Legislative leaders are optimistic that they will be able to start passing bills to fund the $7-billion budget to fund state services on Tuesday.

“We will be rolling Tuesday and the day after I suppose,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg.

Late Monday the House and Senate agreed on a resolution to extend the session. Appropriations and revenue (taxes and borrowing) bills died Saturday night when House and Senate leaders could not reach agreement on a key deadline. The resolution approved Monday was needed to revive the bills.

The final day of the session was scheduled for Sunday, May 5. Now it is scheduled for May 14, but House Speaker Jason White, R-West, predicted Monday that the Legislature will finish its work this week, though leaders did concede there were still  some “minor” disagreements between the House and Senate.

Under the resolution, the legislators – even though their work would be completed this week — will return on May 14 unless White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann agree not to return.

Returning on May 14 would give the Legislature the opportunity address any possible vetoes by Gov. Tate Reeves. Lawmakers can override gubernatorial vetoes with a two-thirds vote of each chamber.

Asked Monday if an agreement had been reached on the revenue bills, Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, R-Brandon, who handles those proposals, said, “Gosh, I hope so. If not I am going holler a Jerry Clower for them to shoot up amongst us,” Harkins said referencing a skit by the Mississippi comic.

It took a two-thirds vote of both chambers to pass the resolution to extend the session. It passed unanimously in the House, but six members of the 52-member Senate voted no. Without the resolution, it most likely would require a special session called by Gov. Tate Reeves to pass budget bills and revenue bills.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The family of George Robinson plans to move forward with a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Jackson and three former police officers after rejecting a nearly $18,000 settlement offer. 

Attorney Dennis Sweet III made the intentions of Bettersten Wade, Robinson's sister, and Vernice Robinson, Robinson's mother, clear in a Thursday letter sent the day after the City Council approved a $17,786 payment to settle the family's 2019 lawsuit. 

“This is more than anyone should have to endure. Much less have the City of Jackson tout the purported term of settlement as some sort of victory,” Sweet wrote in the letter. “Needless to say, no individual or party obtained a victory in this matter.”

The financial terms of the settlement and plaintiffs' identities were not supposed to be disclosed publicly and the council did not approve the settlement in executive session, Sweet said. According to Mississippi's open meeting law, any public body can enter executive session for a number of reasons, including for negotiations relating to litigation. 

Sweet was not immediately available to comment Monday. Last week, he told WLBT he would take it to trial. 

Council President Aaron Banks, who was also not immediately available for comment, said the settlement was freely negotiated among the parties and signed by Wade and Vernice Robinson, who had their attorneys with them, according to a Friday statement to the Clarion Ledger. 

Banks disputed Sweet's claims that the city violated any terms of the settlement, such as a confidentiality agreement, saying the city didn't agree to one and that settlements are public records, according to the statement. 

“The City intends to honor the agreement it reached and expects the Wade family to do so, also,” Banks said in the statement.

However, some city council members said after the meeting that they were not aware of a confidentiality agreement. 

City Attorney Drew Martin declined to comment Monday. 

All the parties met for mediation April 12. Sweet said that during the session, a representative from the city said it is in “financial straits and did not possess substantial funds in which to resolve Ms. Wade's claims against it.” The lawsuit complaint asked for a jury trial and damages to be determined by a jury. 

Banks's statement did not address the attorney's claim about the city's finances.  

Wade agreed during mediation to settle with ambulance provider American Medical Response and to allow the city to join that settlement and end litigation, according to Sweet's letter. 

“Had AMR not agreed to a substantial settlement amount, Ms. Wade would not have settled with the City of Jackson,” he wrote in the letter.

The company settled for a different amount that was not disclosed, according to Sweet's letter.

As of Monday, electronic court filings for the lawsuit do not show that the judge has signed off on a settlement.  

In January 2019, 62-year-old Robinson was pulled from a car and beaten by officers, leaving him with severe injuries. At the time, he was recovering from a stroke. Robinson died days later.

In 2022, former detective Anthony Fox was convicted culpable-negligence manslaughter for Robinson's death, while charges against officers Desmond Barney and Lincoln Lampley were dismissed a year earlier. 

Fox was incarcerated until January when the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned his conviction and issued an acquittal, freeing him. Fox has returned to work for the Canton Police Department. 

This isn't Wade's only loss and fraught experience with the city, Sweet said. 

Last year, her son Dexter died after being hit by a car driven by an off-duty Jackson police officer. He was buried unidentified in the Hinds County pauper's field, despite having identification on him. His family did not know he was there until months later. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

After lawmakers in the House and Senate compromised on several points of the Medicaid expansion bill, there remains one major hurdle to be cleared: the necessity of a work requirement.

Any bill that makes expansion contingent on the approval of a work requirement will likely be null and void, due to federal regulations that have banned work requirements.

The House and Senate last week compromised on one major point of contention between the two chambers, income eligibility: the Senate conceded to cover people making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20,000 for an individual, and the House agreed to having those who make more than 99% of the federal poverty level enrolled in subsidized private insurance – rather than straight Medicaid – which would be made affordable by state-federal Medicaid funds. 

They are still far apart on the details of a work requirement. Monday afternoon, the House proposed a counter offer to the Senate's stringent work requirement, one in which Medicaid would be expanded either way, but Mississippi would be mandated to reapply for the work requirement every year, and would be required to immediately adopt a work requirement if the federal government ever changed its policy.

READ MORE: House, Senate leaders swap Medicaid expansion proposals as Monday night deadline nears

Here's a breakdown of the various expansion plans proposed this session to provide health insurance for low-income, mostly working, people in the poorest and unhealthiest state in the country. 

Original House bill, Feb. 28

House Bill 1725, authored by Speaker Jason White and Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, was originally written as a mostly-traditional expansion bill, similar to programs most other states have adopted. It would:

• cover income-eligible adults making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20,000 for an individual.
• include a work requirement that would be removed if the federal government did not approve it.
• draw down $1 billion federal dollars by increasing the federal match rate.
• qualify Mississippi for a two-year bonus of $650 million offered to newly-expanded states – which would make the program free to the state for a total of four years.

It overwhelmingly passed the House 98-20 at the end of February. 

Original Senate proposal, March 28

In late March, the Senate Medicaid committee passed House Bill 1725 with a strike-all, and replaced the original bill's language with its own language, which Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, referred to as “expansion lite.” 

The plan proposed:

• covering working Mississippians making up to 99% of the federal poverty level, about $15,060 annually for an individual. 
• leaving out those making between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty, and as a result, would turn down the $1 billion in federal dollars 
• calling for quarterly proof of employment, leaving experts worried that the plan would be administratively burdensome and costly – as well as confusing for enrollees. That's if the federal government approved the waiver necessary for the work requirement – an unlikely scenario under the Biden administration, which has rescinded such waivers previously granted under the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. 

This austere version of expansion passed the full Senate at the end of March with a veto-proof majority – an important detail since Gov. Tate Reeves has indicated he will veto any expansion bill that comes to his door. 

House's response to the Senate's strike-all, April 3

The House invited the Senate to conference in early April to hash out the details of House Bill 1725. 

House leadership countered the Senate's austere version of expansion with a compromise: a “hybrid model” which would cover those making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, but would put those making between 100% and 138% on private health insurance policies through the federal exchange. 

The cost of these policies would be subsidized through federal-state Medicaid funds. 

Senate's response to the House's compromise, April 26

Senate conferees sent the House a plan with a “hybrid model,” similar to what the House pitched, but maintained a firm stance on a work requirement — although they dropped the quarterly employment verification to annually.

The following Sunday, Senate conferees retracted the requirement in their initial proposal that Mississippi sue the federal government if the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services doesn't approve the work requirement waiver. 

Democrats in the House reportedly said they would not vote for any measure with the latter provision. 

If initially turned down on the work waiver by the federal government, the new Senate proposal would require the state to appeal again to the agency if any other state gets a similar program approved later.

The latest offer from the House, April 29

House conferees countered the Senate's strict work requirement plan on Monday with a plan that would expand Medicaid with or without the work requirement, but would require the state to apply for the waiver initially and continue to do so once a year. It would also include a “trigger law,” similar to North Carolina's, mandating that if the federal government ever changed its policy on allowing states to implement a work requirement, Mississippi would move to implement one immediately.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.