Mississippi Today
Mississippi Medicaid director Drew Snyder resigns
Mississippi Division of Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder is resigning after nearly seven years serving in the position. He will serve until the end of the month.
Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Cindy Bradshaw, the division’s deputy executive director for eligibility, to replace Snyder.
The Magnolia Tribune first reported the news.
Snyder declined to say where he would go next. He would only confirm it was a job in the private sector.
Snyder has led the division since Dec. 2017, when he was appointed by then-governor Phil Bryant. He previously served as Bryant’s policy director and counsel.
The Division of Medicaid provides health insurance to over 700,000 low-income Mississippians, including children, pregnant women and disabled adults.ย
Bradshaw served as Mississippi’s State Insurance Administrator before joining the Division of Medicaid.
โDrew Snyder has done a great job as executive director of Division of Medicaid, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors,โ said House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg.
The Division of Medicaid and Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to Mississippi Today‘s request for comment by press time.
โMississippi Medicaid is in the best fiscal shape in its history,โ said Snyder at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Hearing Sep. 26, less than two weeks before announcing his resignation.
He said today, the agency’s budget represents 9.2% of the state’s total state support appropriation, down from 16% in fiscal year 2016, two years before he was appointed.
Synder acknowledged that the state’s appropriation would increase in coming years due to reduced public health emergency federal spending and dwindling surplus funds.
Snyder took the helm at the division during a time of conflict between the division and the governor’s office. Prior Medicaid director David Dzielak was asked to resign just weeks before the 2018 legislative session after he requested an additional $47.3 million to close the gap in the agency’s budget and failed to voice agreement with Bryant’s plan for the Mississippi Department of Human Services to take over insurance eligibility determinations.
Snyder joined Mississippi Medicaid as controversy bloomed over the decision to award the division’s lucrative managed care contracts to three for-profit companies over nonprofit Mississippi True, which is managed by Mississippi hospital leaders. Though legislators made efforts to allow Mississippi True to re-bid for the contract, Magnolia Health, United Healthcare and Molina Healthcare ultimately kept the contract.ย
He also oversaw the agency through the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw enrollment numbers soar to over 900,000 Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees in May 2023 and drop to 705,000 by July 2024. During the pandemic, states were not allowed to remove beneficiaries from their rolls. In April 2023, the division was again required to review beneficiaries’ eligibility, beginning the โunwindingโ process.
Snyder oversaw the rollout of extended postpartum coverage for Mississippi mothers and the beginnings of a new law allowing pregnant women to access prenatal care that went into effect in July.ย
The program is currently on hold as the division works with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which requested to review additional information from the state.
Before joining Bryant’s team, Synder served as an assistant secretary of state for policy and research under Delbert Hosemann.
The director of the division serves at the pleasure of the governor and is required to meet one of three criteria: be a physician with health administration experience, hold a degree in medical administration or have three years’ experience developing policy for Medicaid programs.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: All hail Vanderbilt! And, meanwhile, another big Ole Miss-LSU gameโฆ
So much to discuss and dissect this week: Vandy toppling Bama, Ole Miss righting the ship and preparing for LSU, a banner Sanderson Farms Championship that now has new life, and how injuries killed the Atlanta Braves and are ruining a promising Saints season. All that and moreโฆ
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 2009
Oct. 9, 2009
Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for โhis extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.โ
The Nobel officials praised Obama’s โdialogue and cooperation across national, ethnic, religious and political dividing lines. As President, Obama called for a new start to relations between the Muslim world and the West based on common interests and mutual understanding and respect. In accordance with a promise he made during his election campaign, he set in motion a plan for the withdrawal of U.S. occupying forces from Iraq.โ
Nobel officials also praised his support for a โworld free from nuclear weapons.โ
He was the third African American to win the award. The previous winners were Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Bunche.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Powerful lawmaker helped steer millions in state dollars for his neighborhood, golf course
House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar has helped steer more than $7 million in state money to improve the affluent country club neighborhood and private golf course area where he lives in north Mississippi.
In the process, he also purchased more property for himself around the projects.
The state-funded projects included $2.5 million in upgrades to the county road through his neighborhood and another $2.4 million project on and around the golf course. The stated reasoning for the golf course project is that the road project made it flood โ a contention that the county engineer and road project contractor disputed in interviews with Mississippi Today.
The work included building a traffic roundabout on Country Club Road โ an unusual feature for a rural-suburban street โ and 10 speed humps in a 1.6-mile stretch. It also included widening the road so golf carts can more easily travel, according to the county engineer. The work also included building a new lake and concrete golf cart paths and bridges on the private golf course.
Lamar also helped steer another $200,000 in state money for the nearby city of Senatobia to buy the small water system that serves the Back Acres Country Club neighborhood in Tate County. He then helped steer another $2 million from the state to improve the system, which serves about 200 houses.
Lamar purchased a 4.5-acre piece of property where the roundabout was to be built, and he bought a strip of land bordering his backyard from the water system owner after the city bought the system.
Lamar, as House Ways and Means Committee chairman and former vice chairman, holds great sway over the state’s $7 billion budget. He’s also become the House’s de facto arbiter of โChristmas treeโ bills. These are measures full of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of legislators’ pet projects for their districts. As a result, Tate County, Senatobia and his neighborhood have benefited greatly, receiving tens of millions of state dollars โ dwarfing spending in similar rural areas across the state.
Lamar in an interview with Mississippi Today defended the spending on his neighborhood. He said the road project was badly needed for safety for a โvery dangerous road.โ He said the road project then caused flooding on the golf course and surrounding yards and the county was responsible for fixing it.
Lamar said the small water system serving the neighborhood was in terrible shape and the source of many complaints. He noted the state Public Service Commission signed off on Senatobia taking over service.
He said his purchase of property around the state-funded projects was incidental and โlike any other sale or purchase โฆ between two private entities.โ He insinuated his wife handled the transaction for the roundabout property, although state records indicate he did.
Lamar cut a second interview with Mississippi Today short, saying he would not answer further questions. But he sent a written statement saying that, โAfter helping with thousands of projects across the state, this result is inevitableโ โ that he or his family would own property โin the vicinity of a public infrastructure project.โ
He refused to answer any questions about his helping secure an additional $400,000 in state money to improve a quiet, already well-paved cul-de-sac in Northeast Jackson where he also owns a home.
โAny potential innuendo of wrongdoing is baseless and only diverts time and effort away from the real progress that we are making,โ Lamar said in the written statement.
Country Club Work
Here is what county officials asked contractors to do on a project to upgrade Country Club Road in Tate County, according to the final plans of completed work submitted by the county engineer:
- Widened and overlaid roughly 2 miles of Country Club Road.
- Constructed a roundabout along the road.
- Removed and replaced roughly 1,600 square yards of concrete driveways.
After Tate County officials completed the first project to upgrade Country Club Road, they spent roughly $2 million more to improve drainage and flood control on the Back Acres Country Club and homes in the Back Acres subdivision.
According to revised bidding documents that outlined the scope of work for the project, here is some of the work contractors were expected to complete:
- Clear and grub 22 acres of land.
- Remove 1,560 square yards of asphalt.
- Replace roughly 270 square yards of concrete driveway.
- Remove and replace 6 golf cart bridges.
- Use 9 tons of commercial fertilizer.
- Use 12 acres of seeding.
- Use 48 tons of vegetative material for mulch.
- Use 18,000 square yards of solid bermuda sodding.
- Create 3 retention structures and 1 detention structure.
But there has been debate and questions from local residents about whether the Country Club Road project completed early last year was really needed or whether the project was overkill. They’ve also questioned the work on and around the private golf course and whether the road project really exacerbated country club flooding.
Locals created a Facebook page called โTateCounty Watchdogs,โ with its posts and comments centered on the state-funded county work at the country club.
The watchdog group has questioned why, if the road project caused flooding on the golf course and surrounds, taxpayers funded the more than $2 million fix instead of the county going after surety with the contractor or engineer to cover it.
Numerous current and past Tate County supervisors declined to answer such questions or did not respond to calls requesting interviews. Others said they know very little about the country club projects.
There was a common theme among many of the dozens of residents and county and state officials including lawmakers Mississippi Today interviewed or attempted to interview: They cited fear of the powerful lawmaker Lamar in declining to comment on the record.
For fellow lawmakers, Lamar holds the purse strings in the House for projects in their districts. For locals, Lamar’s family is a prominent one. His family law firm serves as legal counsel for Tate County, including the county board of supervisors that approved the projects in question. Lamar’s father served as county attorney before the county contracted the work with the firm. Lamar’s mother is a former state Supreme Court justice and Institutions of Higher Learning college board member.
โMother Nature caused the flooding’
Tate County Engineer Kevin McLeod, whose firm designed the Country Club Road and golf course projects, said the road โwas mainly a safety and maintenance project.โ
โSafety in that speed bumps were added, it was repaved and we added a 4- or 5-foot paved shoulder on one side so golf carts could travel safely,โ McLeod said. โAt public meetings, people were saying golf carts were using the road but it wasn’t wide enough for them to travel safely.โ
McLeod said that despite โsome residents who think that’s the case,โ the road project did not cause flooding.
โThe road project did not cause flooding,โ McLeod said. โMother nature caused the flooding.โ He said that as the project was nearing completion, the area had two massive rains, โwhere even the best areas would flood.โ He said residents mistook the historic deluges as the project causing more flooding.
โSoon after that we got phone calls โ not many, but a few โ from people who said it never did this until the road project started,โ McLeod said. He said a retention pond on the front nine holes of the golf course had a bad standpipe. He said two main ditches through the country club, one through the front nine holes and one through the back nine, โhad not been maintained in years.โ
Bram Billingsley, owner of Ste-Bil Grading that did the Country Club Road project, said he built the road as designed and, โI find it hard to believe that what we did caused all this drainage work on the golf course.โ
โAll I know is we did the work as designed, or the county wouldn’t have paid us,โ Billingsley said. โNow we’re being blamed โฆ If they think it’s the fault of the contractor, then yes, the county should have done something. We’re bonded 100% on performance and payment. If we were outside our lines, then file a claim on our bond. That would be 1-2-3, just like a blank check. But they didn’t do that.โ
According to minutes of the Tate County Board of Supervisors, the county received two letters claiming the road project was causing flooding, one from a homeowner and one from the Back Acres Country Club. The letters had identical wording and called for the county to fix the flooding.
But the county did not file a claim against the contractor for the road work. Instead, Lamar and the Legislature stepped in again, with an additional $2.4 million in state dollars for work to fix drainage on and around the golf course.
County Engineer McLeod said he wrote up an estimate for the drainage work, โthe county sent it in, it got put on a list and they were lucky enough to get some funding for it.โ
Lamar and McLeod said the county received easements for all the work it did at the country club and in neighbors’ yards. McLeod said all of the curbed concrete golf cart paths the county built โwere put in to raise them up so they could act as a levy to slow the water down behind them,โ not for ease of golfers getting around.
A representative of the contractor that did the golf course work did not return calls for an interview.
Tate County District Attorney Jay Hale, a former Back Acres Country Club board member who still helps the club board with legal issues, said his sister was the homeowner who wrote the complaint letter because her property had severe flooding from the road project.
โWe put the county on notice that they had caused a problem,โ Hale said. โ… My sister and brother-in-law were getting ready to sue the county. There were numerous complaints from residents. They flooded the country club with that project. It’s moving the same amount of water, but much faster. My sister had videos of water flying down her property. At one point her pool was about to go underwater.โ
Hale said Country Club Road was in bad shape and he believes the initial project was needed, though he added, โI guess that’s probably up for debate.โ But he said the county was responsible for fixing the drainage afterward.
โNone of the country club members wanted (the drainage project),โ Hale said. โThey understood it was needed for drainage, but it shut down the golf course, at least nine holes at a time, for a year.โ
Jason Carter, current Back Acres Country Club board president, said, โThis wasn’t a beautification project.โ
Hale and Carter said the concrete golf cart paths the county built with state funds โ about $200,000 worth โ were to replace paths the county destroyed with its drainage work. They said the club liked the way the new paths looked, so it shelled out about $30,000 of its own money to rebuild others on the course to match. They said residents questioning the work could have confused the club’s work with the taxpayer-funded work.
Hale said some of the questions and complaints about the work could be simply because it was done for a country club neighborhood.
โThere are about 300 members, out of 28,000 people in the county,โ Hale said. โI guess people don’t like seeing money put into where it went.โ
Watchdogs take note of โTrey Way’
Lamar’s scoring lots of tax dollars for his neighborhood and district has in recent years drawn the ire of some fellow lawmakers. But it has also raised questions and attracted scrutiny from his own constituents.
The TateCounty Watchdogs Facebook page was formed in June, about the same time Mississippi Today started receiving messages and questions about the work.
Some locals have nicknamed Country Club Road โTrey Way.โ They’ve questioned the government doing work in and around Back Acres Country Club and whether work on the golf course was more about golfing than drainage.
โThis project is spending just over $2.1 million dollars on the Back Acres Country Club private golf course,โ the initial Watchdog post said. โOver $200,000 is being spent on golf cart paths per itemized listing.โ
A later post said: โThe next step is to inspect the premise under which all this Tate County money was spent on a private golf course, rather than the abundance of the public property issues we have โฆ Who is the responsible contractor, and why was his bond against surety company not pursued?โ
Another post said: โIt is common knowledge the back 9 flooded before the road project. If the damage was caused by the county road project, why can’t the county explain which contracted party is responsible?โ One local commenter on the page said, โCountry Club road was the best road in the county before they did the work.โ
But the administrator of the TateCounty Watchdogs page, contacted through private message, declined to identify themselves or speak about the issues on the record. Numerous other residents contacted shared that trepidation.
Residents early last year did publicly voice complaints and sign a petition to the county about the large number of large speed humps on the improved Country Club Road โ 10 in less than two miles. They said the speed humps, roundabout and two three-way stops were ridiculous and could impede first responders trying to traverse the road. Lamar addressed residents at a hearing about the speed humps and said they were needed for traffic safety. But after the complaints, the county came back and milled off half of the speed humps.
Residents have had trouble getting answers from county leaders. Several present and past county leaders contacted by Mississippi Today brushed off questions, claimed they knew little about the projects or didn’t return calls and messages. About a month after Mississippi Today submitted written questions, the county supplied some written statements but did not answer some main questions.
Tate County Supervisor Leigh Ann Darby represents the area. She notes she took office in January and โthis project predates me.โ
Darby said she knows little about the projects, but is aware of the questions being asked about them, including why the county didn’t go after contractor surety if the road caused flooding.
โI would say, yes, a lot of money was funneled into that project for a public road, then was rolled over into the golf course,โ Darby said. โI know that question has been posed numerous times. I have not heard a definitive answer to that.โ
Darby said she joined the Back Acres Country Club long ago but has not been an active member for years.
โI was not involved in any aspect of obtaining that money,โ Darby said. โI don’t play golf. My family doesn’t, and I don’t even travel that road often โฆ But I am for complete transparency, and I am raising questions, too โฆ I saw the public records request you sent up here โฆ I am for complete transparency and I don’t want Tate County hiding anything.โ
Current Tate County Board President Tony Sandridge was a supervisor when the projects were approved, but he said he also knows very little about them.
โIf it’s not in District 3, I’m really not sure about it,โ he said.
Supervisor George Stepp said he is new to the board and knows little about it other than, โIt was all state funded, no money from the county โ I can tell you this โฆ I try to stay away from some of this. I don’t get too involved.โ
About a month after receiving written questions from Mississippi Today, the Tate County Board of Supervisors responded in writing with a letter signed by Sandridge, but the responses left much unanswered.
“Current elected officials and staff do not have the knowledge to answer questions surrounding the history of this project other than what is recorded on the county’s official minutes,” the written response said. “… Tate County, to our knowledge, has never made a finding as to the cause of the flooding. Whether the flooding existed prior to the road project, worsened after the road project, or was caused by extreme weather events that are the acts of God, the Tate County Board of Supervisors realized a problem existed …”
The statement said the two letters received about flooding “are the only two formal complaints ‘as a result of the project’ made to the county and spread on the minutes” but one other nearby neighbor in 2022 complained to the board about drainage.
The statement did not answer why, if the project caused or exacerbated flooding, the county did not hold the contractor or engineer accountable. Instead, Sandridge wrote, the county was doing work “necessary to promote the health, comfort and convenience of the inhabitants of Tate County.”
The county’s response noted that when the initial, partial state funding for the project was secured, the county was under the “beat system” where each supervisor manages roads in his or her district, and that former Supervisor Cam Walker who retired in 2019 was in charge of that district.
Walker, whom Mississippi Today had been unable to reach for comment, provided a brief written statement as part of the county’s response. He said the road was dangerous and he had been working to improve it since at least 2006, but was unable to secure funding. He said he attended at least two public hearings when he was in office where citizens demanded the road be “improved and made safer.”
โThat’s a private transaction’
Lamar built his home on Country Club Road on the outskirts of Senatobia in 2015.
In 2018, as the Legislature struggled to find money in austere times for badly needed infrastructure improvements statewide, Lamar helped secure $1 million for overhauling Country Club Road. The money sat in the county’s bank account for a while. In 2020, Lamar helped steer another $1.5 million to the road.
In 2018, Lamar defended funding for the project after it was temporarily axed from the legislative spending bill and a reporter asked about it being the road on which he lives. He said it’s a main thoroughfare that badly needed safety improvements and at least two people had been killed on it. Records show there were two traffic deaths on Country Club Road โ one in 2004 and one in 2016.
Lamar said at the time, โI don’t apologize for working to help my people. That is my job.โ
In 2022, Lamar helped create the Tate County Erosion Control and Repair Fund with state legislation. To date, the country club golf course area work is the only project that has been completed through the fund.
Lamar said there is nothing untoward about him buying property related to the Country Club Road project or the city takeover of the neighborhood water system after helping fund them with state dollars.
JT Delta Company LLC bought the 4.5 acres on the north of what was to become the new roundabout on the road after the state funding was approved. Lamar said, โMy wife owns that LLC โฆ and it’s a real estate company.โ But state records show Trey Lamar as the only officer and registered agent of the LLC, and it appears he handled the paperwork for the purchase.
โThat’s a private transaction,โ Lamar said. โIt had nothing to do with the county, so it’s like any other sale or purchase of real estate between two private entities โฆ That project was already decided on when that purchase was made. I don’t design roundabouts or design intersections. So that’s something that would have been done by the county and the county’s engineer.โ
Lamar said that after the city of Senatobia bought the small New Image water system serving the country club neighborhood, it hooked the area up to the city system and didn’t need the small strip of property the small system owned adjacent to Lamar’s backyard.
โIt’s, I don’t know, a tenth of an acre,โ Lamar said. โSo when the city purchased that system, they abandoned that well, and I think they sold the equipment that was there โฆ That system was owned by one gentleman โฆ and left him owning a tenth of an acre or whatever โฆ I purchased that in a private transaction โฆ that had nothing to do with the water system.
โI’m not on city water,โ Lamar said. โI wasn’t on the New Image system … I’m on a private well.โ
Lamar said he made the land purchases after the state funding and projects were approved.
State law prohibits public officials from using their official positions to obtain, or attempt to obtain, financial benefit for themselves.
State Ethics Commission Director Tom Hood, speaking generally and not about Lamar or the country club projects and land deals, said a public official helping secure improvements to his neighborhood or street would not necessarily pose a legal issue. He noted a past Ethics Commission ruling that said a city could extend its water system to land owned by a mayor.
โIf you’ve got to speculate about something affecting property value, then that’s not enough,โ Hood said. โIf there’s no pecuniary benefit, then there’s no violation. You have to prove monetary benefit to somebody caused by the government action โฆ 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 โ those are difficult questions.โ
Hood said a public official purchasing property around a public project also wouldn’t automatically pose an ethical question.
โThat could be a problem if they were using nonpublic information for the purchase,โ Hood said. โBut if the information was already public, that statute wouldn’t apply โฆ The short answer on these situations is: it depends.โ
Meanwhile, TateCounty Watchdogs, which recently had more than 2,200 followers, posted: โIn our opinion, even if it was all โState money,’ that is no justification to use public monies in this way. Every working Tate Countian pays income tax in to the state of Mississippi. The state then allocates some of that money back out to the counties for roads, infrastructure and whatnot. If our County is placing these dollars into private properties, it will require that much more in County taxes for Tate County to meet her obligations.
“Stay tuned to avoid being taken advantage of as you live your life in and around Tate County,” the post concluded.
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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