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No answers, no money: Lauderdale officials end funding to state health agency for county health department

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The Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors decided this year not to award over $200,000 to the state health agency for the operation of the county health department as it had done the previous year.

But Lauderdale officials say that’s not because they don’t care about public health — in fact, they’re spending more than $2 million of their pandemic relief funds upgrading the facility’s air-conditioning system.

They say it’s because the Mississippi State Department of Health couldn’t adequately answer what that money was going toward.

County health departments are funded by a mixture of state and county money. Usually, the county provides a building, while the Health Department provides staffing, according to State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney. The facilities provide essential public health services such as vaccinations, STI testing, diabetes and hypertension care, pap smears, pregnancy testing and more.

And as hospitals struggle amid a statewide health care crisis and more of the state’s wellbeing may fall on publicly funded health care, Edney has stressed the importance of these local clinics.

The state Department of Health has been tasked with mounting responsibilities over the years, but their state funding has remained relatively stable. Health officials are still reeling from the pandemic, and 40% of positions at the agency were unfilled as of May.  

Daniel Edney, M.D., is the State Health Officer. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Edney acknowledged at last month’s state Board of Health meeting that his agency had dropped the ball with Lauderdale, and it may not be an isolated incident.

“We did not do a good enough job with that board,” he said. “Fires break out — I personally have been going and putting those fires out — but we’re already talking internally about doing a better job on our regional level of our folks being at board of supervisors meetings, just going and saying, ‘Hello.’”

Chris Lafferty, administrator of Lauderdale County, isn’t aware of any changes at the county health department, so he didn’t realize there was a “fire.” His conversations with Mississippi Today this week was the first time he had heard of any issues, he said.

“The question of need comes up — was the money really needed? If it was, why didn’t they articulate that?” Lafferty said. “None of the local leadership has contacted us. Now they’re all over it. They’ve had a year.”

In 2022, Lafferty sent a letter to Susan Rigdon, a division director at the agency, informing her that the Board of Supervisors didn’t approve any funding for the agency. The previous year, the board had allocated $242,100 in its $65 million budget to the Department of Health.

Lafferty said he hadn’t heard back from the agency, nor did he hear any complaints, until Mississippi Today recounted a quote from Edney at a state Board of Health meeting on July 12, more than nine months later.

“It was a $200,000-a-year appropriation that (Lauderdale County) defunded,” Edney said at the meeting. “They took us out of their budget totally.”

According to Lafferty, it wasn’t an easy decision. More than a year ago, the Board of Supervisors was determined to avoid a tax increase in Lauderdale, and Lafferty started looking at how to save dollars.

So, he called David Caulfield, the Health Department’s regional administrator for the Central Public Health Region which includes Lauderdale and 27 other counties. Lafferty wanted him to explain where the nearly quarter of a million dollars was going – whether it was staying in Lauderdale County and what services it was funding. Caulfield couldn’t tell him, Lafferty said.

“I think those are reasonable questions,” he said. “I cannot in good conscience … ask the Board of Supervisors to give money to an organization that could not answer simple questions.”

Lafferty recommended to the Board of Supervisors, then, that the funding be cut, and Lauderdale County did not have a tax hike last year, he said.

Chris Lafferty has been Lauderdale’s County Administrator since 2016. Credit: Lauderdale County

According to Lafferty, no services have been cut or reduced at the county health department as a result – which begged the question, what did the Department of Health do with the $242,100 last year?

Mississippi Today reached out to the Health Department on July 31 with questions about Lauderdale County’s funding to their agency.

The agency replied with an emailed statement that said it provided the same information to Lauderdale County last year as it had in prior years, but it’s unclear what specific information that included.

“Each year, information is provided to each county board of supervisors that includes overall budget information of each county health department and the services these funds support,” the emailed statement from spokesperson Liz Sharlot reads. “Our local administrators also meet with county officials, as needed, to answer any questions and provide additional information. This information was provided to Lauderdale last year as it had been provided in years past.”

The statement goes on to say that the money from Lauderdale was funding county health department personnel as well as equipment and supplies.

Mississippi Today reached out to the state Health Department again on Tuesday with follow-up questions, including whether the Health Department provided the county officials with the information they sought regarding how the money was spent and how the supervisors’ decision not to award the agency any money impacted the county health department’s operations. 

Spokesperson Elizabeth Grey did not answer any specific questions, including if and how the Lauderdale County Health Department was impacted. She said on Thursday that Edney and Caulfield were working to schedule a meeting with the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors to rectify the situation — after that meeting, the agency would respond to Mississippi Today’s questions, she said.

Mississippi state law mandates that county supervisors “shall be authorized” to make necessary appropriations to the Department of Health to pay the salary of the employees of the county health department, as well as supplies. It goes on to say more clearly that the board “shall provide” an office, or building, for the health department.

It’s not clear if most counties are providing additional funding beyond building costs for their health departments — the state Health Department did not respond to that question from Mississippi Today.

Jonathan Wells, president of the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors, says the county provides a building — and more.

“So, the Legislature says — and I would call it an unfunded mandate — that we supply the Department of Health a building,” he said. “Not only are we doing that, but we’re putting $2.5 million in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money into a new HVAC system for that building.”

The county continues to pay for utilities in that building, security services as well as other general upkeep, Wells said.

That won’t change next year, according to Lafferty — but neither will their zero-dollar allocation toward the State Health Department.

On Wednesday, Caulfield visited Lafferty in his office, holding a budget request for the upcoming year in his hands, he said. Lafferty says he is still unclear what the county’s funding responsibilities are and will recommend that the Board of Supervisors continue to withhold funding to the state Department of Health.

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

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Mississippi Today

An ad supporting Jenifer Branning finds imaginary liberals on the Mississippi Supreme Court

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-11-24 06:00:00

The Improve Mississippi PAC claims in advertising that the state Supreme Court “is in danger of being dominated by liberal justices” unless Jenifer Branning is elected in Tuesday’s runoff.

Improve Mississippi made the almost laughable claim in both radio commercials and mailers that were sent to homes in the court’s central district, where a runoff election will be held on Tuesday.

Improve Mississippi is an independent, third party political action committee created to aid state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County in her efforts to defeat longtime Central District Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens of Copiah County.

The PAC should receive an award or at least be considered for an honor for best fiction writing.

At least seven current members of the nine-member Supreme Court would be shocked to know anyone considered them liberal.

It is telling that the ads do not offer any examples of “liberal” Supreme Court opinions issued by the current majority. It is even more telling that there have been no ads by Improve Mississippi or any other group citing the liberal dissenting opinions written or joined by Kitchens.

Granted, it is fair and likely accurate to point out that Branning is more conservative than Kitchens. After all, Branning is considered one of the more conservative members of a supermajority Republican Mississippi Senate.

As a member of the Senate, for example, she voted against removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag, opposed Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill for women.

And if she is elected to the state Supreme Court in Tuesday’s runoff election, she might be one of the panel’s more conservative members. But she will be surrounded by a Supreme Court bench full of conservatives.

A look at the history of the members of the Supreme Court might be helpful.

Chief Justice Michael Randolph originally was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who is credited with leading the effort to make the Republican Party dominant in Mississippi. Before Randolph was appointed by Barbour, he served a stint on the National Coal Council — appointed to the post by President Ronald Reagan who is considered an icon in the conservative movement.

Justices James Maxwell, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis were appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.

Only three members of the current court were not initially appointed to the Supreme Court by conservative Republican governors: Kitchens, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlin. All three got their initial posts on the court by winning elections for full eight-year terms.

But Chamberlin, once a Republican state senator from Southaven, was appointed as a circuit court judge by Barbour before winning his Supreme Court post. And Coleman was endorsed in his election effort by both the Republican Party and by current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who also contributed to his campaign.

Only Kitchens earned a spot on the court without either being appointed by a Republican governor or being endorsed by the state Republican Party.

The ninth member of the court is Leslie King, who, like Kitchens, is viewed as not as conservative as the other seven justices. King, former chief judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Barbour, who to his credit made the appointment at least in part to ensure that a Black Mississippian remained on the nine-member court.

It should be noted that Beam was defeated on Nov. 5 by David Sullivan, a Gulf Coast municipal judge who has a local reputation for leaning conservative. Even if Sullivan is less conservative when he takes his new post in January, there still be six justices on the Supreme Court with strong conservative bonafides, not counting what happens in the Branning-Kitchens runoff.

Granted, Kitchens is next in line to serve as chief justice should Randolph, who has been on the court since 2004, step down. The longest tenured justice serves as the chief justice.

But to think that Kitchens as chief justice would be able to exert enough influence to force the other longtime conservative members of the court to start voting as liberals is even more fiction.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1968

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-24 07:00:00

Nov. 24, 1968

Credit: Wikipedia

Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver fled the U.S. to avoid imprisonment on a parole violation. He wrote in “Soul on Ice”: “If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.” 

The Arkansas native began to be incarcerated when he was still in junior high and soon read about Malcolm X. He began writing his own essays, drawing the praise of Norman Mailer and others. That work helped him win parole in 1966. His “Soul on Ice” memoir, written from Folsom state prison, described his journey from selling marijuana to following Malcolm X. The book he wrote became a seminal work in Black literature, and he became a national figure. 

Cleaver soon joined the Black Panther Party, serving as the minister of information. After a Panther shootout with police that left him injured, one Panther dead and two officers wounded, he jumped bail and fled the U.S. In 1977, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he returned to the U.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and served 1,200 hours of community service. 

From that point forward, “Mr. Cleaver metamorphosed into variously a born-again Christian, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Mormon, a crack cocaine addict, a designer of men’s trousers featuring a codpiece and even, finally, a Republican,” The New York Times wrote in his 1998 obituary. His wife said he was suffering from mental illness and never recovered.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1867

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-23 07:00:00

Nov. 23, 1867

Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Louisiana, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights. 

The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders. 

The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.

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

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