Natchez, Adams County boards preparing budgets for upcoming year

NATCHEZ, Miss. — Adams County and Natchez boards are preparing budgets for operating local governments in the fiscal year that starts in October.

For Natchez, Mayor Dan Gibson said he and city aldermen look forward to meeting “significant goals without an increase in taxes and with a balanced budget.”

For Adams County, supervisors expressed concerns for what one said is a “spending frenzy” by county employees as they end the fiscal year and prepare for the new one that starts Oct. 1.

However, no county tax increase is being planned.

“We’re going to have to take an axe to this (budget). We’re not going to whittle,” said county Supervisor Kevin Wilson, the Adams County board’s only member elected as a Republican.

Supervisors were told Tuesday that the E911 emergency dispatching operations are running a deficit as expenses exceed revenues. This is due largely to recent salary increases and overtime pay for its phone dispatchers, said county Administrator Angie King.

While the county’s overall budget is not bleeding red ink, said board President Wes Middleton, it can’t afford to pay employees more, build a new jail, develop a new emergency dispatching facility or address other needs on the county wish list.

“We’re in hard times now…. If you don’t have the money to give raises, you don’t give raises,” said Middleton, who noted the county board does not plan to make Adams County taxpayers pay more to generate additional revenues. “You can’t raise taxes now.”

While the county has received nearly $6 million since last year from the American Rescue Plan enacted by Congress, he noted that money is earmarked mostly for one-time expenses such as infrastructure improvement and economic development.

Adams County has been operating this fiscal year with revenues totaling $34.4 million. For the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, revenues could total about $33 million, according to preliminary projections compiled for the board.

As the county Board of Supervisors prepare a final budget to present to the public Sept. 15, the Natchez Board of Aldermen and mayor held a public hearing Tuesday on its proposed budget.

The city has been operating this fiscal year with a total of $33.5 million in revenues. For the upcoming year, revenues are expected to exceed $34.3 million, according to a preliminary budget that remains a work in progress to revise.

Gibson highlighted Tuesday a long list of revenue and spending increases that will be included in the budget to be finalized by the Board of Aldermen next week.

Extra revenues include more property taxes paid to the city by Merit Health hospital, which received tax breaks in past years being phased out since its corporate owner bought the formerly county-owned medical center in 2014.

Additional revenues will be used for a variety of expenditures, ranging from pay raises for Natchez police officers to more money for Black history commemorations, Gibson said.

The city has received about $3.3 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan, which the mayor noted is earmarked for various purposes, such as upgrading Silver Street and subsidizing a prospective commercial airline to serve the Natchez-Adams County Airport.

The city is also getting extra funds from bonds being used to finance various projects, including $6 million in street improvements and $5.3 million to enhance the city’s three meeting venues: the Natchez Convention Center, City Auditorium and the Civic Center (formerly known as the Community Center).