Call it a failure to crank.
On Monday, the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors finally arrived at a long-awaited decision regarding whether or not the county leaders should purchase individual pickup trucks for select members of the board.
The board members voted 3-2 against making the purchase after District 4 Supervisor Anthony Clark made the motion and District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald seconded it. The supervisors for districts 3 and 5, Ben Gaston and Gloria Dickerson had already spoken out against the proposed buy at previous sessions.
And although President Riley Rice had initially said he was in favor of the purchase, on Monday, he too cast a no vote to buy two trucks for the two supervisors that wanted them.
At the December 16 meeting Rice said before a group of county citizens that he was now somewhat “reluctant” to move forward after hearing a state auditor’s remarks during a December 10 new supervisor’s seminar.
The county lawmakers voted 3-2 at their December 2 meeting to enlist Southern Procurement to initiate the reverse auction process to seek bids for the purchase of one or more new trucks. However, due to a snafu in the advertising process the bids were not opened until Monday.
Prior to the bid opening, Gaston had invited Sumner Davis, department head of the Mississippi State University Extension Service Center that supports local governments, to address the county leaders.
Davis spoke on how the unit system of county government works versus the beat system and supervisors having county-owned vehicles.
Gaston asserted that he invited Davis to bring some clarity because the handbook that they are using seems to offer up different advice on the same subjects in different sections of the book.
Addressing the vehicles’ purchase, Davis said, “That's a board decision if you all want to purchase vehicles.” He continued, "If the board were to make that decision that vehicle is only for county business. It is subject to certain IRS reporting and tax liabilities for you all as supervisors.”
Davis said they would have to document, based on the IRS's protocol, the mileage and how it's spent. He noted that the IRS does not consider the commute to and from work as business use so their mileage does not start until they actually reach the work site, prior to that it is considered personal use.
Davis, in conjunction with Attorney Johnny McWilliams, explained that the Mississippi guidelines are different from the IRS and that the state of Mississippi does not consider the commute to and from work as personal use unless the supervisor is dropping children off at school or at something of a nature that is not work related.
Donald stated, "If you go from your house to Indianola, Mississippi and look at one of your roads while you’re doing it that's county business, you're not charged anything because you are on your job.” He contends that since the supervisors operate in a unit system, then anytime they’re in Sunflower County they are working.
Dickerson disagreed and reasoned that if she left Drew and stayed on U.S. 49 until she reached Indianola that those miles would be considered commuter miles unless she turned off on a county road to inspect that road.
Dickerson said the end result is that you're paying taxes for riding around in the trucks if it's not for business and Davis concurred.
Davis cautioned, "If supervisors get county vehicles, they become magnifying glasses on where you are (and) what you’re doing.” He said, “Even if you're doing something perfectly legitimate you'll have some folks want to stir the pot and cause problems with you."
Rice said it was his understanding that if the supervisors were to take a county-owned vehicle home it would be considered a fringe benefit, which is considered income that needs to be filed with the IRS.
He also emphasized that family members could not drive or ride in a county-owned vehicle even if the supervisors were traveling somewhere on county business.
During a poll initiated by Rice before the vote, Gaston said, “I don't think we ought to be buying trucks for supervisors. That's a burden to the county. I don't think we ought to buy any trucks.”
Dickerson said she didn't want a truck and reemphasized that she thinks there are other priorities that need to be addressed.
Clark simply said that he had decided to take one. Donald said, “I choose to take one." Then mentioning the trucks in use by the road managers and assistant road managers Donald added, “It's a tool to do our job."
Donald said he was under the impression that they had already voted to buy the trucks back in December and were now only voting to take the lowest bid. However, McWilliams clarified that the earlier motion was just to advertise to take bids for the purchase of the trucks.
McWilliams stipulated that there has been no board order to buy trucks only to advertise. “There is a difference in authorizing the auction or advertising, that's one thing. But you don't buy trucks until you vote to buy trucks," he said.
Based on some remarks made by Rice in a discussion that began after the vote, Donald made an additional inquiry of Rice to see if he would be okay with the purchase of two trucks for him and Clark.
Donald said, “So you okay with buying two trucks and y’all not have some, are you okay with that, with me and Anthony having a truck and it’s a county truck and if you need to use it or anybody need to use it to go to a meeting, it’s a county truck, but Anthony and I will have possession of it?” Dickerson answered, “We just voted that down.”
Donald then said to Dickerson, “well hold up” and suggested that Rice didn't realize what he was voting on. Rice said, “I realize what I was voting on.” Donald said, “So tell me what you were just fin to ask.” And Rice put forth a suggestion of buying just one truck to leave at the courthouse. “I know you need it.” Rice said.
Gaston asserted, “From my perspective, I'm not going to come up here to the courthouse to get a truck. I'm just going to jump in my truck and go, and if I want to collect the mileage, that’s me.”
Dickerson said, "We have road managers, we have assistant road managers and they all got a truck. They're the ones that's supposed to be riding these roads. We're required to ride the roads once a year as a supervisor. Now, if I want to ride a road then I can turn in my mileage."
