Supervisors Approve New Budget
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Yalobusha County Tax Assessor/Collector Michael Walton presented budget requests during a Board of Supervisor meeting Monday that lasted over seven hours. The proposed budget was finalized at the end of the meeting and includes a $200 monthly raise for full-time county employees.
WATER VALLEY – County supervisors hammered out details for the upcoming year’s budget in a seven-plus hour meeting Monday, the longest in recent history. The budget for Fiscal Year 2025 starts on October 1 and the proposed budget was finalized at the end of Monday’s meeting.
The proposed $11-million-plus budget does not include an increase in the county’s tax rate as the millage rate will remain the same. The budget also provides a substantial pay raise for county employees, $200 per month for full-time employees and $1 per hour for part-time workers.
Supervisors were able to fund the raises and other requests for additional money from department heads without raising the tax rate by dipping into a reserve fund for just over $100,000. The county’s assessed value, or the total value of property taxed, is up 2.4 percent, generating an additional $107,583 in revenue for the general fund that also helped cover the increases in the coming year’s budget. The cost of health insurance for county employees decreased, providing additional savings that were allocated for budget increases.
The proposed budget was approved at the end of the meeting with a 4-0 vote after District Five Supervisor Gaylon Gray abstained.
“I am going to abstain because y’all haven’t got me convinced about all this robbing Peter to pay Paul. But I am not against giving employees a raise,”
Gray said after the vote. “I am for our employees and our taxpayers”
Gray’s reference came after funding was shifted in multiple department to allow approximately $100,000 from a reappraisal tax account to be allocated for the pay raises. The reappraisal account has over $600,000 in it, money that was described as reserves for the county.
Board President Cayce Washington noted after the meeting that the county has around $13 million in different bank accounts, money that includes around three to four million dollars in operating revenue in addition to capital improvement funds and reserve funds. Washington said the county is currently drawing five percent interest on the money, generating approximately $650,000 annually for the county.
District Four Supervisor Eddie Harris cautioned that supervisors may be forced to raise taxes in the coming years.
Sheriff Jerimaine Gooch was among department heads presenting budget requests to supervisors. He received praise for keeping his budget in line during the current fiscal year.
“I just want to commend the sheriff, he has done a spectacular job. He has stayed within budget and I don’t knew if we have ever had that,” Washington said about the expenditures for Gooch’s law enforcement budget.
“We have tried to keep everything in budget with no waste. We only purchase what we need, and sometimes we don’t purchase what we need,” Gooch said.
Part-time deputy Jerry Ferguson, who previously served as chief deputy, provided the details for Gooch’s requests for the sheriff’s department fund and jail fund during Monday’s meeting. Ferguson started his presentation explaining that the sheriff’s department budget has only had minimal increases during the last eight years with the exception of additional money allocated for payroll for deputies and other employees.
“You have helped the department with funding for personnel,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson next noted that the fuel budget is currently $30,000.
“It has run $50,000 or $60,000 for past four years,” Ferguson said about the annual cost for fuel. He told supervisors that the gas budget needs an additional $24,000 to accurately reflect expenditures, a request that was granted. Ferguson added that the department has checked spending in other line items this year to cover the overage in the fuel line item.
Ferguson also requested $2,500 annual increase for the seven full-time deputies employed by the department, a request that came before supervisors decided to grant pay raises for all employees in all county departments. Ferguson noted that the starting pay for non-certified deputies is $36,000 annually and the starting pay for certified deputies is $38,000 annually. He added that increasing the starting pay for deputies to just over $40,000 will help keep the county’s pay rate consistent with some neighboring departments like Calhoun County.
“You can go 13 miles up the road and they start them out at $61,000,” Ferguson said. “What we are trying to do is to get close enough that if they are from here, they can stay here and work.”
Another big expense approved by county supervisors was $44,000 for a capital improvement fund for the E-911 department. The increase came to ensure funding will be available for big-ticket items that will have to be replaced periodically.
Another budget addition approved for the coming year is a $106,000 contract with S&S Appraisal to provide property appraisals for tax assessments in the county. The decision to outsource appraising was approved in April following a recommendation from Tax Assessor/Collector Michael Walton, who took office in January. Walton explained during an April meeting that Yalobusha County is only one of two counties in Mississippi where appraisals are done in-house by an elected assessor.
Walton made cuts in other areas of his budget to help absorb the added expense, savings estimated to cover approximately two-thirds of the cost of the contract. The savings included eliminating one position in the tax office.
A hearing will be scheduled next month for public input before the final vote to adopt the budget. The date and time of the hearing will be published in coming editions of the Herald.
