Community complaints about service at Central Mississippi Inc. are frequent and loud.
Now the public has a chance to do something about it.
Leflore County will elect someone to represent its poor on the CMI board during a hearing at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the Board of Supervisors room at the courthouse.
The vote will be by secret ballot, according to Shirley Franks, an administrator at CMI’s Winona headquarters. Nominations will be accepted, and then those present will vote on the nominees, she said.
The CMI board is required to have equal representation from the public, poor and private sectors from its seven counties: Leflore, Carroll, Attala, Grenada, Holmes, Montgomery and Yalobusha.
Several other counties are also filling vacancies now, Franks said.
CMI is a nonprofit that receives government grants to pay utility bills and provide other services to the underprivileged. But many have said the organization isn’t functioning as it should.
It lost a $2.6 million federal grant for weatherizing homes in 2010 because of concerns about home inspections and the quality of the work performed.
And CMI had to return some of its utility grant money in 2009 from Leflore County because it didn’t spend it all and faces the same prospect this year.
Leflore County Administrator Sam Abraham said at a Dec. 12 anti-violence rally at Gilliam Head Start Center that people come into his office every day and can’t pay their light bill.
“They go out to CMI to pay their light bill, and CMI tells them they’ll give them an appointment in two weeks. Well, CMI individuals need to be without lights for two weeks and see how they like it,” he said to applause. “When they go there, they want money; they don’t want to wait two weeks to get an appointment, and they’re sending money back. Things are not working right.”
Supervisor Robert Moore, speaking at the same rally, said the city and county should consider stepping in to make sure CMI has enough staff to deliver its services.
“CMI workers have what they call certain rules of accountability. They just can’t go out and begin giving out funds without going through a certain process,” he said.
Staff at CMI are waiting on an audit because people were overlooking procedures about a year ago while trying to give out funds to serve everyone, Moore said.
