I don’t know if the county is ready to start having joint meetings with municipalities, but it might benefit all of our politicians to start attending some other board meetings around the county.
Or read the paper.
Sunflower County has entered into several interlocal agreements to administer a grant for municipal projects that was announced last February.
If these kinds of partnerships are going to exist, county board members need to be aware of what is going on with the municipalities, and the towns need to be in the loop about county business.
Otherwise, there’s confusion. And believe me, there is confusion.
Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone attended this past Monday’s meeting of the county board to ask the body to consider a long-term partnership with his city, where the county would administer the city’s grants.
Featherstone would like to see a focus on public safety and infrastructure, two dire needs for most of our communities.
During the discussion, there were several points brought up about Indianola’s financial standing and whether its current footing warrants bringing the county in as a partner.
The city does have around $4 million in reserves. Those are emergency funds that are currently housed in Certificate of Deposit accounts.
The city does have the option to liquidate those as they mature or earlier if they want to pay a penalty, but when it comes to costs of projects these days, $4 million would disappear really fast if the city started to liquidate the accounts in order to pave streets.
The city has about $4.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Indianola initially received $2.2 million in the federal aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state of Mississippi received hundreds of millions of dollars from ARPA as well. The Legislature made the decision to match the federal government’s portion if counties and cities had not spent theirs already.
City Engineer Ron Cassada asked the City of Indianola not to spend its $2.2 million. Thanks to that decision, the city now has a little over $4 million to spend on water, sewer and other infrastructure needs.
A lot of that money is earmarked for pumps, lifts and the repair and relocation of pipes that are currently directly under our city’s streets.
The city’s use tax money came up as well during Monday’s meeting.
Like every other local government, Indianola benefits from the internet sales tax, and the city receives a sizeable portion of that.
Indianola’s leadership decided late last year to leverage that into general obligation bonds that will be used for infrastructure as well.
Indianola is not broke, but much of its money is tied up in long-overdue improvements.
If the city is able to put together about $8 million in infrastructure repairs in the next two to three years, that probably will put a small dent in the effort to bring the city up to par with its streets and plumbing.
Indianola’s audit woes are not going to be cured anytime soon, and the city could use a conduit for grant administration, if it is legal to continue down that path.
The county was lukewarm in its response to Featherstone.
Whether that board accepts or rejects Indianola’s proposal, that should be done based on more solid information than was tossed around on Monday.
There are a lot of cries for us to “work together” and to “come together,” but it seems that when someone brings up working together or coming together, the response is weak.
It may be time for some to put some money where their mouths are.
