Delbert Hosemann didn’t have any big announcement to make, but the Mississippi Secretary of State did have a plethora of information to share with those attending the monthly Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday.

The Vicksburg native, who has been rumored to be making a run for the office of lieutenant governor, said education and economic development should be the focus and priority of improving the lives of Mississippians.

“We need to nurture business, small business in particular,” Hosemann said. “And we don’t have to give away Mississippi with incentives.”

He said the idea of offering incentives to attract major manufacturers needs to change and the focus turn to developing trades and a skilled labor force for those 70 percent of graduates who do not plan to attend college.

Hosemann showed charts from a survey of 2,000 businesses indicating the top priorities of existing business is an educated workforce and community support.

“Not all businesses want a tax break,” Hosemann said. “Half of the 2,000 businesses would expand their business today if they had an educated workforce.”

An educated workforce is the key, said Hosemann.

Half of those businesses that answered the survey also indicated it takes them up to three months to find a qualified employee.

“This is troubling,” Hosemann said. “Half of our workforce needs more than a high school education.”
He said Vicksburg is heading in the right direction with revitalizing the downtown area, implementing new programs within the school district and developing technology with the Mississippi Hardware building.
“Vicksburg is ready to have some achievements,” Hosemann said. “When I get in a position to help y’all, I plan to do so.”

The results and more information on business in Mississippi can be found on yallbusiness.sos.ms.gov.

Hosemann has been traveling the state in recent weeks to also inform the public about the upcoming elections and encourage voter registration. More voter information can be found on yallvote.sos.ms.gov.

Source: Vicksburg Post

One of the things I like most and respect about Mississippi’s Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is the fact that he makes himself available to people, he does his job well and he maintains his sense of humor.

He was passing through Simpson County and wanted to drop by for a visit last week, but I had a conflict and had to be in Mendenhall for a board meeting of Angel Wings, the domestic abuse shelter.  His staff said he could meet me in Mendenhall.  That is pretty neat–someone who is important but is willing to work around your schedule.  That may be part of the reason he is so successful.

What Delbert wanted to talk about was an educated workforce.  This is great because in my work with the Simpson County Development Foundation  one of the leading issues facing us in recruiting business to our community is our workforce.

So I asked Secretary Hosemann, “How are you as Secretary of State driving the educational system?”

He said, “That is simple, We are in charge of 16th section properties.”  This is one of the main sources of continued revenue for school systems.  Under Hosemann’s tenure as Secretary of State those funds have increased from $600 million a year to $1 billion a year.

This works, he said, because he told the counties he would not approve leases of 16th section property if they were not for a reasonable amount.  That got the attention of the school boards and everyone involved and in many circumstances got the school systems out of their “good ole boy deals.”

Secretary Hosemann is touting several ideas for  improving education and the workforce that comes out of it.

One is the idea of a year round school session.  The system we are working under is outdated and relates back to a time of planting and physical labor that has passed.

Hosemann said the program has been adopted in Corinth, Miss., and appears to  be working well.  The program is formed around nine weeks of school with three weeks off between sessions.  This gives a better learning environment for the children because it eliminates the long break from learning over the summer.  Hosemann said this will keep staff from getting burned out.

He indicated that some school systems, normally in the lower rated schools, focus entirely too much on testing.

He also advocates a 13 year system that will meet the needs of students who are interested in joining the workforce.  The plan is to make technology skills available to students, not just in the 13th year of school but implemented at a lower level to better prepare students to move into the workforce after graduation.

To research these ideas,  Hosemann commissioned a study called “Y’all Business Survey” in which he questioned business and industry leaders about what they need and what they find when it comes time to consider plans like expansion, hiring new employees and other pertinent data in the business sector.

Source: The Magee Courier

Thousands of Mississippi National Guard members are training for deployment, and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is pushing to ensure they know when to vote in upcoming elections.

His office is sending 4,000 wallet-sized cards with voting deadline information to active members of the military.

Hosemann says Tuesday that the goal is to provide information in a format they can carry, rather than a large packet.

More than 3,000 of the cards will be delivered to Mississippi National Guard members currently training in Fort Bliss, Texas, soon to be deployed to the Syria-Turkey border.

Absentee ballots are due on election days — June 5 for party primaries, and Nov. 6 for the general election.

Mississippi has elections this year for U.S. House and Senate and some judicial seats.

Source: The Sun Herald

AMORY, MISS. (WCBI) – Mississippi’s Secretary of State says soldiers can exercise their right to vote, even when deployed.

Delbert Hosemann said Mississippi is leading the way when it comes to absentee voting by email. Hosemann’s office has produced a card, giving soldiers information for step by step instructions for absentee voting.

The secretary of state said it’s important that those serving the country have the same opportunity to vote as their friends and relatives back home.

“It gets counted same day, same time, it will be in the ballot box just like everything else, will be treated as an absentee ballot, will be counted on election day and they get to vote just like everybody else and they should, if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be casting any ballots,” Hosemann said.

The cards for the troops also have 2018 election dates and deadlines for registration and ballot return.

Source: WCBI

JACKSON, Miss – Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann welcomed back a beloved member of his family Wednesday… his truck.

Not too long ago, Hosemann’s truck was stolen from in front of his home.

Time marched on…and so did Hosemann, who purchased a new vehicle.

But today, he was reunited with the stolen truck when Jackson police officers recovered it in South Jackson.

Secretary of State spokesperson, Leah Rupp Smith says he’s thrilled to have it back.

Here’s Hosemann pictured with the officers, his fully intact truck and a signed copy of the Mississippi Blue Book he gave as a thank you to one of the officers.

Source: WJTV

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann took part recently in a top-secret briefing in Washington regarding voting systems being controlled at the federal level.

Hosemann said that it is important for each state to continue handling their own voting procedures and said he is currently working with Mississippi agencies to ensure that they remain secure from cyber threats.

While Secretary Hosemann had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to take part in the event, he said that there was a healthy discourse among the various Secretaries of State and the Federal government about making a critical infrastructure designation that the federal government would have control over each of the states’ voting systems. The designation was proposed during the Obama administration and was then enacted in January of 2017.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s sudden decision to designate state election systems as ‘critical infrastructure’ is overreaching and unnecessary.,” Hosemann said. “The U.S. Constitution delegates responsibility for conducting elections to the states. The diversity of current state election systems is one reason these systems have remained secure. Despite widespread concern about cyber attacks (and repeated attempts), Mississippi’s Statewide Elections Management System was not breached. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security commended Mississippi for its current cybersecurity protocols. No citizen’s vote was compromised in Mississippi.”

Hosemann said he believes that voting systems should be decided by each state.

However, the Department of Homeland Security said that the election infrastructure designation will be given only to the states that request it.

“Given the vital role elections play in this country, it is clear that certain systems and assets of election infrastructure meet the definition of critical infrastructure, in fact, and in law,” said the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “The designation of election infrastructure as critical infrastructure subsector does mean that election infrastructure becomes a priority within the National Infrastructure Protection Plan,” Johnson said. “It also enables this Department to prioritize our cybersecurity assistance to state and local election officials, but only for those who request it. Further, the designation makes clear both domestically and internationally that election infrastructure enjoys all the benefits and protections of critical infrastructure that the U.S. government has to offer. Finally, a designation makes it easier for the federal government to have full and frank discussions with key stakeholders regarding sensitive vulnerability information.”

Johnson continued, saying the Department of Homeland Security provides to a range of private and public sector entities.

“By “election infrastructure,” we mean storage facilities, polling places, and centralized vote tabulations locations used to support the election process, and information and communications technology to include voter registration databases, voting machines, and other systems to manage the election process and report and display results on behalf of state and local governments,” Johnson said.

Source: NewsMS

Sarah Mearhoff/The Associated Press
March 13, 2018 10:36:55 AM

JACKSON — Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann says he’s not running for his current office again but won’t say what he’s running for next.

Hosemann, speaking Monday to the Capitol press corps and Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government, said that after three terms in office, he has met his goals as secretary of state and thinks it’s time to move on. The Republican said he still has “great interest” in the state and voters may see his name on a future ballot.

“I don’t know that we won’t be on the ballot somewhere, but I don’t anticipate it being secretary of state’s office,” Hosemann said.

Hosemann wasn’t saying whether he’d run for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s seat this November, the lieutenant governor’s post in 2019 or something else — at least, not on Monday.

The Clarion Ledger reported last week that Hosemann indicated to schoolchildren touring the Capitol that he plans a campaign for lieutenant governor.

When asked by a reporter about the incident Monday, Hosemann joked, “Those were 10-year-old children and I trusted them.”

Hosemann could also run for U.S. Senate this year after Cochran announced his intent to retire April 1.

The secretary of state also discussed his office’s measures to prevent election hacking. He said his office uses protection including two-factor authentication, encryption and firewalls to guard Mississippi’s statewide election management computer system.

Mississippi voting machines aren’t connected to the internet and are thus less vulnerable to outside meddling, he said. Hosemann said no votes in Mississippi have been affected by hacking.

Hosemann said a bigger risk than altered ballots, though, is a public perception of election meddling and lack of confidence in voting systems.

“When they internally attempt to discredit both parties … with salacious things on the internet, those are weakening the republican democracy,” Hosemann said. “To me, that’s the biggest risk we have.”

Source: The Dispatch

By the end of 2019, Lowndes County will have more $55 million in new, state-of-the art workforce training facilities.

The Lowndes County School District’s $11 million career tech center will begin classes in the fall semester while the $44 million Communiversity, under East Mississippi Community College’s workforce training umbrella, will open sometime next year at the Lowndes County Industrial Park.

On Thursday at the LCSD Career Tech Center on Lehmberg Road, small business owners and representatives from the LCSD and EMCC met to talk about how the broader community can use the new facilities to maximum effect, a meeting organized by Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann.

Hosemann has been traveling the state to urge communities to work together to build the educated workforce that today’s employers need.

“An educated workforce is the answer to just about every problem we have,” Hosemann said after the two-hour meeting, which featured a round-table discussion with Hosemann, educators and small business owners. “Right now, we have low unemployment and that’s great, but what we need is a high participation rate. We have about 1.1 million people working now. If we can get that number to 1.3 million, everything works. Health care works. The (state) budget works. Infrastructure, repairing our roads and bridges, works. Everything.

“All of that depends on building an educated workforce,” he added. “There isn’t a tractor in the Delta that doesn’t have a real complicated platform on it. If you can’t run a computer, you can’t run a tractor. It’s the same with everything.”

Business partners

When the two facilities were proposed, much of the focus was on training for the jobs needed by big industry.

Missing from those early talks was how the facilities could help small businesses, observed Katie McCrary, whose family-owned business, McCrary Construction Services, employs about 35 workers.

To make sure the needs of small businesses were not neglected, McCrary organized a group of 17 area businesses to work with the LCSD. Her group has been meeting with LCSD Superintendent Lynn Wright to find ways for small business to be a part of what the career tech center has to offer.

McCrary was a part of Thursday’s round-table discussion.

“Our group employs close to 2,000 people,” she said. “We appreciate the large industries in our area, because a lot of us work with them. But we need employees, too.”

The need for job-ready employees at small businesses is no less critical than it is for large, high-tech industries, said Dale Nelson, owner of Triangle Insulation and Acoustic Inc. in Columbus.

“I’ve been in the construction business for 32 years,” Nelson said. “It used to be that when you needed workers, there were people looking for work everywhere. Now, you can’t find anybody. Contractors are poaching other contractors’ help to man their projects. It’s a common thing. That’s why we need to get the word out to the community to let them know how deep this really goes.”

Part of that effort, Nelson said, means changing the community’s perception of the new career tech facilities.

“Back in the day, there was shop class, and you went to shop class to get out of doing anything else,” Nelson said. “When I was in high school we had a perfectly good shop class, but we never touched a tool or a machine in there. We treated it like a study hall. I think that idea still persists. There are a lot of people in this community that see this as a big money pit. We need to address that. We need to get the word out.”

McCrary said that message needs to reach kids, too.

“We’ve got to make school trade classes cool again,” McCrary said. “I’m passionate about that. A lot of kids don’t know what they want to do. In working with some schools, I saw kids who were academically challenged and pegged as trouble-makers because they were never going to be able to sit down and perform in math and reading and English like the kids sitting next to them.

“But when you put that kid on a motor, he finds out he has the ability to make $50,000, $75,000 a year, just like that, when (he comes) out of these programs,” she added. “It changes his whole life.”

Community-focused

Hosemann said his mission is to make sure facilities like those in Lowndes County reach into every corner of the community, providing opportunities for students throughout the county, regardless of what school district they attend.

“I want to see these opportunities extend beyond the student population of the district,” Hosemann said. “If somebody is 10 miles away, come out here, talk to Lynn (Wright). Work with him. He’d love to have some of those students in the city school district out here. That’s a barrier that should not exist.”

Wright said the center was never intended to be the exclusive domain of the school district.

“We can work something out,” he said. “We’re open to holding night classes or anything else that would work. We want this to be something that serves the whole community.”

EMCC President Thomas Huebner agreed.

“Come out and see us, talk to us,” Huebner said. “Let us show you how we can use resources available for everyone. We need to be changing perceptions and working harder to integrate with businesses and the community. What are you needs? How can we help?”

 

Source: The Dispatch

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Life after high school for many students may not lead to a college degree.

Lowndes County administrators understand that.

Now, they are leading a movement to prepare students for fields that need trained workers.

Their career tech center made an exception Thursday morning and opened its doors to multiple business leaders, as well as members of our local and state government, showing the potential it holds for students.

The Secretary of State’s office sent out a survey to thousands of businesses in Mississippi.

They asked “what do you need?”

Businesses answered almost the same across the board.

“The most important thing for them was an educated workforce, way over everything else,” said Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. “The second most important thing was community support.”

Lowndes County School District shows just that, educating a future workforce in their career tech center, with the community behind them.

“We want to make sure our kids have the skills to fill this need,” said LCSD Superintendent, Lynn Wright.

LCSD hopes partnerships with local businesses can show students a successful career path.

“This is where everything begins, here,” said Hosemann. “Only about 20% of our young men and women will actually get a collegiate degree, and 70% of them have got to work.”

“There are more and more jobs available but less skilled laborers to fill those jobs, and these jobs pay good wages,” said Wright. “They have great opportunities for a good future for our students.”

The lack of an educated workforce is said to be due to lack of communication between school systems and businesses.

Lowndes County’s efforts could begin a statewide movement to train the next generation of workers.

“Not everyone has made this kind of commitment, the commitment that was made here, which is the right thing to do,” said Hosemann. “I mean, we need to take it everywhere and tell them to do the same things, to vision what the workforce is going to look like in the future and train those people, beginning 10th, 11th, 12th grade, all the way up, train them to fit that workforce.”

This coordination between businesses, school systems, and government looks to go deeper than this.

By getting this information and training to students at an earlier age, like at the upper elementary and middle school levels, the state can supply its businesses with the workers they need.

 

Source: WCBI

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) — More than 100 of the thousands of students who participated in 2017 Promote the Vote activities were recognized at the Mississippi Capitol for high achievement in the arts and writing.

Promote the Vote is Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann’s comprehensive K-12 voter education program.

Hosemann’s office said more than 1,200 students entered the art contest, Participants were told to My Mississippi,” or an industry, person, landmark, or other notable symbol from their region of the State. For the essay contest, entrants were asked to write about “Moving Forward,” by identifying an issue in their region of the State and proposing a way to address it.

“One of the most important things we can teach our children is about our past because learning about the past makes us more informed voters at the ballot box in the future,” Secretary Hosemann said.

First-place winners will receive a $100 savings account provided by sponsor banks across the State. The schools first-place winning students attend will also receive $100. Additionally, winning students will receive a free entry to the Mississippi Museum of History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

 

Source: WJTV