The Webster Progress-Times

WALTHALL - The Board of Supervisors approved the 2004-05 budget for Webster County Sept. 3 as proposed.

The budget was approved unanimously immediately following a public hearing attended by about a dozen people besides all five supervisors. Larry Crowley (District 4) made the motion to adopt the budget and Lynn Lamb (District 3) seconded it.

Total millage set for the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 is 93.54 mills, up 1.05 percent. The general county tax levy of 34.46 mills is projected to raise $1.76 million. The certified tax rate in the existing budget approved last year jumped 3.16 percent.

The new budget of $5.4 million represents a 5.34 percent increase in county expenditures for all purposes other than school purposes and a 3.35 percent increase in ad valorem tax revenue. General county expenditures are projected to increase 2.53 percent to $2.32 million. Board attorney Buchanan Meek Jr. said while reviewing the budget that virtually all of this increase comes from the "tremendous" increase in the demand for liability and health insurance on county employees. The county pays for employees' coverage only.

Joe Gregg raised questions about various expenditures, which Meek pointed out are only projections of what would be spent. Gregg asked the supervisors what they were going to do to justify their raises, and said he did not understand how those board members with outside interests or those who employ road foremen could contribute 40 hours a week to road maintenance purposes.

Some supervisors replied that road supervision is only part of their job in that position, and that they work more than 40 hours a week for the county including all of their other responsibilities.

Under legislation signed in May by Gov. Haley Barbour, Mississippi supervisors were mandated to provide raises for a wide range of county elected officials from county budgets and could provide raises to themselves. The raises of 20 percent or more for most county officials, including sheriffs, tax assessor-collectors, justice court judges and county prosecuting attorneys, were automatic as approved by the Legislature and are not set by county supervisors, who had to vote to accept their own raises.

Webster County supervisors opted for the full 20 percent raise for themselves in a motion approved last month, making their annual salaries $33,700. Supervisors' salaries are set according to counties' populations.

This is the first raise for supervisors and other county elected officials in eight years. Meek, in response to the salary issue at the hearing, said of the supervisors: "These gentlemen work very hard. ... I think they're underpaid."

Meek and the supervisors also said taxes for road and bridge maintenance, which are integrated into the overall budget, are not being raised and are lower now than they have been in the past.

The budget as adopted decreases the county's annual contribution to the Webster County Development Council from $40,000 to $15,000. WCDC Executive Director Steve Anderson, in attendance at Tuesday night's meeting of the Eupora Board of Aldermen, was asked if he knew why the supervisors cut the funding.

He replied, "I was told it was a budget crunch." Aldermen tabled adoption of the city budget, which as proposed would continue economic development funding at $40,000, until a recessed meeting set for 5 p.m. Monday.