The Jackson water and sewer system will be getting new leadership, regionalizing almost four years after the water system collapsed completely in late 2022. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed the Metro Jackson Water Authority Act on April 8, beginning a process to establish a board that will control the system, removing authority from the city’s public works department.
Most of the reaction to the finalized bill has focused on the Legislature’s dilution of the city’s control over the new utility. The tepid support for the new utility that city officials and advocates initially expressed evaporated in the face of the new board structure.
“Jackson should not be asked to carry the greatest risk without having the authority to govern the assets it owns,” Jackson Mayor John Horhn said in a statement upon the bill’s passage. “We will continue working with our city leaders, state and federal officials, and other partners toward a solution that is fair, workable, and centered on accountability. Jackson should be able to govern its own resources.”
The new bill alters the proposed board structure as follows:
- Mayor of Jackson → Member appointed by Mayor of Jackson
- Member appointed by mayor of Jackson → Member appointed by mayor of Jackson
- Member appointed by mayor of Jackson → Member appointed by mayor of Jackson
- Member appointed by governor → Member appointed by governor
- Member appointed by governor → Member appointed by governor
- Member appointed by lieutenant governor → Member appointed by lieutenant governor
- President of Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce → Member appointed by governor, in consultation with mayor of Jackson
- Member appointed by mayor of Byram, confirmed by Jackson City Council → Member appointed by mayor of Byram, confirmed by Byram Board of Aldermen
- Member appointed by mayor of Ridgeland, confirmed by Jackson City Council → Member appointed by mayor of Ridgeland, confirmed by Ridgeland Board of Aldermen
Jackson’s mayor will now be on the board as a non-voting member. The new structure gives Byram and Ridgeland, whose residents also rely on the Jackson water system, full authority over their own board member appointments. It’s a change that the City of Jackson opposed in a statement released upon the bill’s passage.
“Municipal customers such as Byram and Ridgeland would have representation on the board while not carrying the same responsibility for the debt and financial risks tied to the system,” Nic Lott, director of communications for the Jackson mayor’s office, said in a press statement on March 31. “That imbalance is a central reason the City had urged a board structure that gave Jackson a majority role in appointing members.”
But Ted Henifin, the federally appointed manager of the water and sewer system, stressed in his initial opposition to the bill that the precise makeup of the new entity’s leadership is less significant than the laws that bind its structure and operation. Subtle changes to the bill have dramatically altered just how it will operate.
The all-important question of rate increases, one of the key issues undergirding the Jackson Water Crisis as a whole, was left up to a three-fourths majority of the board in the original bill. With the board having nine members total, that would have meant the capital city mayor’s three-member voting bloc would have possessed ironclad veto power over rate hikes as well as any large expenditures.
Now, the new law dilutes the necessary majority for such decisions to two-thirds, meaning the mayor’s appointments would be insufficient to block rate increases or major expenditures. Even more significantly, independent rate studies are now mandatory for the utility. An external firm will analyze the system for the necessity of rate increases every two years. Two consecutive recommendations for an increase will require the utility to adopt a rate hike, unless the utility raises rates on its own in that period.
That decision means that rate increases can only be delayed for a maximum of four years in the presence of verifiable need, and notably that no one individual politician or administration will shoulder the blame for politically unpopular increases in water costs. However, the bill fails to specify the nature of the mandatory rate increase—meaning the utility could potentially evade a meaningful rate increase by instituting a vanishingly small one instead.
The lease of the city’s physical assets, too, is up to the city to pursue. In an interview with WLBT, the bill’s author, Mississippi House Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson, said that the city was under no obligation to actually confirm a lease, meaning the city could hypothetically stall the implementation of the authority.
“The ball is literally in the city’s court to get the lease agreement nailed down and entered into,” Yates told the outlet.
But acceding to the new utility would transfer the city’s considerable water and sewer bond debt—well over $100 million—to the new utility, significantly reducing the city’s debt burden.
For now, the Jackson water system remains under the authority of JXN Water Interim Manager Ted Henifin and Judge Henry T. Wingate, the federal judge who appointed him.
