Group addressed various crucial issues
A “Labor Force Participation Study Group” session was held at Delta State University on Tuesday afternoon, October 24, in the President’s Conference Room in Kent Hall, continuing the following morning.
The group, which was brought together by Ten One Strategies — a Jackson-based organization which represents several Cleveland interests, including DSU —featured talks by State Superintendent of Education, Dr. Lance Evans; Delta Council Executive Director, Frank Howell; Delta Health Alliance Chief Executive Officer and President, Karen Hughes; Port of Rosedale Director, Robert Maxwell and South Delta Planning and Development District Director, Mitzi Woods. Mississippi Senator Daniel Sparks (R), representing District 5. who also spoke at the session, made the decision to bring the committee meeting to the Delta.
The purpose of the session was a result of Senator Sparks being empowered by Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann to further research and disseminate Mississippi’s labor force participation rate, specifically how low it is relative to other states. All speakers addressed that issue from their particular perspectives and offered policy recommendations to possibly correct the problem.
“Senator Sparks called me and asked us to coordinate all of the local logistics, since we work with several clients in Cleveland and the Delta,” said John Morgan Roberts, the Managing Partner of the management and lobbying organization Ten One Strategies. “Dr. Michelle Roberts at DSU also helped greatly in organizing the meeting. Senator Sparks picked the five speakers he wanted to specifically hear from and then invitations were extended.”
Attendees included DSU President Dr. Daniel Ennis, several local members of the legislature such as Senator Serita Simmons, as well as some university students. The session was broadcast live across the state via a Zoom link from DSU’s IT Department for those who could not attend.
“I learned a great deal,” said Hughes. “Dr. Evans did a thorough job in outlining some of the challenges facing our raising the state’s labor participation level as well as the work being done in our schools, beginning as early as kindergarten and moving all the way up to 12th grade. He talked about Career Technical Education (CTE) training and the work being done in that area. Personally, I didn’t realize there was that much pro-activity in training at such an early stage of a student’s development.”
Hughes said a surprising and shocking takeaway for him at the session was Frank Howell’s sharing of the statistic that 12 percent of Delta households don’t have transportation, actual or dependable, to even be able to get to work.
“Frank also paraphrased the oft-used quote by the late Delta senator Charlie Capps, in which Capps stated the Delta does everything else the rest of the state does in terms of workforce training and economic development, but that it’s not enough due to the region’s history and sole reliance on agriculture,” noted Hughes.
Senator Sparks, previously assigned as Chairman of the Economic Workforce Development Committee by Lt. Gov. Hosermann, was also placed — over the summer after the legislative session — on its Select Committee to address the state’s labor force participation rate.
“There are 13 of us in this Select Committee, all of whom are chairs of particular areas of business and industry-driven arenas,” said Sparks, who was born in Cleveland. “We held our first meetings in Jackson, bringing in a variety of experts — including Institute of Higher Learning members — but this recent event at Delta State was our first outside of the capital city.
“We often talk ‘about’ the Delta but don’t talk ‘to’ the Delta nearly enough,” observed Sparks. “This session was a way to remedy that and learn more specifics about the problems in the region and how we might possibly go about addressing them in the future with legislation.”