Update 6/27/25: The link to the board email referenced below now works. That email is BoardMentalHealth@dmh.ms.gov.
On Tuesday, June 24, Wendy Bailey, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health (DMH), sent this email with the DMH’s board meeting schedule for the upcoming year:
At last week’s meeting, the Board of Mental Health approved the Board meeting locations for FY26 which are below.These will also be posted on Transparency MS and the DMH Website. Board meetings will begin at 9:30 a.m. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Suzanne Marler at Suzanne.marler@dmh.ms.gov or 601-359-6260.
Date | Location | Virtual or In Person |
August 21, 2025 | Virtual Meeting at DMH Central Office | Virtual* |
September 18, 2025 | South Mississippi State Hospital in Purvis | In Person |
December 18, 2025 | North Mississippi Regional Center in Oxford | In Person |
March 19, 2026 | Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield | In Person |
April 16, 2026 | Virtual Meeting from DMH Central Office | Virtual* |
June 18, 2026 | North Mississippi State Hospital in Tupelo | In Person |
*Virtual meetings are only placeholders and are assumed that they will not occur unless staff or other circumstances deem them necessary. Staff will confirm they are not occurring or state that they are needed at least two weeks prior tothe placeholder date.
We thank Ms. Bailey for sharing this information. At the same time, we are concerned that the DMH does not include virtual options for the public to attend these meetings, especially because the meetings move around the state and take place on weekday mornings. This makes it difficult for families, people who receive services and others who are interested in the mental health system to attend. We have asked Ms. Bailey and her team about adding a livestream option for the public to participate in board meetings in the past, and we asked Ms. Bailey again on June 24. She did not respond by the time we wrote this blog post. We will update you if she does.
We appreciate Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann’s transparency in livestreaming all Mississippi Senate committee meetings. We urge the DMH board to follow his example. The technology is there. Other meetings are live-streamed from DMH facilities, and DMH board members have the option of attending meetings virtually. It should not be complicated to add a public option.
We are also grateful to Mississippi State Senator Nicole Boyd for repeatedly introducing
legislation requiring state agencies to livestream board meetings. Sadly, this legislation has died for at least the last two sessions. Sometimes, legislation dies because some people or groups have a vested interest in killing it. We hope that is not the case with Senator Boyd’s legislation. If it is, we are baffled who would want to hide the actions of the board that oversees services for some of Mississippi’s most vulnerable citizens from the public.
Of course, the DMH board could livestream its meetings regardless of whether it is required to do so by state law. Many other state agencies already do.
If you have feedback about whether the DMH board should livestream its board meetings, contact Suzanne Marler at Suzanne.marler@dmh.ms.gov or 601-359-6260. We also encourage you to let Ms. Marler know if you think the DMH board should include time for public comments in its meetings.
