OKTIBBEHA COUNTY — Oktibbeha County Road Manager Victor Collins has a long list of equipment purchases he wants to keep up with the county’s road maintenance.
It’s up to the board of supervisors to find out how to pay for some or all of it.
To do so, supervisors on Tuesday heard from William Norris of Government Consultants and Troy Johnson of the law firm Butler Snow and scheduled a financial workshop with them and Lynn Norris, also of Government Consultants, following the board’s next meeting on March 4.
Both Norris and Johnson said the options range from a general obligation bond, a five-year note or a simple lease agreement.
“What’ll help us make the decision of what y’all need to do is what y’all are going to buy,” Johnson told the board.
Collins told The Dispatch that if he got every piece of equipment on his wish list, it would cost the county about $3 million.
“We’re looking for a chip machine to pave roads,” he said. “We are looking for motor graders. We’re trying to get brooms (street sweepers).
And some pickups to try to replace some of the aging trucks that we use to service every day. That’s a good bit of it. It’s a little bit more now, but we really need that to keep up production.”
He said a lot of his current equipment is aging and reducing his department’s efficiency.
“We’ve got a broom that’s aged, and it takes two people to get it started every morning and get ready to use it,” he said. “Our chip spreader, it’s getting age on it. … We’ve got to replace it to try to make it productive. If a piece of equipment isn’t productive, the men aren’t productive.”
Where things stand financially
Board President Marvell Howard told The Dispatch the county cannot afford on its own to purchase all of the equipment Collins needs, so the financial workshop will help determine its options on what it can buy.
One possibility he floated is leveraging the county’s equipment budget for a bond to make the purchases, and then use the equipment budget to make the bond payments.
He also said the workshop will give supervisors an opportunity to look at financing other projects. This includes potential demolition of the Felix Long Memorial Hospital complex, a former home of county offices that now sits vacant. The legislature has given the county $1 million to go toward building a new administrative complex at that site.
“I think it’s the will of the board to go ahead and look at other projects while we’re looking,” he said. “Looking at long-term funding, short-term projects as well as long-term projects that we might can fund moving on out into the future.”
Tax exemption approval
Supervisors unanimously approved a tax exemption for an unidentified business that is pursuing a $9.5 million expansion and will create 20 jobs. The Starkville Board of Aldermen also approved the tax exemption at its Tuesday meeting.
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins told the supervisors the exemption is a way to encourage companies to continue investing in the area. He said the creation of new jobs is “a plus on this.”
The exemption will save the company around $56,000 in county taxes per year over 10 years.
“We watch our existing industries, the bigger ones,” he said. “We like to see them continue to invest.”
Kevin Edwards is news editor and reports on Starkville and Oktibbeha County government.
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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 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
