Miss. lawmaker ties prison spending increase to health contract bids

Mississippi lawmakers are considering more than $480 million for the Department of Corrections next fiscal year, an increase of about $12 million driven largely by a rising medical contract and higher payments to private prisons, House Corrections Chairwoman Becky Currie said Thursday.

The largest portion of the proposed corrections budget goes to a prison medical contract held by Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies. Currie said the contract amount rises from $124 million to $128 million this year and is scheduled to increase to $133 million next year.

Currie has criticized VitalCore, and Mississippi Today reported the company was awarded more than $315 million in emergency, no-bid state contracts from 2020 to 2024. Mississippi Today also reported that VitalCore has faced legal challenges and allegations of routinely denying or providing inadequate care inside state prisons.

On the House floor, Currie successfully added an amendment that would condition the department’s central office spending on the Mississippi Department of Corrections conducting a request for proposals in 2027. The RFP would allow other private consultants or in-state hospitals to compete for the prison health contract; VitalCore could also submit a new proposal, Currie said.

Currie said other increases include a contractually mandated rise of more than $2 million in payments to private prisons and $443,000 in unpaid utilities to the city of Walnut Grove for its operation of the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility. She also sought a requirement that the agency report on spending tied to the Inmate Welfare Fund after finding seven bank accounts linked to the fund and discovering about $32 million in one account that she said was difficult to trace. The budget proposal now goes back to the Senate for consideration, and lawmakers will negotiate the over $7 billion state budget in the session’s final weeks.

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