The legislature has given the green light to a Lowndes County Board of Supervisors plan to give about $1.7 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to local nonprofits.
Senate Bill 3146 has been approved by both houses of the legislature, and is awaiting Gov. Tate Reeves’ signature. Without it, the county would not have been able to follow through on its plan to support nine local nonprofit agencies due to unforeseen circumstances surrounding how ARPA money could be spent.
The county got about $11 million in coronavirus relief funds via ARPA, explained President Trip Hairston. The board of supervisors wanted to give about $1.7 million of that to nonprofits who directly help citizens but hit a snag.
“Federal guidelines said we could opt for the first $10 million to be lost revenue,” Hairston said. “The conventional wisdom was that everybody should do that. It just made everything easier from a federal guidelines standpoint.”
The conventional wisdom came back and bit the county when it came to the state, though.
“It restricted how we can spend the money,” Hairston said. “The state auditor’s office said you can’t spend that money any differently from what you would normally spend money on. We don’t normally spend money on nonprofits.”
Because of that state requirement, the county had to go to the legislature to get specific local and private legislation to allow the expenditure. The bill granting that permission, sponsored by District 16 Senator Angela Turner Ford and District 17 Senator Chuck Younger, was sent to the governor’s desk March 27.
Once it’s signed, the way will be clear for the county will give $400,000 to the Frank Phillips Memorial YMCA; $175,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of the Golden Triangle; $200,000 to the Golden Triangle Homeless Coalition; $150,000 to the United Way of Lowndes and Noxubee Counties; $175,000 to Last House on the Block; $150,000 to Habitat for Humanity; $300,000 to Community Counseling Services; $100,000 to Contact Helpline; and $100,000 to Helping Hands Ministry.
“The bill was amended in the Senate to require that none of the money go to salaries or bonuses,” Hairston said.
County Administrator Jay Fisher told The Dispatch the county would work with Horne Group, its ARPA consultant, to get the money ready to distribute.
“We were waiting on the legislation, and now I’ve got to work with our advisors to make sure we don’t need any other agreements,” Fisher said. “I am suspecting that we will.”
Fisher said “symbolic” checks may be given out as part of County Government Month celebrations in April.
“As far as the actual checks go, though, I’m not sure (when they will go out),” Fisher said.
Governor signs tourism tax renewal
Last week the governor signed into law the renewal of Lowndes County’s 2 percent tourism tax.
The 2 percent tax sales tax is collected from prepared food and beverage sales at businesses in the city limits where those sales make up at least $100,000 in revenue.
From those proceeds, the city of Columbus gets $400,000 and Lowndes County gets $300,000 annually for recreation, the Golden Triangle Development LINK gets $250,000 for economic development efforts and the remainder goes to the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau to promote tourism.
In 2021, total collections were $2.055 million, from which $1.1 million went to the CVB.
When the tax was approved in 2019, it came with a four-year term. This time, recipients all joined together to ask for that term to be stretched out to 10 years.
Although there was some trepidation about that longer lifespan, Mayor Keith Gaskin said it didn’t end up being an issue. That extra time is good for the city, because the council is looking at using its slice of the tourism tax to fund a loan or a bond for planned improvements at Propst Park.
“We shared our plan for Propst Park with the members of the legislature,” Gaskin said. “We told them if we needed to leverage that money to get (funding) to complete the work the 10-year term would be a big plus.”
The city is working to find a way to pay for building four new youth baseball fields at Propst Park. Bids were opened earlier this month, and the low bid was about $3.3 million.
The city has about $1.4 million on hand in past tourism tax receipts, and Chief Financial Officer James Brigham suggested borrowing the other $2 million and paying down the debt over 10 years with a portion of the tourism tax proceeds.
Likewise, Hairston said the county is planning on using the money to pay for its own recreation projects.
A $12 million sportsplex is under construction off of Highway 82 West in western Lowndes County. It will feature eight baseball/softball fields, a multipurpose building and a playground.
“We have leveraged the bond for our sportsplex to add more recreation, but that’s what it’s for,” Hairston said. “… It gives us some stability there in receiving these payments.”
Gaskin gave credit to the local legislative delegation for getting the renewal through.
“All of the local delegation was behind it and was pushing hard for it,” he said. “We all worked together to make sure we were in front of the right people and they understood why we were asking for this. Everybody worked very well together on it.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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