Supervisors on Friday approved a Fiscal Year 2025 budget that includes $1.7 million in additional revenue from ad valorem taxes.
The tax increase will cover employee pay raises, as well as needs in the road and recreation departments.
Friday morning’s public hearing and budget overview at the courthouse lasted six minutes, with no citizen input, before supervisors unanimously adopted the plan.
The budget includes roughly $546,000 in pay raises, with each employee getting a 75-cent per hour bump. After those raises, less than a dozen county workers will make less than $15 an hour, County Administrator Jay Fisher said. By FY 2026, all will make at least that amount.
Board President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch after the meeting he hopes the raises help with recruitment and retention, especially in the county’s high-hazard jobs.
“(Recently), one of the jailers got the hell beat out of him by an inmate,” Hairston said. “… He makes ($15.50 an hour). He can make more than that at McDonald’s. So, people are putting themselves in harm’s way to serve the public the way they do and could make more money doing something far less dangerous. We want to take care of our people. I know 75 cents doesn’t sound like a lot. But we want to do what we can.”
Supervisors budgeted an additional $600,000 for recreation, which will cover costs for maintaining its new sportsplex off Highway 82 west of Columbus, as well as hiring a full-time program manager. The county completed the $12 million first phase of the sportsplex in the spring.
“As Leroy always says, if you’re going to have the baby, you’ve got to take care of it,” Hairston said, referring to District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks. “I agree with that.”
The budget boosts the road department by an extra $500,000 compared to FY 2024. That will primarily cover new vehicles and equipment, Fisher said.
Overall, the county’s budget shows $65.7 million in revenue and $67.8 in expenditures. However, Fisher explained the deficit is covered by funds the county has already received for certain purposes but won’t spend until next year, such as about $2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.
“It’s a (balanced) budget,” Fisher said.
The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Increased tax burden
Supervisors levied a total ad valorem tax rate of 97.03 mills. That includes 45 mills for the county (a decrease of 0.26 from FY 2024) and 52.03 for Lowndes County School District (an increase of 1.7 mills).
Even with the county’s tax rate dropping slightly, it still will cause higher taxes than last. The Mississippi Department of Revenue updated its manual in 2021 for appraising building and construction materials, which increased home values by 18%. Since Lowndes County was due for its four-year reassessment this year, it had to adopt the new manual rates.
That means a home worth $100,000 in 2023 is worth $118,000 this year. With the adopted tax rates for the county and LCSD, that homeowner will pay $267.53 more in taxes without a homestead exemption, according to Tax Assessor Greg Andrews. With a homestead exemption, the increase will be less.
Still, Hairston said the county is maintaining the status quo, while keeping up with inflation.
“We try to meet the demands of the public, and we do a good job,” he said. “It’s not like if there’s a pothole (called in), somebody puts an old, broken down sawhorse in it and lets it sit for three months. We’re out there working on it. … The three largest pieces of our budget are the sheriff’s department, the detention center and the road department. … Which one of those do you want to cut?”
Some counties won’t reassess and adopt the new MDOR manual rates until Fiscal Year 2026 or 2027, per their turn in the reassessment rotation.
What if Lowndes County had been one of them? What would this year’s budget look like?
“You start looking more at deferring maintenance,” Fisher said.
“You start scrambling,” Hairston added. “You don’t want to get in that death spiral where you’re not offering the services and that becomes the status quo. … You start looking not doing raises. We don’t want to get to that point where we’re behind because you will never catch up.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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