Conflicting ideologies on infrastructure upkeep and the existing tax burden on residents again clashed Monday as supervisors continue balancing complaints about Oktibbeha County’s road system with the board’s financial restraints and an ever-growing work list.
After residents asked for improvements — two separate requests for work on paved areas in the Sheely Hills subdivision near Mississippi State University and gravel thoroughfares in the Sessums community — during Monday’s meeting, District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer made another call for board members to consider issuing general obligation bonds to fix Oktibbeha’s ailing infrastructure and pave its almost 280 miles of gravel roads.
After residents lodged their complaints about the condition of local infrastructure, Trainer said the board should instruct County Engineer Clyde Williams to evaluate all five county districts’ roads in preparation for a countywide bond referendum to be placed on November’s ballots.
As with his previous calls to issue such a bond — one that would almost certainly require a tax increase — Trainer’s request received no meaningful support at the table.
Infrastructure complaints have become more common as heavy equipment associated with new development continues to damage roads. Additionally, sporadic rainfall prevented work crews from tending to many maintenance projects this spring.
But opposing supervisors contest the county is doing what it can with its infrastructure network, especially since some older roads weren’t properly built to handle significant weight loads and last at least a decade.
Board support for a countywide bond is not expected to materialize this term as all five supervisors face re-election campaigns. Trainer, the board’s president and longest-tenured member, is seen as a favorite to win his race — he easily defeated this year’s independent candidate, Bubba Gray, who ran as a Republican in the 2011 cycle, in the last election and faces former candidates Gene Autry Perry and Tremell Orlando Sherman in the Democratic primary — but others face tougher campaigns: District 3 Supervisor Marvell Howard matches up against his last opponent, Denny Daniels, whom he defeated by three votes in 2011; District 4 Supervisor Daniel Jackson faces the winner of the Republican primary between well-known MSU and SEC Network broadcaster Bart Gregory and Miss. Horse Park manager Bricklee Miller, whom Jackson beat by about 400 votes in 2011; District 5 Supervisor Joe Williams, who won his 2011 primary against John Young by 50 votes, faces Democrats Sylvester “Dwayne” Davis and Ernest Rogers Jr.; and first-term District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery, a Republican, is pitted against Democrat Donald Thompson.
A school consolidation bill balancing debt payments and equalizing millage for all taxpayers ahead of July’s state-mandated merger between Oktibbeha County School District and Starkville School District also reduced the board’s appetite to broach tax increases.
Even though residents of both OCSD’s and SSD’s former territories will experience tax breaks once a countywide mill is established, the consolidated district is expected to operate with a 63-mill rate, meaning residents within SSD’s territory will experience about a 3-mill decrease in taxes, while OCSD’s residents could see a 4-mill increase.
‘Now is a good time to let the citizens decide’
The taxing figures are simply estimates at this time as officials have yet to set an operating rate.
“We have citizens wanting us to do something different. Our road manager is hard pressed, and we cannot keep up. Now is a good time to let the citizens decide (if they will support a bond issuance),” Trainer said. “That’s been my cry: Let the citizens have the opportunity to decide. If they don’t want it, they’ll reject it.
“You all know what it’s going to take: some dollars,” he added. “I think now is a good time to do some leg work and put something together. Then, when the next board comes in, they’ll at least have somewhere to start. I think this board realizes we need a game-changer when it comes to our road department.”
Howard, who served as the previous board president, countered Trainer by saying residents elected supervisors to serve as good stewards of tax revenues. Supporting a potential tax increase before knowing how the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District debt-sharing bill will affect residents, he said, is counterintuitive to that task.
“The money for (consolidation) affects roads. Since I’ve been up here, we’ve been waiting,” Trainer said. “The hospital (bond) got us; the school (debt-sharing bill) got us; the city got us. The board of supervisors just sits back and lets everybody get us, but we still have needs.”
“With the word coming out of Jackson that the county residents’ taxes already will be increased, I’m not in favor of continuing to pour more taxes on the taxpayer,” Howard countered. “Part of our job is to look at what types of taxes are already placed on citizens and make decisions on whether we want to try to move forward and place more taxes on them. My position is we need to see what our tax increase is going to be coming out of (the school bill) before we talk about future taxes.”
Political ramifications aside, a bond referendum more than likely would face an uphill battle at the polls.
Sixty percent of the vote is needed to pass such a measure, but many Starkville residents and those who live on paved roads — a majority of the county — are likely oppose the matter since they would not see a payoff from raising their own taxes.
Supervisors said they’re hopeful improving spring weather conditions will allow Road Manager Victor Collins’ crew to catch up on work, but the board also acknowledged the shortcomings created by tightening budgets.
500 miles of paved, gravel roadways
The county’s five districts contain about 500 miles of combined roadways, both paved and gravel. Two road crews — one for grubbing and another for construction efforts — cycle through each district and tend to the county’s four-year road plan.
Supervisors previously discussed adding an additional shop in southeastern Oktibbeha County and hiring new road crew workers, but plans have yet to materialize.
“I’m finishing up a second term right now, and (the five-district cycle) has made it to (District 4) one time each term,” Jackson said to a resident asking for the Sessums Road paving project. “Each of these other four (supervisors) have the same calls about the concerns you do. The supervisor that has your district can move that road up (within the four-year plan), but people in the same predicament that were told they were going to get their roads paved are then suddenly changed.”
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