District Attorney Scott Colom is hopeful he and his staff can move into new Columbus office space in August after Clay, Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Noxubee counties agreed to split the costs of a new lease and utility bills.
Colom said he expects the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors to execute the lease for office space located at 522 2nd Ave. North next week. His staff, he said, could then move out of its current 220 5th St. North location on Aug. 1.
The lease will cost $2,500 per month, plus utilities, and run through 2019 — the end of Colom’s term. His letter of request did not include a projection for utilities since the office space, owned by the estate of Frank Lee, has sat unoccupied for a significant amount of time.
While all four counties agreed to split the costs, Oktibbeha County supervisors created a possible funding gap Tuesday when they voted to fund the move without agreeing to the percentage requested by Colom.
The district attorney asked Oktibbeha County to pay 33.3 percent of the costs — the remainder was split between Lowndes (42.7 percent), Clay (15 percent) and Noxubee (9 percent) using a formula based upon how many days Colom’s office works in each location — but supervisors only wanted to pay 24 percent of the bill, which is how much it contributes toward the cost of circuit court.
In its vote, the board instructed Oktibbeha County Administrator Emily Garrard to negotiate its percentage with Lowndes County — the entity that will bill each county once the lease is approved — and Colom.
Both Colom and Garrard indicated on Thursday Oktibbeha County will pay its requested 33.3 percent. It is not known if supervisors need to approve a specific percentage at their next meeting since the original motion stated it would fund the request.
Oktibbeha County currently provides the DA’s office $300 per month for office expenses and $1,600 per month for its bad check unit. A 33 percent share for Oktibbeha County would increase its office expenses to $825 per month, a figure that does not include its utility payments.
“I feel like we have the issue hemmed up now,” Colom said. “It will be nice once we get into the new location.”
Supervisors could look to augment Oktibbeha County’s yearly allotment to the DA’s bad check unit to help cover its increased costs.
Colom said he again will seek full funding for the service in Fiscal Year 2016-17 but he could draw down those requests as fewer checks are processed in the Golden Triangle.
“My hope is after next year to go to Oktibbeha and Lowndes to request less money simply because of that,” he said. “It’s not as frequent as it used to be, but it’s something we still need to have because some vendors do still take checks. We’re hoping to collect more funds from pre-trial diversion programs to offset the reduction.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 49 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.