LOWNDES COUNTY – Lowndes County taxes are remaining flat for Fiscal Year 2024.
The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors approved the budget and set the tax rate during its regular meeting Friday morning, and the countywide tax levy remained steady at 96.70 mills. Of that, 51.44 mills will go to Lowndes County School District, also the same tax rate as the previous fiscal year.
Mills are used to measure real and personal property taxes. That tax rate translates to a homeowner paying $96.70 per every $100,000 of property value.
The budget includes $60.6 million in revenue and $80.7 million in expenditures. The apparent imbalance is due to a laundry list of projects the county has received funding for, but not yet paid out, explained County Administrator Jay Fisher.
“One of the significant (imbalances) is the (federal American Rescue Plan Act) funds for this year,” Fisher said. “We have received all of our ARPA funds, and this year we anticipate expending the remaining $8.48 million.”
The county also has several road and bridge projects where it has received money from the state but has not yet spent anything, Fisher said, as well as planned improvements at Manufacturer’s Loop and to rail lines at the Lowndes County Port.
Bonds funding the Lowndes County Sports Complex have been sold, but all the money has not yet been spent, Fisher said.
“That includes $4.7 million that will be the last payments on the sports complex as it comes to a close,” Fisher said.
The Road Department and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office each saw spending increases of about $1 million, Fisher said.
“The Road Department got a $500,000 bump for asphalt,” Fisher said. “They have been at $2.5 million for the past several years, this year we budgeted them for $3 million. The rest of it is pretty much attributed to inflation and that kind of thing.”
The sheriff’s office has increased costs due to a security arrangement with Aluminum Dynamics, Fisher said.
“The sheriff is under contract with ADI to provide security out at their site, and so they have increased expenses,” Fisher said. “We recoup that in revenue, because they pay us back the money we use to pay the deputies to work down there.”
FY 2024, like the current year, includes raises for both hourly and salaried employees, Fisher said.
“We gave a cost-of-living raise of 50 cents per hour across the board to our hourly employees,” Fisher said.
Some salaried employees also got raises, Fisher said, but not all of them. The amounts of the raises varied by department.
On the revenue side, the county saw a boost due to the increased value of a mill, Fisher said. A mill in FY 2024 is worth $792,000, an increase from last year’s $753,000.
That increase in turn bumped collections up by about $4.4 million, Fisher said.
The county will be able to withdraw from the hospital trust fund this year, Fisher said.
The trust was established with $30 million the county received from the sale of the county hospital in 2006. In 2013 state law was changed to allow the county to invest a certain amount of the money in stocks and bonds.
Each budget year the county may make a withdrawal of up to 3% of the value of the investments, but not if the balance goes down.
“Last year we were not able to withdraw any funds,” Fisher said. “This year we will likely pull out about $1.1 million.”
As part of the budget process, the supervisors also approved the first increase in garbage collection rates since 2008.
Golden Triangle Waste Services notified the board it was raising its rates from $9.25 to $10.05, Fisher said. He recommended increasing the rate for end users from $12 to $15.
“We have a fund where we collect fees from citizens who are part of GTSW, and we pay a bill to GTWS out of that fee,” Fisher said. “That fund is slowly deteriorating, because we don’t bring in what it costs us.”
Fisher said the fund holds about $381,982 now, and, at the old rate, the county would only bring in $1.2 million while needing to pay out $2 million.
The new rate will go into effect Jan. 1.
“That new rate will keep the fund whole for about the next 10 years,” Fisher said.
District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders moved, with a second by District 3 Supervisor John Holliman, to approve the new garbage rate. It passed unanimously.
The budget was also approved unanimously. FY 2024 starts Oct. 1.
County fully funds school district
For the first time in three years, the supervisors approved the Lowndes County School District’s tax request without challenge.
The district requested $30.5 million, which includes about $22.5 million for operations and the remaining approximately $8 million for debt.
The district’s millage levy stayed the same, even though the amount requested went up by about $2.4 million over last year, because the value of a school district mill increased by $40,000 – from $546,000 to $586,000.
Over the last three the supervisors have denied the district’s full funding request, claiming it exceeded the amount it could legally ask for without a direct referendum.
By law districts can ask for up to a 4% increase for operations from the previous year’s request. Up to 7% can trigger a reverse referendum, meaning citizens can sign a petition to get the request on the ballot. More than 7% requires a direct referendum.
LCSD sued the county in chancery court in 2020, claiming that expired fee-in-lieu agreements – which added $50 million to the assessed value of property within its boundaries – counted as new property, since they had not previously been on the tax rolls.
The county can grant fees-in-lieu to businesses investing at least $60 million. The agreement allows the company to pay one-third of its taxes for up to 10 years.
The case was eventually thrown out by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which ruled it had been filed in the wrong court. The ruling did not address the fee-in-lieu issue.
Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch after the meeting there was no conflict this year since the operations request is below the 7% threshold.
“We approved the request because it was under (the threshold),” Hairston said. “We felt like we were good to do that, and we felt like it was appropriate to fund the shortfall, just as we have the last several years.”
Hairston said it would be 2026 before fees-in-lieu would be an issue again.
“Maybe by then we can get some sort of clarification,” Hairston said. “This buys us both some time to try to figure that question out.”
Lowndes County School District Superintendent Sam Allison said he was happy with the supervisors’ action.
“We’re pleased with the passage of our budget,” Allison said. “It’s a good step forward, and we want to be positive and focus on the future rather than the past.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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