CARROLLTON — There is good news and bad for Carroll County citizens in the budget for the fiscal year that begins in October.
The good news is, supervisors do not have to raise tax rates to bring in more money, as valuations on property have increased. The bad news is, property owners will pay more taxes if their property values rose, and there will still be unmet needs in some county departments.
One of the biggest deficits will be faced by newly elected Sheriff Clint Walker when he takes office in January. The budget for the Sheriff’s Department has been aided by the Carroll-Montgomery Regional Correctional Facility, where the county’s inmates are housed, along with those sent by the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
For next year, expected revenues at the prison are lower by $108,797, although that figure can’t be exact since it is based on the number of inmates sent to CMRCF. Salaries for three county deputies have been paid out of jail funds. Another deputy charged especially with DUI enforcement has been paid from a state grant that is being cut from $69,293 to $36,413. Currently Rob Banks serves in that capacity. The county added $18,116 for DUI enforcement.
The jail has been and will be in a “significant bind to make it to the end of the year,” Board Vice President Terry Herbert said Friday.
“The revenue didn’t show up as what we projected, and that is what we will look at this year,” he said. “The board is not going to get involved in where the shortfall will be taken up. I hate it.”
Last year’s budget was inflated, Herbert said. “For a long time, we did not have to use excess funds in the account, but we’ve already used about half a million this year. The state is slow to reimburse us, but we should get what is needed by October.”
Beat 5 Supervisor Rickie Corley questioned why the extent of the shortfall came at the end of the year. “When you’ve got Irb Benjamin (jail consultant hired by the county), I don’t see why somebody we’ve been paying is letting it show up like this.”
When his contract with the county was renewed, Benjamin told the board he would not work for the county after this year because the board refused to raise his compensation.
Herbert said later that the prison shortfall has been made up from an excess revenue account in Hancock Bank, which keeps part of the per diem for inmates paid by the state.
“The county must requisition money from that account as needed for the jail,” Herbert said. “We’re not going to have money to pay our obligations, but will have to go back and find ways to make it up.”
The county has also had to add $36,500 to the budget to keep four state inmates who provide free labor under a Mississippi Department of Corrections work program. Those inmates are being placed in state work centers unless participating counties agree to forgo the $20 a day the state previously paid the counties to house them. “We can’t hire the work done for $20 a day,” Corley said.
Herbert said Warden Arthur Smith will have to adjust the personal services part of his budget in order to meet financial needs.
“There’s money in there for salaries, overtime and other needs, and he will have to make adjustments. We’re not going to get into the details,” he said.
Two other areas of concern in the budget are bridges and reappraisal and mapping.
“We had some money in the bridge fund. Three are in an emergency state, and one fell. Three others are in danger. We addressed these, but it put us in a problem,” Herbert said. “We spent at least $250,000 to keep three from falling. There are 40 deficit bridges in the county.”
Beat 4 Supervisor Claude Fluker emphasized that Pam Mann, the current tax assessor/collector, is not the cause of a deficit in her department.
Mann said the funds in her department have been used by the board for things other than reappraisal and mapping.
“Not enough money was put in the fund to do what the state mandated,” she said. “We had to pay for aerial mapping and photography, as well as reappraisal, which is done every four years.”
In other business:
• Herbert announced that the lease between Vaiden Clinic and the University of Mississippi Medical Center has been signed, as of Sept. 1, although the clinic will not open until mid-September. “They have hired a nurse practitioner and office staff,” he said.
• Tony Green, who works for North Central Planning and Development District and assists the board with budget planning, said he wanted to compliment the county’s departments for staying within budgets. The board scheduled a public hearing on the budget at 9 a.m. Sept. 11 at the courthouse in Carrollton.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated the financial terms of the Mississippi Department of Corrections' work program with participating counties.
