Mississippi Today
Public officials met in ‘confidence’ to overhaul state financial aid. Their proposal could become law
Public officials met in ‘confidence’ to overhaul state financial aid. Their proposal could become law
A task force of public officials met behind closed doors last year to discuss revamping Mississippi’s college financial aid programs, and lawmakers next week will begin debating a bill written based on the group’s private discussions.
The 16-person task force, which met several times last year outside public view, was comprised of multiple public officials, including an associate commissioner from the Institutions of Higher Learning, the interim executive director of the Mississippi Community College Board, two community college presidents, and the chair of the little-known state board that oversees financial aid.
A bill has been filed in the Legislature based on the group’s proposal and a joint hearing has been scheduled for next week.
The president and CEO of Woodward Hines Education Foundation, the nonprofit that convened the task force, declined to discuss the details of the proposed overhaul until after the hearing, citing “the code of confidence we promised members.”
“It won’t be the Mississippi One Grant, and I’ll just leave it at that,” Woodward Hines CEO Jim McHale told Mississippi Today, referring to the controversial 2021 plan that would have resulted in Black and low-income students losing thousands of dollars in state financial aid for college. That proposal, which failed to gain any support from lawmakers, was also conceived largely in the dark — a point of contention among many critics.
The group’s meetings, undisclosed until now, are notable because the closed-door deliberations inspired legislation that aims to spend taxpayer dollars. Yet no students who receive financial aid or will be affected by the proposed changes were invited to attend.
Mississippi Today has obtained records from the task force, including a letter McHale sent in May 2022 inviting members to join that details its goal: to “explore how Mississippi’s student financial aid investments can be best leveraged to meet the economic development needs of the State.”
The task force met over the course of at least eight meetings moderated by HCM Strategies, a consulting firm brought in by Woodward Hines, which synthesized members’ discussions into a proposal. The task force approved the final proposal not by a vote, said Jennifer Rogers, a participant and director of the Office of Student Financial Aid, but “agreement by discussion.”
According to a PowerPoint created by HCM Strategies, the proposal would substantially change two state aid programs aimed at helping students from low- and middle-income families afford college, while leaving the state’s most racially inequitable aid program virtually untouched.
The Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students — called the HELP grant — would be reduced. The HELP grant currently pays up to four years of tuition at the state’s community colleges and public and private universities, no matter what institution a recipient attends.
The task force recommended lowering the HELP grant for freshmen and sophomores to the cost of tuition at the community colleges, even if a recipient decides to go to a four-year university. The last two years of the HELP grant would cover the cost of tuition at the universities.
HELP recipients, by and large, have preferred to use the generous financial aid award to attend four-year public and private universities rather than community colleges, according to OSFA’s annual reports.
The revised HELP grant would aim to push more recipients to attend community colleges, a change that Rogers said “the community colleges wanted to see.”
The task force also included the presidents of Itawamba Community College and Mississippi Delta Community College, the executive vice president at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, according to HCM’s PowerPoint.
The proposal made the most changes to the Mississippi Resident Tuition Assistance Grant, or MTAG, which provides up to $500 a year to freshmen and sophomores and $1,000 a year to juniors and seniors.
Those amounts would increase to $1,000 and $2,000, respectively, and eligibility would broaden to include Pell Grant recipients and part-time students. Students from families that make more than 200% of the median household income in Mississippi ($49,111 in 2021, according to the Census Bureau) would no longer be eligible. The requirement to get a minimum of 15 on the ACT would be removed.
The goal of these changes to MTAG is to “expand workforce preparation,” according to HCM’s PowerPoint. To that end, the grant would be renamed “MTAG Works.” Students would also get a $500 “bonus” if they pursue degrees in a “high value pathway” as defined by the state’s workforce development office.
A bill filed by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, the chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee, is virtually identical to draft legislation that Rogers wrote based on the proposal. In the bill, the “bonus” amounts were changed to be equal to a percent of the average tuition at public universities.
If Scoggin’s bill becomes law, the new programs would go into effect next year. Sen. Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth, who chairs the Senate Colleges and Universities Committee, told Mississippi Today she has filed identical legislation. She called for the joint legislative hearing next week.
There were no lawmakers on the task force but Potts Parks said she knew about the meetings. Each legislative session, Potts Parks said that IHL and the community colleges ask for changes to the state’s financial aid programs but up until now, every proposal has been too controversial to go forward.
“I’m very proud of that group of individuals that came together,” said Potts Parks. “I will tell you, I never dreamed that they would be able to come to an agreement.”
All told, the revamped programs would cost the state an additional $21 million on top of the existing programs, according to HCM Strategies’s PowerPoint, based on the estimated number of new recipients.
The proposal does not address several existing issues with the way Mississippi hands out public money for college. It does not fix the eligibility “cliff” that prevents low-income families making slightly more than $39,500 from receiving the HELP grant nor would it make the Mississippi Eminent Scholars Grant, the state’s primary merit-based grant, more racially equitable.
Though McHale said Woodward Hines’ staff were “the conveners” of the task force, he wouldn’t discuss the proposal prior to the hearings because “it wasn’t our plan.”
But Woodward Hines has pushed it along the legislative process, helping to set up meetings between lawmakers and task force members. A calendar invite obtained by Mississippi Today shows that Woodward Hines’ registered lobbyist, John Morgan Hughes, scheduled a meeting on Jan. 10 in Scoggin’s office for a “Post Secondary Bill Walk Through.”
Rogers, who presented draft legislation at that meeting, said Potts Parks, Scott Waller from the Mississippi Economic Council and Nick Hall from Speaker Philip Gunn’s office also attended, but their names aren’t listed on the calendar invite.
“They were a driving force behind it,” Potts Parks said of Woodward Hines. “I mean, they’ve been a driving force behind trying to improve education for quite some time.”
This is not the first time that attempts to revamp state financial aid in Mississippi have been less than transparent. The failed Mississippi One Grant — which Woodward Hines advocated against — was created by a committee of financial aid advisors that met outside public view.
McHale invited higher education and workforce officials from across the state to participate in Woodward Hines’s task force after the One Grant failed to gain any legislative support last year.
The task force met during the second half of last year and the discussion progressed from understanding state financial aid policy in Mississippi to “communication strategies” and “advocacy,” according to meeting minutes.
Members heard from experts in higher education and workforce policy, but Rogers said that student recipients of state financial aid did not attend. The only explicit mention in the meeting minutes of recipient input came during the second meeting when the task force watched a video of “student voices.”
At a Zoom meeting of the Post-Secondary Education Financial Assistance Board on Tuesday, the chair, Jim Turcotte, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the task force’s proposal. Turcotte was one of three financial aid board members who participated or were represented on the task force, but he said that he did not speak on their behalf.
“I didn’t say, ‘this is what we want’ or ‘this isn’t what we want,’ but I did react when asked and sometimes when not asked,” Turcotte said. “I shared my opinions and asked my questions.”
The joint legislative hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Jan. 24 at 9 a.m. at the Capitol in Room 204. Rogers said she plans to present the PowerPoint created by HCM.
Editor’s note: The Woodward Hines Education Foundation is a Mississippi Today donor.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Indicted Jackson prosecutor’s latest campaign finance report rife with errors
Tangled finances, thousands in personal loans and a political contribution from a supposed investor group made up of undercover FBI informants — this was all contained in a months-late campaign finance report from Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens.
Owens, a second-term Democrat in Mississippi’s capital city region, is fighting federal bribery charges, to which he’s pleaded not guilty. At the same time, his recent campaign finance disclosure reflects a pair of transactions that correspond with key details in the government’s allegation that Owens took money from undercover informants to pay off a local official’s debt.
Regarding payments from Facility Solutions Team — the company name used in the FBI sting — to former Jackson City Councilwoman Angelique Lee, Owens allegedly stated the need to “clean it out,” according to the indictment, which was unsealed in November.
“[L]ike we always do, we’ll put it in a campaign account, or directly wire it,” he said, the indictment claims. “[T]hat’s the only way I want the paper trail to look.”
Agents recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with Owens and other officials, and after his arraignment last year, Owens responded to the charges, saying, “The cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter is not a crime.”
Throughout 2024, a non-election year during which federal authorities allege Owens funneled thousands of dollars in bribes to Jackson’s city officials, Owens loaned his campaign more than $20,000, according to his campaign committee’s finance report. He’d won reelection in late 2023.
Owens and his attorneys did not respond to questions about his campaign finance report.
Owens’ report, filed May 30 – months late and riddled with errors – is the latest example of how Mississippi politicians can ignore the state’s campaign finance transparency laws while avoiding meaningful consequences. It’s a lax legal environment that has led to late and illegible reports, untraceable out-of-state money that defied contribution limits, and, according to federal authorities, public corruption with campaign finance accounts serving as piggy banks.
Enforcement duties are divided among many government bodies, including the Mississippi Ethics Commission. The commission’s executive director, Tom Hood, has long complained that the state’s campaign finance laws are confusing and ineffective.
“It’s just a mess,” Hood said.
Owens filed the annual report months past the Jan. 31 deadline, after reporting from The Marshall Project – Jackson revealed he had failed to do so. He paid a $500 fine in April.
He was also late filing in previous years, paying fines in some years and failing to pay the penalties in other years, according to records provided by the Ethics Commission.
The report, which Owens signed, is full of omissions or miscalculations, with no way to tell which is which. The cover sheet of the report provides the total amount of itemized contributions and disbursements for the year — $44,000 in and $36,500 out. But the body of the report lists the line-by-line itemizations for each, and when the Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today summed the individual itemizations, the totals didn’t match those on the cover sheet.
Based on the itemized spending detailed in the body of the report, Owens’ campaign should have thousands more in cash on hand than reported. In the report’s cover sheet, Owens also reported that he received more in itemized contributions during the year than he received in total contributions, which would be impossible to do.
While the secretary of state receives and maintains campaign finance reports, it has no obligation to review the reports and no authority to investigate their accuracy. Under state law, willfully filing a false campaign finance report is a misdemeanor. Charges, however, are rare.
Owens is the only local official in the federal bribery probe — which is set to go to trial next summer — who remains in office. The government alleged that Owens accepted $125,000 to split between him and two associates in late 2023 from a group of men he believed were vying for a development project in downtown Jackson. Owens accepted several thousand dollars more to funnel to public officials for their support of the project, the indictment alleges. The use of campaign accounts was an important feature of the alleged scheme, according to the indictment.
Owens divvied up $50,000 from Facility Solutions Team, or FST, into checks from various individuals or companies — allegedly meant to conceal the bribe — to former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s reelection campaign, the indictment charged.
Lumumba accepted the checks during a sunset cruise on a yacht in South Florida, the indictment alleged. His campaign finance report, filed earlier this year, reflected five $10,000 contributions near the date of the trip, with no mention of FST.
Lumumba, who lost reelection in April, has pleaded not guilty.
While the indictment accused Owens of saying that public officials use campaign accounts to finance their personal lives, state law prohibits the use of political contributions for personal use.
The indictment alleges Owens accepted $60,000 — some for the purpose of funneling to local politicians — from the men representing themselves as FST in the backroom of Owens’ cigar bar on Feb. 13, 2024. On his campaign finance report, he listed a $12,500 campaign contribution from FST two days later, the same day the indictment alleges he paid off $10,000 of former Councilwoman Lee’s campaign debt. Lee pleaded guilty to charges related to the alleged bribery scheme in 2024.
Also on Feb. 15, 2024, the campaign finance report Owens filed shows a $10,000 payment to 1Vision, a printing company that used to go by the name A2Z Printing, for the purpose of “debt retirement.” Lee had her city paycheck garnished starting in 2023 to pay off debts to A2Z Printing, according to media reports. No mention of Lee was made in the campaign finance report filed by Owens. The printing company did not respond to requests for comment.
Campaigns are allowed to contribute money to other campaigns or political action committees. If Owens’ committee used campaign funds to pay off debt owed by Lee’s campaign, the transaction should have been structured as a contribution to Lee’s campaign and reported as such by both campaigns, said Sam Begley, a Jackson-based attorney and election law expert who has advised candidates about their financial disclosures.
The alleged debt payoff on behalf of Lee is not the first time Owens has described transactions on his campaign finance filings in ways that may obscure how his campaign is spending money. Confusing or unclear descriptions of spending activity are common on campaign finance reports across the state.
Owens previously reported that in 2023, he paid $1,275 to a staff member in the district attorney’s office who also worked on his campaign. The payment was labeled a reimbursement, which Owens explained in a May email to The Marshall Project – Jackson was for expenditures this person made on behalf of the campaign, “such as meals for volunteers/workers, evening/weekend canvassers, and election day workers.”
State law requires campaigns to itemize all contributions and expenses over $200. Begley said he believes Owens’ committee should have itemized any payments over $200 made by anyone on behalf of the campaign.
Upfront payments, with the expectation of repayment by the campaign, might also be considered a loan, according to a spokesperson for the secretary of state. Campaigns are barred from spending money to repay undocumented loans.
The state Ethics Commission has addressed undocumented loan repayments in several opinions, outlining the required documentation to make repayments legal.
Since 2018, the Ethics Commission has had the power to issue advisory opinions upon request to help candidates and campaigns sort through laws that Hood, the commission’s executive director, said aren’t always clear.
The commission has issued just six opinions in seven years.
“I was surprised in the first few years that there weren’t more,” Hood said. “But now it seems to be clear that for whatever reason, most people don’t think they need advice.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Indicted Jackson prosecutor's latest campaign finance report rife with errors 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
The article critically examines the conduct of Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, a Democrat, and highlights systemic weaknesses in Mississippi’s campaign finance laws. While the reporting is grounded in factual evidence, legal documents, and expert commentary, the tone leans toward exposing flaws in enforcement and transparency—issues typically emphasized by center-left or reform-oriented journalism. The article does not display partisan rhetoric or ideological framing beyond its focus on accountability and legal integrity. Its publication by Mississippi Today and The Marshall Project, both known for investigative work with slight progressive leanings, further supports a Center-Left classification.
Mississippi Today
Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi
The Mississippi State Department of Health issued an alert Wednesday that cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, are climbing in the state.
The year-to-date number of cases in Mississippi ballooned to 80 as of July 10. That compares to 49 cases in all of 2024.
No whooping cough deaths have been reported. Ten people have been hospitalized related to whooping cough, seven of whom were children under 2 years old.
Cases have largely been clustered in northeast Mississippi. The region accounts for 40% of cases statewide.
The nation has also seen rising rates of whooping cough, though cases have been climbing less steeply than in Mississippi. About 15,000 whooping cough cases have been reported nationwide this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The highly contagious respiratory illness is named for the “whooping” sound people make when gasping for air after a coughing fit. It may begin like a common cold but can last for weeks or months. Babies younger than 1 year are at greatest risk for getting whooping cough, and can have severe complications that often require hospitalization.
Whooping cough cases fell in Mississippi after the COVID-19 pandemic began, but have since rebounded. This is likely due to people now taking fewer mitigation measures, like masking and remote learning, State Epidemiologist Renia Dotson said at the state Board of Health meeting July 9.
The majority of cases – 76% – have occurred in children. Of the 73 cases reported in people who were old enough to be vaccinated, 28 were unvaccinated. Of those 28 people, 23 were children.
“Vaccines are the best defense against vaccine preventable diseases,” State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said after the State Board of Health meeting.
Mississippi has long had the highest child vaccination rates in the country. But the state’s kindergarten vaccination rates have dropped since a federal judge ruled in 2023 that parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for school on account of religious beliefs.
The pertussis vaccination is administered in a five-dose series for children under 7 and booster doses for older children and adults. The health department recommends that pregnant women, grandparents and family or friends that may come in close contact with an infant should get booster shots to ensure they do not pass the illness to children, particularly those too young to be vaccinated.
Immunity from pertussis vaccination wanes over time, and there is not a routine recommendation for boosters.
State health officials also encourage vaccination against other childhood illnesses, like measles. While Mississippi has not reported any measles cases, Texas has had recent outbreaks.
The Mississippi Health Department offers vaccinations to children and uninsured adults at county health departments.
Correction 7/16/25: This story has been updated to reflect that the age of the seven hospitalized children is under 2 years old.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi 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 straightforward, fact-based account of rising whooping cough cases in Mississippi without ideological framing. It cites official sources such as the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offering context, statistics, and public health recommendations. While it mentions a 2023 federal court ruling that allowed religious exemptions to vaccinations—a potentially contentious topic—it does so factually without editorializing or assigning blame. The overall tone remains neutral and informative, aligning with public health reporting rather than political advocacy.
Mississippi Today
Driver’s license office moves to downtown Jackson
The driver’s license office in Jackson has moved downtown as the Mississippi Department of Public Safety prepares to shift its headquarters from the capital city to suburban Rankin County.
The department last month announced it was closing the license office that had operated for decades next to its headquarters just off Interstate 55 at Woodrow Wilson Avenue, near the VA Medical Center.
The new office is at 430 State St., near Jackson’s main post office and a few blocks from the Capitol.
“This location provides easier access for those who live and work in the area and ensures we can continue offering vital driver services in a more convenient and accessible space within the city of Jackson,” said Bailey Martin, spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety.
Mississippi has 35 driver’s licenses offices. The new Jackson office is in a former car dealership – an all-white building with floor-to-ceiling windows that fill the space with sunlight. On Wednesday, customers sat on black benches, chatting or scrolling on their phones while waiting to be called up to get or renew a license.
Carlos Lakes, 34, from Yazoo City, said he first went to the Richland office that issues commercial driver’s licenses but couldn’t get what he needed there. He said he then went to the old office on Woodrow Wilson and saw a note on the door showing the office had moved.
“So, it’s been about two hours of running around,” said Lakes, a truck driver.
He said the customer service at the new office was good, aside from the long wait time.
Medical student Seth Holton, 22, had a similar experience. He drove in from Flora, in Madison County, and went to the Woodrow Wilson location before finding the new office. He said it was his first time getting his license renewed.
“I think it looks nice,” Holton said of the new location. “I think it’s organized. There’s good seating. It’s pretty quick, for the most part.”
Student Marquerion Brown, 19, posed for photos with a large cardboard frame of a driver’s license in the corner of the new office. He’d just passed his driver’s test for the first time.
“I’m just lucky and thankful to get this one this time,” Brown said. He hadn’t decided where he wanted to drive first. “I got a lot of places in mind.”
The Department of Public Safety headquarters will open in Pearl within the next year, near the state’s crime lab, fire academy and emergency management agency.
Martin said the new headquarters will allow the department to have its divisions in one place – the highway patrol, bureau of investigation, bureau of narcotics, homeland security office and commercial transportation enforcement.
“As such, this move will enhance operational efficiency with other public safety partners, improve interagency collaboration, and position the department for future growth,” Martin said.
The headquarters move has been in the making for over five years. Public safety officials said the old building on Woodrow Wilson fell into disrepair after years of neglect.
Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, was part of a group of lawmakers who proposed moving the headquarters to a different location inside Jackson.
“I personally think that the state government should be based in the state capital,” he said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Driver's license office moves to downtown Jackson 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 from *Mississippi Today* offers a factual and neutral report on the relocation of the Jackson driver’s license office and the broader headquarters move by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. It includes quotes from officials and everyday citizens without editorializing or promoting a specific viewpoint. The inclusion of Sen. David Blount’s comment presents a mild political contrast, but it is balanced and not framed in a confrontational or ideological way. The tone remains focused on public service logistics and community impact rather than political narrative.
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