[During that time, Mississippi’s health industry experienced
significant turmoil.]
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GOV. REEVES MUM ON HEALTH CARE MEETINGS, CLAIMS NO DOCUMENTS EXIST  
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Devna Bose
December 6, 2023
Mississippi Today
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_ During that time, Mississippi’s health industry experienced
significant turmoil. _

Mississippi Governor Jonathan Tate Reeves, Wikipedia

 

As the state’s hospital crisis continues, Gov. Tate Reeves has held
meetings on health care, but his office refuses to say what they're
about.

His staffers also claim there are no official documents for those
meetings, despite internal correspondence that indicates otherwise and
despite Reeves proposing detailed health policy changes.

Several experts, including a former governor, say the lack of
documentation for meetings and the lack of detail on Reeves’
calendar is unusual. One national expert called it "bad practice.”

Reeves appears to have attended meetings in the Governor’s Mansion
from May to August on topics ranging from “Medicaid Policies”
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to “Healthcare Industry Issues” and “Healthcare Policies,”
Mississippi Today discovered through a records request of the
governor’s calendar. 

During that time, Mississippi’s health industry experienced
significant turmoil. The state Medicaid division disenrolled thousands
of beneficiaries
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while hospitals struggled
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One hospital closed
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while several others shuttered departments
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and applied to close their inpatient beds
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because of financial difficulties
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Amid the upheaval, it’s not clear exactly what happened in those
meetings, nor who attended. Reeves’ calendar only shows the time,
date and place for most meetings, and if his calendar lists the
meeting topic, it usually doesn't list with whom he met. His
spokesperson, Shelby Wilcher, did not respond to multiple emails
asking who attended those health care meetings and details about the
topics. 

When Mississippi Today requested official documents from the meetings,
Reeves’ office claimed that, aside from a few email threads about
scheduling, no notes or documents were used in or produced from the
meetings. 

One of the email threads produced as a result of the request revealed
that the governor requires a briefing document that includes
information about meeting attendees and the topic to be discussed
before all of his meetings.

“For all meetings with him, we need to provide a briefing document
beforehand,” Reeves’ scheduler Barrie Nelson said in one thread.
“Can you please get me some information so I can make sure we have
our ducks in a row?”

However, when Mississippi Today followed up by requesting briefing
documents for those meetings about health care, Reeves’ office
claimed that those, too, did not exist. 

The state Public Records Act defines a public record as documentary
materials used "in the conduct, transaction or performance of any
business, transaction, work, duty or function of any public body."
That means if those briefing documents exist, they would theoretically
be considered a public record. 

John Pelissero, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center
for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, was confused about the
discrepancy regarding “briefing documents.”

“It's striking, because you have emails that showed that they were
expected to produce documents in order to have the meeting with the
governor,” he said. “Even if they're not hiding it, even if
they're trying to be transparent, they don't appear to be transparent.
When you create the perception there is something irregular … then
you've created an ethical issue for yourself because the governor's
office is eroding trust among the public.”

He went on to say that that strategy directly works against the
governor’s interest, and that it’s critical for the public to know
if any public business was discussed in those meetings or if decisions
were made in them that would affect people.

“The thing about being governor is that you're typically going to be
more effective if you're transparent,” Pelissero said. “The public
that chose that individual to be the governor has the expectation that
the governor is going to be acting on those things that the governor
campaigned for as the candidate, and so there's sort of a duty to your
voters to demonstrate to them that you are, in fact, working on those
things that you campaigned for.”

According to Ronnie Musgrove, who served as governor from 2000 to
2004, his calendar showed more detail. It included, in most cases,
both whom Musgrove met with and an overview of the meeting topic. 

Powerpoints and paper documents were common at most meetings when
Musgrove was governor, he said, and a copy of those would have been
provided to his office. 

“Of course, I cannot say as to what the reasons are that they are
not producing information, but if the information exists, it certainly
should be produced,” he said. “Maybe (Reeves) thinks that showing
his hand early on might produce some difficult discussions, but
anything in health care is going to produce a lot of discussion.”

Musgrove conceded that there were occasions he remained tight-lipped
about certain projects, but that was only when it would be “damaging
if the details were known publicly,” he said. 

“Being governor is an elected position, and it is one that's being
paid for by the taxpayers,” he said. “I believe that the people
are entitled to know what the potential policies are and some of the
details about them, especially before they go into effect.”

Former Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican who served from 2012 to 2020,
declined an interview. 

Tom Hood, the Mississippi Ethics Commission’s executive director,
said the commission’s ability to look into public records issues is
“very limited." Only after a records complaint is filed can the
commission make a determination, he said.

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

_DEVNA BOSE, a Neshoba County native, covers community health. She is
a 2019 graduate of the University of Mississippi, where she studied
print journalism and was a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale
Honors College. Before joining Mississippi Today, Devna reported on
education at Chalkbeat Newark and at the Post and Courier’s
Education Lab, and on race and social justice at the Charlotte
Observer. Her work has appeared in the Hechinger Report, the
Star-Ledger and the Associated Press, and she has appeared on WNYC to
discuss her reporting. Devna has been awarded for her coverage of K-12
education in the Carolinas._

_About MISSISSIPPI TODAY_

_We believe that an informed Mississippi is a better Mississippi. We
center readers in everything we do, informing–and
engaging–Mississippians through reporting, podcasts, events and
online communities._

_Founded in 2016 as the state’s first nonprofit, nonpartisan
newsroom, MISSISSIPPI TODAY’S roots in Capitol coverage have grown
to encompass a myriad of beats beyond politics and policy, including
education, public health, justice, environment, equity, and, yes,
sports._

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* open meetings
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* public records
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