In a capital city infamous for its crumbling roads and lack of money to fix them, a powerful lawmaker helped steer $400,000 in state taxpayer funds to repave a small, already well-paved northeast Jackson cul-de-sac where he owns a house.

Simwood Place, located in the affluent LoHo neighborhood of northeast Jackson, is a sleepy residential street home to 14 colorful, single-family homes. It’s tucked away behind The District at Eastover, a multimillion-dollar retail development along Interstate 55 that boasts high-end shops and restaurants.

This isn’t the typical kind of road project the state of Mississippi would usually get involved in. But House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, one of the most influential leaders at the state Capitol, owns one of the 14 homes on the street.

Lamar is a top lieutenant of House Speaker Jason White and the House’s point person for deciding how state money is doled out in the Legislature’s annual local projects bills, commonly called the “Christmas tree bill.”

Public land records show that Lamar’s business, JT Delta Company, purchased a Simwood Place home in August 2023. Just a few months later, in the next legislative session held in early 2024, the $400,000 Simwood Place repaving project was approved by state lawmakers. This appropriation, tucked into a lengthy bill, later surprised some lawmakers and local city leaders.

Democratic Sen. David Blount and independent Rep. Shanda Yates, the two state lawmakers who represent that part of Jackson, told Mississippi Today that they did not ask legislative leaders to appropriate money for the project, which is usually how local projects receive funding. 

“This was not one of my projects,” Yates said. “I don’t know anything about it.” 

Lamar declined to answer any specific questions about the Simwood Place appropriation, abruptly ending a telephone interview with Mississippi Today about state dollars he’s secured for various projects and the property he owns near those projects. Mississippi Today subsequently sent Lamar a list of written questions about the Jackson property, and he also declined to answer those.

However, he told Mississippi Today in a general statement that it was “inevitable” that his family members would own private property near public road projects.

“Any potential innuendo of wrongdoing is baseless and only diverts time and effort away from the real progress that we are making,” Lamar said.

Mississippi law states that public officials cannot use their official office, either directly or indirectly, for “pecuniary benefit” or to somehow enrich themselves. 

State Ethics Commission Director Tom Hood, speaking generally and not about Lamar or the Simwood Place project, said a public official helping secure improvements to a street where they own a home would not necessarily pose a legal issue. 

“If you’ve got to speculate about something affecting property value, then that’s not enough,” Hood said. “If there’s no pecuniary benefit, then there’s no violation. You have to prove monetary benefit to somebody caused by the government action … Even going from a gravel road to a paved road, if the only benefit is you don’t have to wash your car as much — those are difficult questions.”

Legislative leaders keep tight control over what gets added to the final Christmas tree bill, which becomes a powerful political tool for keeping rank-and-file members in line with the leadership’s policy agenda. 

But it’s become increasingly common in recent years for the top lawmaker who controls excess funds like Lamar, to have large power over how much money they can steer toward their personal pet projects. 

Jackson-area lawmakers have asked legislative leaders for years to help fund local road projects, and they claim those requests have continuously fallen on deaf ears, making the Simwood Place project even more notable.

The legislation that allocated the funds for the Simwood Place project routed the money through the Capitol Complex Improvement District’s Project Advisory Committee, a board composed of local and state appointees who recommend to lawmakers which Jackson-area projects they should fund.

The CCID is a carveout of the capital city that receives extra state funding and police protection, and Lamar has passionately and successfully pushed to expand that district further into the city, including the area of Jackson where his home is located.

During the 2023 session, Lamar successfully led the effort to pass legislation that created a separate CCID court system within Jackson — the Blackest large city in America — that will be entirely appointed by white state officials.

In October 2023, the CCID’s project advisory committee published a prioritized list of infrastructure projects that used an objective scoring process. The master plan did not identify Simwood Place as one of its priorities.

Rebekah Staples, the CCID committee chairwoman, told Mississippi Today that the Legislature used the organization as a pass-through for several infrastructure projects the committee members didn’t ask for, though she didn’t think that process was necessarily bad. She’s currently reviewing those projects.

While she respects the Legislature’s power to appropriate state dollars, Staples said one of her main goals going forward is to ensure lawmakers are informed of the committee’s scoring process and how it prioritizes road projects.

Ward 7 Jackson City Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay represents Simwood Place at the local level and is a member of the CCID committee. She said she did not ask lawmakers to spend money repaving the road and knew almost nothing about the project.

“If I had asked for this, I would have worked it through the city’s Public Works Department or the 1% sales tax committee,” Lindsay said.

The Department of Finance and Administration, the entity that will eventually disburse the money for the Jackson repaving project, has yet to release the funds to the CCID committee, so the work to improve the road has not begun.

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

For many Mississippi lawmakers, Christmas comes again in March or April each year as they typically pass bills full of hundreds of millions of dollars in pet projects — referred to as a “Christmas tree” bill.

But the process of doling out these funds is more of a Bacchanalia and raw politics than good cheer.

And not all lawmakers, or communities, share in the largesse. Those in power tend to get more, as do those who help do the bidding of legislative leaders.

Some get squat, particularly House members who buck their leadership on key votes.

A community’s need for a project is typically far less a factor.

Some lawmakers, such as Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, who oversees Christmas tree spending in that chamber, really make out. He’s helped steer tens of millions of dollars to his rural county and hometown in recent years, even earmarking more than $7 million for improvements in and around the private country club neighborhood where he lives.

By late in the session, legislative leaders will have figured out how much extra cash is floating around the multi-billion dollar state budget — or in lean years how much the state can afford to borrow — for a Christmas tree bill. This typically ranges from $200 million to $400 million a year.

Lawmakers swarm, pushing to get all the bacon they can bring home to their districts for road projects, parks, courthouse renovations, museums — any capital projects not included in main appropriations bills or agency budgets.

It’s pork-barrel spending, not prioritized by statewide need or population, but by politics. It’s how a relatively affluent city or county can get $2 million to spruce up a sports complex, while a struggling city can be snubbed on its request for $2 million in badly needed sewerage repairs.

“It is raw politics,” said House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez. “It’s a quid pro quo: Will you follow orders? Would you do what we ask, and have you been compliant? … It’s kind of used as punishment-reward, a carrot-stick type thing.”

Rep. Dan Eubanks, a Republican from Walls, is one of very few lawmakers who votes against most Christmas tree bills, particularly when they’ve involved borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars in lean years.

“If something’s for a core function of government, that’s one thing,” Eubanks said. “But when it’s, ‘Here, let’s build you an equestrian park or fund your private school’s band’ — there’s a lot of that that goes on.”

Legislative leaders keep tight control over who gets what added to the final Christmas tree bill, and this becomes a powerful political tool — both a carrot and a stick. A lawmaker who bucks the leadership on an important vote can have their projects denied. A lawmaker who goes along can be rewarded.

In the 122-member state House, in particular, the Christmas tree bill has been used by speakers of the House and their leadership teams to push through agendas and keep members in line.

“I got punished this last session,” Johnson said. “There have been drainage projects and road projects in my area that I’ve been getting partial funding for to try and build up, save until we have full funding, for a few years. Essentially I was cut completely off this past session … You would think, I think the public would think, that we are identifying where the greatest needs are.”

Eubanks said: “I haven’t really brought home much in the way of Christmas tree money. I have a neighborhood in my district that had water so bad it couldn’t be drunk, and it would stain clothes. The city couldn’t afford filtration. I wanted it put in a regular appropriation, but somehow it wound up in a bond bill. Since I vote against them, when all was said and done they gave the credit to a different legislator, who doesn’t represent the neighborhood. That’s what happens if you stand up and speak your conscience and vote your conscience.”

Eubanks said he voted for a Christmas tree-type bill this year, but only because it appeared to have mostly legitimate infrastructure projects and, more so, because it included badly needed work to help congestion on Interstate 55 in his area. 

“I have even voted against things that would have helped my district before,” Eubanks said. “… I would never go ask for money to put in a merry-go-’round or walking trail that would only benefit a few folks … I do remember years when they had things such as fixing a levy on private property and putting in new streetlights for a historic district and building a walking trail for an equestrian center. Those aren’t core functions of government.”

For some rank-and-file lawmakers, securing major funds for local projects is their main goal of a legislative session.

“It’s like what happens in D.C. (with Congress),” Eubanks said. “You justify your reason for being there by bringing the money home.”

In the House, Chairman Lamar, a top lieutenant of Speaker Jason White, has become de facto arbiter of the Christmas tree spending. Lamar’s committee handles state debt and in lean years Christmas tree bills are paid for by borrowing. But with state coffers full largely from federal pandemic relief spending in recent years, there has been at least a few hundred million dollars a year cash on hand for pet projects. Lamar has remained largely in charge of the spending that would normally flow through the Appropriations Committee.

And Lamar and his district have benefited greatly from his tasking. State spending on projects in rural Tate County and its cities including Senatobia has dwarfed spending for similar sized counties — and even spending for Jackson, the state’s largest and capital city. Over the last three years, Jackson received $5.9 million for earmarked projects. Tate County received $38.6 million.

“I think when you hold all the keys, people won’t question it,” Eubanks said, “because if you do, you won’t get anything … That’s part of the mindset, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of who holds the keys … Those in control of it seem to get all the things they want.”

Christmas tree projects get little vetting on their merits on the front end. But once they’re approved, they receive nearly no oversight. After the Legislature passes the hundreds of millions a year in spending, that’s usually the last most rank-and-file lawmakers ever see of it.

Once the Legislature approves the spending bill, the Department of Finance and Administration is tasked with disbursing the funds to hundreds of counties, cities and nonprofits around the state. 

DFA requires local organizations to sign a memorandum of understanding and to file quarterly reports on how they are spending the money. Marcy Scoggins, a spokesperson for DFA, said most local entities file their quarterly reports, and the agency eventually contacts them if they’re delinquent. 

But the department is essentially a repository. It has no legal authority to penalize local entities that don’t file the required reports, and it doesn’t scrutinize the work or spending. Other than the attorney general’s office or the state auditor’s office getting involved — and they rarely do — there’s virtually no way for DFA to ride herd on the work or programs being funded. 

A Christmas tree or similar bill can also be hundreds of pages long, and so full of wonky state code language and references to other bills that it’s hard for lawmakers outside of the leadership and budget team to know exactly what’s in it. 

Earmarks are routinely sneaked into it.

Lawmakers in the past have been surprised by spending they’ve approved, such as one year when some other lawmakers learned after the fact that when they approved a Mainstreet Mississippi grant fund, someone late in negotiations inserted language that said for the purpose of that fund, “Municipality means the city of Senatobia, Mississippi” instead of previous language that said any city of less than 15,000 people would qualify for the grants.

In recent years, it’s also one of the final things the Legislature passes during the session, often late at night when legislators are tired, angry at each other and ready to return home to their districts. This process can cause legislators to miss some of the line-items in the bills and provide almost no oversight or participate in legitimate debate on the bill.

Mississippi Today asked House Speaker Jason White, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Gov. Tate Reeves about the Christmas tree bill process and whether they consider it an efficient way to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It also asked the three Republican leaders about the projects Lamar has helped fund for his neighborhood.

White and a spokeswoman for Hosemann responded with written statements about the process, but neither commented on Lamar. Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

White noted that the projects House members submit are typically projects “that local governments have been unable to fund and the lawmaker has identified as a need in the community after hearing from their constituents.” He said the projects often include letters of support or visits to the Legislature by local officials “to express the gravity of the need.” He said that in the 2024 session, there were more than $1 billion in requests from House members.

“In my 13 sessions we have almost always had a capital projects bill, either funded through a bond bill or cash surpluses,” White said. “Under Republican leadership, the state has realized budget surpluses … With these surpluses, the Legislature has been able to cut taxes, make historical investments in education and our teachers, and the capital projects list has grown, often with a heavy emphasis on infrastructure and economic development projects.”

White said DFA oversees the use of the money the Legislature allocates for local projects “through a system of checks and balances” and a quarterly report and “local governments must comply with all state laws regarding procurement and bidding.”

White said: “In my first session as speaker, we did strive to have a more open and transparent appropriations process as we moved through the session. I applaud our chairmen for their shared commitment to increasing transparency in the process and I know the representatives support our effort to provide more time and solicit member input … We continually look for ways to provide greater transparency and accountability on spending of all taxpayer dollars.”

White, in his first term as speaker, has called for the Legislature to get more of its budgeting done earlier in the session and slow the process down so the rank-and-file have more time to scrutinize spending.

Leah Smith, spokeswoman for Hosemann, wrote: “We understand how important projects are for communities, especially small and rural communities … We also believe it is important to track these projects to ensure they are being completed in a timely manner and in the way prescribed by legislation.

“This summer it was brought to our attention for the first time that some entities are not submitting quarterly reports … with the Department of Finance and Administration,” Smith wrote. “We also learned many municipalities, some of which may have received projects, have not submitted their annual audit to or been audited by the state auditor as required (by law). We are committed to increasing transparency and accountability related to all projects.”

Smith said that Hosemann “has always been in favor of moving back deadlines to allow ample time for legislators to examine bills before they are moved for final passage, especially when they are appropriating significant taxpayer dollars.”

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

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

State taxpayers have shelled out $7 million to improve the private country club neighborhood and golf course where one of Mississippi’s most powerful lawmakers lives.

State taxpayers are also on the hook to improve the quiet, already well-paved northeast Jackson cul-de-sac where House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar owns a home.

As Ways and Means Chairman, Lamar exerts enormous sway over how the $7 billion state budget is funded. He’s also become the House’s de facto arbiter of “Christmas tree” bills — hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually on lawmakers’ pet projects for their districts.

Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia and one of House Speaker Jason White’s closest advisers, has been extremely successful at bringing home the bacon to his rural home district. He’s also helped secure millions of dollars for his own neighborhood in the process, and has worked in a couple of personal property deals amid the state projects.

A Mississippi Today investigation found Lamar helped secure millions in state taxpayer dollars to:

• Repave and widen Country Club Road, which runs in front of his Tate County house — in part to make it safer and easier for golf carts to traverse, according to the county engineer — and to build a traffic roundabout and 10 speed humps in a less than 2-mile stretch of the rural road.
• Improve drainage, build new cart paths and bridges, re-sod or do other work on the golf course and surrounding yards.
• Have the city of Senatobia buy the small water company that serves fewer than 200 homes in the country club neighborhood, then secure $2 million more in state money this year to improve the system.
• Make $400,000 in improvements to a Northeast Jackson cul-de-sac where he owns one of 14 homes – a project that doesn’t appear to be any Jackson leaders‘ priority as many capital city thoroughfares suffer from neglect.

Below is a list of stories that are part of Mississippi Today‘s investigation. They include a long takeout on the Senatobia projects Lamar helped secure, a story about $400,000 earmarked for his quiet cul-de-sac in Jackson, the system of legislative spending that allows these types of projects to pass and information about how we reported this investigation.

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