The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors approved loans for a total of $172,000 to allow for two new fire stations in the county while deferring action on a third substation during Monday’s regular meeting.
County fire coordinator Sammy Fondren, who presented the request, said the fire stations to replace old stations in Caledonia and Crawford would require additional funding before work could proceed.
“When we started this, in District One (Caledonia), the estimated cost was $275,000. We have $170,000 of that in hand, so we would need an additional $105,000,” Fondren said. “It would be paid back over 10 years.
“In District 4, the estimate was $244,000 with $180,000 on hand,” he said. “But I think we would need a little over $67,000 there and I think we could pay it off in seven-to-eight years.”
The loan is primarily a procedural requirement. Although each fire district has its own budget from state rebates and varying amounts of tax revenue, all fire stations and equipment are county property.
Regulations require that fire stations and equipment must be funded through individual fire districts.
“Really, it’s a matter of moving the money from one account to another to comply with regulations,” County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said. “Any money loaned to a fire district for things like this is paid back by the fire district from its rebates. It seems odd, I know, for the county to loan money to a fire district to build facilities that the county will own. That’s just how it is structured.”
The board voted unanimously on each proposal.
The Caledonia station will be located at the corner of Main and Lawrence streets. The Crawford station will be on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, next to the CLRA community center.
A third proposal, which would require $149,000 for a substation to replace the current substation near West Lowndes High School in District 5, was tabled at the request of District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks.
“I really think we should wait on this one,” Brooks said. “There has been a lot of dialogue that is still continuing with the industries out there about the need for ambulance service. It might make sense that we expand the station out there to include ambulance.
“If that’s where it goes, I don’t want to start building that station and then had to come back with another plan to add what would be needed for the ambulance service.”
Fondren said accommodating ambulance service would require building an additional bay, plus living quarters for ambulance personnel.
Also, the board will consider a proposal to proceed on building a new E-911 center and two community centers in order to consider input from the new E911 director, Shalonda Givens, who took over in January, as well as input from the E-911 board.
County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said, as agreed upon by the board previously, the projects would begin after the county’s withdrawal from interest earned on the Hospital Trust Fund. Last month, the supervisors approved withdrawing $942,000 in interest from the trust fund. The community centers, which will be located District 1 and District 3, are estimated to cost $540,000 each.
“We now have roughly $1.6 million in available funds,” Billingsley said, “so there might be a small shortfall, but since we would need all of that money right away, we could budget for the shortfall or withdraw interests from the trust fund, assuming the trust fund investments continue to do well.”
The board voted unanimously to consider moving ahead with those projects at its next regular meeting on March 13.
In other board business, the supervisors authorized the sale of fire stations in District 3 and 5. The county would still own the land. The sale would allow a company to clear and sell the contents.
The board also approved announced openings on the E-911 board (District 5), East Mississippi Community College Board and Port Authority Board (District 1 and 2).
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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