Natchez aldermen planning bigger budget with no tax increase

John Mott Coffey

NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen agreed Tuesday not to raise the property tax millage rate in Natchez for the budget being prepared for the upcoming year.

While property owners could be paying more because of the increased value of their houses, businesses, vehicles and other properties, it won’t be because aldermen are increasing taxes, said Alderman Dan Dillard.

The Natchez Board of Aldermen is preparing a budget for funding municipal operations that totals $36.7 million in revenues, according to preliminary numbers city officials are working on for the fiscal year that starts in October. That’s an increase from the $33.4 million the city has been operating with in the current budget year.

However, revenues generated from the city’s property tax levy — $5.8 million – is to remain the same, according the details presented at a public hearing aldermen held Tuesday.

The city in the coming months will be spending about $2 million specially earmarked to improve municipal parks and streets. The money was borrowed through a bond issue approved by the Board of Aldermen earlier this summer.

A final city budget will be adopted next month after aldermen finish reviewing revenue projections and various spending needs. “We’re in the early stages. . . . There are a lot of moving parts,” Dillard said.

Among the spending needs is more money to maintain the Natchez City Cemetery. The city-owned cemetery needs an extra $12,000, according to a request from the cemetery association in charge of its upkeep.

“I think we’ll be able to take care of it,” Dillard said.

The $72,000 the cemetery received this past year from the city needs to be boosted largely because the association had to cancel its annual fundraiser – the Angels on the Bluff tours of the historic burial ground – due to the COVID pandemic.

Not holding the autumn 2020 event was “a huge blow for maintaining the Natchez City Cemetery financially,” said Louise Rushing, who submitted the budget request to aldermen on behalf of the cemetery association.

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Natchez aldermen adopted a proposed city ordinance to make selling certain drug paraphernalia a misdemeanor crime. As presented to the board, the new law is aimed mainly at stores that sell devices for smoking crystal meth. It imposes $500 fines and jail sentences on violators found guilty of displaying, advertising or selling paraphernalia – such as drug pipes — as defined by the ordinance.

Mayor Dan Gibson has been pushing to stifle the sale of the paraphernalia at stores in areas deemed drug-dealing havens. However, Alderman Billie Joe Frazier said city officials should take a “wait-and-see” approach before enacting the local law. The retired Natchez police officer expressed concerns it could be conflicting with the growing movement to relax marijuana laws.

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Aldermen approved an initiative to spray insecticide on infested crape myrtle trees along city streets. Bark scale insects are threatening many Natchez trees by causing unsightly black mold on their trunks and stunting the colorful crape myrtle blooms. Insecticide will be applied on trees “in the worse shape” on an “as needed basis,” said Natchez Public Works Supervisor Justin Dollar.