Hollingsworth asks for tax assessor documents
Byhalia Mayor Don Hollingsworth appeared before the Marshall County Board of Supervisors at the Aug. 3 meeting to ask for two items, the summary and recap of the 2022 and 2023 taxes for the Town.
He said he sets his millage off those documents but could not get them from the tax assessor’s office or the state (Department of Revenue).
“I can’t finish my audit,” he said.
He is fresh out of the gate as new mayor of Byhalia since April following the resignation of mayor Debby Weathers.
“I definitely need my 22-23 summary and recap to finish out my budget,” he said. “By state law we have to do it.”
District 3 supervisor Keith Taylor invited tax assessor Barbara Belfoure in to help.
“This board has nothing to do with this,” Taylor said. “He’s in the same boat we are and the taxpayers are in Marshall County.”
Hollingsworth said, as the new kid, on the block he needs to know where the town stands “so we can go forward.”
District 1 supervisor Charles Terry said the board of supervisors is looking at the 2023-2024 year and assumed the budget was complete.
Hollingsworth said he got it in the mail Friday – the 2022-2023 data.
“Y’all set taxes off the recap,” he said. “We need the summary and the recap (the numbers).” Belfoure said that the Town of Byhalia prepared a different detailed report.
“That recap survey, all municipalities receive it,” she said. “They need the 2022-2023 detailed report. It should have been filed by the prior tax assessor. We can’t find it in the tax collector’s office, either. It’s not an official, not a required document.”
She said she is preparing the 2023-2024 report and she can go back and recreate the 2022-2023 report.
Board attorney Amanda Whaley Smith asked if anyone had contacted the former tax collector and tax assessor, Betty Byrd and Juanita Dillard, respectively.
Belfoure said she has the raw numbers from Delta Computers.
Hollingsworth said in the interlocal agreements, the Town of Byhalia, the City of Holly Springs and Town of Potts Camp pay for the sheet and the data.
“The sheet you are reporting is not a state requirement,” Terry said.
“I’m asking for the 20222023 recap sheet. You have provided what you said, but I’m still short one document. I gotta have it by the 15th to get this (new fiscal year budget) approved.”
“I’ve been told whatever the tax office does is not the responsibility of this board,” Taylor said.
Smith said the tax assessor is contracted to assess properties for the tax collect.
“It is also an interlocal agreement between the town and county and municipality,” she said.
Taylor said the county takes the numbers from the tax assessor.
Hollingsworth asked who certifies the data to the Mississippi Department of Revenue.
He asked if the tax assessor turns the data over to the county to send to the state.
“I’m not a Certified Public Accountant and it’s kind of confusing,” he said.
Terry said the entities may need to renegotiate their contracts with the tax assessor and collector, “so in the future, it would be a done deal.”
Belfoure said she is taking classes that all new assessors take and then come back to the county. She said the current administration now needs to get in agreement.
Smith said the tax collector Rosalyn DeBerry had asked for a new contract for the Town of Potts Camp which never had an agreement.
“We certainly can do another one with Byhalia and Holly Springs, but these stand as is for the 1989 agreements,” she said.
Belfoure said she has not seen any of the agreements and would like to see all three of them.
“He (Hollingsworth) wants a detailed report, not a recap and summary,” she said.
“It ain’t hit the fan yet, when people see what’s been put on the rolls,” Taylor said. “We are in the same boat.There were some jobs that weren’t being done since 2019-2020, not put on the tax rolls.”
He said some people were being taxed only on their lots, and their homes had not been put on the tax rolls.
“That’s what you are going to run into,” Taylor said.
Belfoure said lots in the new subdivisions did not have their new houses on the tax rolls.
Hollingsworth said he has three clerks, who have two years experience and two employees in zoning for three years. And “builders are going in and out like swinging doors.”
As an aside, Hollingsworth said he would like to join with the county and other municipalities to form a basketball league for children.
“I would love to have county-wide basketball,” he said.
Terry said it makes no sense for each governmental entity to build separate facilities. One big complex should be built, he said.
“Our future is in our young folks,” Hollingsworth said. “My wife was a teacher for 32 years. One of our aldermen was taught by her.”
Taylor said when the county negotiated a contract for garbage collection, the county was able to get seed money to start a park.
Hollingsworth mused, “I don’t know how long I’m going be mayor. We are going work with the county to make this a better place to live.”
He said he met with Congressman Kelly to seek funding for building a bypass road around the railroad track.
He said the Congressman advised that the town should get seed money to get all the environmental work done and get the site shovel ready.
“That was the goal of Ronnie Joe (Bennett) for Potts Camp,” Taylor said.
Hollingsworth said 15 trains come through the town each day and traffic gets backed up to as far as the Exxon Station on Highway 309.
He invited the public to come visit Byhalia and see what is being done to get the old school commons auditorium restored.