Mississippi's Diet Study for the Poor Spent 55% on Its Own Staff
Summary
Mississippi's health department paid a nonprofit more than $250,000 to run a two-year diet-quality study among "diverse and disadvantaged" residents -- but the state auditor found 55% of the money went to the nonprofit's own salaries and administration, plus a $17,500 gym-membership invoice that was never in the approved budget and that MSDH staff couldn't explain until auditors asked. Most of the people the study actually served weren't disadvantaged at all: over half earned more than $40,000 a year, over 60% held a four-year degree, and over 80% already had private or employer health insurance. It's the second Mississippi Department of Health subgrant review in five months to find the same pattern -- the first found three nonprofits paid $853,575.80 for HIV prevention ran just 35 tests -- and the auditor's office says it has now identified more than $100 million in nonprofit waste, fraud, and misspending statewide since 2018, with no deadline attached to fixing any of it.
A gym invoice nobody could explain
Analysts found MSDH reimbursed My Brother's Keeper $17,500 for an invoice from a Jackson-area gym -- 24 three-month client memberships, hundreds of individual training sessions, and an "administrative fee" -- despite no mention of gyms anywhere in the nonprofit's subgrant agreement. MSDH staff did not know who had benefited from the memberships until OSA auditors asked, and the auditor's office concluded the payment "violated multiple provisions of MSDH's own policies and procedures." It wasn't the only reimbursement made without proof of who actually received it: MSDH also paid the nonprofit for gift-card incentives, "upscale grocery store" gift cards, and meal subscriptions with no documentation showing who got them or whether the purchases met the grant's terms -- in one case, reimbursing meal receipts dated after the subgrant had already ended. Combined, those four categories -- gift cards, grocery cards, meals, and the gym -- total $52,189.80 in reimbursed spending the state auditor could not verify ever reached a study participant.
View data as table
| Salaries, Personnel | $66,292.46 | budgeted $56,000.00 (+18%) |
|---|---|---|
| MBK Indirect Costs | $52,897.90 | budgeted $41,952.00 (+26%) |
| Meal Subscription | $14,541.50 | budgeted $34,975.00 (-58%) |
| Produce Prescription | $13,159.50 | budgeted $25,800.00 (-49%) |
| Beast Core Fitness (gym) | $17,500.00 | budgeted $0.00 -- not budgeted |
| Fringe | $19,502.74 | budgeted $17,399.00 (+12%) |
| Gift Card Incentives | $6,988.80 | budgeted $10,200.00 (-31%) |
The "disadvantaged" population that wasn't
The subgrant's own terms required My Brother's Keeper to target a "diverse and disadvantaged" population. OSA found close to the opposite: the majority of recipients were employed, over half earned more than $40,000 a year, over 60% held a four-year college degree, and over 80% already had private or employer-provided health insurance -- the profile of exactly the population a diet-quality intervention for underserved Mississippians is supposed to reach least. MSDH staff told auditors they had no idea whether the "diverse" and "disadvantaged" requirement had been met until OSA raised the question. Separately, the nonprofit's salary reimbursements ran more than $10,000 over its own budgeted amount -- a threshold that, under MSDH's own grant manual, is supposed to trigger a formal written modification to the subgrant agreement before the money moves. MSDH did eventually produce a modification, but it never explained why the overspending happened in the first place.
View data as table
| Had private/employer health insurance | 80% | OSA: "over 80%" |
|---|---|---|
| Had a 4-year college degree | 60% | OSA: "over 60%" |
| Earned over $40,000 annually | 50% | OSA: "over half" |
Not an isolated case
My Brother's Keeper wasn't the only subgrantee OSA flagged in this report. MSDH also gave a $40,000 subgrant to 100 Black Men of Jackson meant to "address health disparities among African American youth"; the nonprofit spent $2,400 of it on gift cards, headphones, and speakers, plus nearly $2,000 on 90 T-shirts. Separately, more than $2.4 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families () welfare money passed through the Mississippi Department of Human Services to the Juanita Sims Doty Foundation between July 2022 and June 2025; the foundation's own filings show its executive director was paid $106,050 in 2022 and $118,447 in 2023, with one board member paid $74,200 and $98,279 in those same years.
View data as table
| Juanita Sims Doty Foundation (TANF, 2022-2025) | 2,400,000 | Executive Director paid $106,050 (2022) and $118,447 (2023); OSA flagged discrepancies between the nonprofit's state and federal filings |
|---|---|---|
| My Brother's Keeper (MSDH diet study) | 250,000 | 55% to salaries/admin; $52,189.80 in reimbursements OSA could not verify reached a participant |
| 100 Black Men of Jackson (MSDH, FY2024) | 40,000 | $4,400 spent on gift cards, electronics, and T-shirts MSDH says weren't budgeted or clearly tied to the grant's purpose |
It's the second time in five months OSA has found this failure mode inside an MSDH subgrant program: a May 2025 report found three nonprofits paid $853,575.80 for HIV prevention conducted a combined 35 tests. Statewide, OSA now says it has identified more than $100 million in nonprofit waste, fraud, and misspending since 2018 -- a running tally with a real dollar figure attached, but recommendations that name no completion date and no single office responsible for enforcing them. Unlike audits that set the audited party a fixed clock, OSA's fix here is a request: that agencies verify nonprofit registration and require documentation going forward, and that state lawmakers -- who have not yet acted -- require nonprofit directors to attest to results under penalty of perjury.
- 55% of My Brother's Keeper's $250,000+ MSDH subgrant went to the nonprofit's own salaries and administration, not the diet-quality study it was funded to run.
- A $17,500 gym-membership invoice was reimbursed despite never appearing in the approved subgrant budget -- one of $52,189.80 in reimbursements across four categories that OSA found MSDH could not document as reaching an actual participant.
- The population the study actually served looked nothing like the 'diverse and disadvantaged' target the subgrant required: over half earned more than $40,000 a year, over 60% held a 4-year degree, over 80% had private or employer health insurance.
- It's the second MSDH subgrant program OSA has found lacking basic oversight in five months, part of a statewide total the auditor's office now puts at more than $100 million in nonprofit waste, fraud, and misspending since 2018 -- with no deadline attached to any fix.
This piece keeps two different percentages separate: OSA's own reported "55% of the subgrant" figure covers the full ~$250,000+, two-year MBK subgrant (including line items such as travel, commodities, and a university subcontract not itemized in Figure 1), while the $52,189.80 "undocumented reimbursements" total and the Figure 1 chart above cover only the seven specific budget-line items OSA's Figure 1 table tracks -- the two totals are not the same base and are not added together here. The recipient-population figures (">50%", "over 60%", "over 80%") are OSA's own stated lower bounds, not exact percentages.
Mississippi's May 2025 predecessor report separately states that $1.7 billion in taxpayer money passed through Mississippi state agencies to nonprofits since FY2023 across at least 2,600 organizations -- a statewide scale figure kept distinct here from this report's MSDH-specific findings, since the two reports restate that aggregate differently. The Juanita Sims Doty Foundation's funding and compensation figures come from filings reproduced in OSA's own appendix (Exhibit H); OSA's report does not allege the Foundation's spending was itself improper, only that its filings showed discrepancies.
Sources(2) ▾
- Mississippi Office of the State Auditor, Mississippi Non-Profit Spending: Part 2 (2025-09-22) — Second in the OSA's series on state-agency subgrants to nonprofits. Analysts from the Government Accountability Division (Director Logan Reeves) reviewed subgrants from the Mississippi State Department of Health's (MSDH) Office of Preventive Health & Health Equity and the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS), naming three nonprofits -- My Brother's Keeper, 100 Black Men of Jackson, and the Juanita Sims Doty Foundation -- and closing with a statewide total of nonprofit waste, fraud, and misspending the office has identified since 2018. Fetched directly as a PDF (371 pages, 33MB; the narrative runs pp.1-6, the remainder is scanned exhibits) from the Auditor's own website; read via pdftotext -layout after direct download (no login required). osa.ms.gov
- Mississippi Office of the State Auditor, Non-Profit Spending in Mississippi (2025-05-01) — First report in the same OSA series (May 2025) -- the one Part 2 explicitly builds on. Focuses on Mississippi Department of Health HIV-AIDS-prevention subgrants and establishes the statewide scale of nonprofit spending (a database of at least 2,600 nonprofits receiving state-agency funds) that motivated the follow-up review. Used here only for that statewide scale context and the earlier, parallel HIV-subgrant finding -- not for any Part 2 figure. Fetched directly as a PDF (240 pages, 18MB) from the Auditor's own website; read via pdftotext -layout. osa.ms.gov
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Mississippi's State Department of Health (MSDH) -- through its Office of Preventive Health & Health Equity -- paid a nonprofit called My Brother's Keeper more than $250,000 over two years to study diet quality among "diverse and disadvantaged" Mississippians, part of the Jackson Heart Study's work on cardiovascular disease. A subgrant is money a state agency passes to an outside organization to run a defined project on the state's behalf, with the agency staying responsible for verifying the money was spent as promised. Mississippi's independently elected State Auditor's Office found MSDH mostly didn't: 55% of the money went to My Brother's Keeper's own salaries and administration, not to the population the grant was meant to serve.