burned to produce power as an alternative to fossil fuels. 

“Enviva has worked closely with state and local officials, delivering new investments, positive economic impact and strong support for the local communities,” John Keppler, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. “Our new plant in Bond is an integral part of Enviva’s growth strategy, which includes doubling production capacity over the next five years.” 

The Bond plant is expected to open in 2024. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.

Enviva has existing manufacturing plants in Armory and Lucedale and a marine terminal at the Port of Pascagoula. 

The Mississippi Development Authority is providing the company $4 million in grants for site development and infrastructure. The new plant is also certified under the state’s Advantage Jobs Rebate program, which gives companies yearly tax breaks based on the number of jobs they provide with higher-than-average salaries. 

Stone County’s economic development office said it is still negotiating the terms of the incentive package used to attract the Maryland company to the new site.

Enviva says plant jobs, which range from equipment workers and supervisors to mechanics and electricians, will be paid different rates. The company declined to specify its wages but said they’ll be “competitive in the market.”

“Stone County was founded on the timber industry more than a hundred years ago,” Stone County Board of Supervisors President Lance Pearson said in a statement. “ With the announcement of Enviva, we have an opportunity to produce a record number of new jobs because of the plentiful resources in Stone County.” 

Enviva says it will source low-value wood within 75 miles of the facility from privately owned forests. It operates 10 wood pellet plants across the Southeast and plans to produce 13 million metric tons of the pellets annually within the next five years. 

The new Mississippi site is off Highway 49. It was selected in collaboration with Gov. Tate Reeves, the state development authority and local officials.

Wood pellet plants have been increasingly opening in the South as means to support growing demands out of Europe for renewable energy. While the companies that make the pellets describe themselves as a clean energy source, critics say production can lead to air pollution and deforestation. 

Last year, one of Enviva competitors in Mississippi – Drax Biomass – was fined $2.5 million for its rate of air pollution emissions. Residents near Enviva facilities in other states have complained about air quality and constant noise, Scalawag, Southerly and Environmental Health News reported in 2020.

Enviva says the new plant will have “industry-leading emission controls” and will take measures to buffer the noisiest parts of the milling process. 

The post Enviva wood pellet plant to bring $250 million investment to South Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves has signed the largest tax cut in Mississippi history.

House Bill 531, the Mississippi Tax Freedom Act of 2022, phases in the more than $500 million tax cut over the next four years. In the first year, it would eliminate Mississippi’s current 4 percent bracket that currently applies to the first $5,000 in taxed income. In years two through four, it would reduce the rate that applies to all income over $10,000 from 5 percent down to 4 percent.

“Mississippi has just created the largest tax exemption in the entire country, giving immediate relief to working families. It’s just become one of ten states with a flat tax, making our tax code simple and fair. And it’s just agreed to the fifth lowest rate in the nation, allowing people to keep more of what they’ve earned,” said Empower President Russ Latino. “Lawmakers are to be commended for enacting significant, sustainable tax reform that makes us more competitive as a state.”

Under the change, individuals will not pay income taxes on their first $18,300 of taxable income and families will not pay taxes on their first $36,600 of income. A worker who makes $40,000 per year will see their taxes reduced by $417 a year, while a married couple making $80,000 would save $834 a year.

Empower has spent two years building the case and need for substantive tax reform in Mississippi, from issuing the first dynamic economic modeling of income tax elimination plans to testifying at joint legislative hearings, from engaging the media with over 1,100 mentions of our work to reaching the general public with over 4.3 million views of our content on the web and social media, and from designing alternate policy suggestions to activating citizens to send over 9,200 emails in support of tax reform.

For the first time in state history, University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital, has gone out-of-network with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, the state’s largest insurer. 

So now what?

Who is exempt from the change

There are three groups of people that UMMC’s out-of-network status does not apply to, or will receive in-network benefits for a few extra months:

1. Those enrolled in the Mississippi State and School Employees’ Health Insurance Plan will not be affected. Though that plan is administered through BCBS, the current dispute only affects the insurer’s commercial insurance plans.
2. Patients who come into UMMC’s emergency room or are transferred from another hospital will still have their current reimbursement rates honored. 
3. Patients for which UMMC has a continuity of care obligation. UMMC can’t stop caring for, say, a pregnant woman in her last trimester of pregnancy or a cancer patient who is in round two of 12 rounds of chemotherapy. In those cases, their Blue Cross reimbursement will be accepted. For these patients, this period of coverage will expire 90 days from April 1. 

What this means for non-emergency care

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi has informed its customers that the insurer will continue to provide network benefits to UMMC patients – meaning BCBS is still offering to pay the in-network rate for a patient’s care. 

However, this will not prevent UMMC patients from paying highly inflated out-of-pocket costs for non-emergency care.

Blue Cross has instructed its customers to provide them with written direction to make benefit payments to UMMC. If UMMC were to accept payment from BCBS in this situation, UMMC could not bill patients for the difference between the reimbursement and cost of the service due to a 2013 Mississippi law that banned balance billing. 

However, UMMC maintains that they will not accept payments from BCBS. 

“If we were to do that (accept the payment from BCBS), then they would be able to pay us whatever they wanted in perpetuity, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it,” Dr. Alan Jones, UMMC associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, told Mississippi Today in March.

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi believes the hospital is legally required to accept its payment or consider the services as paid in full – an interpretation with which both UMMC and Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney disagree.

“Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi Members may direct us to pay UMMC directly for services it rendered.  Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi (BCBSMS) is required to honor the direction of payment, and UMMC is required to accept BCBSMS’ payment as payment in full for covered services and even if UMMC rejects BCBSMS’ payment, the statute provides ‘that payment shall be considered payment in full to the provider, who may not bill or collect from the insured any amount above that payment [other than deductible and coinsurance/copay]….,” Cayla Mangrum, manager of corporate communications for the company, said in a statement to Mississippi Today last week. 

“UMMC’s stated intention to refuse to accept payment directly from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi when a Member has directed us to pay UMMC is not in compliance with the consumer protection statute and would deprive our Members of a right they are clearly provided under Mississippi law,” she said.

Chaney weighed in on this interpretation: “There’s nothing in the code section that requires UMMC to accept payment from BCBS.”

Marc Rolph, executive director of communications and marketing for the hospital, echoed Chaney.

“UMMC does not believe that an insurance company has the unilateral right to dictate the business practices of a health care provider,” said Rolph.

According to UMMC, patients will instead have to file any claims directly with BCBS and pay the UMMC bill themselves. The reimbursement a patient will receive directly from BCBS will be less than their UMMC bill. 

UMMC has said it will offer BCBS patients a discounted rate on the care they receive, but even with this discount, their care will still cost significantly more than if BCBS was still in-network.

The post Have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance? This is what UMMC going out of network means for you. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Over the past two years, the state of Mississippi has received $2.5 billion in pandemic relief funds to improve education and help reduce COVID-related learning loss. 

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund was created initially by the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and then subsequently replenished in two other pieces of federal legislation, creating three separate pots of money for the state and districts to spend. 

All three sets of funds require that 90% of the money go directly to school districts. There are a wide variety of allowable expenses under the ESSER guidelines, but the U.S. Department of Education instructs school districts to prioritize efforts to “safely reopen schools for full-time instruction for all students, maintain safe in-person operations, advance educational equity, and build capacity.”

The remaining 10% goes to the state Department of Education, which has broad discretion to use the money for any emergency needs from the pandemic. No more than half a percent of the total amount in each ESSER fund can be used on administrative expenses. 

Thus far, the Department of Education has spent 29% of its ESSER I monies, primarily on updating the Mississippi Student Information System (MSIS), digital literacy coaches, a school nurse program, career and technical education equipment, and Pre-K funding. Only 1% of ESSER II money has been spent at the state level, primarily on MSIS updates and digital content subscriptions. 

Districts spent their money in nine major categories, which are described below. 

• Employee salaries: salaries for teachers, professional personnel, instructional aides, and substitute teachers; overtime pay, performance-based salary incentives, and COVID-19 incentive payments
• Employee benefits: health insurance, life insurance, retirement contributions, unemployment compensation
• Professional and technical services: educational consultants, counseling services, lawyers, architects, accountants, nurses, data processing services
• Property services: water and sewer, electricity, communication, custodial, lawn care, construction services, maintenance services
• Other purchased services: student transportation services, insurance (other than employee benefits), postal services, advertising, 
• Supplies: software, gasoline, transportation supplies, food, books, periodicals
• Property: land, buildings/building improvements, computer equipment, furniture, connectivity equipment, cars, buses 
• Other objects: dues and fees, interest, debt, payments to state agencies
• Other uses: summer food, indirect costs

View the charts below to learn more about how this money has been budgeted and district-level spending for each pot.

ESSER I

Created By: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act

Available through: Sept. 30, 2022

Total to Mississippi: $169,883,002  

Reserved for statewide programming: $16,988,300

ESSER II

Created By: Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act

Available through: Sept. 30, 2023

Total to Mississippi: $724,532,847 

Reserved for statewide programming: $72,453,285

ESSER III

Created By: American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)

Available through: Sept. 30, 2024

Total to Mississippi: $1,628,366,137  

Reserved for statewide programming: $162,836,614 

The post How much pandemic relief funds has your school district spent? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Occupational licensing has grown in recent decades. As recently as the 1950s, just 5 percent of workers needed a license to work. It was saved for professions like physicians, dentists, and lawyers. But from 1993 to 2012 Mississippi licensed 49 separate professions that do not require a traditional 4-year degree, which is more than almost any other state in the country. Today, 19 percent of workers need a license to work in the state of Mississippi. This includes professions like barbers, massage therapists, contractors, and tree trimmers.

While Mississippi has been a national leader in occupational licensing reform in recent years, the trend is for licensing to grow. States have implemented numerous mechanisms to reform licensing laws. The simplest way is to prevent these laws from being passed in the first place. For that, 22 states have turned to sunrise reviews, relying on an independent commission to measure the costs and benefits of proposed regulations.

The rationale behind licensing is to protect consumers. By requiring certain levels of education and training and requiring applicants demonstrate their skills to a board of professionals, states could ensure that professionals were of sufficient quality.

However, in practice, occupational licensing does have some drawbacks. The requirements for education and training can have significant costs, often posing barriers to entry into the profession. Reducing the supply of workers increases the prices they charge consumers, forcing people to pay more. Minorities are often hit harder by licensing requirements. Meanwhile, research tends to find that it has little effect on the quality of services that consumers receive.

Despite growing knowledge of the costs of licensing, it persists. Every year in legislatures across the country, bills are introduced proposing licensing for new professions. Licensing is the most common form of professional regulation, and once passed, these laws are notoriously difficult to repeal.

You can help reform occupational regulations. Please sign the petition below.

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If occupational licensing has these drawbacks that leaves so many worse off, why is it proposed? A new report from the Institute for Justice provides some insight. They reviewed sunrise reports for 15 states from 1985-2017. They found that at least 83 percent of the licensing bills were initiated by professional associations. These special interests sought licensing for economic interests and to raise the credibility of their profession in the eyes of the public.

Organized interest groups are effective at pressuring legislatures to pass laws that benefit them at the expense of society. One method that some states have adopted to counter this pressure is the sunrise review process.

Sunrise reviews provide a mechanism for states to evaluate proposed legislation before it’s brought to a vote. They are often used for professional regulation, to help state legislators assess the bills. Legislators often lack the capacity to independently research the costs and benefits of each bill, so they have to rely on knowledgeable third parties. Frequently, these knowledgeable parties are those professionals who stand to benefit from the legislation. The sunrise commission provides independent analysis for legislators, helping to balance the influence of special interest groups.

In practice, when a bill to regulate a new profession is proposed, it is first sent to the commission to review. The reviewers will detail the potential harms from continuing to not regulate the profession. They compare the costs and the benefits of regulation and have the ability to recommend less stringent forms of regulation that can protect consumers with lower costs. Before the legislature votes on the bill, the commission provides a recommendation accompanied by a detailed report of their findings.

How well do sunrise reviews work? In IJ’s review of the annual sunrise reports, they found that 54 percent recommended against licensure. An additional 20 percent of reviews recommended less stringent forms of professional regulation. In a vast majority of cases, the government believes that licensing would serve professionals’ interests, rather than the public’s interest.

The legislatures are free to ignore the recommendations of the sunrise review. When sunrise reviews recommend against licensing, legislatures follow them about 65 percent of the time. Legislatures are still twice as likely to pass licensing laws than sunrise commissions recommend, but sunrise commissions have a sizable effect on licensing.

This report also provides details about each state’s review process. Three features stood out as best practices. States that had strong, clearly laid out criteria had the most successful reviews. Another important aspect was independence. When the reviewers are removed from political pressure, the review reports provide much greater detail and recommend against licensing more often. Finally, states must be willing to devote time and resources to the reviews, to allow for in-depth reviews that truly investigate the costs and benefits of the proposed licensing laws.

These sunrise commissions can serve as an example for Mississippi. The Occupational Licensing Review Commission currently has the power to review all new and existing professional regulations. Giving them a more resources and a clear mandate to provide a sunrise review for all new proposed licensing laws would strengthen the OLRC. Doing so would protect Mississippians from needless red tape, while still encouraging regulation when necessary.

Occupational licensing is overwhelmingly sought by special interests who stand to gain from these laws, not the public who bears the brunt of the costs. Other states’ experience shows that sunrise reviews can be an effective measure to counteract the pressure of professional associations, helping legislatures to craft better policy that limits unnecessary red tape.