TYLERTOWN — Mental health support in Southwest Mississippi is still on a precarious footing.
Conrad Mord, board attorney for the Walthall County supervisors, said three counties are continuing to hold out on committing to funding the Southwest Mississippi Mental Health Complex and helping to pay down the district’s debt.
Adams, Jefferson and Wilkinson counties had threatened to go their own way and “paddle their own boat,” Mord said, but state officials said the counties would not be able to provide adequate services on their own.
Walthall and other counties in the district included big increases in their budgets for mental health for this year to boost the operating funding and pay down debt, including to the state retirement system.
However, with the three counties still holding out, “I would recommend you pay what you’ve been paying, and sit on the rest,” Mord said. “I wouldn’t give those other counties a free ride.”
That would have Walthall County paying $17,000 to the mental health district, out of $163,000 budgeted for this year.
Mord said he didn’t know why all of the holdout counties are balking at paying the funds necessary, but said he had heard Wilkinson County officials want the executive director, Shirlene Vince, fired.
“There are a lot of problems at that place, and they seem to get worse all the time,” Supervisor Doug Popwell said.
Supervisors also considered yearly bids for various commodities and services.
While the board did get term bids for most of the commodities they use on a regular basis, the bids didn’t come in great supply.
No category received more than three bids, and many categories drew only one bid.
The only bid category to get three bids was half-inch to inchwide gravel, with prices ranging from $15 to $26.50.
Advertisements for expanded clay aggregate, sand, hot and cold mix asphalt, asphalt emulsion, pest control, lumber, feeding of prisoners, and some cleaning and grounds maintenance drew only one bid each.
The expanded clay aggregate, hot and cold mix asphalt and lumber drew only six-month bids, rather than bids good for the entire calendar year.
In order to have some options for procuring needed supplies, the board adopted the state contract list of suppliers as secondary sources.
In other business, the board:
• Heard a request for lighting and cabinet repairs at the health department.
• Approved the purchase of two computers and a monitor for the solid waste office for $2,316.
• Noted the county has about $375,000 available on its promissory note for short-term borrowing.
• Learned timber on a proposed 30-acre industrial site is worth about $16,000.
• Renewed a freeport warehouse tax exemption for Stringer Industries.
• Ratified the awarding of $150,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to the sheriff’s department.
• Learned Bruce DeLaughter, hired as a sheriff’s department investigator in November, had resigned. Sheriff Kyle Breland said he hired Logan Tibbs as an investigator.
• Paid Lewis Electric $152,000 for work at the Paul Pittman Memorial Airport and Dungan Engineering $58,275 for work on the courthouse renovation project.
• Approved garbage credits of $1,899 and $405.
• Approved bonding Cindy Ginn for working on county payroll.
• Approved Board President Larry Montgomery, Chancery Clerk Shannon Fortinberry and Comptroller Cherie Prevost as audit representatives.
•Approved purchasing three Department of Labor posters detailing employee rights.
• Learned “judges are having a fit” about a hole in a closet off the courtroom with a hole containing a rat nest.
