Bond bill signed


Thursday, April 14, 2011
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Bond bill signed

By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer

The Marshall County Board of Supervisors heard a report of the outcome of the legislative session, including the signing of a bond bill by Gov. Haley Barbour April 6.

Legislative consultant Gary Anderson focused on the passage of the bond bill and what is in it for Marshall County.

“To me it was a most unusual session, especially for the fourth year of a term,” he said. “From the county standpoint, we were focused on the bond bill – $422 million. A lot of it went back into the Mississippi Development Authority and Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL).”

Twenty million dollars was restored to the Road and Bridge Fund that the county can access to address some needs. The $87 million requested by the Mississippi Association of Supervisors for homestead exemption was finally funded at $81 million. Bond money for the construction of a Cayce Road Sewer Improvement project is folded into about $7 million to MDA, Anderson said.

But the county will be competing with other counties for the $1.1 million it requested for the sewer. Leland Speed has been named interim director again at MDA. Anderson said he thinks Speed will be favorable to Marshall County’s need.

School districts were restored $6 million out of a $20 million cut for K-12 to put toward teachers’ supplies. Junior colleges and universities will probably have to increase tuition or room and board, he said.

IHLs were satisfied with the bond bill for repairs.

“Nobody got everything they wanted out of this deal,” Anderson said. “A lot of department heads were walking the halls worried about laying off people.”

Revenues were up $18 million over projected for March, but budget writers decided to stick with the fall estimate rather that put more into the budget, he said.

“The main thing is when we start working on the budget this summer, you don’t see anything backbreaking for the county?” asked Chuck Thomas, chancery clerk.

Anderson said the local delegation – Reps. Kelvin Buck, Tommy Woods, Jack Gadd and Sen. Bill Stone – had done “a fantastic job to make something positive for our area.”

County administrator Larry Hall praised Anderson for “a wonderful job this year.”

In other business, supervisors:

• motioned to deny a developer an expansion of Creekwood Subdivision until the developer corrects some drainage problems the board said he left in the first part of the subdivision.

• approved a request from Supervisor George Zinn III to purchase soccer goals for the park at Isaac Chapel.

• approved Good Friday, April 22, for a holiday.

• adopted the claims docket of $265,505 for the end of March.

• authorized advertising for supplies.

• discussed the household solid waste collection contract with Resourceful Environmental Services and approved credits for delinquent payment on accounts reported by the county administrator for the month of March.

• learned that the ASICS warehouse in the Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park is under occupancy. The property is assessed at $27 million, according to Bill Mobley, executive director of the Industrial Development Authority. The company expects to get started on Phase II in 2012 or 2013, he said.

• discussed repeated vandalism of road signs in certain areas of the county.

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