With the Mississippi lieutenant gubernatorial seat up for grabs in November, candidate Delbert Hosemann is already laying out some initiatives that he hopes to implement once he’s in office.
And at least one of those is getting some added attention from local officials and business owners.
In a document released back in mid-September by the Friends of Delbert Hosemann, the candidate unveiled an intended proposal to infuse counties and cities with the funds necessary to repair their deteriorating roads and bridges.
The proposal would apparently put the responsibility of inflicting the toll in the laps of the county supervisors across the state, that is if the Republican-led Legislature does not change its stance on raising taxes.
The measure would allow for a 2 to 6 cents per gallon county/local-option user fee on gasoline.
“All money raised would be used on repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure, not equipment, new construction, salaries, or other costs,” according to the printed document.
Sunflower County Board of Supervisors President Glenn Donald said, “I’m totally against it.”
He said Hosemann’s proposal would simply take the weight off of the state and lay the burden upon the county board of supervisors.
Donald stressed that he is under the impression that the plan would not be mandated and that some counties could opt not to do it.
Local businessman Walton Gresham said he too is opposed to the measure.
“I do not think that this is the best solution as there are several problems with this option. First, what if Sunflower County passed a 4-cent tax, Bolivar County passed a 2-cent tax, Leflore passed a 3-cent tax and Humphreys County passed a 5-cent tax? said Gresham.
Gresham said the variations in tax levies would put an added strain on businesses like his, especially fuel companies that operated in all of the counties above.
“Gresham Petroleum will have to get software that will place every account in a county. This includes all fuel delivered into the county outside of cities,” said Gresham.
He continued, “At present the Department of Revenue can not tell the Sunflower County supervisors how many gallons are sold in Sunflower County, so how is the board of supervisors going to know how much (a) one cent tax generates for the county?” Gresham said.
Donald added that county residents are already driving to Leland because the gas is cheaper in Washington County. He stressed that it would not be “financially beneficial” for Sunflower County to impose the tax citing too that the surrounding counties could set an amount lower than Sunflower.
He also mentioned the implementation of such an undertaking, the possible difficulty in determining the right amount to be imposed and speculated on which office of the county would be tasked with collecting the gas tariff.
“Would it be the tax collector or the county administration?” he said.
Either way, it would involve the need for additional accounting personnel.
The aforementioned document, which was signed by Hosemann, further established that, “Right now, more than 430 local bridges are closed because they are too dangerous to travel on and there are thousands of miles of local roads which are in need of caretaking.”
He concluded, “This is an economic and public safety problem because our employees cannot get to work, our products cannot get to market, and our children cannot get to school safely. Our counties need solutions.”
However, Gresham maintains that, “The best solution is for the legislature to pass the tax and divide it with the cities and counties. This bill gives the legislature a pass and puts the burden on the boards of supervisors,” he said.
Donald said that of the monies now dispersed to the counties from the state, Sunflower County typically receives around $500,000 per fiscal year in gas tax revenues.
The 2017-2018 fiscal year amount was $569,079.01 and the current year’s amount was reportedly $547,012.09.
