Leflore County taxpayers, already strapped with one of the highest millage rates in Mississippi, are thinking about the prospect of paying more taxes next year.
That's because the 3 percent raise for county employees, passed Monday by the Board of Supervisors, carries Chancery Clerk Sam Abraham's warning of a consequent 1-mill property tax hike. A mill is $1 for every $1,000 worth of property.
Supervisors say the raise is an obligation they owe their workers. Raises usually go out in January, but because of a number of economic unknowns, including the climbing cost of insurance, the board decided at the time to defer its decision.
"We made a commitment to county workers back in September that we would look at a possible raise for them in mid-year, and it is now mid-year, and we voted to give them a raise," said Robert Moore, the board's president.
Lennon Powell, the county's road manager, says his employees deserved a raise.
"I feel like they needed it," he said. "I understand the budget might not be what it should be, but I'm for the 3 percent raise. I feel like there's some kind of way we can cut the budget down to where we'll feel more comfortable."
However, the decision concerns Russell Cohron, who owns two businesses, Russell's Used Cars and Russell's Warehouse Antiques, as well as rental property in Greenwood.
He doesn't think the county should skimp on its employees. "I am the first one to tell you I know how important it is to reward your good employees by pay," he said.
But, he says, hard times call for "clear, clear, hard business decisions that cannot be influenced either by politics or by personal emotions."
As a Greenwood resident, he pays city and county taxes based on a rate 54.3 percent higher on his home than nine other comparable Mississippi cities and 33 percent higher on his car.
The rates have risen as the tax base in the city and county has dwindled because of the exodus of industry - seven employers in the last three years - and a rising unemployment rate.
The 1-mill tax increase projected by Abraham would add $10 to the taxes on a home assessed at $100,000, with homestead exemption.
The county's largest individual taxpayer, Jimmy Henderson, declined to comment on how a tax increase might affect him.
This is at least the eighth year in a row that county employees have been granted raises. Cohron cautioned that raises can't be a yearly expectation, especially when the economy is so uncertain.
"I think they're setting precedents that are going to be hard to keep up with, and more difficult every year," he said.
That trend could lead to even more dire decisions down the road.
"I would rather them make hard decisions now than when things get worse and worse and they're going to have to start cutting personnel," Cohron said.
But Moore - who pays $824.73 in taxes, the second most among the supervisors, according to the tax rolls - asks the public to be patient. He claims that supervisors under his watch have actually lowered the millage rate, and the idea that they might have to raise it now is only speculation.
"With regards to the chancery clerk's predictions, that's exactly what they were - predictions based on a lot of suppositions," he said.
Since 1995, when Moore became president, the tax rate has gone from 109.21 to 100.48 mills. But, according to Abraham, that decline is largely the result of a 2001 countywide reappraisal, which raised real property values by about 30 percent. "The county is generating more money today," Abraham said.
As for the prospect of raising taxes, Abraham isn't so optimistic.
"I cannot say that anybody is going to raise taxes," he said. "I can only say that without raising taxes, you're going to have to slash expenditures. And at this point in time, I feel like we have slashed, doing this last budget, down to some of the bare bones."
