As we previously have noted, Gov. Phil Bryant should have known more about Chris Epps before reappointing him prison commissioner in 2012.
In 2011, a legislative watchdog committee questioned a lucrative no-bid contract for commissary services that Epps had awarded to a company owned by his alleged co-conspirator. The FBI says it began investigating Epps in 2010, and the state auditor says he started a probe in 2011. Our criticism, in an earlier editorial, was that Bryant, a former state auditor and lieutenant governor, should have been leery of Epps before reappointing him, or at least have done a better job of vetting the charismatic commissioner who had served under two previous governors.
Give the governor credit, though, for appointing a solid panel to review contracts involving the prison system after the indictment of Epps. It’s a bipartisan group composed of Republican Andy Taggart, former chief of staff to the late Gov. Kirk Fordice; former Hinds County Circuit Judge Robert Gibbs; former Democratic state attorney general Mike Moore; Forest attorney Constance Slaughter-Harvey, also a Democrat; and former Republican lawmaker Bill Crawford of Meridian.
As columnist Sid Salter notes: it’s an independent, strong-willed and competent group.
The (McComb)
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