The decision to use $1.3 million in Mississippi’s federal welfare dollars to fund a boot camp-style fitness program in 2018 didn’t occur entirely off the books or in secret.
It was allegedly part of a state-sanctioned initiative that exploited the social safety net — a national trend that federal officials are trying to reverse through several policy changes it recently proposed.
Auditors later deemed expenditures on the exercise program unlawful, lumping it within a sprawling welfare fraud scheme to which seven people have pleaded guilty, and the state has demanded the money returned. But at the time, Mississippi and federal officials were all on board, according to the fitness instructor Paul Lacoste.
In fact, Lacoste recalls that before he received his contract for welfare funds, the state agency director John Davis, his boss then-Gov. Phil Bryant, and federal officials were at the table and supported the idea. Davis has pleaded guilty to several felonies and potentially faces years in prison, Lacoste has not been charged criminally but he is facing civil litigation, and Bryant is not facing criminal or civil charges.