Supervisors Begin to Deal with Budget Issues/911 Communications

The Winston County Board of Supervisors met today (Tuesday, July 5) in a regularly scheduled meeting. Budgets, the upcoming primary elections and 911 communication issues dominated the discussion. The Board heard from Dr. Phil Sutphin, President of ECCC who updated the Board about the school and its role in Winston County. Sutphin indicated that ECCC was recently selected among the top 10% of community colleges across the country by the Aspen Institute. He noted that enrollment had almost reached the 3000 student level and that the college had been able to maintain tuition rates at $990 per semester and provide some raises to faculty even while maintaining funding levels at last year’s rate. He also spoke of improvements to ECCC including new parking lots, a new science building, renovation to Cross Hall and future renovation of Founder’s Gym on the campus. Sutphin presented a resolution from the ECCC Board requesting continued funding support from Winston County.
Beth Edwards and Richard Green from the Winston County Library also presented information about the Library and a request for continued funding as well. The Library presented a budget of $158,219 for the upcoming year. Edwards indicated that the Library had seen tremendous growth in the summer kid’s programs. 334 children were registered this summer which was significantly higher than last year. She also indicated that the teen program had also grown in participation and was working with the Boys & Girls Club. She thanked local businesses for their support with these programs.
Richard Green informed the Board that the Library had joined the Golden Triangle Regional Library Consortium which allows a local library cardholder to access other area libraries including MSU & MUW. This also allows MSU to maintain and update the Library’s data base through their computers rather than requiring the local Library to maintain their own servers.
Green made the Library’s budget request to the Board and indicated that the Library received no federal funds and limited state funding which has been cut. The budget presented was for a similar dollar amount as the previous year’s with some adjustments within that amount to account for increases in expenses including a state retirement mandate..
Randal Livingston and Clarence Kelley informed the Board that approved tower work on the antenna and coaxial cable for the 911 repeater improved the the system tremendously. The antenna was found to be out of position and the corresponding coaxial cable was loose. These adjustments helped in all areas of the county except Mars Hill. In addition, the possibility of the use of Cellular South towers in the county was also discussed. An added benefit of Cellular South towers would be the access to backup generators in case of power outages. This would save the county the cost and maintenace of their own generators.
Livingston asked for and recieved permission to connect the Louisville repeater to a backup generator. He also recommended that the Board consider a new repeater at the Liberty tower location to better serve the western parts of the county, including Mars Hill. There was discussion about the need to reposition or move the current repeater on The Noxapater water tower, the need for a new repeater vs a relay repeater and overall coverage for different parts of the county. The Board asked that Livingston and Kelly look into finding a test service to test a relay signal from the Liberty tower location and Noxapater to see if it would be possible to improve the current system without the cost of a new repeater. Livingston indicated that a new repeater installed would cost approximately $20,000.
The Board also heard from Jimmy Kemp of Kemp Associates concerning road projects in the county most particularly the Choctaw Lake- Bluff Lake route from Hwy 25 N. Kemp requested the Board execute an order authorizing the execution of a contract for engineering services for the construction of the Bluff Lake Road project (PLH-0673 (3)B). The board agreed and approved the order.
Dean Miller - local Election Commissioner along with another Commission representative met with the Board to request compensation for commission workers to assist with the upcoming primary elections. Miller indicated that Mississippi Code does not allow the commission to be paid for primaries but due to the complexity of the procedures and the setup of the newer voting machines, the Secretary of State has requested that the Election commission participate in the process. In Mississippi, primary elections are actually the responsibility of each political party and Election Commission members are not paid. The Election Commission is asking local Boards to compensate the Commission at the rate of $17 per hour for an estimated 27 hours to offset the expenses of testing voting machines and setting them up for primary use. The Board took no action and agreed to research the matter further.
Tax Assessor Brenda Miles informed the Board that the total county assessed value was down by approximately $4 million dollars. Most of the loss in valuation came from losses in car tag revenue and personal property. Miles indicated that real estate valuation remained approximately the same but that the loss of assessed value would result in a loss of tax revenue of roughly $350,000 just to the county alone if mil levies remained at prior year’s levels. (WinstonWebNews will have further information on the County Valuation and it’s possible tax effects within the next few days.)
The Board scheduled work meetings for department budgets, dealt with a garbage lien issue, approved claims, discussed the appointment to the Economic Development Board due to the retirement of the hospital administrator, discussed local programming issues between the county and the Mississippi Highway Patrol E-Tickets program and discussed questions of liability of the County with the 911 office.