TYLERTOWN — Walthall County supervisors entertained requests for budget allocations at their July 18 meeting.
District Attorney Dee Bates told supervisors that his office has been losing money, and he laid off two employees to address his shortfalls.
The layoffs take care of most of the shortfall for the year, Bates said. He said most of the deficit resulted from the bad check unit and pre-trial intervention.
A private company is now pursuing bad check cases, he said, which contrtibuted to a drop of $41,000 in fines and fees his office would have collected before. Declining check use in the face of greater credit and debit card usage also cuts into the number of cases Bates could pursue.
The office has lost about $31,000 in pre-trial intervention, after the state reduced a number of infractions from felonies to misdemeanors.
Bates requested $75,000 from Walthall County. He also gets allocations from Pike and Lincoln counties.
Anita Beard, appearing for the Pike-Amite-Walthall Library System, pleaded the system’s case for getting at least $110,000 from the county, telling board members about new lighting, new employees, a new children’s computer and a printing program at the Tylertown library.
She said the library also plans to invest in more large-print materials and in e-books and audiobooks, as well as holding more community programs and having blood drives every other month.
Beard said the library would like to add more general-use computers, as well.
“We really need those,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much people come in and use our computers.”
A letter sent along with budget information by system director Darlene Morgan said the library must have the $110,000 allocation from Walthall County, as well as allocations from other area governments, as a “maintenance of effort” to match to a state personnel grant of $79,110.
Other requested allocations include $340,400 from Pike County, $92,500 from Amite County, $64,000 from McComb and $9,100 from Tylertown.
McComb agreed in July to boost its allocation to the library more than $4,000, to $72,000.
Brenda Kates with the Salvation Army requested a new allocation from the county.
Kates said the Salvation Army had never received any money from Walthall County, other than about $2,000 from holiday bell ringing.
However, “next to Pike County, we more requests for assistance from Walthall County than any other in our area,” she said.
The board took all the requests under advisement. The budget for 2018-2019 must be completed and adopted by Sept. 15 and go into effect on Oct. 1.
In other business, the board:
• Approved applying for a $90,000 grant to help purchase a new fire truck for the Lexie Fire Department.
• Donated howitzers from the former National Guard armory to the Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby.
• Accepted the land rolls from Tax Assessor Peggy Hilburn.
• Approved the hiring of Nakia Magee, Daniel Walker and Anita Mingo as jailers.
• Approved a $1,535 repair to a patrol car. A deputy in line at McDonald’s received a call for service and backed into a poll trying to maneuver out of the drive-through.
• Credited some garbage accounts.
• Heard a pitch to change insurance coverage.
