NATCHEZ, Miss. – City and county government coffers have been bolstered in recent months by state and federal funds received to help deal with the COVID crisis.
Natchez was awarded about $369,900 from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and Adams County received nearly $386,600, according to a MEMA report issued in December.
With funds approved by the Mississippi Legislature, MEMA distributed $70 million in CARES Act money to reimburse 82 county and 270 municipal governments for COVID-19 expenses.
On top of that, the Legislature allocated $15 million from the CARES Act for tourism statewide. Visit Natchez – the city’s tourism agency – received about $500,000 to help attract visitors in a period when tourism has been curtailed by the public-health crisis.
The funds for local governments are from the $1.25 billion Mississippi received from federal CARES Act that was enacted last spring by the U.S. Congress to soften the COVID pandemic’s health and economic blows to the 50 states.
While the economic blow has been severe, Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson has expressed optimistic about the city’s financial situation. Sales tax collections – a key economic indicator for the city – in the past six months are only slightly below what the city got in the same period in 2019: $2.56 million in 2020 versus $2.57 million in 2019, according to the state Department of Revenue. The sales tax – collected by retailers — generates about $5 million annually for the city.
Tourism tax collections have taken a more noticeable dive – an indication fewer people are eating in Natchez restaurants and staying in local hotels, where these special sales taxes are collected to fund efforts to lure more tourists and conventions to Natchez. In last year’s July-to-December period, city tourism taxes generated $143,000 less than the same six-month period in 2019, according to the Department of Revenue. These taxes generate about $1.6 million in a normal year.
However, pointing to other revenue sources along with various savings and improved accounting practices, Gibson said Tuesday that Natchez “is doing really well.” He noted the Board of Aldermen so far has not needed to get a tax-anticipation loan, as done in years past, to help pay employees and bills when revenues ebb early each year before property taxes are due in February.
The city does have enough in its accounts to allocate more money to Armstrong Library and Natchez Inc., the city’s economic development agency. City aldermen agreed Tuesday to give the public library an extra $52,900 and Natchez Inc. an extra $12,000. The two agencies had been shortchanged by the city from tax revenues generated by a millage rate dedicated specifically for them.
Also getting more money is Natchez City Hall, for which $157,000 was allocated by the state Department of Archives and History last week. Built in 1924 and designated a Mississippi landmark, the building suffers serious leaks when it rains. It previously has been estimated to cost at least $220,000 to reroof City Hall.
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