It was a packed house during Monday morning’s meeting of the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors.
A decision made at the December 2 Sunflower County Board of Supervisors meeting to have Southern Procurement, the county’s agent for conducting reverse auctions, seek out bids for the purchasing of one or more new pickup trucks for the supervisors’ use is apparently what drove some of the county residents to show up at Monday’s convening.
The mentioning of road conditions led to resident Roland Galatas’ questioning the last time there was an increase in the monies allocated to maintain the county’s roads and that quickly turned into a conversation about the new pickups.
However, no decision was made or action taken.
Joining in the discussion were Galatas’ wife Elaine, citizen Richard Harris and District 3 Supervisor-elect Ben Gaston. County Engineer Ron Cassada explained the county’s economic situation with regard to funds for road repairs, talked about the gas tax, the need for an increase in the tax and emphasized that there basically has not been an increase since 1987.
“The only other state that hasn’t raised it is Alaska and they’ve got petroleum,” he said. Cassada said any gas tax would be split three ways encompassing the county, state-aid roads and MDOT roads. He added that the discussion has been ongoing for eight years. “And all we see are the roads continually falling apart,” he said.
Galatas said, “Well, I may be out of line, but it won’t be the first time in my life. I understand money is hard to get, money’s tight, but what makes me perk up in my seat is when I hear that we’re going to spend all of this money on new trucks, pickup trucks, now that just makes me grit my teeth.”
Continuing, he added, “As bad as money is and as tight as it is, how in the heck can we justify buying trucks when we’re ruining our cars out there on these roads?” Supervisor Riley Rice led the charge to answer Galatas’ concern. “I’m glad you asked that question,” Rice said.
He reassured Galatas that no decision had been made and that they were only researching the matter. Although he was one of the three who originally voted yes to exploring the issue, Rice said he is now somewhat “reluctant” to move forward after hearing a state auditor’s statement expressed during a December 10 statewide new supervisor’s seminar.
The document from the auditor’s department read in part: “Unless exempted, as a ‘qualified non-personal use vehicle,’ the personal use of a government –owned vehicle may be considered a taxable fringe benefit.”
It further explains that the value of the fringe benefit is considered income to the user.
Reading from the document, Rice asserted, “I don’t want to get into all of these regulations.”
President Glenn Donald, who originally initiated the conversation at the earlier December session, also spoke on the matter.
“I knew why everybody came here. You haven't been coming,” he said.
“For 16 years, I’ve been a supervisor, for 16 years I’ve been paying $600, $700, $800 a month for a truck. You said it’s tearing your cars up. It tears mines up too,” Donald said.
He mentioned a conversation that he said County Administrator Gloria McIntosh had with state tax officials where they told her that it is the business of the county to take care of the supervisor's mileage.
"They said if your supervisor is going to get anything refunded back your county is going to have to do it," Donald said.
Donald reasoned that as long as a supervisor was in their district and received a call and responded that could be considered mileage. "As a county supervisor it is hard to detail mileage of doing your county work. I'm not going to get caught up in falsifying and trying to calculate something I don't know for sure what it is," said Donald.
He asserted that other counties within the state purchase vehicles for their supervisors for work purposes excluding personal use. "The trucks are purchased for county roads when you doing your county job as a supervisor," he said.
Donald asserted that if garbage trucks and mail trucks couldn't get down the roads how was he expected to get down to the road to inspect them.
He then mentioned the cost of the new trucks versus used trucks and the great deal that the county was getting and surmised that the county would keep the trucks in use for at least eight years. "Is it fair for us, just everything you pay us to exhaust it all back into a vehicle, no," he said.
Donald then offered up reasons why it was feasible for them to have a vehicle. "You buy the deputies a truck to go do their job, you buy the road managers a truck to do their job, you buy every department that need a vehicle, but the supervisors can't have one to do their job.”
He then alluded to the responsibilities of the supervisors. “And this part-time mess these folks talking about, our job part-time, take my cell phone and keep it 24 hours, see if my job is part-time, it's full time it's more than eight hours a day."
Gaston, who was observing from the audience, acknowledged Supervisor Gloria Dickerson's desire not to purchase trucks but use the money for road repair and stated that he agrees with her.
Addressing Donald, he emphasized that supervisors could be reimbursed for mileage; however, Donald said that did not account for the front-end wear, tires, monthly payments or gas for his vehicle.
Gaston continued, “I guess one of my concerns is the optics. This current board put those trucks in the budget when you did the budgeting process and two of you here had very close elections, and had your constituents known at that time that you had trucks in the new budget and you were planning on buying them… and you didn't bring it out during the election, you waited until after the election to bring it out, it's not exactly being transparent and the optics look bad."
Gaston further stated that if there was not a truck in the equation when they ran for office, then it should not be one in there now and that the constituents are riding on the same bad roads, so he suggested focusing on a way to fix the bad roads.
Donald seemingly challenged Gaston’s statement by sharing that there are provisions for transportation for the supervisors, which is why other counties are doing it and Gaston responded that maybe other counties could afford it, but it was already stated that Sunflower County was in need of money to repair the roads.
He alluded to the proposed expenditure for five trucks being put to better use. Donald said it would only be three trucks since Gaston and Dickerson said they didn’t want one.
Gaston then mentioned Rice's intention to change his vote. Donald stressed that Rice’s decision was not yet definite. “Well, if he wants to run again I suggest he vote against it because he had a mighty close race,” Gaston said.
Unrelenting, Donald said, “I don't think nobody in my district would vote against me having a means of transportation to go do my job.” Donald said the truck would simply be a “tool” for him to use. “And I wouldn’t be against nobody else getting one if I were you Mr. Gaston,” Donald said.
Citizen Richard Harris mentioned the condition of his road and how he incurred a $3,000 expense to repair a wheel that was damaged when he hit a pothole. He said, “We gotta use our vehicles to ride on the same roads you’re going on.”
Donald asserted, “But is it your job to go out there and do that, it’s my job.”
Note: Donald addresses the community on the truck purchase issue in a letter on the next page.
