The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Thursday rejected a proposal from the University of Southern Mississippi to make campus facilities, including a volleyball facility at the heart of the state's ongoing welfare investigation, available to the government agency, which serves the state's poor.
The university announced the proposal earlier in the day in response to an investigation into millions of dollars of misspent welfare funds that has involved the school and its former quarterback, Pro Football Hall of Famer Brett Favre.
"The University remains deeply troubled by the current situation and is committed to seeking ways for campus facilities to be utilized for the benefit of Mississippi families and individuals," the school said in a statement.
The school said that it hoped the arrangement could "create exciting opportunities for collaborative pursuits between MDHS and existing University clinical and academic programs, with guidance and input from faculty across disciplines."
But when ESPN reached MDHS, the agency said it did not accept the school's proposal.
"As noted in prior audits, use of TANF funds for the construction of brick and mortar building projects has never been authorized by law," MDHS executive director Bob Anderson said.
"MDHS cannot accept USM's offer to utilize the building constructed with TANF funds in lieu of repayment of the funds, because we believe it to be a continued violation of the law and the purpose of the TANF program to help lift needy families out of poverty."
Southern Miss signed a five-year agreement in 2017 with the Mississippi Community Education Center, the nonprofit that funneled $5 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money to the university from MDHS, for the construction of a "multi-use space to be known as the 'Wellness Center.'" State auditor Shad White previously told ESPN that this agreement was an attempt to legally justify the use of TANF funds.
Text messages show Favre pushed officials for funding for a volleyball facility when his daughter was on the Southern Miss team. The university broke ground on the Wellness Center in 2018.
Favre has denied wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged, but he is a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the state. Both MCEC director Nancy New and former MDHS director John Davis have pleaded guilty to fraud.
The school said in its statement that it engaged in the agreement with MCEC "in good faith, following thorough due diligence by outside legal counsel, and after multiple assurances from officials at the highest levels of MDHS."
"Unfortunately, that due diligence did not and could not uncover the alleged fraud by the MDHS grant fiduciaries that was reported nearly two years after the Athletic Foundation signed the agreement with MCEC."
According to White's office, MCEC used university property once to benefit the community before the volleyball facility was built, holding a Healthy Teens Rally at the basketball arena in 2018.
Denis Wiesenburg, president of Southern Miss' faculty senate, told ESPN that he and another faculty member recently met with new school president Joe Paul to voice the faculty's concerns about the university's role in the welfare investigation. The faculty senate is scheduled to meet on Friday. Before the university's statement was released, the group had planned to discuss its own statement calling on the university to use campus facilities to help the local community and for full transparency into the transfer of TANF funds.
Paul's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In its statement, Southern Miss said it has provided hundreds of pages of public records about the Wellness Center and would continue to do so. It also said it would fully cooperate with ongoing investigations.