Playing in the Southern League championship series wasn’t even enough to boost Biloxi’s continuing flagging attendance at its taxpayer-funded ballpark. 

Average attendance at MGM Park this season was almost half of what was expected by city leaders when the ballpark was in the planning stages.

Attendance at MGM Park has decreased every season since the inaugural one in 2015 and was down 8.3 percent from last year. The Biloxi Shuckers drew 146,845 fans in 63 home games, an average of 2,331 fans per game despite losing in the championship series to the Jackson (Tennessee) Generals. 

The Shuckers are the Class AA affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers and they play in the 10-team Southern League, which includes teams in Pearl (Mississippi Braves); Birmingham; Chattanooga; Mobile; Pensacola; Seiverville, Tennessee; Jackson, Tennessee; Jacksonville and Montgomery, Alabama. 

That’s not what was expected. 

A $25,000 feasibility study commissioned in 2013 by the city of Biloxi predicted the stadium would draw 280,000 fans annually, or about 4,117 per game. That’s 43.4 percent less than what the Shuckers drew this year.

Those numbers would’ve put the Shuckers fifth in attendance in the Southern League this season. This season, the league average was 224,230 fans and 3,392 per game.

Instead the Shuckers finished in front of only the eventual league champions, the Jackson Generals, who drew 107,131 fans to their ballpark (1,756 per game) and a relocating team, the Mobile BayBears (95,087 total attendance for a 1,585 fans per game average).

Birmingham has led the league in attendance since moving to its downtown ballpark, Regions Field in 2013. This year, the team drew 379,707 fans with an average attendance of 5,424. 

Mississippi’s other minor league team, the Mississippi Braves, had an 8.2 percent surge in attendance at Pearl’s Trustmark Park, improving from 151,352 fans in 2018 to 163,841 this season.

The BayBears are relocating to Madison, a suburb of Huntsville, Alabama. The city agreed to pay for a $46 million stadium and a related mixed-use development to lure the team to town. The new team will be named the Rocket City Trash Pandas, a slang term for a raccoon.

Ironically, the Biloxi Shuckers were once the Huntsville Stars before leaving the Rocket City due to low attendance and an aging stadium that was the oldest in the league.

In 2018, the Shuckers had 160,364 fans through the turnstiles, an average of 2,259 per game. The team ranked seventh in the Southern League in average attendance. League averages that year were 226,183 fans and 3,388 per contest. 

The best year for attendance remains 2016, the second season for the Shuckers at MGM Park. The Shuckers drew 180,384 fans through the turnstiles or about 2,692 per game. 

That’s still 34.6 percent fewer fans that the feasibility study predicted.

The city of Biloxi borrowed $21 million to help build the $36 million stadium, which was also funded with BP settlement money and tourism rebate money from a state program. 

Biloxi Baseball LLC could also receive up to $6 million from the state from the Tourism Rebate program. The state also provided $15 million in money from the BP settlement to help build the park.

Two Mississippi Department of Transportation public affairs employees were indicted by a Hinds county grand jury this week on embezzlement charges over gift cards.

Jarrod Ravencraft, 49, was indicted on one count of embezzlement for using $10,000 worth of gift cards owned by MDOT and utilizing them for his own use from June 2017 until March 2018. 

He was hired as MDOT’s Public Affairs director in 2013 and left the agency in July 2018.

Selena Sandifer, 40, was indicted on one count of embezzlement on September 10 for converting $1,000 of gift cards in December 2015 to her own use. Sandifer was a deputy director in the public affairs division and was hired in 2013.

The two could face up to 20 years in prison apiece if convicted.

The gift cards were to be distributed to Mississippi public schools to reward teachers who completed an MDOT safety education program known as the Transportation Safety Education Program that gave grants to schools. 

Participating middle and high schools were required to use at least two transportation safety lesson plans, host several safety events at their schools and participate in training online. The school was also to have at least 60 percent of their students sign the Safe Driver Pledge on the MDOT website.

The safety program covers seat belt use, child safety seats, impaired and distracted driving, speeding, road dangers, safe pedestrian, and biking practices and school safety.

Schools could sign up for the program to receive MDOT funds and up to five teachers or administrators at each participating school could receive a safety leader award, with the Walmart gift cards as a reward. 

MDOT has a budget of $1.105 billion in fiscal 2020, with most of it ($559 million) coming from federal funds. The rest comes from the state’s 18.7 cent per gallon tax on gasoline.

According to an economist, Mississippi is one of the top states nationwide for health care openness and access, but improvements could be made.

Robert Graboyes is an economist who is a senior research fellow with the free market-oriented Mercatus Institute at George Mason University and specializes in the economics of health care. 

The Healthcare Openness and Access Project (HOAP) is a 2018 study that Graboyes co-authored with Dr. Darcy Bryan and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy’s Jared Rhoads. It ranks the states on the flexibility and discretion that patients and providers have in managing health and healthcare. 

Mississippi finished just outside the top 10 among the best states and the District of Columbia at 11th overall, better than Louisiana (12th), Alabama (20th), Tennessee (34th) and Arkansas (37th). Wyoming was ranked best, while New Jersey was the worst.

Where Mississippi fell short in the index was on pharmaceutical access, which measures the difficulty of obtaining certain classes of drugs, including experimental ones. The Magnolia State ranked 41st. The state also was ranked 44th for the number of taxes on healthcare services and devices.

“Mississippi's actually ahead of the curve on telemedicine, as it should be because it’s the perfect state for that,” Graboyes said. 

He said the state’s regulation of medical practice is one of the nation’s least restrictive.

Graboyes said that two ways the state can improve its healthcare access is to allow nurse practitioners to practice without the supervision of a physician and to end the state’s certificate of need regime. 

Certificate of need laws are designed to restrict competition among medical facilities and require that the building of a hospital or even the procurement of some specialized diagnostic equipment be approved by the state Board of Health.  

“It’s hard to find a virtue to it (CONs),” Graboyes said. “It skews resources. Anything that blocks the supply of quality care, whether it be difficult medical licensing or restrictions or requirements such as a nurse practitioner who can’t hang his or her own shingle, is not productive. 

“You have a couple of counties here that have no doctors and you could get a nurse practitioner or two in there who can do an awful lot that a doctor can.”

Graboyes said that one of the ways that healthcare access can improve and costs can fall nationwide in the future is for the industry to end the Progressive-era practice of eschewing business techniques for the healthcare industry. 

He said the 1910 Flexner report, which eliminated proprietary schools and centralized teaching standards at medical schools, is where the concept of medicine as not a business but a social instrument. 

He said the logic of having the healthcare industry run by doctors is the same as having the airlines being run by pilots.

“Of course medicine is a business,” Graboyes said. “It’s life and death, but so are a lot of other things. Where medicine differs from other professions is there is this terrible intimacy. The corporate practice of medicine isolated the medical field from business practices.” 

He used an example of how surgical patients can remember the name of their doctor and his qualification, yet those who traveled on an airplane were unaware of the pilot’s name and how many hours he’d flown in his career.

Graboyes cites the example of a hospital chain in India which performs heart bypass operations at a fraction of the cost such a surgery would be in the United States. That surgery would cost $100,000 in the U.S., but in India, the surgery only costs $1,000. 

Not only is the surgery in India cheaper, it gets results, Graboyes said, that are equal or even better than those in the U.S. or Europe. 

While just a handful of the 19,000 jobs added in Mississippi over the past year have been in government, it still accounts for an unusually high percentage of all jobs in the state. 

According to the July data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of nonfarm payrolls, government accounted for 20.5 percent of all jobs in the state. Or more simply, one out of every five jobs are in government. 

How does this compare to other states?

Well, we’re doing worse than most, especially the states with the strongest economic engines. Among neighboring states, government accounted for 18.6 percent of jobs in Alabama, 16.6 percent in Arkansas, 16.4 percent in Louisiana, and 14.1 percent in Tennessee. 

Mississippi’s numbers are down slightly from July 2018 when government accounted for 20.9 percent of jobs. 

There isn’t a clear distinction between the political leanings of a state, nor is size the deciding factor. But this is part of a trend among the poorest states in the country. In West Virginia, 20.3 of all payrolls were in government. In New Mexico, it’s 22.1 percent. Alaska also had a high number – almost a quarter – but it’s in a unique position. 

Does this really matter?

So, while we are constantly debating and entire campaigns are run on the premise of making government larger, we can simply look at other states and see that is not the path to economic prosperity. 

All government can do is redistribute wealth from one person to another as it chooses, whether that’s a social welfare program or a corporate welfare one. Government only moves money around. It doesn’t create new wealth or build a bigger pie. 

Only the private sector can do that. Individual initiative is the most powerful economic engine we have. Wealth is generated when individuals risk their own resources in hopes of meeting a need in the lives of other people or businesses, and do so in a manner that earns them a profit. That need might take the form of a new product, a more efficient service, or fresh, capital needed by a business to start or expand its operations.

It’s very easy, and very tempting, for any government official to give out tax dollars, get their picture taken, and talk about how much they are doing for you and me because of that new government initiative. 

You don’t get a shovel for reducing regulations, freeing up the healthcare industry, or reforming occupational licensing. But the most helpful thing an elected official can do is be serious about pursuing policies that will make it easier for free enterprise. We’ve seen the results of our elected officials trying to manipulate, organize, and orchestrate the economy.

At the end of the day, to generate sustainable, long-term growth, the only option is to grow the private sector through lower taxes and a lighter regulatory burden. It doesn’t make for a sexy campaign slogan and many people who work in government or depend on government for jobs and contracts won’t like to hear it.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Attorney General Jim Hood has an expensive wish list for K-12 education that could hit taxpayers right in the wallet.

Hood told the Associated Press that he not only wants state-funded pre-kindergarten, but also at least a $3,000 teacher pay hike and full funding for the state’s education funding formula.

Total cost of just those three items could total at least $574.2 million annually and this revenue would either have to come from cuts to other state agencies, tax increases or both.

According to the MDE’s budget request for fiscal 2021, full funding for K-12 education represents about $2.554 billion in general fund revenues. Last year, the legislature appropriated $2.245 billion for K-12 from the general fund, a difference of $332 million. 

Each year, the Mississippi Department of Education uses the MAEP to calculate how much of an appropriation it needs from taxpayers to distribute to local school districts. Fully funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding formula would represent a 23 percent increase in general fund appropriations. 

Hood said that he wanted not only a $3,000 pay increase for teachers phased in over two years, but also percentage increases to the salary raises that most teachers receive every year. 

The legislature passed a $1,500 pay hike in the last session that will cost $76.9 million per year and will have to be fully funded with a deficit appropriation when the legislature returns to session in January. 

A $4,500 pay hike, which includes what the legislature approved last year and Hood is proposing, would cost taxpayers an additional $230.7 million per year once it was completely implemented. 

Pre-Kindergarten, according to Hood, for around 23,000 4-year-olds would cost about $45 million over four years. Several studies have shown that massive spending on pre-K doesn’t guarantee better outcomes for elementary students as compared with those who don’t attend pre-K.

The MAEP amount isn’t legally binding for appropriators, thanks to a 2017 state Supreme Court decision, and it’s only been fully funded twice in the last 20 years. 

The formula consists of average daily attendance times base student cost, plus at-risk component minus local contribution plus 8 percent guarantee. Then, only after add-on programs — transportation, special education, gifted education, vocational education and alternative education — are added to the formula allocation, is the final MAEP funding request calculated.

Put another way, just the increase in K-12 funding alone would exceed the appropriations for:

• Debt service — $385.2 million.
• Corrections — $316.5 million.
• Department of Mental Health — $213.7 million.
• Military, Police and Veterans’ affairs — $120.7 million.

Having one of the nation’s highest gasoline taxes won’t buy taxpayers the best-rated highway system. 

That is according to an analysis that compared gasoline taxes by state and rankings from the Reason Foundation’s recently released annual Highway Report.

None of the top 10 states scored for highway efficiency and cost effectiveness were among the top 10 in the amount of gasoline tax levied on consumers. The top 10 states averaged 25.25 cents in taxes per gallon, just slightly above 24.85 cent per gallon nationwide average from the American Petroleum Institute.

Mississippi has the third lowest gasoline tax nationally (18.79 cents per gallon) and yet its highway efficiency and cost effectiveness was ranked 25th by Reason. 

Out of the five states with the lowest gasoline taxes, only Alaska (49th overall) and Oklahoma (41st overall) were near the bottom.

Conversely, none of the states with the highest gasoline tax scored higher than Mississippi in the overall score, the best being Illinois at 28th. The Land of Lincoln hits motorists with a 54.98 cent tax on every gallon of gasoline.

California has the nation’s highest gasoline tax at 61.20 cents per gallon, yet it only ranked 43rd overall in the Reason Foundation report. Pennsylvania (35th in the report) has the next highest gasoline tax nationally at 58.7 cents per gallon. 

Missouri was ranked third overall and its gasoline tax (17.42 cents per gallon), yet its rural interstate pavement condition was 17th best and it also scored highly for capital and bridge disbursements per mile (second) despite having the seventh-largest state-controlled highway system nationally.

Mississippi was ranked 25th by the Reason Foundation overall, with its score bolstered by high marks for high maintenance disbursements per mile and low urban congestion. 

The Magnolia State’s ranking was dragged down 14 places from last year’s report because of worsening rural interstate pavement condition and a larger number of structurally deficient bridges.

The legislature hasn’t sat on the sidelines, passing the Mississippi Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2018 in last summer’s special session. The bill will send 35 percent of use tax revenues by next year to cities and counties to assist with infrastructure. 

The bill will additionally authorize $300 million in borrowing, with $250 million for the Mississippi Department of Transportation and $50 million for local infrastructure not administered by MDOT.

The other part of the package was the creation of a lottery, the first $80 million in tax revenue annually going to the state highway fund until 2028 and the rest put into the Education Enhancement Fund. Just the highway fund portion alone could add up to $720 million. 

State gasoline taxes are levied in addition to the federal tax of 18.4 cents, which hasn’t been increasedsince 1993.

Mississippi Center for Public Policy joined the National Taxpayers Union and numerous other state, local, and federal organizations in opposing an increase to the Passenger Facility Charge.

The letter reads:

While we are open to solutions to address needs relating to infrastructure, we believe that placing additional financial burdens on the traveling public, without corresponding reductions to other government charges on airfares or reforms to how those charges are levied, would be shortsighted and ill-advised. There are more accountable and better-calibrated options for the future of aviation investment than a massive PFC hike.  

As you know, per limits established by Congress, airports are unable to charge consumers a PFC above $4.50 per enplanement, or $18 per round trip ticket. For a family of four, the collective PFC cost can total more than $70, a significant expense added onto an already expensive ticket price. Government mandated taxes and fees can already account for more than a fifth of a “bargain” domestic ticket price, giving air travel the dubious distinction of being one of the highest-taxed activities in the economy. In fact, it is not unusual for a middle-class American to pay a higher tax burden (over 20 percent) on an airline ticket than on a 1040 tax return. 

Some justify their support for a higher PFC due to inflation, which has eroded its purchasing power. However, according to financial reports from the FAA, consumers paid more than $3.5 billion solely in PFCs, more than double what they paid in 2000, and increased nearly 50 percent faster than inflation. Meanwhile, PFC revenue has climbed each year since 2000, save the two years during the great recession. 

Others argue that despite record amounts of cash on hand at airports, and a recent billion-dollar increase in federal Airport Improvement Grants, a higher PFC will offer flexibility to build more gates and other features that will help smaller carriers to compete with legacy airlines. Yet, the head of the association representing ultra low cost carriers (ULCCs) told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that “[i]ncreasing travel costs by raising the PFC is much more of a threat to passengers’ access to air travel than gate availability at airports across the country. Raising the PFC will drive highly price-sensitive customers away, which is the ULCCs primary market.”

Modernization of the American air transportation system can be done in a fiscally-responsible and free-market fashion that does not result in higher ticket prices on consumers. Congress has many options to achieve such a goal, such as reforms to the Air Traffic Control system and the Anti-Head Tax Act of 1973 to make the PFC a truly accountable user fee collected directly by airports. At the same time, public officials should examine remaining impediments to private management of airports; for example, long-term leasing arrangements to private entities are more prevalent in Europe.

Instead of pursuing avenues to squeeze travelers, lawmakers should be doing everything in their power to limit consumer burdens. We stand ready to help deliver reforms that will strengthen passenger air travel, and with it the entire American economy.

Sincerely,

Expanding Medicaid bears a large fiscal cost, as evidenced by the experience of Indiana.

Indiana’s general fund budget grew overall by 13.33 percent or about two billion dollars from 2014 to 2021. 

The biggest driver in the increase was the expansion of Medicaid in 2015 in Indiana under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, for able-bodied working adults up to 138 percent of the poverty level.

General fund spending on Medicaid in the Hoosier State increased by 26.9 percent, growing from $1.98 billion in 2014 to $2.7 billion in the 2021 budget. 

Medicaid went from 13.7 percent of the state’s general fund budget in the 2014 and 2014 budget cycles to 14.8 percent in the 2020 and 2021 budgets.

In 2013, the Hoosier State had 1,120,674 enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. By July 2019, that number swelled to 1,421,594, an increase of 26.85 percent or a difference of more than 300,000.

Indiana taxpayers will spend more than $5.2 billion combined in general fund revenue and nearly $3.7 billion in dedicated (non-general) funds on Medicaid for the 2019 and 2020 budgets. Federal taxpayers will add more than $21.4 billion.

In 2014 and 2015, Hoosier State taxpayers spent $4.13 billion in combined general fund revenue and $1.34 billion in dedicated funds on Medicaid. Federal funds added up to $12.9 billion pre-expansion. 

Indiana’s legislature, the General Assembly, passes a biennial, consolidated budget, one of 15 states with an annual legislative session and a biennial budgetary process.

K-12 education, the biggest line item in general fund revenues for Indiana, increased nearly 13 percent during that same period while its share of the biennial budget decreased from 45.5 percent to 44.8 percent. 

Medicaid spending in Mississippi will add up to more than $931 million from state taxpayers and nearly $4.94 billion in federal funds for a total of $6.3 billion for fiscal 2020, which started on July 1. 

Increasing general fund spending on Medicaid by the same percentage as Indiana (26.9 percent) would add up to $1.18 billion, an increase of more than $250 million. 

That’s more than the spending for the state Department of Mental Health ($213 million), public safety, military and veterans’ affairs ($114 million) or agriculture and economic development (more than $111 million).

Eight of the 31 states that have expanded Medicaid have received waivers to modify the terms of their expansion that can include a work requirement, small premiums or tobacco cessation provisions. 

Indiana also requires some cost-sharing in the form of small premiums based on a recipient’s income level. If a Medicaid recipient doesn’t pay their premiums after a 60-day grace period, they’re removed from the program and have to wait six months to re-enroll.

In 2017, Indiana received a waiver from the Trump administration for a work requirement program for Medicaid recipients that would require them to either work, attend job training or other schooling or volunteer. 

As part of their waiver, the Hoosier State also added a tobacco cessation program that requires participation for tobacco users on Medicaid. Those tobacco-using Medicaid recipients who don’t participate are hit with a premium surcharge.

According to an analysis of data by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the special sales tax that supports the Jackson Convention Center has raised more than $23 million over the past five years.

Yet the convention center has lost more than $4.9 million during the same timeframe, according to annual reports issued by the center and needs more money to keep the lights on and employees working.

Tuesday, the Jackson City Council tabled until their next meeting a proposal that would’ve given the struggling facility $131,000 from the city’s general funds to cover the facility’s bills until September 30. The next city council meeting is September 17.

The city’s tourism promotion agency, Visit Jackson, has already contributed $450,000 to the convention center’s operating funds this year. Visit Jackson is supported by a 1 percent tax on food in the city limits.

“We need to assure that the doors aren’t closed and that those who have already booked the convention center have a functioning staff, willing, ready and able to support their events,” Jackson Mayor Antar Lumumba said at the council meeting. 

The center’s website lists nine events through October.

He also proposed that the city do a new request for proposals from management companies to see if another group can get the convention center’s bottom line out of the red. At present, the center is managed by SMG.

The idea of spending city funds to bail out what was supposed to be a $66 million economic engine annually for the city didn’t sit well with some on the council.

“I don’t think we should have to make an emergency decision to dispense $130,000 without a presentation from the people asking for the money, talking about their business model and why there’s a shortfall of $130,000 so we can understand and get a sense of whether there are issues with the organization itself,” said City Councilman Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1. 

“We can’t sit here and be an ATM for people coming in and saying ‘I need another $130,000.’”

According to the 2017 report, the center’s number of events and attendance fell from 2016. There were 207 event days in 2017, versus 293 in 2017. The number of visitors declined by 182,124 in 2016 to 131,910 in 2016.

SMG also manages the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and Lumumba said their approach might not fit Jackson’s needs.

“If we were confident that their (SMG) business model was the best business model, we wouldn’t be doing that (issuing an RFP),” Lumumba said. “They’re not profitable, but you do this to assure heads and beds in your hotels. Most convention centers break even.”

The Morial Convention Center lost $36,275 in operating revenues in 2018, $31,450 in 2017 and $29,925 in 2016, but it attracted 739,161 visitors in 2017 and generated an economic impact of $2.3 billion.

Jackson’s convention center was credited for $18.7 million in direct and indirect spending in 2017, a far cry from the $66 million in economic impact that supporters of building the convention center cited as a reason to spend taxpayer dollars on the facility, which still doesn’t have an attached hotel.

The sales tax for the convention center is one of three levied in the Jackson city limits. The convention center levy is a one percent tax on restaurants, a three percent tax on sales of hotels and a $2 tax on every rental car.

The sales tax to fund construction and operation of the $65 million convention center was authorized by House Bill 1832, which was passed in the 2004 session. The convention center opened in 2009.