NATCHEZ, Miss. — The city board approved a $51 million spending plan Tuesday for operating city government in the coming year that includes millions of extra funds for street improvements, police pay raises and other priorities without increasing city property taxes.
“We’re in good shape financially,” said Mayor Dan Gibson, who noted Natchez begins its fiscal year Oct. 1 “with a very realistic budget that is also a conservative budget.”
The planned expenditures of $51 million for the new year is about $20 million more than what was budgeted for the current year, but a large chunk of it consists of leftover surplus funds and what the board is borrowing through bonds to upgrade city streets, the Natchez Convention Center and other city-owned facilities.
The budget includes $8 million in bond revenues for refurbishing the city’s three meeting venues: Convention Center, City Auditorium and Civic Center. Another $6 million is for city streets that the board will later decide which to repave. There’s also $2 million for improving various city buildings, including the Natchez Police Department and Natchez fire stations.
The money the city is receiving for upgrading the meeting venues will be repaid with an additional 4 percent interest rate over the next 15 years, according to a report presented to the Board of Aldermen and mayor. The rate is lower than expected – making the interest payback expenses about $100,000 below what had been budgeted, Gibson said. Issuing the bonds now “beats the rate hike that we know is coming” for borrowing money.
The board’s budget also itemizes $850,000 for Morgantown Road from federal funds the city has received from the American Rescue Plan Act that Congress passed last year.
City and county officials are working to combine $14 million or more they’ll have in bond revenues and other funds to improve area streets, roads and bridges. Gibson said this will enable them to scale back expenses by consolidating the hiring of roadbuilders for the projects.
Topping their priorities is the one-mile section of Morgantown Road that extends from Natchez out into Adams County. The narrow, flood-prone and much-traveled thoroughfare is considered the most dangerous in Adams County. Aldermen are reviewing a list of other city streets to repave to combine with roads that Adams County supervisors want improved.
While the city budget includes money for pay raises to help recruit police officers, they won’t be provided until aldermen specifically authorize the additional salaries.
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The city has finally received the federal funds to reimburse it for the costs of recovering from the 2021 ice storm. The mayor said $580,000 was paid last week by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Natchez-Adams County was declared a disaster area after the February ice storm broke trees throughout the area. This prompted a massive cleanup effort local governments had to pay for with assurances FEMA would eventually reimburse them for the costs. The city is to also get more than $100,000 from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency for its share of the reimbursements, Gibson said.
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The mayor expressed concerns about Natchez-Adams County’s overcrowded animal shelter that he said has forced the facility to turn away stray dogs caught by the city’s animal-control officer. Gibson said this has resulted in vicious canines roaming the city — causing an “unsafe environment” for people and their pet dogs and cats. He said the city board might provide the shelter more funds to expand its capacity to house animals. In the meantime, he said, animal shelters in Concordia Parish and elsewhere have taken some of vagrant animals.
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Aldermen were assured the golf carts that have sprung up recently on city streets have been properly licensed and are “street legal.” The board in July enacted an ordinance allowing the low-speed golf carts to be driven on downtown streets. A business with a fleet of golf carts to rent has been established on Broadway Street to cater primarily to site-seeing tourists.
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