Budgets in limbo for Lowndes County this fiscal year

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – The recent Mississippi Supreme Court decision will impact every city and county that has an airport with industry or businesses on its property.

It will cost Lowndes County nearly a million dollars in property taxes for the upcoming new fiscal year, hitting the county and school district budgets pretty hard.

County leaders say the Lowndes County School District takes the hardest hit this year.

The good news is, the district says right now, its plans are to go forward without any school tax increase and the county also hopes for that.

The Lowndes County School District will be taking two hits to its budget for the upcoming year.

The first cut comes after the recent Mississippi Supreme Court ruling, which exempts businesses on airport property from paying county taxes.

Since there are three industries on Golden Triangle Regional Airport’s campus, that means the district will lose about $800,000 dollars.

The second comes from an expansion at SDI.

The mill’s new paint shop is considered new construction, excluding them from paying taxes.

“Right now, it looks like we will be running over a $2 million deficit this year. Fortunately, we’ve had a, we’ve got a healthy fund balance, more than what the state requires, but it’s going to make a significant dent in it going forward,” says Lowndes County Superintendent Lynn Wright.

Wright says the loss is very concerning for the district.

He says that’s because as of now, the district is losing some of its major projected dollars it had been counting on earlier in the spring, when district leaders were budgeting for the coming year.

“Rather than taking 20 years to pay off the bond issue, we would have everything paid off in 10 years and then, we would be going to the next two phases of our long-term building projects, which would be a new high school or middle school at Caledonia and a new elementary school at New Hope,” said Wright.

Wright says other areas are also impacted.

“The $2 million that’s 40 teacher units, you know, of course there’s some other things that we look at, but it affects everything from with our decisions on our transportation, you know, the number of new buses we’re able to buy each year. It affects all of it,” said Wright.

Including the county and board of supervisors.

“The county, probably about $140,000 to $150,000 for this year, but from going forward, it’s going to be similar to what the county, after they come off of tax exemptions, it’s going to be similar to what the county schools are taking,” says Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President, Harry Sanders.

Sanders says supervisors are hard at work on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that hopefully doesn’t include raising taxes.

“I don’t think that somebody should get tax exemptions forever, school taxes and county taxes. Especially, when the Constitution doesn’t allow but 10 years,” said Sanders.

Sanders says the county will be approving the new budget by September 15th.

The school district will hold a special call board meeting on August 30th, to discuss a budget resolution.