close

The City of Jackson took over a year to provide public records to WLBT, a local news outlet that requested the records under Mississippi’s public records laws. Those laws require public records to be provided within seven business days. The city’s egregious delay will cost it and its residents in a big way. Last week, the state’s Ethics Commission ordered Jackson to pay more than $170,000 in legal fees to WLBT – the largest fee award ever levied against a government entity by the commission.

WLBT filed an ethics complaint against the city in October 2019, after the city failed to respond or responded exceedingly late to seven requests for public records to the Jackson Police Department for crime statistics, emails, memos, and related documents.

The city failed to respond to five of the seven requests. For the other requests, the city took excessively long to provide the requested records. For example, the city took nearly 600 days to produce a portion of the phone and text logs WLBT requested from JPD Chief James Davis.

Even after the ethics complaint was filed, the city still did not produce any additional records for 10 months.

The ethics complaint resulted in a hearing before the Mississippi Ethics Commission in November 2020. Nine witnesses appeared before the commission, mostly current and former city employees. On August 6, 2021, the Ethics Commission voted unanimously to approve a final order against the city of Jackson. The order requires the city to pay $170,397.50 to reimburse WLBT’s legal expenses and also fined the city an additional $900 for nine separate violations of state law.

The order also mandates that Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba take several measures to ensure the city does not violate the Public Records Act in the future, such as designating public records officers for the city and each of its 10 departments. Those officers must also undergo at least two hours of training on the Public Records Act each year from a curriculum approved by the commission’s executive director, Tom Hood.

Additionally, the city will be required to post weekly reports on Jackson’s website showing all pending requests for public records to promote transparency.

“The commission and its hearing officers have given the city more than enough warnings and guidance, more than enough chances to comply. Yet the city and its elected officials and, therefore, its employees, have continued to ignore the law and persistently failed to meet legal obligations with no reasonable explanation,” Hood wrote.

The Public Records Act provides a fine of up to $100 per violation, and also allows the Ethics Commission to impose reasonable expenses against government entities who have Complaints filed against them.

A frustration often expressed by advocates of government transparency is that the Ethics Commission rarely imposes significant costs against violators, and the $100 fine, by itself, amounts to a meaningless slap on the wrist.

For that reason, while it’s unfortunate that Jackson’s taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the city administration’s deliberate indifference to state law, last week’s historic fee award is welcome news for those who believe that government must be honest, transparent, and accountable to its citizens, and should face real consequences when it fails to do so.

The Centers for Disease Control recently announced a moratorium on evictions across most of the United States, in light of Covid. This order places restrictions on evictions in areas with high or moderate levels of Covid infections.

This move has been applauded by some as a way to stabilize housing and help those who are struggling financially due to Covid. But the evidence speaks directly to the contrary. The government imposing its control over rental properties is highly problematic, with repercussions for both tenants and property owners.

A policy that forces property owners to provide temporary housing without recourse during Covid is not too dissimilar from the government handing out checks that are encouraging people not to work. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the median rent in the United States is $909 a month, slightly lower than the median mortgage of $975. Consider the following statistics:

While some might view these facts as good news for tenants, it ultimately leads to bad outcomes. Indeed, without having the recourse of eviction in the event of non-payment, many landlords are raising their approval criteria. On this factor alone, it will likely be harder for the tenants who didn’t pay rent during the moratorium to get approved by future landlords if they chose to go to a different rental home post-pandemic. 

Thus, a ban on evictions for the failure to pay rent is ultimately just another piece of the puzzle that encourages Americans not to work and causes collateral effects as well. The only difference is that instead of the federal government using taxpayer dollars to write checks, property owners are forced to foot the bill until the moratorium is over and they can get their rent payments back.

This places many property owners at great financial risk if rental properties are not bringing in income. Approximately half of all rental units are owned by small investors, referred to by HUD as “mom and pop landlords.” The average rental property owner receives 31 percent of their annual income from their rental properties. With so many small business owners already struggling, such a dip in income has led to even more financial hardship, leading to increased debt and even rental property foreclosure.

Government interference in the economy has a consistent track record of generally causing more problems than it solves. The government’s recent move hurts tenants and property owners in untold ways. Only time will tell what the major repercussions will be from such government overreach.

(Jackson, MS): Mississippi has some of the highest paid public officials in America, despite being the poorest state, according to a new report out today. 

Published by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the Fat Cat Report offers a summary of the top 50 highest paid public officials in the state along with further data analysis.

The report reveals:

The Fat Cat report compares what top public officials make to the salaries of average nurses, State Troopers, and workers across the Magnolia state.  

“Mississippi taxpayers have a right to know how much their top public officials earn,” explained Douglas Carswell, CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. Clearly some officials produce value for the money they are paid. But many don’t.”

“How much should public officials be paid, and who should decide? The key is public accountability.”

“Our report suggests that officials appointed by boards tend to have the most inflated taxpayer-funded salaries. Officials that are either elected, or in close proximity to taxpayers, generally have lower salaries.”

“This suggests to me that direct accountability to the taxpayers is the best way of ensuring that public officials give taxpayers value for money, and our report makes some suggestions on what we could do to ensure that Mississippi taxpayers don’t get taken for a ride.”

Read the report in full HERE.

For more information or to request an interview with Mississippi Center for Public Policy CEO Douglas Carswell, please reach out to Hunter Estes, [email protected].

Mississippi Center for Public Policy CEO Douglas Carswell appeared on Fox News’ The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton to discuss our major new investigative report.

You can watch the full interview and discussion of the report here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMGbAo318Xo&t=3s

The report has a range of interesting findings, including:

You can read the full report here: https://mspolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Fat-Cat-Report-2021-Final.pdf

There is little debate that America’s infrastructure plays a critical role in the economy. Roads, bridges, shipping facilities, airports, the energy grid, and other vital industrial elements all play a crucial part in the ability of the nation to produce and deliver goods and services in the most efficient way possible. 

Despite this importance, some in Washington have asserted that Americans must also pay for unrelated energy policy proposals if they want better infrastructure. 

Amid negotiations for a massive infrastructure improvement package, political leadership on the Left has insisted that the infrastructure bill include provisions to implement President Biden’s energy policy agenda. One such proposal in this agenda is a call to expand federal energy regulations through the reduction of carbon-based fuels.  

A key stated goal is to reduce carbon and other greenhouse emissions to approximately half by 2030. An additional proposed mandate is that the nation’s electrical grid completely transitions away from carbon-based fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil by 2035. In light of the high cost of transitioning from carbon fuels, such federal mandates would be detrimental to the state of Mississippi. The state’s economy and citizens are highly dependent on affordable energy.

From the economic angle, it is important to note that Mississippi has the 2nd highest level of energy expenditures per dollar of GDP. This means that Mississippi’s economy needs more energy than most other states to produce its economic outputs. Mississippi also has the 8th highest amount of carbon output per dollar of GDP. This carbon output makes sense. Many of Mississippi’s top industries, such as agriculture and manufacturing, have very high energy consumption and utilize affordable carbon fuels such as natural gas and coal. 

These economic factors would cause Mississippi’s economy to be disproportionally affected if the federal government mandates a reduction in the use of carbon-based energy fuels. Meanwhile, other states with less energy-intensive sectors (such as finance and administration) would be less affected. Thus, Mississippi would be in a competitively disadvantaged position at the hands of a federal carbon-reduction policy.

On top of the macroeconomic effects of more expensive energy, raising the cost of energy by requiring more costly fuels with a lower carbon output could be devasting for some Mississippians on an individual level. According to the Energy Information Administration, the state of Mississippi ranks among the highest in the nation for its consumption of energy per person.  

As a predominately rural state with many in poverty, Mississippi’s energy consumption per person is an important factor to note. A study found that the rural poor spend a high percentage of their income on heating and cooling their homes since many rural homes are not as well-insulated as their suburban and urban counterparts. An additional study found that when energy costs go up, many of the poor reduce their heating and cooling to save money, with resulting health issues and the accompanying medical expenses. 

Mississippi and its citizens should be able to utilize the most affordable and efficient energy sources without the heavy hand of federal overreach. Instead of using infrastructure negotiations as an opportunity to impose unprecedented restrictions on carbon-sourced energy, leaders in Washington should focus on the nation's infrastructure needs.   

Debates about environmental stewardship and conservation have been a key fixture of public debate for decades.

With calls to preserve the natural environment, many have advocated for the expansion of government-owned property as the primary way to protect the environment and increase its quality. However, it is worth considering potential conservation alternatives that do not require putting more property in the hands of the state. 

The traditional approach for many conservation initiatives has been for the government to purchase property from the private sector and then allocate that land for conservation purposes. This approach has been reasonably effective in many cases. However, it is important to consider the strong potential for conservation on privately held lands.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, approximately 93 percent of Mississippi land is under private jurisdiction. This places Mississippi among the highest in the country for the amount of land that is privately managed. As a state with so many natural resources and natural beauty, the opportunities for conservation and stewardship abound. 

With so many private landowners, there is considerable potential behind the concept of incentivizing private land conservation using the state funds that are already allocated for conservation anyway. Such a model not only respects private property, but it also gives money back to taxpayers by supporting conservation efforts on their privately held lands. 

There are several opportunities for the state to spend its appropriated conservation funds as effectively as possible. Mississippi could see the realization of private land conservation efforts in different contexts. Drawing largely from the state’s primary land uses found in cropland and forestry, there are a plethora of ways that private landowners can utilize their property in Mississippi for conservation efforts.

In agriculture, the opportunity for farmers to utilize specific sectors of their property for conservation carries enormous potential. For instance, while a lowland sector of a farm could be risky for crops due to flooding concerns, such land could carry great potential for waterfowl conservation. 

With the allocation of the state’s conservation funds, farmers could establish a waterfowl habitat. The same goes for good cropland as well. In the advent of new technologies, it has even become possible for farmers to determine which sectors of their cropland have the greatest potential for conservation. 

In forestry, conservation efforts on private land have obvious potential to create habitats for wildlife within timberland. In Mississippi, 77 percent of all timberland is privately owned, equating to approximately 15.1 million acres. 

Given that many timberlands cover vast areas and are ecosystems in their own right, policies that directed conservation funds to these private lands would greatly expand the potential for conservation funds to be used as effectively as possible. 

Mississippi is a beautiful state, and its natural beauty should be preserved for future generations. By allocating conservation funds to private landowners, the state could continue to protect Mississippi’s natural habitats. Ninety-three percent of Mississippi’s land is in the hands of private citizens. The state should ensure that the funds it appropriates for conservation can be directed back to taxpayers’ property worth conserving and not just government property.

In the wake of Covid-19, the economy reeled from the devastating effects of lockdowns, logistical shortages, layoffs, and business closures. However, as the dust is starting to clear and the economy is getting stronger, it is important to consider how Mississippi can increase its recovery rate for jobs, employment, and economic growth. 

Mississippi led the way as one of the first states to begin lifting the economic restrictions brought about by the pandemic. Mississippi was also one of the first states to proactively encourage people to get back to work by rejectingadditional federal unemployment benefits. Despite growth, Mississippi jobs are still recovering. State leaders should implement recovery-minded policies that support economic growth and help the state come back even stronger than before. 

The policies that would give Mississippi an economic boost have numerous implications and reach across almost every sector in the state. Yet, these relatively unsophisticated policies could really lead to lasting growth for the state. 

On the fundamental level, policymakers should take actions that will stop the state government from taking money right out of the citizens’ wallets through an income tax. The state income tax should be abolished. As so many rebuild what they lost during the economic devastation of Covid, Mississippians need every dollar they can get. While the federal government in Washington is printing more money and inflating the dollar to fund direct payments, state leaders in Mississippi have the opportunity to make a meaningful difference by just leaving Mississippian’s incomes alone.

Further, policymakers in Mississippi can help the citizens of the state by removing burdensome regulations on businesses. This can be done through widespread regulatory rollbacks, as well as through innovative programs like regulatory sandboxes. In 2020, Mississippi had the nation’s highest increase in new business applications as thousands of new entrepreneurs worked to support themselves and their families during Covid. By lowering excessive regulations and pursuing economic freedom, Mississippi will create an environment that helps these entrepreneurs stay in business for the long term as they navigate the challenges that face new businesses. 

There is little debate that policies to expand economic growth are more important than ever in the wake of Covid. But Mississippi needs action to get this economic growth moving. By cutting back taxes, lowering regulations, and putting faith in the success of free-market principles, Mississippi just might have a chance to coming back from the pandemic stronger than ever before. 

“People overestimate what they can accomplish in one legislative session and underestimate what they can accomplish in ten.” 

In this series, we are conducting a review of the incredible record Mississippi lawmakers have compiled over the past 10 years. The list provided here is not comprehensive, and we feature only the policies we like: some of which were initiated by MCPP (marked by an *asterisk* below).

So far, we have covered:

10 Years of Regulatory Reform Achievements

10 Years of Social Welfare Achievements

10 Years of Religious Liberty Achievements

10 Years of Second Amendment Achievements

10 Years of Pro-life Achievements

10 Years of Healthcare Achievements

10 Years of Education Achievements

In this final part of the series, I will be reviewing the budgetary and tax achievements advanced by the Mississippi Legislature. 

Budget

Several highlights are worth mentioning as we consider Mississippi’s budgeting efforts over the past 10 years. To begin with, the state held down bond debt: perhaps mostly thanks to Governor Tate Reeves, who as Lt. governor was a fiscal hawk. The state also did a reasonably good job in maintaining its Rainy Day Fund. Most notable was Mississippi’s emergence as a leader in performance-based budgeting. This type of budgeting tries to measure the relation between the amount spent and the results: in other words, the bang for the buck. 

The proper implementation of performance-based budgeting requires a cultural shift and not just the tweaking or cutting of agency budgets. Implementation is very important, and results can be elusive. This was suggested even as far back as 2003 in a report by then-auditor Phil Bryant.

In 2014, the Legislature made a substantive attempt at instituting performance-based budgeting with HB 677, sponsored by Rep. Becky Currie. That law empowered the Legislative Budget Office (LBO) to require select agencies to inventory agency programs and activities. As I commented in 2014 about this law: “Performance-based budgeting promises to make agencies more accountable and efficient by introducing objective standards that measure successful outcomes, rather than just inputs. The evidence for performance-based budgeting is somewhat mixed, but more budget transparency is a good start. The next step would be to review agency fine/fee collections, with any eye toward lowering and eliminating these hidden taxes.”

This next step, in fact, was accomplished in 2015 and 2016 with a legislative package known as “Financial Ready.” These reforms, passed as part of an expansion of performance-based budgeting efforts, required an identification of all sources of revenue for each agency, including fine/fee revenue and federal funding.*

Also, in 2015, thanks to the leadership of Senator Joey Fillingane and Rep. Greg Snowden, Mississippi became a founding member of the Compact for a Balanced Budget (SB 2389). This Article V effort to amend the U.S. Constitution features a pre-ratified amendment to force the federal government to operate with a balanced budget. The compact was reaffirmed in 2021 with the passage of HB 1326, again thanks to the leadership of Senator Fillingane.*

Finally, we will add that MCPP was a leader in encouraging and facilitating transparency for state spending. Thanks to our website, seethespending.org, taxpayers were able to access millions of government financial records so as to better hold state and local officials accountable. (One reporter called the effort “a near-miraculous step forward in state and county government transparency.”) See The Spending was happily made obsolete once the state decided to post spending records online at transparency.mississippi.gov. (We’re still waiting for them to catch up to the level of detail featured at See The Spending, though.)

Taxes

In 2012, the Legislature significantly expanded the inventory tax credit with a bill (SB 2934) sponsored by Senator Joey Fillingane. Mississippi is one of only nine states that impose this tax, which is assessed regardless of whether a business earns a profit. Total repeal of the tax is made problematic because it is actually a property (ad valorem) tax levied by localities on business inventories. 

In 2015, thanks largely to the efforts of Speaker Philip Gunn, the Legislature came close to eliminating the state’s personal income tax. The measure (HB 1629) would have delivered a $1.5 billion tax cut for Mississippians. It died after being amended by the Senate.  

The next year, however, the Senate essentially got its way with the passage of the 

Taxpayer Pay Raise Act. Sponsored by Senator Joey Fillingane, the law enacted the largest tax cut in Mississippi history. The measure (SB 2858) reduced taxes by more than $400 million over 12 years, beginning in 2017. The law cut the personal income tax and taxes on self-employment. It also phased out the franchise tax, a burdensome tax on investment that few states impose anymore.* 

In 2021, Speaker Gunn again introduced legislation to essentially eliminate the state income tax. The Mississippi Tax Freedom Act of 2021 (HB 1439) would have eventually eliminated the individual income tax and reduced the grocery sales tax in exchange for raising various sales taxes. After passing the House, the measure was not taken up by the Senate.

It seems likely Mississippians will see another tax cut before statewide general elections in 2023. Whether this entails an elimination of the personal income tax remains to be seen. 

That said, Mississippi’s overall tax burden has risen over the past 10 years, as compared to other states. In FY2011, Mississippi’s state and local tax burden was 8.4 percent, 40th lowestin the nation. For calendar year 2019 (latest data available), it was 9.5 percent, 33rd highest in the nation. In terms of overall taxes paid, as a percentage of national income, Mississippi is falling behind other states. With states like North Carolina and Arizona slashing taxes and attracting new residents and investment, Mississippi is going to have to significantly cut taxes again in order to remain competitive.

US Senators have blocked the passage of a bill that would have fundamentally overhauled America’s election process.

As I noted in a video a few days ago, the bill, dubbed the “For the People Act,” is anything but for the people. This radical legislation would have dramatically altered how elections are run in our country. Frankly, it boils down to a federal takeover of the election system that we’ve preserved in this nation for the last 200 years.

The bill lost by only one vote, showcasing the intense divide that currently exists in the US Senate.

Here are some of the worst parts of this (now dead) bill:

- It authorizes the IRS to investigate and consider the political and policy positions of nonprofits when these groups apply for tax-exempt status. This would make room for political targeting via taxation. Imagine the chilling effect on speech that would occur if the IRS was constantly staring down non-profits and threatening punishment if the wrong thing is said or the wrong idea is advanced.

-It would eliminate state voter ID laws that verify the identity of voters and strengthen election security. The vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum continue to support voter ID laws.

-It pushes a one-size fits all redistricting model on every state. The bill would strip voters of their ability to decide how districts are drawn. 

-It would force the public to fund candidates running for Congress. Nobody should be forced to fund political campaigns involuntarily.

-It would limit the capacity for states to clean their voter rolls. This bill would have made it even harder to clean up these lists. This makes it more likely that folks who have died, moved away, are ineligible, are noncitizens, or are registered multiple times will be left on voter lists. Why would any official want to make it more difficult for states to have accurate voter lists?

-The bill would have automatically registered any individual who has an interaction with a state agency such as the DMV. To be clear, this does not refer just to eligible citizens. It would have registered every individual no matter if they’re simply a resident or even if they should not be voting. There is absolutely no sensible reason to register those who should not be voting.

-It would require that all states allow for absentee ballots on demand. Furthermore, it allows for ballot harvesting, a process by which campaign officials and other political actors can work to collect absentee ballots. This practice has been widely criticized by folks across the political aisle.

-It would force states to allow for online registration and unaccountable same day registration without oversight.

-Finally, it dramatically restricts the free speech rights of candidates, citizens, and nonprofits by enacting a range of new regulations.

Thankfully, the bill is dead. This is thanks, in part, to the “No” votes of both Senator Roger Wicker and Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

The bill will undoubtedly be reintroduced again. However, its death strikes a major blow at efforts to centralize election control and remake Mississippi’s election laws in the vein of New York or California’s systems.

magnifiercross linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram