Local officials to attend Barbour’s budget meeting


Thursday, April 9, 2009
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Local officials to attend Barbour’s budget meeting

By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer

Members of the Mississippi Legislature and state agencies are waiting with bated breath for Gov. Haley Barbour’s planned stimulus package summit with state and local officials April 16 at the Convention Center in Jackson.

The Marshall County Board of Supervisors approved travel for the board or its representatives to attend the 2 p.m. meeting.

The Legislature and state agencies have opted to wait until May 4 or June 4 to finalize the 2009-10 fiscal year budget, pending whether Barbour will accept President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress’s federal economic stimulus package to the state, according to Gary Anderson, county consultant. Mississippi is due to receive between $2.5 billion and $2.8 billion through the stimulus.

“Governor Barbour has to indicate to the feds what he will accept in the stimulus package, so the Legislature wanted to wait to see what he does first before finishing the budget,” he said Monday to the board.

The governor is to take questions from the audience.

Bill Mobley, executive director of the Marshall County Industrial Development Authority, and Anderson told supervisors the stimulus money will all likely be incorporated into the budgets of state agencies to pay for ready-to-go projects like the Holly Springs Bypass Road and the Highway 72/Cayce Road sewer project.

Anderson said once the governor decides on accepting stimulus money, he (Anderson) expects the state agencies to move rapidly on putting that money to work.

He said the board “needs as much representation as it can get.”

“All departments will be presenting their plans and you will want to key in on the Mississippi Development Authority’s plan,” he said.

County administrator Larry Hall said no new agencies would be created but stimulus money would go to existing agencies and some to public safety.

“They have nailed down the amount of funds to go to the agencies and it’s not a big pie in the sky thing,” he said.

Some projects awaiting stimulus money locally include a sewer project set for a community at the intersection of Cayce Road and Highway 72 and the Holly Springs Bypass Road overlay project.

In other business Monday, the board of supervisors:

set the last week of April as the time to place dumpsters around the county for residents to put non-household solid waste and non-hazardous wastes in.
discussed a crackdown on out-of-state car tags used by Marshall County residents. Supervisor Keith Taylor made the recommendation saying he has been getting lots of complaints from people in his district who say their neighbors fail to register all their motorized vehicles in Marshall County. The county needs the car tag ad valorem revenue, he said.

“I want people to know that we will start writing tickets to enforce the law,” he said.

discussed bringing in a shredder to get rid of outdated records stored in the old jail and at justice court. The removal of these no longer required records will free up badly needed space at the two locations, said Larry Hall, county administrator.
approved taking old voting machines and a three-ton heating and air unit off inventory so they can be removed to free up storage space.
approved advertising for bids for maintenance on roofing and insulation and for county road and bridge supplies.
approved travel for training to include Larry Hall traveling to a grant writer’s workshop, Ethelene Jones to a seminar in Tupelo, coroner Richard Anderson to training in Jackson, and Ron Ray for a safety conference at Horn Lake,
discussed working with Bubba Hubbard and George Rowland to tackle a waterlily overgrowth problem at Duck Pond. Possible solutions include putting herbicide in the pond water and stocking the pond with grass-eating carp, according to Larry Hall.

The county will continue to improve the favorite fishing spot which is supplied with natural spring water and supervisors want to build a pier connected to the parking lot for use by the handicapped, he said.

discussed moving the board of supervisors offices out of the courthouse to the Buford Building for about two weeks while work is done on the county administrator's office. After that project is finished, the county administrator’s office in the courthouse will be reopened and supervisors will get to work on renovation of the Buford Building for the administrative offices of the Marshall County School District.
approved county easements that would give the Mississippi Department of Transportation right-of-way temporarily at intersections on county roads that intersect with I-269. The easements are required so MDOT can bring the approaches and exits up to federal highway standards and the easements will be returned to the county once the highway is completed. Areas where easements are needed include intersecting areas on Dogwood Road, Mt. Carmel Road and on Highway 309 between Bubba Taylor and Peachtree Road.
heard a report from airport manager Justin Hall that the FAA inspector visited the airport and viewed projects that were funded by the agency. The FAA inspector likes the idea of extending Tribble Road to the North Holly Springs Exit to keep all airport traffic accessible from one side of the interstate, said Bill Mobley. As it stands, visitors unfamiliar with the entrance to the airport often get lost on a wrong road, such as Hernando Road, when looking for the airport, he said.

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