County Board, NALGW work during bonus state holiday

Some local public employees worked during the Monday state holiday.

The governor gave all 91,000 state and local employees an extra paid holiday Monday, July 3rd, a bonus day added to the regular Independence Day holiday.

However, the Union County Board of Supervisors met as usual at 10 a.m. on the first Monday of the month. All supervisors except Randy Owen, supervisor for District 4, were at the table when the meeting was formally opened by Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards. Also present were the chancery clerk, the county tax collector and the county manager, all of whom are routinely present at county board meetings.

The meeting could not be delayed until later in the week because the board had already scheduled three public hearings, which drew no interest from the public.

The first public hearing was for a CDBG grant for an industrial project. Shellie Adams of the Three Rivers Planning and Development District had each person attending that hearing to sign a paper affirming their presence at the hearing. Kitchens asked if there were any public comments and there were none. The board took no action in the matter.

The second hearing was for the Center Fire Department Fire Protection Grading District. There were no public comments, and the board unanimously approved a resolution to form the district.

The third public hearing was on a request to close a portion of County Road 356. The owner of the property on both sides of the road had asked that the road be closed. There were no comments from the public, and the board voted unanimously to close the road.

In other action, the supervisors unanimously approved a request from the county school board for a four percent increase in ad valorem taxes for operations of the school district. Total ad valorem taxes to be collected for the school district for the coming year should come to $4.7-million. The approval of tax increase requests from school boards in Mississippi is generally a pro forma matter.

The board received a bid for painting to be done at the county courthouse, the work to be financed by a Community Heritage Preservation Grant from the state department of archives and history. William Mills, the county’s consulting architect, was present to receive the bid.

The supervisors approved the 2017 tax rolls for real and personal property.

The board approved the minutes of its June meeting, approved routine payments of fees to county officers and recessed at 10:26 a.m.

Union County officials were not the only local public employees working on the state holiday. More than a dozen employees of New Albany Lights, Gas, and Water turned out to restore electrical service to portions of the city that lost power due to winds from a thunderstorm late Monday afternoon. Power to most customers was restored before dark Monday evening.

Holiday storm story: http://nanewsweb.com/intense-storm-cuts-new-albany-power/

Our readers may be interested to know that, not including teachers and other education workers, approximately 91,000 people are employed by state and local governments in Mississippi, which works out to 304 public employees for each 10,000 residents. By way of comparison, Alabama has 286 public employees for each 10,000 residents and California has 228.