OKTIBBEHA COUNTY – Supervisors adopted a $137.33 million budget Friday that projects property tax collections to generate nearly $10 million in additional revenue to fund county operations and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s tax request.
The board approved the Fiscal year 2027 budget Friday following its public hearing at the Chancery Courthouse.
Of the $10 million in additional revenue, about $5 million will fund SOCSD’s tax request. The remaining $4.61 million will hopefully keep the county from tapping its cash reserves to cover any shortfall as it did the last two fiscal years, Board President and District 5 Supervisor Marvell Howard previously told The Dispatch.
Even still, the budget allows the county to pull $219,551 from reserves for the general fund just in case.
“(Budgeting) being an art, you tend to plan a little bit on the worse side as far as collections and expenditures are concerned,” County Administrator Wayne Carpenter, who helped prepare the budget, told the board Friday.
     Wayne Carpenter   To fund the budget, the county will levy a property tax rate of 122.71 mills, a reduction of 2.22 mills from last year’s rate. However, with property values expected to rise an estimated 25% next year, primarily from a reassessment from the Mississippi Department of Revenue that raised home and commercial values, the county can drop its tax rate and still generate significantly more revenue.
What that would mean for taxpayers on average: the owner of a house now valued at $100,000 will see that value rise to about $125,000 and can expect to pay $284.58 more in taxes next year with a homestead exemption and $426.86 more without homestead. That does not count increases in city taxes.
“I know we got citizens that would love a decrease in millage and that’s understandable, so would I,” Howard told the board. “I mean people have to understand, what we do here affects each and every one of us sitting around this table also. But the cost of doing business is steadily increasing, and the one thing I wouldn’t want to do is decrease the service that we offer to citizens here in Oktibbeha County. They’ve come to expect a certain level of services that the board provides and that takes funding.”
     Marvell Howard   The board will use 56.71 mills to the county’s general fund, which will see an increase of $1.2 million in the FY 2027 budget, as well as special revenue funds specific to road work, debt services and others. The remaining 63.65 mills will cover SOCSD’s funding request with 2.35 mills covering funding for East Mississippi Community College.
Special revenue funds make up $95.64 million of the total budget, marking a $72.35 million increase from last year mainly due to funds from the sale of the former OCH Regional Medical Center to Baptist Memorial Health Care. The county can not use any of the funds from the sale this year. While some of those funds are on hold in escrow, over $57 million from the sale are in a fund set to be transferred to a financial manager once one is selected, in October.
The budget also includes 3% raises for full-time county employees, a new administrative assistant for the board and adjustments to cover rising costs of fuel and utilities.
Supervisors also discussed an $1.8 increase for debt service. That increase, Carpenter explained, is misleading because some infrastructure bond payments were previously put in a different fund, but this year he consolidated them into the debt services fund.
The board granted all requests from the outside organizations it funds including an additional $63,875 to Community Counseling, to bridge a funding gap left by United Way, and a $36,500 grant for the Human Society to help fund its proposed spay and neuter program.
District 3 Supervisor Pattie Little asked if Carpenter thought it was possible to further decrease the proposed tax rate.
     Pattie Little   Carpenter couldn’t think of any additional cuts to the budget and cautioned the board that any additional decrease in millage would result in the need to dip into cash reserves, which could put the county in a precarious position especially since the board is unlikely to raise the tax in the future.
“All of us have been hit pretty hard in the tax situation,” Little told The Dispatch following the hearing. “… That’s where we have a hard time trying to figure out (cuts). That’s why I had to go in and vote without decreasing millage anymore because that is reasonable instead of taking from your cash reserves.”
The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.