by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
May 8, 2025

Three nonprofits received over $850,000 in federal grants for HIV prevention between 2021 and 2024 but administered only 35 HIV tests during that period, State Auditor Shad White alleges in a report released Monday. 

The report identified reimbursements for alcohol, late-night rideshares, purchases from a smoke shop, the rental of a nightclub owned by one group’s executive director and a declined payment for gift cards. All of the payments were approved by the Mississippi Department of Health, the agency responsible for overseeing distribution of the funding to community-based organizations.

“The lapses identified are unacceptable and not reflective of our agency’s standards or mission,” the health department said in a press release Monday. 

The agency could not produce monthly reports for grant activities or documentation of hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenses, the report said. Nor could it provide all of the funding agreements or say whether the organizations were aware they were required to report testing data, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office told Mississippi Today. 

The grant funding was meant to help states establish and maintain HIV prevention and surveillance programs, and HIV testing was an element of each organization’s agreement. The grants also paid the nonprofits to educate the public about HIV and hire community health workers. 

Mississippi has the sixth highest rate of new HIV diagnoses in the country, and the majority of the state’s prevention efforts are funded with federal dollars. 

“It’s almost like our government hates us,” said Auditor Shad White in a press release. “This kind of spending defies all common sense and is an insult to hardworking taxpayers.”

Lorena Quiroz, the executive director of Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, said the nonprofit submitted all required monthly reports and expense documentation to the health department. 

Love Inside for Everyone and Love Me Unlimited 4 Life, the other two organizations investigated by the state auditor, did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today. 

None of the organizations referenced in the audit report still have grants or contracts with the health department, and the agency has already taken steps to hire new leadership in its STD/HIV division and tighten management of grants, it said in a press release.

The audit probes a period when the health department’s STD/HIV division was severely understaffed after public health priorities shifted to the COVID-19 pandemic and skyrocketing syphilis cases in the state. Around the same time, the health department began receiving tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding for HIV prevention efforts as a part of an initiative launched by President Donald Trump during his first term in office to end the domestic HIV epidemic. 

But the funding increases have resulted in only a slight dent in new HIV cases. New diagnoses dropped 5% in the first three years of reported data since the state began receiving the additional federal dollars, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data published by AIDSVu – far from keeping up with the federal government’s ambitious goals of reducing new diagnoses 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030.

Increasing HIV testing in community settings is one of the plan’s core strategies. 

Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, a Jackson nonprofit that advocates for immigrant and indigenous communities in Mississippi, was contracted to take steps to become a rapid HIV testing site, but did not conduct any tests because the health department did not provide a phlebotomist, Quiroz told Mississippi Today in an email. 

It is unclear why the organization would have required a phlebotomist, as rapid tests are administered with a finger prick or saliva. Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity did not respond to a follow-up question for clarification. 

Quiroz said HIV testing materials worth $11,412 were lost in a storm that destroyed the organization’s building and roof. The storm occurred in June 2023, one month before the nonprofit’s agreement with the health department ended and 10 months after the supplies were purchased. 

Health department records showed that Love Inside for Everyone, a LGBT+ advocacy nonprofit, performed 35 HIV tests between 2021 and 2024. 

Love Unlimited 4 Life, a transgender advocacy organization no longer in operation, recieved grant funding between 2021 and 2023 for the salaries of two community health workers. Health department records showed that no HIV tests were administered by the organization. 

The nonprofits’ grant agreements also included education and testing events. The auditor’s report called several events “questionable,” including a Latinx pride month and HIV awareness event hosted by Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity that exceeded its proposed budget and included alcohol purchases in a request for reimbursement. 

Love Inside for Everyone used grant funding to rent Metro 2.0, a nightclub owned by the organization’s executive director, Temica Morton, a possible conflict of interest. 

Due to the health department’s lack of grant monitoring, it could not say if HIV testing or awareness activities occurred at the events, the auditor’s office said.

Several federal grants Mississippi relies on for HIV prevention efforts have been cut or destabilized since the Trump administration took office earlier this year. Public health experts have argued these cuts will undermine HIV testing activities. 

White said the audit shows that the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV prevention efforts have been unfairly criticized in a video on Fox News Digital. 

“Our audit shows that when you dig into how this money is actually being spent, it’s not actually helping people with HIV/AIDs, it’s not helping to test people for HIV, it’s instead being wasted,” White said.  

The health department reiterated the importance of community partners to advancing public health goals in a statement. 

“It is important to underscore that these findings do not reflect the value of many nonprofit partners we continue to work with across Mississippi. Partnerships remain critical to our public health mission.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Auditor alleges mismanagent of funds by health department appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

The article focuses on State Auditor Shad White’s audit of the Mississippi Department of Health’s management of federal HIV prevention funds, detailing allegations of mismanagement, misuse of funds, and a lack of oversight. The tone and framing of the piece, particularly White’s statements criticizing the health department’s actions and the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV prevention funding, suggest a critical stance towards government inefficiency. However, it also provides the health department’s response, stating the importance of community partnerships and clarifying that not all nonprofit partners are at fault. The overall presentation is fact-based but leans towards a critique of government spending and management, which aligns with a center-right perspective critical of governmental waste and inefficiency.

by Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
May 8, 2025

On the heels of the Legislature’s most recent failed attempt to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi, a 52-year-old gambling enthusiast named Gary drew a distinction between himself and his fellow bettors: He is a winner, and most of them are losers. 

“To say it honestly, most people are losers when it comes to sports betting because they lose control. But I hope they legalize it because I have control over my gambling,” Gary said. “Certain members of my family call me a degenerate, but I guarantee you I’m not a losing sports bettor.”

Gary, whose full name Mississippi Today agreed not to publish so he could speak candidly about placing illegal sports bets, is among the Mississippi residents who have together placed, according to some analysts, billions of dollars in online sports bets through illicit offshore betting platforms. He is also among the dozens of people who told Mississippi Today, in a written survey and interviews, about what legalization would mean for those who currently bet illegally. 

What emerged is a portrait of the state’s shadow sports betting economy alongside growing concern among experts about the potential for gambling addiction. 

A thriving black market 

The push to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi has prompted a debate that has captured the attention of powerful moneyed interests and ordinary citizens alike. It has unfolded in bustling casinos on the Coast, church pews in the Delta and the group text chains of sports-obsessed college students. 

Favorable regulatory and technological shifts have led to rapid growth for the online gambling market in recent years. But the industry continues to be undercut by illegal operators. Online gross gaming revenue in the U.S. topped $90 billion in 2024, $67 billion of which went to unlicensed players, according to research commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, a group that lobbies against illegal gambling.

Mobile sports betting statewide has remained illegal in Mississippi, largely due to fears that legalization could harm the bottom line of the state’s casinos and increase gambling addiction. In 2024, illegal online betting in Mississippi made up about 5% of the national illegal market, which is about $3 billion in illegal bets in Mississippi, proponents said that year. 

From the start of the most recent NFL season to about March, Mississippi had recorded 8.69 million failed attempts to access legal mobile sportsbooks in other states, according to materials presented to House members at a legislative meeting.

Those who engage in illegal online sports gambling and spoke to Mississippi Today described a black market that bridges newfangled technologies with the illicit gambling practices of yesteryear. Some use “arbitrage betting tools” and virtual private networks, or VPNs, to bet across the globe on different sites, pitting casinos against each other. Others keep themselves a degree removed from placing bets directly, using “bookies” to place bets on offshore gambling sites.

However people place illegal sports bets, the persistence of a thriving black market and an estimated $40 million to $80 million a year in tax revenue legal sports betting could bring in has prompted a fierce push for lawmakers to legalize the practice. The sports gambling lobby, as it has done in other states, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Mississippi politicians trying to win the Legislature’s support. 

The Mississippi House in 2023 and 2024 passed legislation legalizing online betting, but it died in the Senate.

Some form of sports betting is legal in 40 states, though only 20 have full online betting with multiple operators, according to Action Network, a sports betting application and news site. Some states have only in-person betting, and some only have a single online operator. Mississippi permits sports betting, but it only allows bets made in person at casinos or bets made with apps on mobile devices while inside casinos. 

That is how Greg, 38, placed his bets in Mississippi.

‘Hyper-targeted victimization’

Greg earned his master’s degree at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. When he was a student, Greg would make the roughly one-hour drive north to Tunica, home of several casinos along the Mississippi River. The area was one of the first to capitalize after Mississippi enacted the Mississippi Gaming Control Act in the early 1990s, which legalized dockside casino gambling. 

For Greg, driving through the rural Delta landscape to a casino was as a guardrail against over-indulgence, one that has been lost with the advent of smartphones and easy access to offshore betting platforms.   

“That’s a conscious effort, that you think the whole way, ‘is that money you need to be gambling or losing, versus (now) when you’re dialing it up on your phone,” he said. 

Greg has since moved to Kansas, a state that fully legalized mobile sports betting. He now bets on football and college basketball two to four times a week with wagers ranging from $55 to $500. He places bets on three different apps, all of which compete with special promotions enticing him to return. These deals are not typically matched by brick-and-mortar casinos 

“I can’t imagine walking into the Horseshoe in Tunica and them saying, bet $100 cash and we’ll give you a free $50.” 

Online betting is conducive to marketing campaigns that are precise in their execution and relentless in their frequency, experts told Mississippi Today. The rise of mobile sports betting has been accompanied by the introduction of new technologies in advertising and marketing, including those buoyed by artificial intelligence.

“You can absorb their betting patterns and use AI to predict when to send that notification reminding them to place a bet,” said Dan Durkin, an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Mississippi. “It’s hyper-targeted victimization, let’s just call it what it is.”

Durkin is chair of the steering committee for the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, an organization that works to promote student well-being in intercollegiate athletics. The coalition has monitored the spread of mobile sports betting as college campuses have become hubs of activity for sports betting and, increasingly, gambling addiction.

According to a 2023 survey conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, sports wagering is pervasive among college students, with 67% of students betting on sports. Nearly 60% of students are likely to bet on sports after seeing an advertisement, the survey found.

And more than 60% engaged in sports gambling are betting on sports using highly addictive “in game/micro bets.” This type of betting allows users to wager on specific in-game moments, such as the next football play or golf swing. That sort of betting would become easier if sports betting is legalized because, under current law, many bettors say they still rely on bookies to place bets on offshore gambling sites for them.

These forms of online gambling, made seamless and accessible through digital apps, can allow addiction to fly under the radar.

Gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any addiction disorder, according to the National Institutes of Health. The disorder’s ability to fester in private makes intervention more daunting, Durkin said.

PODCAST: Mississippi citizens often left in the dark on special-interest lobbying of politicians

“If you have a drug problem, you are going to have physical symptoms. If you have an alcohol problem, you are going to have physical symptoms. Gambling disorder can remain hidden for a very long time. Most of the folks that have it stay very functional,” Durkin said.

“Until they’re not.”

‘Gambler is going to find a way to bet’

For some students, the appeal of mobile sports betting stems not from cleverly-constructed digital marketing schemes, but as a source of camaraderie.

Cole, a 19-year-old college student, likes to bet on soccer and March Madness and the NBA Playoffs. He and a group of friends recently placed bets on the Master’s golf tournament

“It’s fun to do with your friends cause you’re all watching the game together, you get that adrenaline rush, and you celebrate together,” he said. “It’s not life-changing money, it’s mostly a social thing.”

Nevertheless, some Mississippi universities have become so alarmed by the rise of online gambling on their campuses, they are taking steps to prepare for increased addiction, even as mobile sports betting remains illegal. In Oxford, the University of Mississippi plans to hire a gambling clinician to help students struggling with addiction, according to The Daily Mississippian.

Influential religious institutions in Mississippi, a Bible Belt state, have long opposed the spread of gambling, a stance many retained as mobile sports betting came before the Legislature.

During the 2025 legislative session, David Tipton, District Superintendent for the Mississippi District United Pentecostal Church, sent a letter to the Mississippi Legislature opposing legalization on the grounds that it would harm young people in particular.

“The introduction of mobile sports betting would represent the most significant expansion of gambling in Mississippi since the legalization of casinos over thirty years ago,” Tipton wrote. “This development would effectively place a casino in the pocket of every Mississippian, creating new challenges, particularly for our youth and young adults who are the most vulnerable to gambling-related harm.” 

READ MORE: House Speaker Jason White, staff treated to Super Bowl by gambling giant pushing for legalized betting

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and the extent to which that calls for an added layer of caution lies at the heart of the debate between proponents and opponents of legalization.

“I’m a libertarian. It’s not my job to tell people how to live their life,” said Gary, the 52-year-old sports gambler. “If you can’t control yourself, I’m sorry, learn some control. Is that brutal? Probably, yes. If you want help, there’s way to get help. You can self-ban yourself.”

READ MORE: Questions to ask Mississippi lawmakers about transparency, ethics, special-interest money

Gary says every gambler is responsible for managing their own “leak.”

The term often refers to a consistent weakness in a bettor’s strategy, but Gary also uses it to connote a weakness of will.  

“Every gambler has a leak, as we call them. Drugs, women, money, strippers, or the dice table, which was my leak. I could win every sports bet, but I’m going to walk through the casino and go to the dice table and lose money on a dice table,” Gary said.

“The Legislature, in their great, infinite wisdom, where they say they are protecting people, they’re not protecting anybody except casinos. A gambler is going to find a way to bet.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post 'A casino in every pocket': Mississippi illegal online sports betting thrives as legalization stalls appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a balanced view of the debate surrounding mobile sports betting in Mississippi. It reports on both the arguments for and against legalization without strongly endorsing one side over the other. The piece discusses the perspectives of individuals, including sports bettors and opponents from religious institutions, as well as financial considerations and public health concerns. While there are references to lobbying and the role of lawmakers, the article primarily focuses on providing a factual overview of the situation without exhibiting clear ideological leaning. The language remains neutral and factual throughout the piece.

by Allen Siegler, Mississippi Today
May 7, 2025

DUBLIN — Pregnant with her second child and entering addiction treatment at a Coahoma County residential program in 2019, Katiee Evans worried she had ruined her life beyond repair. The Columbus native had struggled for years with methamphetamine addiction, a disorder that led the state to take custody of her then-7-month-old daughter. 

Evans didn’t complete treatment after giving birth to her first child, but the prospect of remaining with her newborn motivated her to try it again. This time, she stayed sober during her second pregnancy – which she credits to being surrounded by dozens of other new parents going through the program, many of whom had their children with them.

“I got to love on my baby, and everybody else’s baby,” she said. 

Since then, Evans has reunited with her first child, given birth to a third baby and stayed sober. She now works for Fairland, the addiction treatment center that served her, helping to administer the program she credits with stabilizing her life. 

But a major source of funding for this program has been cut. In March, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration abruptly stopped distributing billions of public health dollars across the country. About $4.1 million of that was for Mississippi’s community mental health centers, organizations across the state that run services including the addiction treatment program Evans attended. 

A federal district judge has temporarily blocked the cuts, but the ruling only applies to the 23 states that sued the federal government, not Mississippi. 

“This announcement caught us off guard,” said Adam Moore, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, the agency that administers state and federal funds to the centers.

The centers’ services — including crisis response teams, adolescent support and development disability programs — are available regardless of people’s ability to pay. That’s possible in large part, center directors say, because of funds like the halted grants. Moore said that about 43% of the dollars the state’s mental health department provided centers in the 2024 fiscal year came from the federal government. 

A spokesperson for the federal government’s mental health agency said Mississippi’s money was granted to address the pandemic, which is no longer a threat to the U.S. She said a new federal agency called the Administration for a Healthy America will prioritize mental health efforts. 

The Region 6 center, which serves much of the Delta and runs the Fairland clinic, is expected to lose out on just over $850,000 in federal funds, according to the Mississippi Department of Mental Health. 

Part of the program that provided financial assistance for mothers and children to transition to independent housing had to be shut down in March as a result of the loss of funding. Phaedre Cole, the region’s executive director and Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers president, said she’s uncertain whether the state agency would replace the money for that service. 

Joanne Shedd, a Fairland peer support specialist who also completed treatment at the center, said it can be nearly impossible to find housing options for new mothers and their children without that additional resource. 

“Our whole game plan that we have with these clients has got to completely change,” she said. 

CMHCs struggled to stay afloat before federal cuts

Mississippi’s community mental health centers have struggled to fund their services for years. Four have closed since 2012. Cole said consolidations have created more financial strain on her center, which has grown from serving eight to 16 counties over the past dozen years. 

Another four of the remaining 11 centers have little on-hand money to buffer any funding losses, according to the Mississippi Office of the Coordinator of Mental Health Accessibility’s latest quarterly report.

Cole said much of this financial instability comes from the responsibilities of community mental health centers: the Department of Mental Health tasks them with being the “primary service providers of outpatient community-based services” for kids and adults with mental health needs in every county they serve. 

“No one’s providing those safety net services that we provide,” Cole said. 

That means they maintain programs that are critical but expensive, including crisis stabilization unit beds and the Fairland program. 

While Cole said the maternal substance use program is costly, it addresses a disorder that can lead babies to be born prematurely, underweight and with birth defects if untreated. Substance use is also the second leading cause of Mississippi’s pregnancy-related deaths, according to the state’s most recent maternal mortality report. 

The Delta, where Fairland is located, has the highest rates in the state of mothers dying during pregnancy and the postpartum periods. 

In Oxford, Melody Madaris leads Communicare, the Region 2 Community Mental Health Center for six Mississippi counties. She said the majority of Communicare’s patients can’t pay for the center’s services, and her organization provided nearly $7 million of free care last year.

Because the organization relies heavily on federal funds, Madaris was shocked when she found out the federal mental health agency stopped hundreds of thousands of dollars Communicare was set to receive. 

“It was absolutely terrifying,” she said. “Within a day, we started looking at our budget and how we can continue to provide services at the same level.” 

Communicare is now unable to staff a diversion coordinator, an employee dedicated to working with judges overseeing mental illness-related civil commitment cases. The diversion coordinator helped people in this position and their family members determine if the person could get treatment in a community setting and avoid state hospital commitment. 

It’s the type of service the Department of Justice accused Mississippi of not doing enough of in its seven-year lawsuit against the state’s Department of Mental Health. Although the lawsuit was overturned in 2023, the mental health department’s executive director has said avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations remains a priority for the agency. 

“A lot of CMHCs had a lot of success with that role,” Madaris said. “When the federal government stopped those grants, that role stopped.” 

Moore, the Mississippi mental health department’s spokesperson, said the agency continues to fund 33 similar roles, called court liaisons, across the state. He also said the agency plans to use state alcohol tax revenue and other federal grant funds to try to fill the gaps, but there’s not enough to fully cover the lost dollars.

“You can backfill and keep things going on a short term basis,” said Mississippi Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory. “But long term, if the federal funding goes away, then those services are going to go away.”

State House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, said he and other state lawmakers had assumed these funds would be available until September. 

“It does not seem fair,” he said. “We have a real, real need for mental health services in Mississippi, and I hate that this has happened. But it kind of seems par for the course, the way things are going with this Trump Administration right now.” 

Creekmore noted that in its last regular session, the Legislature passed a law that instructs the state to apply for a federal community mental health payment model that allows Medicaid to reimburse more for services. But it’s up to the federal government to approve Mississippi’s application. 

‘This is life or death for people’

Cole, the Region 6 executive director, said it would dramatically help Community Health Center operations if Mississippi’s application is approved next year. But she worries more drastic cuts could be coming – ones that would cripple the centers completely. 

She said centers like Region 6 receive other funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, a source of federal COVID-19 relief funds, and those contracts are set to end next year. If that money is also canceled, Cole said the state mental health centers would likely have to cut more services.

Additionally, the U.S. House of Representatives has adopted a resolution to cut $880 billion over the next 10 years from agencies including Medicaid, the federal and state partnership that provides health insurance to over half a million Mississippians. Cole said Region 6 receives over half its funding from Medicaid, and any cuts to the program could be “disastrous” for community mental health centers.

For Evans, the Columbus mother who was treated at Fairland, she wishes decision makers would visit Mississippi’s Community Mental Health Centers before cutting their funding. 

While people treated there, like those with severe mental illness, can’t always travel to Washington to advocate for themselves, she said it’s easy to see the deep impact programs like the one that saved her life have once one is inside the building.

“This is life or death for people. There’s no other way around it.”

Community Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth contributed to this story.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Mental health cuts threaten program for moms appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article presents a sympathetic portrayal of the impact of federal mental health funding cuts on vulnerable populations in Mississippi, particularly mothers recovering from addiction. The narrative centers on personal stories and expert commentary to emphasize the value of these programs and the risks of defunding them. While it includes criticism of the Trump Administration’s policies—particularly a quote blaming the current administration—it largely focuses on reporting factual developments and quotes from stakeholders. The framing, however, tends to highlight the negative consequences of conservative policy decisions, aligning it with a Center-Left perspective.