County supervisors on Monday approved a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 that includes a 4.6% increase to its general purposes tax levy.
With the vote, the board of supervisors became the county’s only entity to raise property taxes for next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Both the city of Columbus and Columbus Municipal School District approved flat tax rates for FY 2026, while Lowndes County School District actually reduced its burden on taxpayers by 2.3%.
Still, Monday’s public hearing yielded no public comments, and supervisors passed both the budget and new tax rate unanimously. That starkly contrasted a wave of criticism the county fielded through social media after The Dispatch first reported the county’s plans to increase taxes.
“I guess the public forum now is social media,” Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch on Monday.
The budget includes roughly $72.3 million in revenue, about $37.5 million of which will come from ad valorem taxes collected on real and personal property.
To raise the budgeted property taxes, the county is increasing its general purposes millage to 45 mills, up 2 mills from this fiscal year.
A mill is a unit used to measure property taxes, and the increase will raise a county homeowner’s tax by $20 per $100,000 of value and a business owner’s bill by $30 per $100,000 of value. Property taxes rose nearly 20% in the county in Fiscal Year 2025, as well.
Hairston defended the tax increase as “worth it” to improve, or at least adequately maintain, county services amid rising costs.
“I’ve said this before, but inflation doesn’t stop at the government’s door,” Hairston said.
The FY 2026 budget includes more than $74.3 million in expenditures. County Administrator Jay Fisher said the near $2 million deficit comes from legislative appropriations and grants budgeted as revenue in previous years that will be spent next year.
What’s new in the budget?
The county’s debt payments are increasing by more than $1.8 million next fiscal year, primarily with the first bill coming due on a $25 million commitment to prep the CINCO Megasite for industrial development.
Fisher said the county also created two positions – one each in youth court and recreation – and raised pay by $2,000 a year for all hourly full-time, non-probationary employees, as well as targeted raises for specific salaried personnel. This year, the county will pay those increases with $576,000 in interest income from American Rescue Plan Act funds.
It also includes increases in the road and recreation department budgets.
“This was an extremely tough budget to put together,” Fisher said. “(Department heads) were all very flexible … and made significant sacrifices for us to make this budget work.”
The full picture
Overall, the county levied 97.83 mills for Fiscal Year 2026. That includes 45 for its operations, 2 mandated by the state to help fund East Mississippi Community College and 50.83 mills for Lowndes County School District.
LCSD requested a little more than $32.6 million from county taxes to cover its operations and debt service for FY 2026, an increase of $371,162 from the previous year. But because of increased property values in the district, the number of mills it took to fill that request dropped by 1.2.
That means a homeowner in the district will pay $12 less in school taxes per $100,000 of property value and a business owner will pay $18 less per $100,000 of value. Taking the county’s tax hike into account, their overall tax bill will still increase $8 per $100,000 for the homeowner and $12 per $100,000 for the business owner.
County residents who live in the city or CMSD separate district will feel the full brunt of the county tax increase, since city and CMSD taxes remained flat.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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