Mississippi Today
‘Don’t have the votes to stop anything’: No plan yet to tackle Jackson water next session


Jackson lawmakers are discussing the future of the city’s water system among other focuses for the next legislative session, but it’s unclear what they might propose, if anything, to counter recent attempts at a state takeover.
State legislators told Mississippi Today late last month that there wasn’t a plan to tackle the water system’s future, but were planning to meet with Jackson officials this month.
In late 2022, as part of a consent decree, federal judge Henry Wingate put the power over Jackson’s water system – and later its wastewater system, too – in the hands of third-party manager Ted Henifin, whose company JXN Water serves as the city’s utility.

How long JXN Water sticks around is largely up to Wingate’s discretion. As Henifin has described, Wingate wants him to stay until the city can sustain itself without the federal support it’s receiving. The order over the wastewater system puts JXN Water in charge until 2027.
“The water order is over when Judge Wingate issues a final order,” Henifin told Mississippi Today over email. “I committed to stay until the end of the sewer order with the goal of getting the water system in a place where the judge can issue a final order for both in 2027.”
In each of the last two sessions, Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch, introduced bills to give state leaders a majority of control over the water system once the federal oversight ends. The proposal would also have forced Jackson to sell the assets. Both bills died in the House, and Parker told Mississippi Today he wasn’t sure if he’ll tackle the issue again in 2025.

Henifin supported the 2024 proposal, saying previously he didn’t think the city should manage the system. He has, though, said Jackson should keep ownership of the assets. One of Wingate’s duties for Henifin is to recommend a future governance plan for the city, and the manager appears to favor a new utility authority that would include surrounding areas like Ridgeland and Byram. He also recommended keeping the system under judicial oversight until federal funds run out, estimated to be in 2028.
Jackson lawmakers who talked to Mississippi Today were noncommittal about introducing a bill on the issue this next session, with some saying it was too early to make such a decision.
“I certainly don’t have any plans to change the course of things at this time,” said Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, who recently announced his entry into the city’s mayoral election next year. “I think we’ve got to wait for (Henifin) to do his work.”
He said JXN Water has already addressed the system’s management for the foreseeable future; the utility recently extended its agreement with contractor Jacobs to manage the day-to-day operations of the city’s water plants for the next 10 years.

When asked about trying to counter another proposal from Parker or others looking to give the state control, Horhn emphasized that there’s only so much Jackson lawmakers can do.
“Whether the Jackson delegation weighs in or not, we don’t have the votes to stop anything that folks are determined to try to pass,” he said.
Sen. Walter Michel, R-Ridgeland, whose district includes Jackson, agreed that it was too early to take up the issue.
“I get the feeling they’ve got a long way to go,” Michel said, explaining that the system still needs significant repairs. “I don’t think it’s anywhere near ready to be turned over to anybody from what I read.”
Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, didn’t comment on what he thinks should happen with the system after Henifin leaves. He said the discussion needs to include Jackson officials, reiterating an argument from the previous session that Parker didn’t discuss his bill with city representatives before introducing it. During last session’s Senate hearings, Parker argued that Jackson lawmakers never came to him to discuss the proposal.

Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said she supports whatever direction city leadership sees for the water system. She called it “disheartening” that the state, after years of limited support for Jackson’s water system, now wants to get involved after the federal government has committed hundreds of millions of dollars in support.
“We don’t get the help in the time we need it, but now we have this big brother situation where (the state says), ‘Now that y’all have got it fixed, this is what we think you should do,’” Summers said.
In October, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba proposed putting the water system under a two-board structure: a five-member management board, in charge of hiring a CEO to run the system, and a 15-member advisory committee, which would vote on members of the management board.

Horhn, who is slated to run against Lumumba in next year’s mayoral election, said he hadn’t yet seen the mayor’s proposal and couldn’t comment.
Although it’s unclear how the board members would be appointed, Parker said he didn’t think the city should have total control over that process. The north Mississippi lawmaker added that while others called it too early to address the system’s future governance, he believes it’s better to do it now before the issue loses attention.
“The water is doing better, and I hear less people talking about it,” Parker said. “Sometimes when a problem gets addressed, people forget what caused the problem and then you end up having history repeat itself, and I hope we don’t see that with Jackson water.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi PERS Board endorses plan decreasing pension benefits for new hires


New hires by state and by local governments would receive less benefits upon retirement under recommendations approved Wednesday by the 10-member board that governs the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System.
Lee County Chancery Clerk Bill Benson, a member of the board, said during the meeting he did not support all aspects of proposed changes in the plan for new hires, but said he would endorse the changes to ensure that current retirees and current public government employees receive the benefits they were promised.
The recommendation endorsed by the board on Wednesday would not change any of benefits for current employees and retirees. The new proposal is similar to recommendations the board made last year, but state lawmakers did not adopt.
The ultimate decision on whether to create a tier 5 that would entail a different and smaller benefits package for new employees rests with the Legislature. On Wednesday the PERS board simply endorsed creating a tier 5.
The hope is that a tier 5 for new employees would address the financial woes many people say exist for PERS, which currently is providing some type of retirement benefits for about 350,000 current public employees and retirees.
The recommendation made by the board would not include a guaranteed cost of living adjustment. The current plan includes an annual 3% cost of living increase that many members take at the end of the year as a so-called 13th check. Some PERS Board members said they do not think it is financially viable to continue the current COLA for new employees.
“A guaranteed COLA is the big elephant in the room,” Benson told fellow board members Wednesday. “… I will support (a new play for new hires) based on that, we need to sustain what was promised to existing employees.”
Benson and others at the meeting said reducing benefits for new hires would help stabilize the system long-term, but noted the system will still need more funding in the meantime.
The key elements in the recommendations the board approved Wednesday with one dissenting vote and one not voting is creating a hybrid plan where a portion of the pension benefits for the new hires would be through a guaranteed defined benefit plan while the other portion would be through some type of investment package, such as a 401K, where the benefits would be determined by investment earnings.
Under the current plan, all of the benefits are guaranteed each month. Board member Randy McCoy who voted no said he could not support changing the program so that all of the month benefit was not guaranteed.
Under an example presented to the board Wednesday, a current employee with 30 years of service earning $60,000 per year at retirement would, based on projections, earn 87% of his or her current work salary upon retirement, including federal Social Security payments. Importantly, those benefits would increase 3% annually based on the guaranteed COLA.
By contrast, the same retiree under the PERS board recommendation would receive 84.1% if the earnings from the investment portion of the pension package increased by 7% annually. But there would be no guaranteed COLA, though, a cost of living increase could be awarded each year.
Some members conceded that a less attractive pension package could make it difficult to recruit people to work in the public sector where the salaries are often less than those provided in the private sector.
Kelly Riley, director of Mississippi Professional Educators, said her group is concerned about the proposal for new hires, “especially its impact on the teacher pipeline and recruitment and retention.”
“We believe it will only deepen and exacerbate our state’s teacher shortage,” Riley said. “New teachers under this tier 5 would contribute the same 9% as those in tier 4, but rould receive fewer guaranteed benefits.”
The financial issues facing PERS have been an ongoing headache for the Legislature with widespread and long-term ramifications. The system has about 350,000 members including current public employees and former employees and retirees. The system provides pension benefits for most Mississippi public employees on the state and local government levels, including schoolteachers. Members of PERS comprise more than 10% of the state’s population.
The system has assets of about $32 billion, but debt of about $25 billion.
During the 2024 session, legislation was passed to strip a key power of the PERS’ Board – to set the percentage of the employee paycheck governmental entities contribute to the pension program.
To deal with long-term financial issues, the PERS Board had planned a 5% increase over three years to 22.4% that the employers or governmental entities contributed to each paycheck. Governmental entities, particularly local governments and school districts, said to pay for the increase they would be forced to reduce services and lay off employees.
While stripping the power from the PERS Board to set the employer contribution rate, the Legislature also enacted a 2.5% increase over five years instead of the 5% increase over three years planned by the PERS Board.
In addition, the Legislature provided a one-time infusion of $110 million into the system.
The board on Wednesday debated holding off on endorsing the recommendation.
“I just got this around 8 last night and I don’t see the rush for us to recommend something,” said board member state Treasurer David McRae. “… I want to get this right. This is going to be a generational change for Mississippi.”
Board Chairman George Dales, former longtime state insurance commissioner, said the Legislature “could still do this on their own” without a PERS board recommendation. Others noted a recommendation from the board would be helpful and politically pragmatic for the Legislature.
State Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, a board member, said that even if the state were to adopt more limited benefits, local governments in the system could still provide more, at their own cost.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Ole Miss basketball coach Chris Beard joins the podcast

Chris Beard has his second Ole Miss basketball team ranked No. 17 nationally in the latest Associated Press basketball poll. Beard, whose first Ole Miss team won 20 games, has lost only once and that by two points to Purdue, which lost in the national championship game last season. Beard talks about his team’s early success and what it faces in the SEC, which boasts five of the top seven ranked teams in college basketball.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1917


Dec. 18, 1917

Actor, playwright and civil rights activist Ossie Davis was born in Cogdell, Georgia.
He saw racism from his youth with the KKK threatening his father because of the advanced job he held as a Black man. His father, Kince, eventually left the job, seeking greater independence.
Davis became a voracious reader and dreamed of being a writer. After graduating high school, he hitchhiked to Washington, D.C. and attended Howard University. Davis dropped out of Howard University to pursue acting in New York City.
Davis landed the lead role in the 1946 Broadway play “Jeb” about a disabled veteran battling racism in Louisiana. There he met his wife-to-be, Ruby Dee, whom he married two years later. The pair appeared in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin the Sun” and became active in the civil rights movement.
They became friends with Martin Luther King Jr., helping organize and emcee the 1963 March on Washington. They also became friends and supporters of Malcolm X. Davis gave the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral — a eulogy he reprised with his rich baritone in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X.”
“Here—at this final hour, in this quiet place—Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes—extinguished now, and gone from us forever,” he said. “He was our manhood, our living, Black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. … Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man—but a seed—which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is—a prince—our own Black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”
Davis and Dee appeared in other Lee movies, including “Do the Right Thing,” and often took on racial injustices and civil rights in their work. In 2004, they were honored at the Kennedy Center for taking “their art to colleges, community centers, cafeterias, hospitals, union halls and prisons. Wherever they stood was their stage.”
Ten months later, Davis died, and Broadway turned down the lights on marquees to honor him.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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