Showing posts with label Steve Wilson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Wilson. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

78 percent of Mississippi voters favor school choice

[]Steve Wilson - Mississippi Watchdog


In a recent poll commissioned by pro-school choice group Empower Mississippi, registered voters in Mississippi overwhelmingly supported school choice.

The poll completed by Virginia-based On Message Inc. found that 78 percent of the 800 likely voters surveyed said they supported school choice, with 83 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats in favor.

The poll also found that 69 percent of respondents would support a pro-school choice candidate, 57 percent favored charter schools, 56 percent favored the educational savings account program that is now available only to parents with special needs children and 58 percent support expanding it for all parents.

Grant Callen, president and founder of Empower Mississippi, said the poll reflected his view that a silent majority of Mississippians favored school choice.
“The most compelling thing to me was the diversity,” Callen said. “Show me another issue where it’s across party lines. African-Americans support it by 73 percent.

“Most political issues, like abortion, gay marriage and guns, you name it, controversial issues, you’ll see Republicans very supportive and Democrats very opposed. And then you flip them on another issue. This one is not like that. It’s not a partisan issue.”

When asked to assign an overall letter grade to Mississippi public schools, 57 percent of respondents gave them a grade of C or worse. Forty-four percent of participants graded their local schools as C or worse.
Callen said his organization has several key goals for the legislative session, including expansion of the state’s fledgling ESA program, allowing students to cross district lines to attend charter schools in other districts and appointed rather than elected school superintendents.

While the vote on the ESA legislation passed last year was a tight one, the poll might convince skeptical legislators that a vote for school choice might be in their electoral interest. Empower’s political action committee helped defeat four anti-school choice legislators in DeSoto County in last year’s GOP primary. The poll showed why the four were defeated, as 73 percent surveyed in the Memphis media market (where DeSoto County is located) said they’d favor a pro-school choice candidate.

“Anecdotally, we’ve always known there’s been support (for school choice),” Callen said. “Once you get beyond the education establishment, superintendents, principals and administrators, it’s undeniable. We’ve known it from talking to parents for years, but the poll proved it. It helps encourage legislators that it’s not as controversial as previously thought.”

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MEME REPORT:
PAUL RYAN?

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Wilson: FEMA wants a Katrina refund from Gulfport

[]Steve Wilson - Mississippi Watchdog

 
The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave the city of Gulfport, Miss., more than $248 million to help it recover from Hurricane Katrina. Now the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general wants some of that back, asking for more than $4.2 million to be returned to the Treasury because the city did not comply with federal procurement guidelines.
According to Arlen Morales, a spokesman for the DHS Office of the Inspector General, the city can choose to appeal the decision before FEMA officials or go before an arbitration board.
City spokesman Chris Vignes said the city has responded to the inspector general’s report and awaits a reply from FEMA.

The IG report says city officials awarded more than $10 million in contracts for repair to the city’s water and sewer systems damaged by the 2005 storm solely on qualifications, without regard to price. Homeland Security wants $3.8 million of that money back because the amount paid to the contractor for project management was 9.3 percent of construction costs, which is nearly double what is allowed under federal regulations, which specify that firms can charge no more than 5 percent of construction costs for “non A/E [architectural/engineering] professional services such as project management.”
Originally, the firm that handled the job quoted a project management price that was 5.1 percent of the construction costs. But while construction costs jumped from $78 million to $88 million (an increase of 12.8 percent), project management costs more than doubled, from $4 million to more than $8.2 million. FEMA defines project management as work-site inspection, review and approval of materials, shop drawings and change orders, review of contractors’ request for payment and representation of the client.

In addition, the report says $400,800 spent on repairing the city’s small-craft harbor and lighthouse was an overcharge as well, with the contractor charging 6.1 percent of construction costs on project management.
The city mentioned a similar amount as far back as its 2013 budget, when it cited $4 million in “FEMA ineligible funded projects” that would have to be paid from the city’s general fund or with the issuance of additional debt.
This isn’t the first time FEMA has asked for some of its money back with Gulfport. In 2013, the city had to pay back $8.5 million for issues with contracts for emergency cleanup after Katrina.

 Morales said that while the inspector general’s office is still looking into several Gulf Coast grant recipients, the agency had no more audits planned for Gulfport or any other city in the region on disaster relief funds.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Haley Barbour Boondoggle: Mississippi Power uses ads to persuade public on Kemper Project

Kemper Project has, at least, made Haley Barbour money. For the rest of the state; not so much. In fact the initial projected cost of Kemper has risen a couple times, and Mississippi Power said they had to raise energy rates on their customers. 

 

[c]Steve Wilson; Mississippi Watchdog


Mississippi Power is trying desperately to shift the tide of public opinion about the Kemper Project integrated gasification power plant as it hopes to get a rehearing in front of the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Full-page ads in the Biloxi Sun-Herald and Jackson Clarion-Ledger and a radio spot running on Mississippi radio stations extol the virtues of the $6.206 billion plant, which is two years behind schedule and billions over budget.

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in February that Mississippi Power must issue refunds on a 18 percent rate increase to fund Kemper’s construction because the Mississippi Public Service Commission hasn’t ruled yet on whether costs incurred for construction are justified. The company has asked the Court for a rehearing, along with the PSC.

The Mississippi radio spot invites listeners to “look at that facts.” Watchdog.org took a look and found several to be skirting with reality.

  • “Kemper was ordered to be built by the Mississippi Public Service Commission after extensive hearings regarding the needs of Mississippi Power customers.”

Jackson attorney Robert Wise, who practices in front of the PSC, said Mississippi Power’s view on the PSC’s order is not exactly accurate.

“What the Commission did was grant them permission to build Kemper,” Wise said. “That gave them the go-ahead, but I don’t believe that they were ordered to build Kemper, come what may. They always retained the discretion to stop and inform the Commission that the plant had become unprofitable.”

Wise cited the example of Entergy’s plans to build a second reactor at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant in western Mississippi in the early 1980s. Even though the PSC was set to approve the plant via order, the company decided not to build the new reactor.

  • Kemper is bringing jobs, growth and progress to south Mississippi”

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Wilson: Term limits could have unintended consequences for Mississippi Legislature

By Steve Wilson | Mississippi Watchdog

Mississippi legislators and other officer holders could be limited to two consecutive four-year terms, like the governor and lieutenant governor.

Problem is, good legislators — as well as the bad — would be cast out by the ballot initiative, filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office by Keith Plunkett, the policy and communications director for state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s United Conservatives Fund.

The initiative is proposed to stem the power of incumbency and end the corruption instituted by career politicians. To summarize — throw the bums out and their waste, fraud and abuse with it.
Plunkett told Mississippi Watchdog the biggest reason for filing for a ballot initiative was to get the public more involved in the political process. Incumbents are able to raise huge war chests with ease, and it often has a chilling effect on potential challengers by ending the battle before it begins.

“It’s about getting the public to re-engage and actually have access to the machine of government as it functions in the Legislature,” Plunkett said. “Elections will become more about policy rather than personality or the guy with the coolest logo. It becomes much, much more about policy.”

Nathan Shrader is an assistant professor of political science at Millsaps College who served as a legislative aide in both the Pennsylvania Senate and the Virginia General Assembly.
Term limits can have serious, unintended consequences, he says.
“I don’t think this is the panacea that a lot of reformers think that it would be,” Shrader said. He cited the book “Term Limits and The Dismantling of State Legislature Professionalism,” from 2005 by Thad Kousser.

Shrader said some of those consequences in three states — California, Colorado and Maine — studied by Kousser included a power shift to the executive branch, a big gain of strength of party leadership in the legislatures over their caucuses and the need for legislatures to hire more staff to deal with inexperienced lawmakers.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Some Mississippi state-owned parks ban guns despite open carry law

By Steve Wilson | Mississippi Watchdog


“Don’t take your guns to town,” a mother warns her son in a song by Johnny Cash.
A move by the state-owned Pat Harrison Waterway District, which manages several parks in the Pascagoula River basin, builds on that theme.
Don’t take your guns to our park, either.

Allen Wright is parks director for the Waterway District. The district’s board of directors, he says, has maintained a no-gun policy for several years now.

“Right now, it’s policy that weapons aren’t allowed in the parks,” Wright said. “To allow someone to carry one on their hip and walk around the park with it, no, that’s just a recipe for disaster, in my opinion.”
Senate Bill 2862, signed by Gov. Phil Bryant in 2010, changed Mississippi law to allow people to carry guns in parks. The law removed the prohibition in Mississippi Code pertaining to guns in parks, except in the case of political rallies, athletic events not involving firearms or concerts. House Bill 2, passed in 2013 and upheld by the Mississippi Supreme Court, allowed gun owners to legally carry their weapons in the open with a few restrictions.

State Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, said the Pat Harrison Waterway District isn’t complying with state law, which doesn’t include parks as one of the protected areas — such as courthouses, police stations and jails — where open and concealed carry of firearms aren’t allowed. He said state law, which allows anyone older than 18 to carry a concealed weapon in their car or truck, trumps any restriction by the district board.
House Bill 314, which was passed last year and was signed by Bryant, restricts the rights of counties and municipalities to pass restrictive ordinances on firearms and creates an appeal process, handled by the state attorney general’s office. The problem, Gipson said, is that HB 314 doesn’t cover state entities like the Pat Harrison Waterway District, and he may consider addressing that in next year’s legislative session.
“A concealed carry license holder should be able to have their firearm concealed, open or however they want to carry it in a public park,” Gipson told Mississippi Watchdog. “With all of those statutes, I don’t see any authority for any state board or district to ban the carrying of firearms for people to protect themselves and their families.”