Lord Protector James Tiberius Hood issued the following press release.
Attorney General Jim Hood delivered a $36,481,061.22 check to the Mississippi state general fund Tuesday that included settlement monies recently collected and recommended using the money for funding and expanding early childhood education statewide.
The nine settlements mostly include data breach, antitrust and other consumer protection cases. The money is placed into the state’s general fund and appropriated by the Legislature; however, General Hood is required by state law (Mississippi Code Section 7-5-63), to make recommendations to the legislative leadership on how the money should be spent.
In the attached letter to legislative leadership, General Hood recommended the money be spent on quality early childhood education programs, including fully funding and expanding the Early Learning Collaboratives Program (ELCs), a quality, state-funded pre-k program already in place. However, in the current school year, there are only 19 ELCs across the state serving under 3,000 four-year-old students.
“We already have a quality, state-funded pre-k program in place,” General Hood said. “Unfortunately, our Lt. Governor has failed to fund this program at the full amount allowed by state law every year. We should be investing in more students to attend ELCs across the state. Investing in quality early childhood education programs is fundamental to long-term economic success. In education, our state trails almost every other. We must start our children reading earlier by providing four-year-old kindergarten statewide.”
In the 2018-19 school year, only about 36% of incoming kindergarteners achieved the target score on the kindergarten readiness assessment. However, students in state-funded pre-k programs scored much better, with ¾ scoring above the readiness benchmark.
General Hood proposes allocating the full $36.4 million to fully fund the program that the ELC Act allows, which costs $33.95 million per year. “After that, I’d like the legislature to expand the program, using the remaining $2.58 million as a starting point,” General Hood said. “If we start to fully fund and expand this program, we can provide a state-funded pre-k classroom for every four-year-old not already served by another early learning program. This is essential for better preparing children for kindergarten and traditional K-12 school.”
“The money I’ve sent over to the Legislature is extra money they now have to spend on one of the most critical programs in our state that hasn’t been prioritized under current legislative leadership,” General Hood said. “I sincerely hope the Legislature will carefully consider how this money is dispersed and remember the positive impacts these quality early childhood programs have on our children, families, and Mississippi’s future. There should be nothing partisan about meeting the needs of our children across the state.”
31 comments:
Hood shoots blanks.
Panderer-in-chief
Zat before or after the lawyers cut?
Hello darlin....
These settlements "mostly include data breach, antitrust and other consumer protection cases." What a load of bull!! If you look at the detailed listing, you'll see that $31 million of the $36 million represented in these settlements involve Fresenius and GlaxoSmithKline. These were either DOJ or National Medicaid Fraud Control Unit settlements where the AG's Office was nothing more than a tag-along party with no substantive work involved in the actual recoveries. Makes about as much sense to tout these as to pat yourself on the back for receiving a rebate, as if you had anything to do with generating the rebate.
Waits until a week before the election to turn the money over to the general fund
Suddenly becomes a mighty hunter and defender of the second amendment
Hood will use any and all means available to try to blow smoke up your Azz!
Just say NO to democrats!
that Equifax thing stinks. follow the $
Most of this money ($31 million of the $36 million) came from two settlements: one with Fresenius and one with GlaxoSmithKline. Those have nothing to do with consumer protection or anything else that the AG's Office was directly involved in, but were more than likely either DOJ settlements or National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units settlements in which the AG's Office was simply a tag-along and did no substantive work on the cases.
I'm no fan of Jim Hood, but $36 Million recovered for the tax payers is more than the State had before it hit the general fund. So this time, I say BRAVO. Now, lets see how fast the State of Mississippi can waste this money on crap projects, etc.
He wants to put the money into kindergartens ELC Act whatever that is and then next year the legislature has to fund it. You know what happens when you start a program, we have to fund it every year after that. Lets at a minimum pave some roads. I may be the only one saying this but put 5 cents on the gas and put it strictly to paving, nothing else.
Hood gets "us" some money...lemme know when they put that check in the mail. All this will do is start another program (or progrum for you folks in NE Mississippi) with one-time money which will need to be funded EVERY year...
Kindergarden, Pre-school, Pre-K, and Headstart ARE BABY-SITTING SERVICES!
Use the money to hire and retain quality teachers and quit pandering for votes by taking credit for the work of others, bitch!
Tater tots out in...well dribbles it seems.
Hood got $$$$ for the state from companies which defrauded the govt.
That’s a plus in my book
Go get em Jim
Looks like 3:48 has it right. The greatest part of this by far is money where Hood did almost nothing to get it. But no matter where it came from, he then has the Gall to tell the legislature how to spend it. If you were in business and hired a collection agency to shake loose some money that was owed to you, how would you react when the collection agency tried to tell you how to spend this money they had collected?
Hood exhibited more leadership in suggesting where to spend this than Tate has in eight years of running the Senate. In reality, Tater only does what Barbour tells him to do.
Conway claims he can skin a buck and run a trout line . . .
But I doubt it.
9:07, it's a "trotline", not a trout line. You are obviously not a country boy and therefore are more like Tater in that both of you haven't got sense enough to survive in the real world.
You know who can’t skin a buck or run a trot line?
Tate
Tate can’t cross traffic without a 2 mm state paid frontage road out of his $750k gated neighborhood he lives in ...and he’s never had a job that pays more than $120k a year.
Tate’s terrible
"Kindergarden, Pre-school, Pre-K, and Headstart ARE BABY-SITTING SERVICES!"
This could be the dumbest words ever spoken on the JJ comments section... and friends? That's truly saying something.
If you want to keep poor kids out of prison, send them to a quality Pre-K and Kindergarten. Headstart is a bit dubious, but the collaboratives that the state is pushing is done in concert with Headstart, usually on a public school campus. The standards are much, much higher... and the outcomes for students who attend these programs are demonstrably better.
Kids who show up to Kindergarten (wait, you said Kindergarten is babysitting... got it) -- Kids who show up to 1st grade and they don't have the basic skills to learn to read or know their freaking colors? Doomed for life. Statistically, the odds of them reading on grade level by grade 3 (a benchmark directly tied to future prison populations) are terrible.
Why don't you keep to topics you actually know something about like... cheetos... or dating your sister.
"But no matter where it came from, he then has the Gall to tell the legislature how to spend it."
If you read the article, you'd see he's required by law to make suggestions.
It's not gall. It's compliance with the law.
@8:46 am makes an argument for outright removing infants and toddlers from their parents.
Governor Barbour calls this 'jackpot'. Its being an advocate.
Umm, the person at 8:59 needs to read the law. Here's what it says:
"The attorney general shall make reports at the beginning of each regular session of the legislature, of the condition of the public service as administered in his office and under his supervision; and he shall, as a part of his reports, make any recommendation that he may deem proper for the improvement of the service. Not later than the first week of each regular session, he shall file a complete report with the legislature of all moneys received and disbursed by him during the year."
He is "required" to make reports about improvements to the public service provided by his office, not to tell the Legislature how to spend the money he recoups in his role as the State Attorney General. And, uh, since when did the last week of October become "the first week of each regular session," which is when he is supposed to report on money received and disbursed?
The way most of these work is there are a group of state AGs who decide to join together and bring a multi-state action. To say Hood didn't do anything is not accurate. He has to agree for Ms to be part of the mutli state action. If your GOB do nothings like Mark Baker and Tater call the shots, Ms isn't going to join in those and we give up free money.
Bubba Hood doesn't expect them Chickasaw County deer hunting white Bubbas he desperately needs for election to look that closely 1:41. He thinks their dumb white Bubba asses will just take his Bubba Hood word for it.
Good LORD Hood's latest ad is his more inane one yet.
1:41 pm
Great points Tate
Back to riding in your black suv with roscoe Coltrane by your side...and flash
No later than.
You know what that means right @1:41?
That’s the last possible time and date. He can do it incrementally if he wants.
You ‘out lawyered” yourself.
We voted absentee today for Gov-elect Tate. Move along, nothing to see.
And just yesterday Bubba Hood told the Mississippi Economic Council's Hob-Knob audience that his medicaid expansion decree will bring a quick Billion Dollars into the Mississippi economy.
General Hood is all for 4-K funds and implementation while ignoring the utter failed disaster Head Start has been for five decades. Or is it seven?
4:57 am
He’s right
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